poll : what forum style do you prefer??

[kwun]

Hi all,

this question is for all readers of this forum. regular active posters, or active lurkers. :)


the current forum software is really a little bit out of date. it lacks a lot of features that facilitates posting and administration of the forum. while we are not a huge traffic site, we are easily the most popular badminton forum in the web.

there are currently two different forum format that are popular in the web. the ubb format, where there is a flat hierarchy, or the wwwboard format, a threaded format, which is what is being used in this forum.

if you are not familiar with the ubb format, take a look at say, <a target=top_ href="http://phpbb.sourceforge.net/phpBB/">this site</a>, and you should get the idea how the ubb format differ.

the main question i like to ask you all is, <b>what forum format do you prefer?</b>

the reason i am asking is because most forums are moving towards the ubb format, and thus the software for those formats are much more advanced. and i am leaning towards changing to that format instead.

however, i'd like to seek the opinion from you all first. so please, let me know.

[jayes]

Since you asked for our preference, I much prefer the threaded one. It is easier for me to follow other postings as to which posting is the author replying to, eventhough many do not really follow that convention (have to read through the context).

However, whichever format you choose, I'm sure we can adapt.

Cheers. :)

[jim]

i much prefer this forum the way it is.

ubb format tends to end up with one question, one answer kind of "single thread" discussion, which is a bit limiting.

wwwboard is so much easier to navigate and it handles multiple threads of discussions (within the same topic) better IMHO.

[Mag]

Hard to say. Superficially I'd say I prefer this format, but that may well be just because it's what I'm most used to. If it's easier to administrate ubb then it's really up to you, Kwun.

In any case, I still think that the most significant improvement to this forum would be the ability to sort threads according to the date of the last reply. It would keep the interesting (active) threads going longer, and the dead ones would "disappear" faster from the thread list. I would vote for any software that can do this.

[trapped-never]

Ahoj Kwun,

I prefer ubb but can easily live with wwwboard.

[marshall]

We often create multi-threaded discussions within a topic, which gives the discussion the free-association character of face-to-face conversation. When I scan the topic map and see who's posting, I have some idea of what each post is going to be like. It's almost like wandering around the room at a party and recognizing friends. OTOH, navigation slows down sometimes, and if the new software would make your job easier *and* keep things running smoothly I can get used to it. It can't be as hard as learning to drive with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, and I did that in heavy traffic in Dublin this summer (learned RH driving, on my way out of town).

[kwun]

Mag, yes. i agree, sorting of threads will be very nice. and as you already know, bc/bf is now using Phorum, which has unforutnately cancelled the development of their newer version. that is partly what prompted me for the change.

fundamentally, i do prefer the threads based forum as well. however, i recently started lurking around some other ubb style forums, and surprisingly i didn't find the ubb format to be too bad. but threading is still nice.

however, looking around, i don't see many thread based forum software around, at least, none that comes at an affordable price. :(


so i will keep on searching. or if anyone has suggestions on forum software, please let me know.

[kwun]

another change i'd like to have is to have registered users. i believe BC/BF has enough a user base for such a change. and hopefully, by registering user, we will weed out unwelcomed guests and also discourage a single user posting using many names.

[jim]

having registered users may be ok provided the registration process is not too tedious.

hopefully the new system is setup properly with cookie enabled so we don't need to login everytime we want to post something.

[Quantum]

vBulletin is a good forum software. I'm an admin on the tech forum and we use vBulletin and it has been really good so far. Easy registration and it will cookie you too.

[Adel]

Kwun:

Being a techno-illiterate, I dunno what the heck you're talking abt. I'm pretty okay with this but if it's more convenient for you to use the other one, you have my blessings.

Adel

[May]

to us peeps who juz wanna tok abt badminton.
But i personally prefer the ubb format.

[May]

btw, it wld save time too u knw kwun. instead of having to wait for the page to reload each time to read a reply.

[jim]

especially for a long thread of dicussions....

[cooler]

As long as the webmaster doesn't get anymore god-like power than before.

[Xero]

To my opinion,

I think the thread way is easier because you can figure out who is replying to who's message easily and it is more clear.

[Pecheur]

However I don't know about the cost.

Have a look at this site http://www.snowboarding-online.com/Forums/main.cfm?CFApp=33 which looks threaded and will move the thread with the latest reply to the top.

Another thing I like about it is that when you click on the thread, like the ubb format you can read all the replies instead of clicking through, they need to do some owrk on their wrapping though.

[Brett]

I agree 100% with Mag's reply.

I kind of like the forums at www.dpreview.com (most popular digital camera site in the world). They are easy to read and while they sometimes take a bit of time to download, they list the most recent posts first. They also have a feature that takes you back to the main forum, like the "Go to Top" feature, but without erasing older "new" message flags.

The ubb format, on the other hand, lets you see everyone's message, so it can be a whole lot faster to read an entire thread. People can and do tend to indicate which prior message to which they are responding, so it is not that difficult to follow.

Now that I'm thinking about it as I am typing this, I think I prefer the ubb format because it is a whole lot faster to read a significantly sized message thread, as we would only need to click and download one thread, rather than 20, 50 or 100. So, my vote is for the ubb format, unless that would be too expensive or difficult to implement. Would you be able to transfer all past posts onto that format?

Thanks for asking for our input Kwun.

[kwun]

Brett,

indeed. one of the main advantage of the ubb (flat) format is speedy download. this is especially true for folks overseas and on dial-up lines. the other advantage is the availability of software. there are a few packages out there that i can download for free or at a cost (~ $200).

i will be able to convert the old messages. we will lose the threaded nature of the conversations when converted over. but if i do make a change, i intend to leave the old forum as read-only. there are too much valuable information accumulated by everyone in the past couple of years.