[Closed] The STW forum still sucks

That's all? I thought it was going to be about cockwarbling level of content.

have it's own custom

EDIT - which is a trivial thing too, I see the irony of that:)

Is it just me who finds it irritating that the STW forum still has the following issues:
- it's impossible to nest quotes

- the line spacing is all wrong when using quotes

- there's no PM facility

- it's far from straightforward to check what posts somebody has made (just which threads they've posted on, which is really helpful with 500 post threads)

- you can't go direct to the first new post in a thread since you last read it

Me too DonS....... I feel cheated 🙁 and used 🙂

Hey! Love it or leave it buddy!

Perhaps if everyone was forced to pay for using the forum there would be more money to pay for developments? Maybe the new "Premier only" mobile site will encourage a few more subscriptions.

Perhaps if everyone was forced to pay for using the forum there would be more money to pay for developments? Maybe the new "Premier only" mobile site will encourage a few more subscriptions.

or maybe the forum generates revenue for the magazine and through advertising and the forum software is free anyway and requires very little maintenance and asking for subscriptions is a bit cheeky as most fora are run for free.

Perhaps if everyone was forced to pay for using the forum

Not gonna happen. Don't be silly.

Aye - we get what we pay for.

Premier only mobile site? Have I missed something?

Don't see the issue myself

"the line spacing is all wrong when using quotes"
hadn't noticed

but those that wish to be contacted include their email address in their profile

Have you seen the amount of visual spam on other forums? This place is a blessing.

So the set of those people who don't like publishing their e-mail address doesn't have any members who are also in the set who'd like people to be able to contact them privately? Or the set of those people who just haven't bothered to set up their profile?

Nah venn, no need for That!

From what I've seen of other fora this is a paragon of simplicity and clarity. When you have to click on boxes to reveal replies then I rapidly lose interest. I want to follow the thread just like one continuous conversation, and having to constantly reveal hidden replies sucks.
And nested quotes gets pretty cumbersome too, I just put quote marks in, and it's easy to italicise or bolden to get the emphasis across.
Sorry, but of all the forums I've looked at or contributed to, this is the best by far for clarity and ease of use.

but of all the forums I've looked at or contributed to, this is the best by far for clarity and ease of use.

if you click on the minutes after the thread title rather than the thread title itself takes you to the latest post.

sounds like you're experiencing U53R errors.

I'll add a few...

No avatars... they may be pointless but can be fun!

No user post count to tell if its someone thats been on here a while or possibly a troll / messer.

No rep power like on the mtbr forums.. quite cool I think!

No avatars... they may be pointless but can be fun!

No user post count to tell if its someone thats been on here a while or possibly a troll / messer.

No rep power like on the mtbr forums.. quite cool I think!

Absolutely. And while we're at it I would like to see wacky signatures, more sub groups (I'm sick of opening a thread about a stem and realising it's about O/S when I want standard - this is why you need sub categories...people), more stickys (at least the top half of each sub section), customisable colours etc....

Or we could just leave it alone.

Not much that needs fixed IMO.

The old 40 post bug lives on though.

It's nice that it doesn't look like every other vbulletin forum everywhere, laden down with pointless bollox features. The lack of a quote function is irritating though.

The only thing that sucks about STW forum are the threads complaining about it . . .

I can tell you 2 things you won't see in this list ever.

Avatars on the forum never ever, they will remain in the profile.

PM the database and bandwidth drain would be huge, now before you say other forums have it take a look up there and see how many posts there is here.

There is busy bodies at the minute doing more IT related stuff so they are doing behind the scenes stuff. No I don't know any details.

As mentioned if you click on the time of last post it'll take you to it.

RichieTS is right.

It's free. Dinnae moan when something is good and free.

The only thing I miss is being able to switch views. IIRC the "old" forum allowed you to view the latest post or the latest topic. Other than that the forum is spot on.

And the hamsters seem to be running ok as well.

Nested quotes really spoil loads of forums. They're awful. Avatars are shit. Theres enough spam in my inbox already without getting more from you lot.

it's impossible to nest quotes

An long may it remain like that

> it's impossible to nest quotes.
An long may it remain like that

Agreed.

user-removed - Member

Premier only mobile site? Have I missed something?

Oh are you not part of the niche test group.

[img] http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSMBGEc_tbN5xyjX3ZYGWZRXj31mZQHOEgdhX54L8nihD9g8UbMc_ObjpjX [/img]

> > it's impossible to nest quotes.
>An long may it remain like that

Agreed.

plus 2

As mentioned if you click on the time of last post it'll take you to it.

But that takes you to the last post in the thread, not the more personal touch of taking you to the first new post since you read on the thread.

