CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

citycyclingsheffield.info?

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    “It may just be me“

    Nope.

    Had a look yesterday.

    Non-retry/pretty are all subjective, but the fact that topics didn’t seem be in any sort of date order was offputting.

    Essentially a good forum is about content - which in turn is about people who post.

    CCG doesn’t have enough people who post.

    CCE is lucky that there are people who *must* post almost every day. (I ‘rely’ on Gembo to be the first poster most days - apart from occasional insomniacs and shift workers.)

    There are people able to just add bits when they feel like it and/or when there is a topic they can add real knowledge/background to (that isn’t a dig anyone who is less factbased or whimsical...)

    One thing I really like is people who come back after a long while (sometimes well over a year) with something they think other CCEers will be interested in, or want some advice and know this is the best place to ask!

    Posted 6 years ago #
  2. chrisfl
    Member

    CCG are using discourse which I think is one of the better "modern" pieces of forum software. Not much ability to customise, but it is possible to have more in the header and add a sidebar. Also the upvote/downvote is an addon rather than a standard feature. (I did try loading all of CCE into discourse a few years ago, and I think that it looked quite good.)

    I think I first heard of CCE when chdot came along to one of the OpenStreetMap meetups. Signed up for an account, but personally found it impossible to work out what was new and follow threads so only came back when I saw twitter cross promotion, or something to post about until I discovered the RSS feed option, which lets me read everything.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  3. unhurt
    Member

    @lionfish pay my friends in pints to use it until it grows

    I would like to apply to be your friend!

    Posted 6 years ago #
  4. acsimpson
    Member

    chrisfl, I too find the forum almost unusable for reading content and seeing what has been posted and have resorted to an RSS feed. I'm not sure why that doesn't seem to stop people joining but I suspect that most people only look at one or two topics.

    Reading everything on an unsorted RSS feed can lead to some interesting topic cross overs.

    I think as well as having enough content not having too much content is also key. With current volumes it's possible to read most of what is posted or at least decide whether to read it or not, although I find it almost impossible to catch up if I don't read it for a day. Having a better system for seeing new content on the site and alerts for replies/mentions would be helpful.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  5. lionfish
    Member

    acsimpson - you mean CCE is unusable?

    Yeah, that's a point - finding out if the threads you've contributed to are updated would be useful (you can sort of do that if you look in your profile, you can see 'recent replies' and see whether someone's posted in the thread).

    Posted 6 years ago #
  6. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Offer still stands to have a look at the (CCE) theme.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  7. chdot
    Admin

    “finding out if the threads you've contributed to are updated would be usefulL

    See top of thread -

    “Add this topic to your favorites (?)”

    “?” Shows threads that you have added.

    Ordered by “FRESHNESS”.

    Presume similar on some other forum software?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  8. lionfish
    Member

    hmm. Looking at other forums I think CCE is one of the easier and clearer to use, but maybe I'm just used to it.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  9. chdot
    Admin

    “Looking at other forums I think CCE is one of the easier and clearer to use”

    Interesting, and slightly reassuring.

    As I have said before, I stopped looking at possible alternatives a while ago.

    “but maybe I'm just used to it.”

    No doubt, but anything is a learning curve.

    ‘The world’ deals with FB, lnstagram, Twitter (and all the ones I don’t know about!) etc., I’m sure they weren’t instantly intuitive.

    I use Flickr and eBay quite a lot. Neither are great, but I’m glad they don’t change the way they work too often.

    I’m not saying ‘it doesn’t matter about the look/feel’, getting people to want to use a forum isn’t primarily about design/useability.

    And people have different opinions...

    (See Spokes leaflet/website thread.)

    Posted 6 years ago #
  10. chdot
    Admin

    I’m sure you’ve looked at -

    http://singletrackworld.com/forum/

    Design - v minimal

    Usage - way more than CCE

    Ease of finding anything - mmm

    Posted 6 years ago #
  11. chdot
    Admin

    Something like this?

    http://www.retrobike.co.uk

    Initiator/owner

    http://www.retrobike.co.uk/author/john/

    Successfully built Retrobike.co.uk which includes online community, merchandise sales and event organisation. Developed the idea from concept to being one of the UK’s largest cycling websites with over a million page views per month.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-vallins-a0241910/

    Posted 6 years ago #
  12. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Looking at other forums I think CCE is one of the easier and clearer to use

    Agree. It's not all about upgrading for the sake of toys (though maybe reliability). CCE's appearance is what gives it its own identity.

    I like CCE for its unobtrusive appearance and lack of colours. More colours for me usually means more distractions, making it harder to 'see' stuff. I find CCG a bit hard on the eyes. I also like CCE because it's speedy to render even on an old smartphone (if Android 2 can be considered 'smart').

    The other two forums that work well for me, in terms of appearance, are:

    http://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/ (using vBulletin 3.7)

    https://yacf.co.uk/forum/ (using SMF 2.0) - but note that the search function on yACF is effectively broken.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

    bentrideronline -

    Respect of others is mandatory.

    Is that the only rule!?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  14. chdot
    Admin

    Must say that bentrideronline (and many similar bulletin boards) was exactly what I wanted to avoid when I was starting CCE.

    The other commonly used software was https://www.phpbb.com/demo/

    Posted 6 years ago #
  15. chdot
    Admin

  16. chdot
    Admin

  17. rider73
    Member

    Hmmmm cci. Citycyclingilkley. :-):-)

    Posted 6 years ago #
  18. chdot
    Admin

    Would you be the only member??

    Posted 6 years ago #
  19. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    On Ilkley Moor bar tape.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  20. rider73
    Member

    be plenty of yorkshire pudding conversations....

    Posted 6 years ago #

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