Suggestion more than a request.

[Welshling]

Due to the endless amount of posts regarding forums not loading, slow to load and or login problems.

Why doesn't proboards support enable the cbox? This way a simple reply by a designated moderator would suffice, it would ease the admin's job in the sense, they won't be needed to reply to each and every post regarding these issues.

[Ryan Roos]

It's a great idea in concept, but not a feature request at all.

I'll save you the time posting elsewhere too.

Two reasons this won;t work even if we did it.

1) No one is going to scroll down to the shoutbox.
2) No one reads anyway.*

*Whenever there are issues of any kind we create an announcement/sticky in Support. It's titled the exact issue that is occurring. It tells people we know about the problem and we're working on it. And yet people still make dozens of threads in that exact same board about the exact same topic.

People don't read. The End.

[Welshling]

true no one likes to scroll but thats exactly my point, page ones go un noticed where downtime is experienced. also cboxes don't have to go in the footers, they could go on the side or something. maybe another idea would be to create a board, where all known issues are posted by staff only, members cannot reply to them its a read only type board. And label it Known Bugs/Issues/Downtime whatever you want to call it.

And while on the subject of boards, the new layout of the boards is confusing. People are posting in the wrong boards again, such as myself but I did so proving the point lol.

Anyways something needs to be done, to make all stickied (admin posts) more accessible and reachable. Somewhere that they stand out, maybe its just me who thinks this but hey i am trying to help is all and found myself in one argument already. So for now i bid you all fairwell.

[Ryan Roos]

Apr 25, 2013 13:07:17 GMT -8 Welshling said:

maybe another idea would be to create a board, where all known issues are posted by staff only

It's called Support. We make stickies with the problem that only staff can reply in and people still make threads, right below it.

I used to open restaurants for a living. On one opening the restaurant had a side door that actually led into the front of the kitchen. Guests kept using that door to enter the restaurant and they would get confused. So we put a big sign on the door with and arrow that said, "please use the front door". People still used the side door. So we bought a big 50lb cast iron sign stand. It was 4 1/2 feet tall and 2 1/2 feet wide. It held a standard sized poster (the kind for your wall, that big!). We had a poster made that said, "Please use the front door. This is not an entrance." and a big arrow. We placed it about 5 feet from the door. People just walked around it. Eventually we got so frustrated that we pushed the sign right up against the door, breaking fire codes and everything. Within 10 minutes we watched someone walk up, look at the sign, grab it and gratingly push all 50lbs of it to the side. The sound of steel on concrete and everything. They then proceeded to walk inside get confused why they were in the kitchen and got mad that no host was seating them. This happened over and over again. Moral of the story : People don't read.

People are going to make their own threads no matter what we do. So instead of try to fix an unfixable problem of getting people to read, we instead focus our efforts on making sure we have the best support team possible and we post in every single persons thread to tell them what's up. Because people will only read what they want to and they only want to read replies to their own questions.

[moonbeam]

Sadly, this is totally true. I announce important stuff and only a few will notice the announcement. It's the same few who do every time, too. Everyone else is clueless because they can't be bothered to look.

[mmhmm]

LOL! You'd think denizens of message boards would read, wouldn't you? After all, that's what internet message boards are all about. It's how we communicate out here in the cosmic hinterlands. I'm sure this is one of the most profound of universal conundrums.

[Vu1canF0rce]

Apr 25, 2013 14:04:17 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

Apr 25, 2013 13:07:17 GMT -8 Welshling said:

maybe another idea would be to create a board, where all known issues are posted by staff only

It's called Support. We make stickies with the problem that only staff can reply in and people still make threads, right below it.

I used to open restaurants for a living. On one opening the restaurant had a side door that actually led into the front of the kitchen. Guests kept using that door to enter the restaurant and they would get confused. So we put a big sign on the door with and arrow that said, "please use the front door". People still used the side door. So we bought a big 50lb cast iron sign stand. It was 4 1/2 feet tall and 2 1/2 feet wide. It held a standard sized poster (the kind for your wall, that big!). We had a poster made that said, "Please use the front door. This is not an entrance." and a big arrow. We placed it about 5 feet from the door. People just walked around it. Eventually we got so frustrated that we pushed the sign right up against the door, breaking fire codes and everything. Within 10 minutes we watched someone walk up, look at the sign, grab it and gratingly push all 50lbs of it to the side. The sound of steel on concrete and everything. They then proceeded to walk inside get confused why they were in the kitchen and got mad that no host was seating them. This happened over and over again. Moral of the story : People don't read.

People are going to make their own threads no matter what we do. So instead of try to fix an unfixable problem of getting people to read, we instead focus our efforts on making sure we have the best support team possible and we post in every single persons thread to tell them what's up. Because people will only read what they want to and they only want to read replies to their own questions.

I agree with everyone and indeed with Ryan Roos just in a different facet. I work in a professional I.T. Support Center and deal with, well....to be blunt, a bunch of ID10T5. Explaining over and over again to callers when someone in management identifies and therein posts a field-wide critical message we still get bombarded with calls like "oh, is such-and-such down?" or "nobody told us blah was down...". It's humorous indeed but sad, too. Lol. I'm quite fond of administration and that's what drives me. I love[ed] to actually be the one administrating and posting the per-say "criticals" on my ProBoards forums throughout the years, but indeed some folks would listen and some wouldn't; the one's that wouldn't you just help 'em as you can. I think PB Support has a great thing going as they're kind and understanding and thankfully not finding the PB community as a whole "hopeless" and give up on us ... such as they have written beautiful software over the years for all of us technical "freeloaders" to use and some sadly complain about a free service........and they keep topping themselves with even better versions every few years! A conundrum indeed. And thus why ProBoards IS the best free forum provider on the planet.

Keep up the good work ProBoards!