Airstream Forum Blues-suggestions for forum usage

[hex]

This is a question and a suggestion to the mod or master of the appropriate forum / forums or to anyone who has views on it.

I am finding it more and more time consuming and annoying to traverse this overall site and still have time to have a life.Not to mention occasionally visit other (often more) confusing Airstream boards,groups,lists,& forums (I'll visit that subject in a subsequent post to this thread). Maybe I just haven't been here long enough or maybe I'm just plumb dumb !

I don't know whether it is because of the misnaming of subject lines, the myriad of sub-subjects, the shear amount of info, or the slowness of my old puter .

My standard M.O. when I log on(actually I seldom log-off) is to go to the home page and peruse the 'most-recent-posts list. I wish that list had more room on the homepage. Then I go to the 'last-24hour' list and peruse most of it. This way I assume very little gets by without my seeing it.

When I take delivery on my Airstream I figure I'll have alot less time for this dialouge'n or any other thing for that matter.

Am I alone with this dilemma ?
If I am how do yall handle it all?

Please do not mis-construe this as a whine or a complaint. I am ecstatic about finding this group (of forums) and applaud those of you who put it together and work at it. And to the many who are willing to help the great unwashed and naive such as I.

[smily]

You havent gotten with Overlander and had that "toast" have you?

Lighten up.

Smily

[hex]

Can't do it Smily I never drink the lite stuff!

Actually I still have miles to go before I commit. And am running out of time.Hundreds more questions to ask and disect. Will prob buy the trailer anyway. I Figure I can sell it for near my outlay if I regret it all.

BTW I have been on a Jeep board for years and have seen it become as entwined as a backlash on a deep-sea Penn reel.
It has grown so large and has never been properly indexed by it's moderators. there is so much excellent data there that can never be readily found (even with the search feature) due to the inevitable thread drift and duplicate thread subjects with subject line variations etc. It happens before you know it. That is not a current problem here at this time, but is something that the mods need to stay on top of.

[Andy R]

We need to work at keeping the thread/posts more organized with clearer titles?

Or are you talking about navigation issues?

Maybe we (the moderators) can schedule quarterly cleaning sessions to try and merge similar threads and rename the titles to more appropriate titles.

Keep the feedback coming!

Andy

[InsideOut]

Hex ~

Save http://www.airforums.com/forums/index.php as a "favorite" or "bookmark" on your computer. When you go there, click on "View Posts: New". That way only the "new" posts come up in the search, it'll only show ones that you haven't already read instead of all the ones that have been posted in the last 24 hours.

It seems to work pretty well for me...hopefully this helps you.

Shari

[Pahaska]

In addition to InsideOut's very good tip, I work the New list from bottom to top. That way, if someone posts while I am perusing a thread, it will come back at the top of the list and I won't miss seeing it.

When you answer a thread, click on the little down arrowhead to the right of the Back button and then click on "Forums - Search Results". The list will reappear and the thread you just answered will come up at the top of the list. When ou get there, if your name has been replaced as the most recent poster, then someone has answered your newest post and you need to look at it again.

When you reach the top, click on "Mark all read".

[74Argosy24MH]

I agree Hex. Some of the threads wander aimlessly and have valuable info that you would not expect to be there if you searched through the forum thread listings. Others seem PM or email would be better used, they become a sort of chat room.

I disagree in that it is not completely the moderators responsibility but the members also need to be aware of the thread subject and stay within it. Much better to be able to find the info you were looking for on cleaning the fresh water system next spring under a recognizable thread than having to do a search and sort through 23 threads because it was mentioned in one about tire pressure. As this forum grows and the thread count grows it is going to become unmanagable. A lot of the info wil be useless if some common sense guidelines are not followed.


