MC Community,

I am looking for suggestions to improve the usefulness of these forums.

Please post or PM me ideas that will enhance the communicty forum.

I appreciate it.

1. Mark the forums that are private.

2. Can we (maybe) have a place to post questions directly to ? Call it "Ask Staff" or something like that.

Many times I've seen people post questions that really are directed to . Then they wait and wait expected someone from to respond. Since the majority of posts in the forum are directed toward other users, staff don't always read every thread and those questions sometimes get missed.

It might not be such a good idea, though. I can imagine that many people will think that every post should be answered by staff when most posts can be answered by other users.

2nd, 3rd & 4th that one!

Also any way the forum search could be improved?

And could the forum post # be included when we print out a topic. I have several threads printed out but, when I want to refer someone to them I have no idea how to find it in the forums again without searching by date or member names which is very time consuming.

It would probably also help if posters would use more description titles, which I know isn't always easy.

:: CORNBALL ALERT::

Actually - this is the best forum I have EVER belonged to. The fellow merchants are EXTREMELY helpful and friendly, as are the staffers. I never come to the forum that I don't find SOMETHING interesting and most often quite informative going on. I have NEVER asked for ANYTHING and gotten a poor response. Either the MC team or another merchant has ALWAYS been ready with a quick answer.

KUDOS guys!! Smashing and what not.
::CORNBALL ALERT END::

True - but corney

I will work on getting the "private" forums marked...

I also like some of the other ideas... keep the ideas coming. We will then make a list and work to activate the ideas.

but just for participations sake - and so you have something to suggest at your weekly meeting Cap't:

I officially recommend that some poor soul be religated to the aweful responsibility of taking a thrashing when something doesn't go my way.

Like our own personal 'fall guy' / 'scape goat'. We could add horns and a mustache to their forum avatar and send them mean spirited PMs, complete with a new animated emoticon of a smiley getting smashed in the grill with a tomato.

Haha - sorry - this isn't very constructive - I'll try to think of something better

Cap'n,

For me, the forums work pretty well. I do have a couple of suggestions:

I would like to see the private forums marked in some way. The best would be so that it was obvious when replying to a post. I suspect that most people read using the "View New Posts" and don't know which forum they are actually in when replying.

One other thing, when viewing a long thread it would be nice to have the capability to go to "last read" post. We used to have this in the old forums, although it only seemed to activate on 2 page or longer threads. It would be nice if it was active on any length thread.

Bookmark, you hit it right on the nail.

Captain, these forums are highly informative. I also like the fact that the moderators seem to stay on top of spam, which is very little.

I believe we used to be able to display threads from yesterday, past 2 days, past 3 days, etc. Now, it's either the current day or a week. It would be nice to once again view posts for the past 2 days, 3 days, etc.

I agree. These would be the two things on my wish list.

In another forum I belong to, you can recommend a post. That's is a really great feature because you can quickly determine how valuable the information in the thread is.

I second TNTGram's request for better search capability. I spent an hour yesterday looking for something and couldn't find it.

Maybe a Forum where moderators and staff can move "Popular Requests." I do not know how many times we have been asked for Undejjs scripts and a few other things that we could just define as Officially popular and stick them in this forum.

Oh, I almost forgot. Probably the best way to improve the quality of forum life would be to serve margaritas on Friday nights.



Sorry ... couldn't help myself.

Can we have appetizers, too?

A scripts section of the forum would be a great addition so we could find all the things we may need in one place. IE Undejj scripts, mailforms ect...

I think that should be a number one thing.

Bookmark said in another post today


My sentiments exactly. I signed up for on nov 23rd. went right to work recoding 450+ html pages and filling up an excel file for dataport. I didn't discover the forums until late december. The info contained in these forums could have saved me a lot of time and grief. I know there's a link in the admin panel but maybe an email after a week of signing up that reminds us of ticketing and the forums, etc. would help. I'm just not used to helpful people running shopping carts.

Ryan,
I agree with Bookmark and some of the other ideas. However, truthfully I think the forums are pretty strong as is. So I'd hate to see too many resources go into "forum development" as opposed to cart feature development.

Just food for thought.
Ed

I'd like to see better email subscriptions... it'd be nice to be able to subscribe to the entire forum or a section, and get all replies on each topic (including new ones) without having to go into the topic and manually subscribe.

