Great Forum Info, Awful Forum Layout

Mass. Wine Guy · July 2011

I just got my new large Egg and am also new to the forum. So far, it's been a very valuable source of information. But I find it extremely annoying, slow and cumbersome that every single time you load a forum page, you have to skip down past all the Eggfest notices. Can't those be put in a forum area of their own and make it easier and faster to access the threads?

Thanks.

Rusty Rooster · July 2011

Click on the small red arrow at the top of each section to hid it. Then all you see is the forum.

fishlessman · July 2011

this will help, after the banners are shut off they reappear when a change is made like as in a new event

http://www.eggheadforum.com/index.php

rollo · July 2011

i've finally figured out how to get rid of all the banners but still this is the most difficult forum i've ever encountered on the entire internet to navigate.

i truely appreciate the hard work it must take to run a site like this but please consider changing to a different style of forum.

look at ezboard forums for direction. you will be amazed how much more sense it all makes/how much easier it is to navigate.

fishlessman · July 2011

rumor has it that the forum is changing soon. will probably be great forum layout, awful forum info :whistle: :ermm: :laugh:

baychilla · August 2011

Or this mistake. I think someone forgot to enable quoting.

mentsmin · August 2011

Oh man, this is not good at all.

*edit*

OK it isn't awful, but it really needs a quote function!

baychilla · August 2011

At least HTML is somewhat functional, makes me wonder if an embed would...

Hungry Celeste · August 2011

Errr, the tiny little sans-serif font is awful on the eyes. Highly unreadable, and I'm still south of 40. Bet the old farts really really hate it!

Bordello · August 2011

Well I'm an old fart and so far not a problem but only been on for a few min.

Cheers,
Bordello

Kew_el_steve · August 2011

At the bottom of the page, it says "Powered by Vanilla". Maybe several hundred of us should contact them with questions?!?

GeekGod · August 2011

Vanila is the forum maker - I doubt they will answer questions directly as they would expect BGE be the proxy.

However I have to agree - the last forum was pretty bad in terms of layout but the features where not all that bad. This forum and its facebook look with lack of reply and quoting is much more out in right field. Even if they added proper quoting and such the layout is just bad. Really bad.

Sorry to offend anyone involved with this transformation.

Bobby-Q · August 2011

Well folks please feel free to head on over to my forum for a bit of relief. http://forum.chefcresap.com

This is gonna a take a long time to get fixed I fear.

Grandpas Grub · August 2011

Bobby, looks like we have to have a facebook account, those who don't use facebook can't move over.

Kent

fishlessman · August 2011

i think thats fixed ken, look at the top couple posts on the forum

Grandpas Grub · August 2011

Thanks, I'll jump over there later on and take a look again.

Kent

fishlessman · August 2011

still looks confusing to me but computers aint my thing. was an easy login setting up thru the yahoo button

WileECoyote · August 2011

Have been away from the forum for a while, busy with work and other urgent things. Came back tonight to check a few posts and was initially excited to see the splash page announcing the new and improved forum. There were many things I disliked about the old forum and had posted comments and suggestions many times, even offering to help BGE move to a new standardized package for free since I have the IT experience.

But now I am quite disappointed to find that we have moved to yet another sub-standard forum package!!! It really isn't that hard to figure out why packages such as vBulletin dominate the forum industry: they are powerful yet intuitive and have every function you could ever want or need, while also following standard UI design guidelines which make the forums easy and simple to use.

I simply don't see any reason why BGE felt the need to use Vanilla Forums but I guess it must be a cost / budget issue, or they lack the technical expertise or motivation to do enough research and make a better choice. Even if we must use this second-rate package, surely there are ways to configure it to follow industry standard design concepts instead of making everything funky and unique, thus harder and less intuitive to use.

I visit roughly 2 dozen forums quite often and have contributed many thousands of postings, yet the BGE forum is one that I always dread using due to the non-standard interface and quirky design. The new forum is indeed different, and maybe a few things are better than before, but there are also some new issues and constraints, and the general experience is quite frustrating for those of us who use other forums frequently.

Argh.

guzzijason · August 2011

While I'm giving Vanilla the benefit of the doubt for the moment, I sort
of agree with you. Not sure why they didn't just go with one of the
"standard" options, like vBulletin. Maybe the migration path to
vBulletin wasn't as straight-forward, or as you say, it was cheaper...
who knows?

While I've never used a Vanilla forum before, I think I already like it
better than the last forum. With that said, it seems there are still
some knobs-n-dials the admins here can fiddle with to get things working
more like the way people want it. If people would give valid feedback
to the admins rather than just whining and running away, we may end up
with a rather decent forum.

__Jason

WileECoyote · August 2011

I spent many, many hours making comments, suggestions, posts, and offering to help replace the old fourm. I even created a free prototype in phpBB in just a few hours, to show them how quick and easy it could be, and how nice it could look. I also sent links to other good examples and highlighted common features and standards. I traded a few messages with BGE folks about this years ago, and the only explanations I recall being given for sticking with the old forum were:

- many forum users were from the "old school" and would be resistant to change of any kind

- migrating legacy posts and content from the old platform to a new standardized platform might take some work, and we have too much valuable old content to toss it all out and start over

- budget and resources were very tight to do any kind of work whatsoever

I suggested reasons why the migration would be a good thing in the long run, offered to help with the content migration strategy and execution, and even offered to help them find a free or low cost provider which offered a standard forum package. My offer was not accepted, and we have lived with the old forum forever, quite frustrating to me personally and I suspect to many others, although some apparently did like the old (or even the current) forum.

I am not going to whine about it. Just wanted to put my $0.02 worth in, and will now most likely go back to only using the forum once in a blue moon when I am looking for something specific. It is a shame, really, because the BGE community is so large and growing every day, yet the forum is pretty lame (the technology part) and will apparently remain this way for a long while, unless and until attitudes change for the powers that be.

Mainegg · August 2011

I know there were a couple of other BBQ forums and some had BGE sections in their forums that are set up in the style you are talking about. but pretty much everyone chose the old one. we were all there because we wanted to be. not because we had to.

Mass. Wine Guy · August 2011

Mainegg, you can go F yourself. Oh! You're there because you WANT to be, not because you HAVE to be. Higher education must really be suffering up north.

ResQue · August 2011

Wow! I'll send you a trophy for being the first to start a flame war dumba$$!

Angela · August 2011

I tolerated the old forum layout, and this one is not any better.

fishlessman · August 2011

masshole.......... there doesnt appear to be any rules in this forum that i can find, flame wars, politics, religion, it looks to be all open for discussion.....but

WessB · August 2011

Masshole...I'm with the rest...you're a friggin idiot....enjoy the new format you begged for

cookn biker · August 2011

Mass WIne Guy, That was so uncalled for. You are not the the egghead type that we did around here. Might want to think about that. Nice get's nice. Children know that.

FlaPoolman · August 2011

Masshole,, Mainegg is to nice to reply to you so if you have a problem with one of the nicest, most helpful people on the forum deal with me asshole

Boilermaker Ben · August 2011

Looks like the new forum needs a "report user" function. Why do I get the feeling Masshole is going to become a new forum catchword? Fitting. Add it to the eggictionary.

Well turned, fishless.

-the egghead formerly known as Boilermaker Ben

ResQue · August 2011

Masshole is the new tweeve

ResQue(jagermeister)

Grandpas Grub · August 2011

MassWineGuy, very eloquent. In only 5 words you have made a complete ass of yourself.

And you even talk about higher education with that comment. Amazing how stupid and boorish you can be, congratulations you are number one.

Kent

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Great Forum Info, Awful Forum Layout

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