How can we Improve EP in 2017?

[Ian]

Happy New Year to you all . I wanted to make this thread to gather feedback on what we can do at EP to improve the site and experience for members. We've got a great community here and I want to make sure that we do everything that we can to make it a great place to be a member.

I'd be very grateful to hear your honest thoughts and feedback on things that we could improve here, or perhaps suggestions for new things you'd like to see. If you'd like to submit anything anonymously or privately, then please do drop me a PM instead of replying directly here.

I look forward to hearing your ideas, suggestions and comments . If you've got any constructive criticism, that is very welcome too - I want to know any way that we can improve!

Here's to 2017!

 

[HellasTechn]

I wish to you happy 2017 !

One thing that just popped into my mind is to add PDF support.
In other words to make our forum able to accept PDF. That would be usefull for reading device manuals for example.

Thank you.

 

[OBW0549]

One thing that just popped into my mind is to add PDF support. In other words to make our forum able to accept PDF. That would be usefull for reading device manuals for example.

I'll second that suggestion. Can't think of anything else, actually.

 

[chopnhack]

It would be pretty cool to have a chat room with the ability to automagically paste the contents to an associated thread for folks working on lengthy projects that need fast face time with other members, but still allow it to be useful to the rest of the community.

Also, like we discussed before conversation management tools - making conversations searchable, etc.

 

[Tha fios agaibh]

On my android phone I'm unable to see the little flag showing country of origin.
It'd be nice to see the icon without clicking on each profile.

 

[Matie]

Promote and encourage those with knowledge to help others.
Watching that you do not promote the one line answers from those without the knowledge to elaborate.

There seems to be a growing trend in forum communities, of people just referencing others.

Don't be afraid to be different and try new things, someone has to do it

 

[donkey]

people like me get VIP status just for talking a lot..... I am a nub... seriously, anything I recommend should be first investigated and then reinvestigated BEFORE attempting any of it. have a secondary STATUS of sorts, and this would be more along the lines of "trusted" member. this can be as simple as "x" amount of people saying a person is helpful, take away the times they say something so silly that it could cause injury or worse,
also have bronze/silver/gold/platinum levels, bronze 85% effective, silver 90% gold 95% and platinum 100%.
give moderators the ability to remove negative contributions if for example the OP did not accurately follow the directions. also make it over the previous months contribution rather than lifetime

 

[Ian]

Thank you all for the feedback, please do keep it coming . I'll hold off commenting on changes we'll make based on these ideas until a little later, so I can make a bigger roundup .There's a new version of the forum software we're using coming out soon, so it'll be an ideal platform to make some of these improvements.

 

[bushtech]

Is it possible to have the "Upload a file" option in the Conversation section? That would be very handy.

 

[Ian]

Is it possible to have the "Upload a file" option in the Conversation section? That would be very handy.

Done .

 

[bushtech]

Thanks!
Wow! 2 minute result!

How about becoming head of our Inland Revenue Service? Their turnaround time is measured in months and when they're really hot, years

 

[Ian]

Thanks!
Wow! 2 minute result!

How about becoming head of our Inland Revenue Service? Their turnaround time is measured in months and when they're really hot, years

You're welcome . As long as I can take a 1% fee, then sure .

 

[donkey]

friendly terminators for all members.... preferably those t1000 ones so they can keep changing what they look like and baffle the crap outta people.... also might be useful at halloween

 

[Matie]

also have bronze/silver/gold/platinum levels, bronze 85% effective, silver 90% gold 95% and platinum 100%.
give moderators the ability to remove negative contributions if for example the OP did not accurately follow the directions. also make it over the previous months contribution rather than lifetime

It shows, the forum is a tightly tuned machine.

New here, so not enough forum use to comment on site design, although I have what we call Cert 4 in IT and Webdesign in Australia. (I'm not necessarily good at it

PDF support is good, as HellasTechn Points out "Manuals" and component Data Sheets.

What do people use for drawing DIY circuit diagrams, have you got online options for those without software?

 

[donkey]

dunno if there are any teachers/trainers in here but maybe we could work on a learning centre.
start of on the basic crap like component ID through to soldering and desoldering up to fixing things then lastly making your own design.
include maths where needed but make it for the laymen

 

[chopnhack]

I would like to also add that the project log section could be changed to allow for updates with photos. As it stands, you have to edit the original post to append new photos and adding text is not easy either.

 

[Ian]

Thank you all for the feedback - please do keep it coming! If you've got some suggestions, feedback or ideas you don't want posted in public then feel free to PM me .

