UKBouldering.com

annual feedback request/ direness survey (Read 42634 times)

ukb

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annual feedback request/ direness survey
June 14, 2011, 06:45:39 am
The annual insect overlord strategy meeting is again approaching. Any feedback on the site, however spurious, would be helpful. We'll be upgrading the forum software to the long-awaited SMF 2.0 in the summer/ autumn - that will also be a good moment to change anything that needs changing.

A few issues on our minds:

- a quite well-known climber recently told Shark that he didn't use UKB as he found it too confusing. Obviously he should be using the unread posts view - but generally does the site need  more explanation?

- dire photoshopped cartoons on the front page: funny? lame? not dire enough? talking of which, does anyone actually click through to the front page?

- integrating the UKB Vimeo and Flickr groups more tightly with the forum: good idea or not? it needs some bespoke programming so tends not to move off the "nice idea" list.

- should we have Borg style news/ articles/ etc? if so, any volunteers?


andy popp

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Too confusing to use? Was it Ralph Wiggum?


slackline

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Rarely look at the front page myself as there's not masses of content on there that changes regularly enough with new information. If however there was a news section that was kept up to date regularly I might do (but then again I might just read the "news" sub-forum instead).

You've got people's blogs being pulled into the log-pile, why not have a twitter section on the front page pulling in posts from various twitter accounts, e.g. @moonclimbing, @Team_BMC, @VertebratePub, @Planetmountain, @kjorgenson, @SenderFilms, @stevehouse10, @davemacleoud09, @psychovertical etc. etc.

Quite enjoy the photoshoped picture competitions, but rarely look at them once there.  Not sure what impression they give to new-comers.

Perhaps a "Getting started" section prominently linked from the front page for people, could even reside on the Wiki.  Quite what it should contain I'm not sure, perhaps feedback on what is confusing would provide insight.

What tighter integration is possible with Vimeo/Flickr?  One thing might be to embed the Flickr UKBouldering group as a slide show, although Flickr don't provide easy links for embedding slide shows any more, but I worked out an easy way around that (will be slow loading I'm afraid).

Can't think of much else at the moment, although I do think the Wiki is under used.

tomtom

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Yeah, the twitter thing was something I talked about a few months/years ago... It would be easy to set uo a window that displays all tweets with the #ukb hashtag etc..

News items are good for the occasional visitor..

Cartoon figures good.keep it up

Thought about some flashy way of integrating the most recent posts graphically on the front page.. Have a look at how flipboard integrates twitter, fb and news feeds on the iPad/tablets.. Very swish.

Does ukb have a fb page? If not why not? I hate fb, but plenty of people love it  some sort of mirror/cross feed between the two?

Serpico

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- dire photoshopped cartoons on the front page: funny? lame? not dire enough? talking of which, does anyone actually click through to the front page?


There's a front page?
Just keep in mind when making changes that many of us come here because it's not UKC.

chris05

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- dire photoshopped cartoons on the front page: funny? lame? not dire enough? talking of which, does anyone actually click through to the front page?


There's a front page?
Just keep in mind when making changes that many of us come here because it's not UKC.
:agree:

Perhaps the perceived 'difficulty' of navigating around the site acts a filter and keeps away stupid people less desirable people?  ;)

slackline

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There's a front page?
Just keep in mind when making changes that many of us come here because it's not UKC.

I don't see any harm with having a front page though and its actually quite useful for those who have never been here before and come across the domain from a search.

Just because there is a front page it doesn't mean you have to look at it (e.g. I never look at the front page on UKC either).

grimer

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One thing I'd say is well done on keeping the feel of UKB after the changeover of ownership. It's as good as it ever was.

Like the blogpile.

Cartoon/photograph thing is very lame (not the cartoon, but the constant reuse on the home page). Funny-ish at first but every time I go to that page it makes the site look like something designed a long time ago and never overhauled. It's a very in-joke at best.


slackline

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Had a thought, which many already be addressed by the upgrade of SMF to the stable 2.0, but how about a slightly fancier style sheet for those with " smart" phones?

The WAP interface is very basic text, and whilst the normal webUI does render on my phone it doesn't fit in very well and requires loss of scrolling about.

Well see if I can find a good example.

magpie

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Pulling Twitter feeds / hashtags in might be a good idea.  A Facebook page might be a good idea but someone would need to keep it updated which might be quite a bit of work, also what would be on it?  Links to threads, links to news articles, just lots of spammy advertising from it's 'friends'?

I rarely look at the front page, I'd rather get all my news and info from the forum but I do think it's better to have one for new people who find the forum from searches and suchlike.

I agree about the photos being a bit lame / in-jokey, the threads for the competition were awesome and very funny to read but I think it loses it a bit once it's just constantly on the front page.

I agree about the WAP thing too, I rarely look at UKB on my phone as I don't find it nice to read or very user friendly and it's not down to it being a forum as I regularly post on another forum from my phone and that one is really simple and easy to use.  I could probably find out what software they are using if it was a help?

A getting started section might be good for new people, although I don't really know what you'd put in it, my mind boggles slightly at people finding the forum difficult to use / navigate but then I am a bit of anm internet forum whore so possibly not in the position to judge. 

Paul B

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tapatalk seems to be popular for that kind of thing but its pretty pricey as an app (IMO) and required forum integration, I certainly wouldn't buy it.

