What improvements would you like to see in this discussion forum?

[jacee]

I'd suggest the national, provincial and local forums drop the word "politics" to accommodate and maybe encourage non-political topics.

A report button on the mobile version would help.

New members with new interests, new topics would be good.

[Argus]

You're a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't true.

Why you continue to believe plagiarizing insults from your Tea Party heroes impresses people really is beyond me.

[Argus]

I'd suggest the national, provincial and local forums drop the word "politics" to accommodate and maybe encourage non-political topics.

A report button on the mobile version would help.

New members with new interests, new topics would be good.

Let's not forget that political discussion is the heart and soul of this web site. I don't think we should abandon the politics or submerge it in fluff. However, I'm reminded of the old usenet days, and the groups I generally visited. There was, for example, a can.politics, but there was also a can.general. Likewise, there was an ont.politics and an ont.general. So I get your meaning of having discussions which are not political, but geographically focused.

The problem is that if you had, say a provincial topic, but excluding politics, well, what exactly would you discuss? The weather in BC? That's why I thought of keeping the existing political groups but adding one or more groups for off-topic discussion, or non-political, or social commentary, or whatever you prefer to call it.

[Argus]

Argus, other forum software like vBulletin will highlight the icon next to threads with a tag to indicate that you've posted in them. You can click on the icon to bring you to the last post you saw in the thread. This forum doesn't show you the threads you've posted in that way (I really wish it did), but if you click on the icon next to the thread title, it should bring you to the first new post since you last opened the thread.

Edit for clarity: You click the dark blue dot next to threads that have new posts, instead of clicking the title.

Well, how about that. I've been here almost ten years and didn't know that. Thanks.

Which brings me to another suggestion. How about a bit of an instruction guide in how to use the forum?

[GostHacked]

host on a Canadian server... if only to keep the post count down for 'that guy' who continually, over and over and over again, flogs the point that MLW is hosted in the U.S. (USA!, USA!, USA!)

I support this notion 100%

I would actually like some things removed. The status side bar for one. The status sidebar has been used for trolling and takes away from the forum postings. Does nothing to advance any discussion. And the chat, not many use it.

[PIK]

- More integration with social media, like facebook. Allow people to post with their facebook/twitter accounts. This will definitely increase participants. Many people are turned away from posting because they have to go through registration.

- Add + / - or thumbs up and down, so every time I post, pro-Zionists can give me a (-) and the anti-Zionists can give me a (+).

- A point to better moderate the board: When posts between people become personal and someone accuses another posters of something, like lying or 'calling for genocide', the person accusing must be able to back up their claim by showing proof. Otherwise, they should receive a warning to edit their post and if the trend continues, they should be penalized.

You just screwed yourself on backing up your claims, but anyways I like the +/- idea, so you can show the poster that is was a good/bad post.

[Greg]

Greg, have you considered switching over to vBulletin or some other forum software or are you pretty much married to IP.board?

I have certain considered, but when I last looked IPB was still superior to vBulletin. However, I'll take another look and definitely consider it.

[Greg]

- More integration with social media, like facebook. Allow people to post with their facebook/twitter accounts. This will definitely increase participants. Many people are turned away from posting because they have to go through registration.

Ok, social media integration is partially activated. You can now link your forum profile with your Twitter or Facebook accounts.

I need to fix the issues with the social media sharing links. That's on my list of things to do.

To access the social media connectors, just go to your profile and select "My Settings". You can then connect Twitter and or Facebook to your profile, and sync the forum profile with your social media profiles.

If you have any specific questions or comments about this new feature, please open up a new support thread. Lets keep this thread specific to NEW features. Thanks!

[Greg]

Although what's with the ads on the pages since I changed my browser?

We are testing ads in the forums, similar to other sections of the MLW website. That issue will be addressed on a separate support thread. Please give me a few days, as this is only testing, nothing is set in stone yet.

[Greg]

How about a bit of an instruction guide in how to use the forum?

That's a great suggestion and it's one I am very open to doing. I've got the software and the hardware to do some simple video tutorials. Once I have some time, I'll fire everything up and film some how-to's for everyone.

[cybercoma]

Well, how about that. I've been here almost ten years and didn't know that. Thanks.

Which brings me to another suggestion. How about a bit of an instruction guide in how to use the forum?

You're welcome. If you visit other forums, they almost all do this. What I wish this forum would do was have a slightly different icon for threads that you've posted in (other forum software does this). This way you can see what threads have new posts since your last visit, as well as see at a glance what threads you have participated in.

[guyser]

Well, how about that. I've been here almost ten years and didn't know that. Thanks.

Which brings me to another suggestion. How about a bit of an instruction guide in how to use the forum?

Geez....is your VCR still blinking 12:00 ?

I kid I kid....I stumbled on that a year or two ago and and said well , how about that.

[Charles Anthony]

A personal blog space for each member would be cool.

[Shady]

I think there should be a VIP membership option with extra perks. I'd pay $10 or $20 for a year depending on what it was.

[Moonlight Graham]

I've also been concerned with a seeming lack of new members on the forums the last year or 2. More members keep discussions interesting instead of debating the same small group of people (though you guys rock! ) . New members in particular bring new ideas/perspectives & create new types of threads, so Greg I'm on board & willing to help in any way I can.

Some ideas for consideration. Not necessarily sure if all of these would necessary be good ideas, but worth considering:

1. To actually get more members, the surest bet is advertising. Consider using social media for this.

Improving the forums is easy, attracting new member is the hard part. Advertising is fine but will cost money. Maybe a MLW page on Facebook would be an idea, though I personally wouldn't use it since I like to keep my anonymity on here. It would be cool to have a feature/button to enable people to easily share posts from MLW on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, & this would give big exposure to the site. Spreading the word on the CBC/National Post/Globe & Mail etc. comment sections could be an option too?