I seem to remember that the old forum had a "new" badge on threads with new posts since last time you read them. But I also seem to remember it was buggy as hell and a drain on the database, which is presumably why we don't have it now.

I quite like avatars when they're small and unobtrusive.

It's banner signatures that do my head in. Trying to read a conversation where there's one line of text, a banner; a line of text in reply quoting the previous line and banner; a third line of text containing the previous two posts and banners as nested quotes; and oh, we've filled the page.

If I could change one thing about the forum, it'd be the way it hotlinks to images on other sites. Getting other people to pay for your bandwidth is bad form. Next after that would probably be stickies, or some other mechanism by which we didn't get the same questions asked every fortnight.

not the more personal touch of taking you to the first new post since you read on the thread.

Just spend all your time on here and stop complaining FFS some people want everything done for them...

Like me, I actually want the forum to actually suck.

It is a bit clunky.. But so what?

It's the content I enjoy not the format of it.

But that takes you to the last post in the thread, not the more personal touch of taking you to the first new post since you read on the thread.

'tis true

If I could change one thing about the forum, it'd be the way it hotlinks to images on other sites.

I always try to add a credit or a link to the original site in my post for this reason.

Bear in mind some sites encourage and absolutely thrive on hotlinked images (e.g. [url= http://xkcd.com ]xkcd[/url])

[img] [/img]

I like it. I'd like it more if you could change the capitalisation of your username everytime you logged in, but hey.

If I could change one thing about the forum, it'd be the way it hotlinks to images on other sites. Getting other people to pay for your bandwidth is bad form.

I'm lost what you mean by this, the forum allows people to post images yes, the idea is for posting their photos but of course we all use it for other things. The rules do ask for the image to be linked though but that;s rarely done.

[i]Placing images on the forum requires you to link to the site where the image originated from. Read forum help for details on how to achieve this.[/i]

Cycle Chat has just gone though a second change of forum software and their forum works pretty well, Shaun the mod is still tweaking it to make it better.

However the CC forum isn't as lively and interesting as STW's forum. I come here for a giggle then I go over to CC later.

I didn't like this site when it first emerged from the ashes of the great hack; but now I like it a lot.

Clean, simple, easy to follow and possible to run at work without attracting too much attention.

Please don't ever add avatars or signatures - they are hateful!

Dave

It's fine as it is , if it works don't try to fix it.

I'm lost what you mean by this

When user-embedded images load, they're served from the originating server rather than STW. So, we use the original host's bandwidth rather than our own, which they're paying for.

http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking

... and many others.

I think cougar's right for third party sites but then copying them onto an stw server might be considered to be copyright theft?

if anyone's bothered they can stop hotlinking and for photobucket etc it seems logical to pick them up from the originating account/server

So, we use the original host's bandwidth rather than our own, which they're paying for

I like to think of it as a sort of informal reciprocal agreement - some sites don't want to participate so they use various methods to discourage it

🙂

... such as switching the linked image served to something like lemonparty.

When user-embedded images load, they're served from the originating server rather than STW. So, we use the original host's bandwidth rather than our own, which they're paying for.

I know what hot linking is and I explained up there what the images aren't meant for and what the rules state. Removing the ability to post images will have a huge effect on the forum. Allowing people to host images on the ST web server would cost and then there's the issue of copyright. God forbid someone might hotlink too then what a mess. I'm not sure there's a simple answer to this though as trying to mod linked images is not easy.

I hated it to start with, difficult to follow, to know what's been posted since last visit etc, getting the hang of it now after a couple of months, but it makes it more time consuming than maybe it ought to be and I'm such a bad forum addict, it's not good for me.

I hated the original pre hack forum, only posted a couple of times then lost my original ID in the switch, I don't miss the avatars, certainly don't miss the signatures, quotes are a bit cack handed but agree with the sentiment that endless long multi quote posts screw up threads.

Had only intended to stay a short time to work out what was what, sort out the cocks from the clowns, but there's some really interesting stuff and bright folk on here if you look hard enough, I guess some of them are not flame proof enough to overcome the cock factor, but every now and again some real gems emerge, so I think I'll hang around a bit longer, even though my covers blown a bit in certain quarters..

Forums are only the sum of their content at the end of the day and there are still some very valuable contributions despite any perceived issues with the layout/functionality..

PM the database and bandwidth drain would be huge, now before you say other forums have it take a look up there and see how many posts there is here.

Oh, and compared to this place (which provides all the facilities which are lacking here, and doesn't suffer from the issues others complain about - a far nicer forum to use all round) you're not even in the same league:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php
Threads: 1,516,030, Posts: 19,816,628, Members: 386,810

aracer - that forum looks horrible though... but then I'm not a super-geek and interested in RC things, so maybe it's not meant to appeal to me.

molgrips - Member
Have you seen the amount of visual spam on other forums? This place is a blessing

That + 100,000

That site made my eyes bleed.