I'd be surprised if SMF 2.0 doesn't address issues regarding mobile devices?

slackline

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I'd be surprised if SMF 2.0 doesn't address issues regarding mobile devices?

Currently UKB is on 2.0-rc3 and its wap, wap2 or imobile that are available.  I had a quick poke around the mods section of SMF and there doesn't really appear to be anything additional out there yet (but that was only cursory, there may be more info in the forums, but I've not delved in there yet), but its mildly surprising that there isn't anything more prominent out already.

Drew

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned is an improvement to the Wiki. As it currently stands the webcam page is found under FAQs. I know Slackers mentioned once upon a time that this is from when the Wiki was very new, but maybe a re-jig of things, so it's easier to find what you're looking for.

Other than that I'm think the site (as I use it) is spot on. Just the right amount of moderation etc.

slackline

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned is an improvement to the Wiki. As it currently stands the webcam page is found under FAQs. I know Slackers mentioned once upon a time that this is from when the Wiki was very new, but maybe a re-jig of things, so it's easier to find what you're looking for.

The beauty of a wiki is that you can edit it......yourself.

If you think the WebCam page should be linked from somewhere else you can add just such a link, and best of all you don't necessarily need to remove the one that already exists.   I wrote the web-cam page and put it under the "Getting Out" section of the  Bouldering FAQ because people frequently ask questions about what the conditions are like in certain venues for bouldering (twisted logic I'll admit, but thats just me).

So if you think it should be linked directly from the Venues page, please do go ahead and place such a link there (there is even logic to adding individual web-cam links within each area/venues page, but I've not found the time to do that yet I'm afraid).  Your forum username logs you into the wiki too so you're all set to go (see the user documentation for MediaWiki if you're unfamiliar with the markup,  :google: will get you there).

« Last Edit: June 14, 2011, 01:17:12 pm by slack---line »

nai

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One of the football forums I read has a push to twitter which highlights 'hot topics', pretty sure it's automatically generated and quite useful when you're out and about.  Similar thing probably available for FB.  probably need to embrace twitter and FB if you want to generate more hits to the site.

Agree re front page. it looks out of date and the fact that all the links are to forums rather than news items could be the source of the confusion for those who spend too much time climbing and might be expecting to find articles or news rather than colourful discussion.

Not sure about news, on one hand a lot of uk news does break via the forums first so you're missing out on traffic and maybe advertising etc by not articalising it; but then the need to write it up, get media, history, quotes etc will slow things up and the need to point out that e.g. LPT is a limestone sea-cliff with tidal access isn't really in keeping with the site.  Could maybe take a more informal blog type approach with links in a more frequently updated home page and blog pile?


Jaspersharpe

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I regularly post on another forum from my phone and that one is really simple and easy to use.  I could probably find out what software they are using if it was a help?


www.catsnailvarnishandjewelry.com ?

magpie

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Are you spying on me Jasper?  >:( 

We are currently talking about whether cats have eye lashes and comparing their eyeliner like markings.  There is no end to the excitement in my online life.  8)


slackline

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Found this mod which might do the trick (although it might just address theme, i.e. colours rather than layout).  Despite its name it indicates it can detect other mobile devices too (and a while back the Android browser used to spoof sites by saying it was an iphone so that it got pages that worked better).

nai

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am I seeing things or is that a SHAll banner?

/scared

slackline

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No idea what SHAII is or where the banner is that it might be (NoScript blocks UKB banners and can't see any on SMF page I linked).

nai

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just my phone doing funnythings

tomtom

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Hmm Nai's got me thinking re twitter important story feed etc.. In thing you could dois have a trending topics list (like news sites) so you can quickly see what folk are looking at most etc..?

cofe

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alternate really nice bouldering photos on the homepage, and strip down some of the other stuff? It's a very busy homepage. not keen on the cartoons.

more reviews and articles etc could be good if you can persuade people to write them.

start a fb page - they're easy to maintain and could work well alongside the site for breaking news/significant repeats etc.

Muenchener

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generally does the site need  more explanation?
No. I found it reasonably clear what was going on after I'd browsed for a while. Requiring some level of cognitive investment from newcomers is probably good for keeping standards up, see below.

Quote
- dire photoshopped cartoons on the front page: funny? lame? not dire enough?
I like 'em

Quote
- integrating the UKB Vimeo and Flickr groups more tightly with the forum: good idea or not? it needs some bespoke programming so tends not to move off the "nice idea" list.
More integration with things outside the site = more risk of some people not seeing irritating error messages because they are not members of those other sites. See also: facebook.

Quote
- should we have Borg style news/ articles/ etc? if so, any volunteers?
No. As others already said, ukb is good because it is not ukc. By which I do not mean: ukc is all bad. But there's a place for something different.

What I like about ukb is precisely that is is more of a *discussion forum* than a news site, and a discussion forum that somehow manages to have sustained a core membership that is well informed yet doesn't take itself too seriously. I have moderated other online forums myself and know what a rare and precious thing that is and what a precarious life expectancy it has, so the mods here who are discretely doing such a good job have my highest respect.

Muenchener

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Incidentally, I frequently have to go through the "abusive user" filter (2+3=7 etc) to get in on my mobile. I assume this is because I'm coming in with the ip address of one of o2's routers, and there are other people on o2 doing naughty hings. (Definitely not me!) This is irritating. Might it be possible to install a less indiscriminate filter?

Other than that, the site works fine on my android phone.

 

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