3. An off topic discussion area. The current "off topic" categories aren't really off topic, but are valid discussion categories. What I mean is a truly off topic area where people can just chat. A lot of this happens in real threads right now where it shouldn't, so having just a totally off topic area would be nice.

I agree strongly. Most other forums have a single "Off-Topic" sub-forum for people to post anything, and it's usually the most popular sub-forum on a site. I'd suggest keeping the "Health, Science, & Technology", "Business & Economy", and "Media & Broadcasting" sub-forums since they're still political-based, but removing the "Travel, Leisure, & Sports" and "Arts & Culture" forums and merging those individual threads into the Off-Topic forum.

5. The ability to like/dislike posts in threads, with the number of likes/dislikes shown under a post. A lot of times people will quote a post just to post a one sentence agreement or disagreement, and this would help to alleviate that.

Not sure if I'm a fan of this idea or not. The downside is many people will dislike/like based on how they feel about the poster & not the quality of their specific posts. It may also slightly discourage posting because people will sometimes just hit "dislike" instead of bothering to reply to the post. I don't see how "people will quote a post just to post a one sentence agreement or disagreement" hurts the forums in any way, other than it would be nice if they elaborated.

6. Improve the editing interface. Ever since the change, quoting is still difficult. Specifically, in the wysiwyg interface, as you crop text inside quote boxes, the quote boxes themselves are prone to disappearing if you delete excess white space near the start or end of the quote.

Totally agree with this. Quoting on MLW stinks since the changeover. Cropping text at the beginning of the quote will often remove the whole quote box, and now when you hit "enter" a few times in the quote boxes it often no longer separates the text into 2 separate quote boxes like before.

The quote button also doesn't even work anymore with the new Internet Explorer 11 (you press the quote button and no quote shows up in your reply), I know another member had an issue with that as well, I had to actually switch to Firefox a month or so ago to continue to post on here, which is fine for me as an old member but this would likely frustrate new members to stop visiting MLW if they use IE 11. Over the past year I've had a bunch of problems with broken quoting when using IE on other IP.Board-powered forums.

7. Allow an easy way to resize posted images. For example, sometimes I want to post an embedded image, but the source image is way too big to display reasonably. There should be a quick %scale dropdown menu or something in the embedded image posting interface.

Great idea.

I'd suggest the national, provincial and local forums drop the word "politics" to accommodate and maybe encourage non-political topics.

I disagree, I think those posts could be part of a general off-topic forum.

A personal blog space for each member would be cool.

I also had this idea, having a sub-forum for blogs. Although there is risk that people writing blog posts might take away from them posting similar ideas as their own discussion threads. Though Greg could allow for comments/replies on blog posts too of course.

[TimG]

Thumbs up/thumbs down voting is a bad idea because people vote based on whether they agree/disagree - not whether the posters makes a good argument. It takes away from the discussion.

Amazon's system of allowing people to vote for posts that they consider helpful (i.e. no thumbs down option) may be worth considering.

[bud]

Not sure if I'm a fan of this idea or not. The downside is many people will dislike/like based on how they feel about the poster & not the quality of their specific posts. It may also slightly discourage posting because people will sometimes just hit "dislike" instead of bothering to reply to the post. I don't see how "people will quote a post just to post a one sentence agreement or disagreement" hurts the forums in any way, other than it would be nice if they elaborated.

i'd agree that it's possible that it could decrease posting participation. however, this is just a feeling that i have. it could go the other way. i know when i'm looking at the comment section of articles, i am automatically drawn to looking at posts with the most activity. that is, posts with the most negative and/or positive ranking and responses.

[bud]

Thumbs up/thumbs down voting is a bad idea because people vote based on whether they agree/disagree - not whether the posters makes a good argument. It takes away from the discussion.

Amazon's system of allowing people to vote for posts that they consider helpful (i.e. no thumbs down option) may be worth considering.

good point. i think that's the way to go.

[waldo]

I think there should be a VIP membership option with extra perks. I'd pay $10 or $20 for a year depending on what it was.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win" - Gandhi

Voted Maple Leaf Web's 'Most Outstanding Poster' 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

even though I somehow managed to miss the MLW 'Most Outstanding Poster' voting process for past applicable years since my board registration... and even though I was unable to find any historical record of the respective yearly vote/results, the annual vote seems to have gone 'walkabout' the last few years. Perhaps time to resurrect it - yes?

[cybercoma]

That vote didn't actually happen.

[Moonlight Graham]

I also think posting a link to the Forum Rules in big bold letters at the top of the page and always viewable no matter what page you're on would be a good idea.

I think there's some new updates to the rules that could be added too, like when posting pictures.

[waldo]

That vote didn't actually happen.

nah! Say it ain't so... surely 'that guy' hasn't been misrepresenting himself all these many years... say it ain't so!

[cybercoma]

My sarcasm meter seems to have erred.

[BC_chick]

I'm not in favour of like/dislike buttons. It breeds multiple-user names just so they can like their own posts.

[Shady]

even though I somehow managed to miss the MLW 'Most Outstanding Poster' voting process for past applicable years since my board registration... and even though I was unable to find any historical record of the respective yearly vote/results, the annual vote seems to have gone 'walkabout' the last few years. Perhaps time to resurrect it - yes?

When the forum went to the new system, that process wasn't carried over. It went in conjunction with the today's top poster which also wasn't carried over. Hope that helps.