One thing that just popped into my mind is to add PDF support.
In other words to make our forum able to accept PDF. That would be usefull for reading device manuals for example.

I've had a look in to this since your post and it is indeed possible to have a PDF open within the site - however, this carries a risk, as PDF files are often a method of infecting people unknowingly as there are often vulnerabilities found in PDF readers (Flash is another problematic route in). Although it would be fine for most people using up-to-date readers, it could be misused to exploit less savvy readers. I think we may have to stick with having PDF files as an attachment option, which could then be configured by the end user to open up within the browser if they'd like.

I'm doing more reading up on https://pdfobject.com/ to see if there are any security implications from using that, as this may be a do-able way in future.

It would be pretty cool to have a chat room with the ability to automagically paste the contents to an associated thread for folks working on lengthy projects that need fast face time with other members, but still allow it to be useful to the rest of the community.

Also, like we discussed before conversation management tools - making conversations searchable, etc.

Oh yes, I'd love to get the conversation management tools improved too . The good news is that XenForo 2.0 is being released reasonably soon (I'd guess 6 months or so) and when we upgrade to that new forum software, it should be possible to do this (hurrah!).

As for the chat room, how would others feel about this? I'm not keen personally, as it would detract from the more permanent forum element of the site, but if it is a highly requested feature then I can look in to it.

On my android phone I'm unable to see the little flag showing country of origin.
It'd be nice to see the icon without clicking on each profile.

I'll see if I can get this working on mobile - it may be that I need to wait for XenForo 2.0 to come out if it involves a lot of design changes, but if it's a simple tweak then I'll get this added for logged in members.

people like me get VIP status just for talking a lot..... I am a nub... seriously, anything I recommend should be first investigated and then reinvestigated BEFORE attempting any of it. have a secondary STATUS of sorts, and this would be more along the lines of "trusted" member. this can be as simple as "x" amount of people saying a person is helpful, take away the times they say something so silly that it could cause injury or worse,
also have bronze/silver/gold/platinum levels, bronze 85% effective, silver 90% gold 95% and platinum 100%.

You raise an interesting point here. When we first introduced the VIP membership awards, the site was a lot smaller and there were relatively few high-posters. We've raised the level a few times over the years and there are now a lot of VIPs. I think it may be better to switch to a new award system when we upgrade the forum software, based on an extended feedback system which should be available for posts (I've seen a beta of this in the works and it may be a good addon).

dunno if there are any teachers/trainers in here but maybe we could work on a learning centre.
start of on the basic crap like component ID through to soldering and desoldering up to fixing things then lastly making your own design.
include maths where needed but make it for the laymen

I'd love to see the resources section used like this . This may be one of the areas where we can award members on the new site, if they are resource creators.

I would like to also add that the project log section could be changed to allow for updates with photos. As it stands, you have to edit the original post to append new photos and adding text is not easy either.

Do you mean switching from the "one page" style to a true log format - i.e. incremental updates, a little more like how a thread works? Many years ago we had project logs in thread format, where only the thread starter could post replies and updates. It worked ok, but a "one page" style was requested and we moved over to the current format. There is some flexibility in how the new project section works, so if you can let me know what you'd like to see it do in a little more detail and I'll see if it's possible in the software .

 

[chopnhack]

I'm not keen personally, as it would detract from the more permanent forum element of the site,

Hi Ian, as I mention in the post, the contents would update an existing thread or create one if it didn't exist. I think it would be very handy for rapid idea exchange, while still being visible to all.

how the new project section works, so if you can let me know what you'd like to see it do in a little more detail

Perhaps I am not using it properly, but on the project log page, the update section doesn't allow you to add pictures. I have to edit the original post to do that. I think that the update section should have all the same tools as threads do.

 

[Ian]

Perhaps I am not using it properly, but on the project log page, the update section doesn't allow you to add pictures. I have to edit the original post to do that. I think that the update section should have all the same tools as threads do.

Ah, do you mean the bit where it says "Post Update Message"?

That is only meant to be a brief message that is posted in the associated comments thread, to alert users to an update. The photos and content are meant to be added to the main WYSIWYG text area, in addition to the original content.

 

[chopnhack]

Ah, do you mean the bit where it says "Post Update Message"?

That is only meant to be a brief message that is posted in the associated comments thread, to alert users to an update. The photos and content are meant to be added to the main WYSIWYG text area, in addition to the original content.

That is what I ended up doing, I guess if it ain't broke don't spend any resources there! Maybe a quick FAQ sticky on writing Project Logs then?