Geeklog Forums

Geeklog's forum has one major problem - it's too small.

As far as most people care, the second a message dissapears from page 1, the poster can might as well erase it. Yes, even page 2 is irrelevant.

So basically, is the forum made so posters with more luck get more answers?

Because if luck has it, no one posts after my message and it stays in page 1 for a long time and many people answer.
But sometimes I post and a second later, 10 other people happen to rush in with their questions, and in 2 minutes, my post is in page 2 and that's the end of it...

Moreover, now that I'm registered, I've realized that logged on users see even less posts per page (as defined in the default), which explains the symptom even better!

I mean all that in general, but here are 2 such posts that I'd really appreciate if you can answer even though they're not in page 1.

Link admin in this site
and
is "you may not post" just a fake warning?

Thanks!

P.S.
If you read this, I'd say there's 90% chance this message is still in page 1.

Yes it's true, people tend to only read what's on the front page, unless there is really something the catches their eye to go further. A question for any web programmer is "How do I get people to view other pages?" I even find that I do it myself. Like with Geeklog, I come to the front page, look for new Featured Articles or new forum posts and unless there is something that I am looking for I don't go any further.

Now what do you do?

One thing to do is put all of your relevant information on the first page (index page). An example is the911site.com. Realizing that people look at one page in general he has a huge amount of content on the index page. Think about how much time you spend on that page looking. This works for him because he has a captive audience because most everyone who visits his site have simular interest.

You again must ask, what makes someone click on another page or another link. Another example is my site Ackerman-family.com. When people visit my site they must click on something to maybe find out about a particular person or to find out about the reunion or look at photos. Again this is a captive audience. People visiting my site are there for a purpose.

The bottom line here is that you have to figure out what makes people want to go to another page or else give them everything up front.

Well, the forum just needs more people who know what they are doing to freqent the site. There are maybe 5 or 6 people who regularly post helpful answers to questions here. None of us get paid for that. We only do it for a love of the product.

Personally, I look at every post on these forums. I don't answer all of them, though. I don't have the time to do that, plus, I don't know all of the answers.

You can change the default view for number of topics displayed and posts per page in your forum user preferences as well. I have just changed the default to show 20 topics and 20 posts per page.

As with Turias, there are often more then 50 posts a day on this site and I have my own site plus I regularly visit squatty.com. Given my time, I tend to focus more on supporting my plugins but even then I have users that post the same question on three sites and send me an email. If I don't answer now in all places, it appears as if I am not supporting users

Many of the questions take time to review and research as well. I have to compliment users like Turias and many of our other regular posters that have been helping out big time . And we are so lucky as a community to have Super Dirk to lend an ever helpfull and patient hand.

Please be patient - and we'll try to answer your question. I must also say, it helps a great deal if you are registered as well. It shows an interest in your part to be part of the community.

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Geeklog components by PortalParts -- www.portalparts.com

Well, I agree that most people (including myself) only look at the first page of posts, however, I don't think luck has a whole lot to do with which questions get answered. I think that often (not always) the questions that tend to go unanswered are:

1.) Those which are poorly worded, far too general, or not specific enough. (Ex. "my site broke and I got a mysql error, Help!")
2.) Have been answered repeatedly and whose answers already exist if people would search the forums
3.) Those that have been given poor titles

Of the remaining posts, there may be some luck in getting help, but for thoe most part, I think they tend to get answered fairly promptly.

Exaurdon~

Well, as for what Blaine said, I wish Dirk would raise the default limit for both anonymous and registered users.

Also, can't we clone Dirk or something?

I have changed it - I meant to mean site defaults were changed.

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Geeklog components by PortalParts -- www.portalparts.com

[QUOTE by: Blaine]I have changed it - I meant to mean site defaults were changed.[/QUOTE]
Yea, I've only noticed that after logging off.
Thanks!

But can't you change the default for registered users too? After all, as you've said, they're the ones we're mostly depend on...

I agree that a lot of times cries for help roll off the front page. Dirk is really good about trying to answer questions as they come in and yes, it would be nice if we could clone him!

I generally find posts by doing a search for my problem. Then sometimes while poring over those search results, I see something that I want to reply to. I'm sure if the person has "notify me of replies" checked, he's quite startled that there's a reply to his post of several months ago!

Another thing, in addition to people not giving enough helpful clues about their problem, it's always nice that if you find a solution -- even if you didn't find it on this forum -- and especially if you didn't find it on this forum -- kindly go back and update your post with the information as to how you solved your problem so that others can benefit -- which is what this wonderful forum is about.

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My Geeklog Site:
http://www.ro-jo.net.com/geeklog/

No, that would involve over-writting a user preference. I've not added that option as it may annoy users. Users need to be able to set this as they like - that was my reason for adding the feature. A user may infact only want to see the 5 topics per page.

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Geeklog components by PortalParts -- www.portalparts.com

[quote by: Blaine]A user may infact only want to see the 5 topics per page[/QUOTE]
Well, I didn't say force them to use it. Just have it in the default. So someone who wants only 5 will have to set it himself and not get it on a silver platter.

I really appreciate the work that blaine spent for the forum but one feature that I really miss (as one who sometimes needs help, but sometimes wants to give help) is an overall "read unseen topics" function.

I'm a moderator on another software site and we use a (modified) web-wiz forum that gives us a special page with "active topics" wich shows the posts I haven't read since my last logon in the whole forum. That is really helpfull and I don't miss any posting that way. (and it has an rss feed )

geKow

I like to use this link to do that: http://www.geeklog.net/forum/index.php?op=newposts

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Got root?

Yeah that....
Where in the manual did I miss that?

geKow

/me appologizes...