How To Improve The Discussion Forums of PropertyTalk

[donna]

Hi All,

This thread is long overdue. How do we improve our discussion forums? I am sure we can come up with many ways to make it a place for all property investors etc.

Where to start? Should we run a poll and get general consensus and feed back on some core positives and negatives of PropertyTalk's discussion forums?

We can have as many new threads in this 'About PropertyTalk forum' on this topic so fire away with your thoughts and ideas.

Marc and I want to hear from you and we want PropertyTalk's discussion forums to be a lot more user friendly.

There are so many topics up for discussion:

Software -

Do we want more features and functionality? I'd like PropertyTalk to be more intuitive on mobile.

Rules -

Are users happy with the rules on self promotion? You may not be aware but we now allow you to link to your website within threads.

What else?

cheers,

Donna

[Perry]

Marc and I want to hear from you and we want PropertyTalk's discussion forums to be a lot more user friendly.

Having a PT forum search function worthy of the name would be very good.

[donna]

Yeah the only search feature that seems to work is the one in here....

https://www.propertytalk.com/forum/search.php?

It does work but it relies on good data in - there's probably too many options. However as it is really hard to find I will get our Tech to put the Search link on horizontal menu bar so at least it's visible.

cheers,

Donna

[donna]

A fews changes coming

1. There will be a 'Search Forums' link on the top horizontal menu bar.
2. FACEBOOK - the like and share threads, posts is coming back so you can share with your friends on Facebook
3. Sign In - all going well you will be able to log in to PropertyTalk via your Facebook log in

cheers,

Donna

[Perry]

Yeah the only search feature that seems to work is this one . . .

That's the in-built vB search option and it's so poorly functional that I recommend people use a generic search engine like http://duckduckgo.com using the words they have in mind, then leaving a space and entering siteropertytalk.com

I have heard that there is a better search engine option for the PT forum software, but can't recall any details.

[donna]

Hi Perry,

Yeah it's good so I have an idea - watch this space

I have worked out that when you use PropertyTalk on mobile the search function produces a search box and all you need to do is add in your keywords and the results are perfect. So I will get our techie to add a simple search box before the advanced options - and that way when you're on the desktop, laptop (viewing the full site) you will get the same perfect results as you do when you search the forums from the mobile version.

cheers,

Donna

[Perry]

. . . all you need to do is add in your keywords and the results are perfect.

I dimly recall it was Cube who told me that the vB search function was limited to one word and that double quotes for a phrase search would not work. Similarly for the Boolean operators, such as AND, OR, etc. Maybe things have changed?

[donna]

Yeah - no, on the mobile search box I put in: healthy homes - and got accurate results so I've informed the tech to create the 'search box' for the desktop version so we can ignore the 'detail' options etc and get the results we needs.

cheers,

Donna

[donna]

Hi All,

For searching PropertyTalk - click on the link - 'Search Forums' and you'll go to a search function that produces accurate results thanks to Perry's suggestion to use DuckDuckGo.

The search bar will be present directly on the new template once we've upgraded the forum software which is underway in testing right now.

regards,

Donna

[DrownInside]

Nice to hear about the upgrade.

[donna]

A quick update....

We're upgrading the software so your experience in PropertyTalk's forums particularly on mobile will be much improved.

The upgrade is no magic bullet for more discussions, but it will give us more scope to enhance the PropertyTalk experience. Working out how that may look will come next and I'll throw around some ideas for feedback once we have launched the upgrade. Advanced notice....you will find everything pretty much where it is now, just a nicer display and few small style changes.

cheers,

Donna

[donna]

We're back online with the latest forum software - let me know your thoughts etc so we can keep on top of any issues and provide more improvements.

cheers,

Donna

[Perry]

What's with the Upload Attachments option?

Isn't that a potential vector for 'nasty' stuff?

Is that option restricted for the first ten newbie posts? (Like URLs? Has that been retained, with the change?)

[donna]

I have made some tweaks so that should be sorted now Perry

[Perry]

The (used to be at the top of the screen) clickable [New Posts] option seems to have disappeared.