John

[COArgosy78]

I wanted to eliminate (delete) a couple of my posts one time because I had actually posted to one forum, then found another more suited to the subject. Couldn't do it! Then, once I tried to delete a double post (same post came up 2 times backtoback. Couldn't do it! I also tried to correct (edit) one of my posts after posting and realizing I made a booboo. Nope, couldn't do it! So had to post another post to correct 1st post. Don't know how much room there is on forums or if these kinds of things being eliminated would help the clean up effort, but I wondered why I could not delete or edit?>??!!! Gotta wonder. Leigh

[InsideOut]

Thanks John...I forgot the "Mark All Forums Read" and reading from the bottom up parts. I do both those too.

One other thing is, when I do get to the top, I click "Refresh" to see if new postings have come up since I started reading ~ then, when I'm done I click the "Mark All Forums Read"

Shari

[thenewkid64]

CoArgosy78,

When you post a new thread, as long as ther have been no other posts you should be able to delete it. Just click on edit and the box to delete it is near the top?? If you cannot delete, please PM a moderator or put up an additional post that the thread was a mistake and you would like it deleted. One of the moderators will be glad to help.

[PeterH-350LE]

The by far biggest improvement would come from members using a very precise thread subject title.
It will yield better search results and would help the moderators identify threads to be moved to their proper location.

[hex]

Forum -Andy I suspect that my hangups are 60:40. 60 heading/subject line/confusion : 40 Navigation issues. Just too many chambers to enter and exit and not enough patience (mine). Each 1-7second (estimated) delay between 'chambers' add up. I am not asking that you change anything but that I learn short-cuts. There have been 3 good ones shared right in this thread. I will test them asap. Thanks.

CO78Argosy I was not aware that there was not a delete (the whole post) feature. I would suggest that any post could be edited back to almost nothing though. Even the subject line and signature can be erased. One could (if thoughtful) ID that all posting had been omitted, and ask that the actual 'stationery frame' be swept away the next time the mod-squad happend by.

PeterH79-MH it has been my experience on other boards/forums/groups (some using almost this same format) that the users just can't or wont follow any thread-line neatly, for long. But you are absolutely correct in theory.

Another element in indexing the forum that
I have not experimented completely but for instance:
Some of us say 'Owners Manuals'. Others may say 'Repair Manuals' (notice the plurals) Now what would happen if one searched for 'Owner Manual' or Owner's Manuel (sic) or Instruction Manual, etc.
Would everything come up or would a too-concise search-feature cause us to miss a previous post?
I hope and think this thread can be helpful to improve and identify quirks and tricks for all of our benefit.

[PeterH-350LE]

Advanced query: Join words with AND, OR and NOT to control your search in more detail.
Add asterisks (*) to use wild cards in your search (*bullet* matches vBulletin etc.)

[thenewkid64]

When you do the search there is a feature to show the findings as threads or posts. The posts feature will weed out the ones that do not meet your search terms. If you find a post that seems to answer you question you can read the whole thread. This saves a ton of time as the whole thread does not need to be read to get to the meat of your question.

[Jim Clark]

I have seen other board where you can reference another msg. on the board in a post so you can say here is a answer to the question go here. Can this be done ? I posted the sane post to diffrent threads tonight to try to help find a leak, I would of perfered to link to the orginal msg.

[Andy R]

Just cut and paste the link and use the "http://" button.

[hex]

Brett how did you post that image a few posts up?
That is more than a cut & paste job isn't it?

[Jim Clark]

Originally posted by Organic Hosting
Just cut and paste the link and use the "http://" button.

DA

Thanks

[thenewkid64]

Hex,

It is and it isn't a cut and paste job.

With the screen you want to copy up and in full view you hit the print screen button on your keyboard. Then start Paint. You can paste the image into paint from the clipboard. You will neeed to crop the image to get to 640X640 or less. Save the image as a .Jpeg file. I then start up a graphic editing program like Microsoft photo and crop the image I saved from paint. and save it to a .Jpeg again. Then I write my post and use the insert image feature at the bottom of the post page.

Not a one step process but as they say a picture is worth a 1000 words!