Have you seen the amount of visual spam on other forums? This place is a blessing

If you haven't take a look at the site aracer posted.

[b]Hobbyking.com[/b] where are [b]Hobbyking.com[/b] all the posts [b]Hobbyking.com[/b] in the forum [b]Hobbyking.com[/b] that you [b]Hobbyking.com[/b] linked to [b]Hobbyking.com[/b] aracer?

This and UK climbing have the forum style I prefer. No frigging animated gif avatars, no crap about what level ninja the poster is. Just the text.
Makes arguing with people far more pleasurable 😀

I explained up there what the images aren't meant for and what the rules state.

That's all well and good in theory, but it's roundly ignored by everyone.

It's no skin off my nose ultimately, I just think you're setting yourselves up for a fall.

The front page is admittedly messy - I presume those commenting on how awful it is didn't look beyond that. I never look at the front page there - try looking at an individual forum page and a thread where you lose all the rubbish down the side, and actually have less visual clutter than on here.
eg http://www.rcgroups.com/indoor-and-micro-models-85/

Its all those sub forums - its a style I dislike. You never know where to post or find stuff.

Oh and look, here's another forum with more posts than STW which also manages to do PMs (and all the other stuff)
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forum.php

You'd get used to subforums quickly enough. But as an example of a style this forum could aspire to, you might as well have linked to [url= http://www.lingscars.com/ ]Ling's Cars[/url]

Aracer - but very few on here want all that stuff.

That site is horrid!
This place looks so much nicer than most forums.

Its all those sub forums - its a style I dislike. You never know where to post or find stuff.

Anyway, that's not the point, I'm not suggesting STW sub-forums as it clearly works well like it is - I was just shooting down the myth that it's impossible to do these things because STW is "so big".

BTW how I actually normally use rcgroups is not even looking in sub-forums, just monitoring threads I've subscribed to - something which isn't possible to do as easily here (where you can't go to the first new post).

We could have an arguing sub forum! No one could post new threads in it but the mods could move all the threads from other sub forums that spiral down into name calling/the same old names arguing at eachother to it 🙂

Given how popular that is

I may start trolling it 🙂

but very few on here want all that stuff.

I'll state again - I'm not suggesting STW changes to look like those I've referenced, just that they're bigger forums than here which manage to do these features properly.

Ah well I guess all the regulars on here like it the way it is and never experience anything else to realise what they're missing - it's when I go from using other forums to here that I get irritated by what it's not possible to do.

hambl90 - Member

It's fine as it is , if it works don't try to fix it.

I agree, how often does tinkering with something that is not broke end up with something awful 😉

I was just shooting down the myth that it's impossible to do these things because STW is "so big".

There's more to it than number of posts too, Mark may come along and give you the real figures. I'm not sure if you noticed but that site has one or two thousand adds on it. PM sups bandwidth and hogs databases there's no denying it.

You wouldn't like quoting to work better

Works pretty well for me. How would you improve it?

Oh and look, here's another forum with more posts than STW which also manages to do PMs (and all the other stuff)

In 8 years it's achieved what STW has done in 2, hmmm not sure you're grasping this.

Ah well I guess all the regulars on here like it the way it is and never experience anything else to realise what they're missing - it's when I go from using other forums to here that I get irritated by what it's not possible to do.

Hmm! I'm a member on at least 12 other forums so no it's not that.

It's the using of an American dictionary to highlight incorrect spellings. That's what I'd change.

Works pretty well for me. How would you improve it?

It was actually the spacing thing when I was putting multiple quotes in a thread which prompted this - for those who don't get what I mean:

Here's something I'm quoting #1

Here's something I'm quoting #2

Here's something I'm quoting #3

So not the color then or add a favorites tag.

I'm not sure if you noticed but that site has one or two thousand adds on it.

My point.

With more features is the possibility of increased costs, now they can sack staff, charge for content or increase the ads. You see that's the difference you're posting links to none commercial sites, ones with lower running costs you can't really compare them.

It's the using of an American dictionary to highlight incorrect spellings. That's what I'd change.

That's your browser not the forum. Use the UK/GB version of the browser.

nested quotes are a pain - I use a couple of other forums and far prefer this one to all the multifuncionality that you propose that simply IMO causes confusion and visual nightmares

Whats wrong with that multiquote post? spacing looks fine to me

"best looking flashlight ever" 😐

With more features is the possibility of increased costs

you're posting links to none commercial sites, ones with lower running costs