Forum and User Account Issues

warwickland · PostFeb 27, 2014#12014-02-27T17:12+00:00

is there a place to discuss the layout of this forum?

not to be bitchy, but this forum takes up a lot of blank real-estate on a computer screen, and is fairly inefficient to quickly browse. it's clunky.

i've also never liked the division between projects + construction and residential within the geographic subforums. that, too, is clunky. like a tonka.

stlgasm · PostFeb 27, 2014#22014-02-27T18:53+00:00

I have to agree. Projects and Construction and Residential Development are kinda redundant and convoluted since a huge number of "projects and construction" are for residential development. At the same time, these categories exclude lots of other topics like preservation issues, business openings/closings, events, etc. etc. I'm all in favor of making general categories for North Side, South Side, Central Corridor, etc. to keep it clean and easy to navigate.

hebeters · PostFeb 27, 2014#32014-02-27T19:53+00:00

and the banner
(I know it has been discussed previously)
could the banner be replaced with a scene from St. Louis??

stlgasm · PostFeb 27, 2014#42014-02-27T20:00+00:00

hebeters wrote:and the banner
(I know it has been discussed previously)
could the banner be replaced with a scene from St. Louis??

That should be the first priority for sure.

seanmcelligott644 · PostFeb 27, 2014#52014-02-27T20:31+00:00

Dose any one know who to post a topic? I can not figure that out/

jstriebel · PostFeb 27, 2014#62014-02-27T21:02+00:00

seanmcelligott644 wrote:Dose any one know who to post a topic? I can not figure that out/

You can't do it from the "active topics" page. You have to go to the main forums page, select the appropriate forum, and then you'll see the New Topic option.

seanmcelligott644 · PostFeb 28, 2014#72014-02-28T00:27+00:00

jstriebel wrote:
seanmcelligott644 wrote:Dose any one know who to post a topic? I can not figure that out/
You can't do it from the "active topics" page. You have to go to the main forums page, select the appropriate forum, and then you'll see the New Topic option.

ok thank you

innov8ion · PostFeb 28, 2014#82014-02-28T01:04+00:00

Right, the number of categories and forums seem unnecessarily wieldy. Would love to hear more opinions on how to restructure.

I'll re-engage the photographer whose St. Louis pics would be a great match for the banner. He was just overly busy near the end of the year.

#9 · PostFeb 28, 2014#92014-02-28T01:14+00:00

warwickland wrote:not to be bitchy, but this forum takes up a lot of blank real-estate on a computer screen, and is fairly inefficient to quickly browse. it's clunky.

I think it would help if you could be more specific. Where are the blank spaces you find inconvenient?

Also, in what way do you find it inefficient to browse? I typically just look at the active topics view which is quite handy. Other views are unread, unanswered, and new posts. You can also browse by forum but this will be made easier after restructuring.

Also, there's an RSS feed and Tapatalk for mobile platforms. If you haven't tried Tapatalk, you should as it's great while on the move.

dredger · PostFeb 28, 2014#102014-02-28T08:30+00:00

^ I'm with Innov8ion. I like the layout and forum for one simple reason. The focus is on having a conversation with words. A lot of people have posted great topics over the years, easy to put in the links and add info as well as opinions without a lot of nonsense or political jibberish or visual pleasing screens in which everybody is waiting for a topic to be posted by the host.

warwickland · PostApr 10, 2014#112014-04-10T17:00+00:00

Guys, i'm talking about the excessive number of subforums. Many of the topics on just the first page in some of the development subforums havent been responded to in a couple of years. I'm just advocating a cleaner, leaner functionality here.

innov8ion · PostApr 10, 2014#122014-04-10T18:14+00:00

warwickland wrote:Guys, i'm talking about the excessive number of subforums. Many of the topics on just the first page in some of the development subforums havent been responded to in a couple of years. I'm just advocating a cleaner, leaner functionality here.

Many topics will inherently fall into obscurity. That's the nature of the beast.

With that said, I'm certain most agree that forum organization should be simpler. Can forum contributors provide feedback on this simplified structure in the thread below?

http://urbanstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10270

Knowitall · PostMay 30, 2014#132014-05-30T01:37+00:00

Is there a way to make the message inbox more noticeable. Sometimes I go days before I notice there is something in there

innov8ion · PostMay 31, 2014#142014-05-31T00:39+00:00

Knowitall wrote:Is there a way to make the message inbox more noticeable. Sometimes I go days before I notice there is something in there

Emails should be sent if you get a message in your inbox, I believe. If this isn't happening, it's something that should be fixed.

