In an effort to improve the ease of use by being able to access all categories of our forum in one place, we are trying out a different format. This format will be live for two weeks, you will see the Forum Categories displayed on our Home Page, you will then be able to access each category from the home page. We have found that our members are not enjoying or don't know that we have a forum with multiple categories available to them. This will be a beta test only, I look forward to hearing and reading about your experiences with the new format in the coming week. Your feedback will determine if we keep the new forum format or not. To submit your feedback, please drop me a line, send me a message at The American Woodworker's Page. You can send me a personal message or leave a comment on this page. Thank you and I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe weekend! John Morris

Thanks for your feedback Lew! Keep it coming folks, your input is highly valued, your input determines our direction on this network. Remember this is OUR network.

Thanks Lew

I'm having a REALLY hard time with it.

 

The Forums are there but I like the new replies and new topics where they were, right out in front!!

So far I like the fact the recent activity is at the top of the page so I don't have to scroll down to check what's going on. It always 

takes me along time to adjust to any forum format so I'm still working this one out.

I'm new here also.  I've been just looking around.  So far I like what I see.  I'll get use to it.

For the little time I spend on here, seems ok to me.

Hello John,

I am very familiar with this format and I know it will be a success in the upcoming future as soon as the folks get used to it.

As you know we had a hard time at first on the other forum with this style of format but once everyone got used to it everything settled down.

 

We can have a lot of fun with it especially when everyone gets more acquainted and I will be happy to assist anyone with a problem or question.

Ouch! Just kidding RMK, I'll take your "little time" any day of the week over no time! Thanks for being here buddy.

RMK said:

For the little time I spend on here, seems ok to me.

I'm with Dragon1. I liked to old format. I have two Icons on my tool that are always visible. One is for the home page and one is for the forums. Just a click of the mouse took me to either place.

That being said, I can handle it either way. So let the minority rule.

Rich, forum helper.

I have not been here long enough to really say much. I didn't like the fact when I first came by, that I had to registrar to even look at the forums. Seems liked you were hiding something. Now, I don't know if that is still set up that way or not, but that was the only thing I didn't like. Just being honest. bob

Rich, do you mean you had an icon shortcut on your toolbar browser? That can be changed.

Bob, our forum was open for all to see for the longest time, but we kept getting spammed big time by bot's, the little critters that spammers use to put crud on our network.

We had spammers that would mass sale sexual toys, and pharmaceuticals on our site, so unfortunately we had to lock it down. That was done about 4 months ago, we have had zero spammers since, it would be nice to open it back up to the world to view, we might just do that given the time that has passed. I would much rather us being an open site for all to see as you suggested.

Thanks guys

Keep it up!

Bob, I changed the settings of our network so anyone can see everything on this network without being a member. Let's see how we do, this will be a trial basis. Folks will not be able to post unless they are a member, I think that's fair, but the world can see our network without being a member. It make take a couple hours for the settings to take affect.

Lets cross our fingers the spammers stay away this time.

John

Thanks John. I didn't know about spammers. Then again, I know nothing about all the work you must do on this forum.

 

Thanks for doing it! bob

Let's see what happens Bob, it's been awhile since we had this site open. I used to love the fact that folks could surf our site with no strings attached, becoming a member. But the bad guys forced our hand on this one. So if you'd like to do a little test, sign out, then try surfing our site, you should have access to all the areas on the site, but again, you won't be able to post anything.

Thanks Bob

Bob Kloes said:

Thanks John. I didn't know about spammers. Then again, I know nothing about all the work you must do on this forum.

 

Thanks for doing it! bob

I'm having a tough time keeping up on new post. I just added the RSS feed, will see if that helps. And I receive the e-mails to a category I have already posted to. Is there a forum setting to show when something new has posted to a forum category that I have not participated in?

 

-Ace-

I am with Ralph and others, I like it.

John, on my favorites to bar I have two bookmarks. One for the home page and one for the forums page. I usually go to the home page first then when I want to go the forums page (I'm usually at the bottom of the home page)I simply click on the forums icon. That way I eliminate having to scroll back to the top of the home page to click on the forum button.

Hope that make sense.

Good Evening Fellows,

What I do is when an email comes in on a topic, I look to see who all replied to that one post and then after I have gone to the site and read all of the comments, I then go back to my emails and close each of the emails concerning the post for when I went to the post I already read their comments. Then if an email comes in for another topic again I see who all replied and close all but the first one to copy and paste to get to the topic and then read all of the comments.

That way you are not rumnning back and forth.

Okay, well here is my take on this. I am torn down the middle.

 

The old way had all of the recent post on the home page and it made it real easy to see who and what had been posted to. It really didn't take long to get caught up on what message had new traffic. The draw back to this was you saw all of them and sometimes you didn't go into the actual forum. I would read a post and reply and then back to the home page. So I might forget a thread that was in the forum.

 

This way seems to take me longer to get caught up when I log in and check what has been posted. I can go to the forums tap and look at the last time something was posted in a particular forum. By clicking on the forum, I do see what activity has taken place in that forum and can run down the ones since I was last on. The newest post will be at the top so that does help speed it up some.

 

I like both options, they just operate a little different. When I get used to it I will be fine.

 

I think as far as keeping up on new post it might help if the emails we receive had the response in them that was made so we know if we want to comment further. Some of the other sites do it that way . I also talked to John about a pulse button that basically shows all the comments made that day ,who made the original post and who commented last this is placed in the corner of each post so you don't have to keep going back and forth. This would duplicate the most resent activity area but in list form. As I told John I'm not a programmer so all this might take up to much memory or be to complicated to do.