I'm currently subscribed to the entire forum, and get an email each time there is a new post. I then have to decide whether that post interests me - if so, I have to go subscribe to it. However, if I don't subscribe, and that post later becomes interesting to me, I may never see it, because I didn't subscribe at the beginning.

Also - it doesn't seem like the "automatically subscribe me if I reply to a post" function works (at least, it has never automatically subscribed me to any post I've replied to.)

Jared

I agree with privacy headings, script section, improved search (IPS issue), and of course Margaritas on Friday (why only Friday though?)

I've created a few new sections in the MC forums.

1) Custom Scripts - a place where you can post your script or form to further enhance your MC store

2) Ask a - so you can ask an MC staff member a question (note, this isn't a means for standard techincal support )

3) Security & Fraud - just as it implies, a discussion board for security and fraud issues you may encounter

We're still at a roadblock for making the forums have the private label. To truly do that it would require programming on top of the InvisionBoard platform as far as I can tell.

- Andy

Shouldn't custom scripts be under Website design? Just wondering.

& here I thought it was really simple like adding "PRIVATE" to the title.
Shows what I know...

So did I.

Quick work Andy............

Now the hard part getting all the scripts that are posted throughout the forums to that spot.

Just cuz' it's a nice way to end the week.



Interesting. How'd you get the VIP area accessible only to VIP members?

Yeah, I'm confused. Chat & Gossip is private. Just make it say "Chat & Gossip - Private".

No?

Well blocking it from people is one thing... that's by default. I was trying to think of a way to actually have it display differently on the page so it was evident if you were in a section that was only for verified merchants.



Yes, we can do it that way. That is a good temporary solution. We'll investigate other options to have it more evident down the road.

- Andy

Sounds like a good quick and dirty solution to me. I personally don't think anything more would be necessary, but ... what do I know about hockey?

Am I missing a forum, because I do not see Chat & Gossip.....

It's under monstersmallbusiness.

Great ideas everyone. And I see they are already being implemented!

I know this has been mentioned before but what about a "Link Exchange" area for verified merchants?

Yes? No?

link exchange...yes

OK, so what's the "secret handshake" to see these new (and other) private forums?

You need to be a verified store.



Yes.

Were you able to find this now Krazy?



Done. Under MonsterSmallBusiness forum.



Global, you have been added as a verified store owner.

Yeah I think my Forum Settings/Permissions were set wrong, because I am seeing a lot of things today that I never saw before, or maybe they were just added today, but great to have everything back again..

Ryan

We would like a way to view and follow the "VIP" section without becoming a VIP. We have pondered joining the VIP however would rather see the issues prior to signing on as we cannot be a beta tester due to the size of our site etc.

Allowing Only customers to view the VIP section could also help promote it on your end since the details are kept so private etc.

Just a thought
Dave

Good suggestion Dave. I will speak with Andy and Jen and we'll get back with you.

Verified Store owners can now read topics in the VIP section. Enjoy!

I think it would be great if we have a forum OVERusers support group.

Every once in a while I feel the overwhelming compulsion to respond to EVERY POST i bump into - like today for instance.

If we had a forum councelor - we could go there and get 'talked down' from the brink of community-annoyance and save ourselves that moment of glowing shame that follows realizing that 8 of the ten most recent posts bare your forum ID.

heh

You could never be annoying.

Well, mcsmiths formed Tweakers Anonymous and you're forming the Overusers Support Group. Are we all nuts?

Finally a question I can actually answer!


Yes we most certainly are.

I am.

Time to take a group trip to the 'Funny Farm'


YEAH! Can I pet a Llama!?

SWEET!

On a more constructive note:

It just occurred to me that it owuld be very helpful for there to be site links accross the top - Commerce, Web Promotions, Design etc etc

When trying to direct new users or veterans with poor memory to helpful information I always have to open up a new window and then try to stay on task long enough to find my way to the site and then find the link to direct them to.

I read a good idea somewhere here - an HTML page on your desktop with all your favorite links for quick reference - but I made the mistake of starting n the poromotions free SEO tools page and ended up optimizing my keywords instead.....I have a tendancy to lose focus...what was I saying...

Just wanted to make sure!

Good idea... we will work on this when we skin the next version of the boards.

THANKS

Dave

I had brought this up in another post a month or so ago, but I think it would be very helpful to have something like a "Last 5 Forum Posts" summary in the Admin frontend.

This would help remind some users that don't visit the forums often that it is indeed there and active, plus current issues would be right in everyone's face, which may help limit support calls.

Just my 2 cents.