Other than that, it shows the # of new messages in your inbox in the upper portion of the page on the left.

framer · PostJul 09, 2014#152014-07-09T02:35+00:00

Any progress on getting a new banner photo which actually features St. Louis?

rbb · PostAug 22, 2018#162018-08-22T15:34+00:00

So, uh, hey. What happened to the last five years' worth of posts here?

Anyway, I've posted about being logged out before, but it's gotten really bad of late. I do keep the 'remember me' option checked when I log in, but I'm getting logged out regularly, even as I'm actively viewing the forums. Add in the longish refresh time for the board (not complaining about that - it's free for me, and I'm sure it's a financial drain for Mr. Deem to maintain this) and it's gotten to the point where it's difficult to to actually read new posts because I'm having to log in all over again every 3-5 threads to see what the last unread post actually is. And so far I've had to log back in twice while composing this post before the board would actually allow me to post it.

Am I the only one seeing this? It happens whether I'm at home or in the office, (er, no you're browsing the internet on company time!) I'm using Chrome in both locations.

-RBB

quincunx · PostAug 22, 2018#172018-08-22T15:51+00:00

No, my login doesn't last very long either.

framer · PostAug 22, 2018#182018-08-22T16:27+00:00

Same problems here; super sloooooooooooooooow, and frequent log-outs (yes, including as I was trying to post this).

I use Chrome are home, Edge at work.

Black02AltimaSE · PostAug 22, 2018#192018-08-22T16:50+00:00

The logout problem seems to come and go. Some days I get logged out multiple times while working my way through the day's unread posts. Other times I go for days without logging back in (like the past two days, knock on wood). Using Chrome.

symphonicpoet · PostAug 22, 2018#202018-08-22T20:36+00:00

It's hit and miss for me. Some days everything is smooth. Other days I get logged out periodically. I usually use Opera, which is Chrome kernel architecture if I understand correctly. And while it's never fast, it's also not consistently super-slow. Might be a bandwidth issue? If there are more users the system kludges up more? Not sure. But I'm happy to be here in any case.

rbb · PostAug 23, 2018#212018-08-23T13:09+00:00

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑
Aug 22, 2018
It's hit and miss for me. Some days everything is smooth. Other days I get logged out periodically. I usually use Opera, which is Chrome kernel architecture if I understand correctly. And while it's never fast, it's also not consistently super-slow. Might be a bandwidth issue? If there are more users the system kludges up more? Not sure. But I'm happy to be here in any case.

Oh, I'm happy to be here too, which is why I'm willing to log back in 15-20 times during a browsing session to catch up on everything I've missed. Just hoping there might be a solution to make the browsing experience smoother.

-RBB

symphonicpoet · PostAug 23, 2018#222018-08-23T20:02+00:00

^Fair answer.

moltingcicada · PostAug 25, 2018#232018-08-25T04:21+00:00

framer wrote: ↑
Aug 22, 2018
Same problems here; super sloooooooooooooooow, and frequent log-outs (yes, including as I was trying to post this).

I use Chrome are home, Edge at work.

Same here... It can take up a whole thirty seconds or so to load at times. Chrome at work and Firefox at home.

GoHarvOrGoHome · PostAug 30, 2018#242018-08-30T19:12+00:00

Completely agree. Could separate each section by school. Doesn't really make sense see SLU and WashU projects in the central corridor section with every other one

sc4mayor · PostAug 30, 2018#252018-08-30T22:14+00:00

I've been lurking around here for quite some time now since I like keeping up with all the new stuff at home. I only recently joined a few days ago and I haven't noticed some of the issues you're all mentioning here. It is a relatively slow site, 15-20 seconds to load each page is a bit longer then most other sites, but manageable.

As of yet I've not been logged out unexpectedly, in fact since I've joined my account has stayed logged on the entire time.
Using Firefox both at home and work and occasionally Safari (I know, spare me).

As far as the overall layout and topic list, I agree that could use some work. I'm not going to dive into this too deep, but here is my loose suggestion for the homepage:

City of St. Louis
-Central Corridor
-South City
-North City
St. Louis County
-North County
-South County
-West County
-Mid/Central County
Outer Metro
-Metro East
-St. Charles County
-Jefferson County
Basically these would cover all the development announcements and updates.

General St. Louis Discussion:
-Things like the crime thread, transportation, politics and policy, higher education, reputation, photography, where am I in STL, etc. Things that tend to transcend the entire region and not just one jurisdiction.

General Urbanism
-Basically a combination of the General Topics and Urbanism elsewhere sections.

Feel free to tweak it!
I know I'm new here, so forgive me for diving right in, but my little case of OCD means I LOVE organizing things