Dear friends,
A friend of MFO and very talented website designer, Anya Z., took up the challenge of redesigning the Observer's look and navigation. She worked with my design preferences (clean, clear, navigable, friendly, vaguely dignified) and has made some substantial improvements. Beyond the cosmetic changes, we'll have better navigation, substantially better access to the archive, cleaner and more complete menus and far few headaches for Chip when it comes time to post new content.
Chip and two members of her staff have given over part of their holiday weekend to making the site transition happen. At the moment, they're making the page by page transition. The change will affect the background of the discussion board, but not its function or content.
There might be little bugs after the change. If so, just let us know and the technically competent folks (which is to say, not me) will get on it.
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On a related note: Chip, Accipiter and I are now discussing whether it would be in our collective best interest to re-initiate the discussion board using the software traditionally associated with FundAlarm's discussion board. That program, wwwboard, is old and no longer supported by its creator. It has none of the side features of Vanilla Board, the current software, and might be more susceptible to spam. Accipiter is looking at the prospect of needing to rewrite the software. That said, it's clear that the old software had a very open and welcoming feel. For those who might not have been active on the FundAlarm board, here's an archived snapshot of the old board (courtesy of the Wayback Machine):
http://web.archive.org/web/20100722113832/http://www.fundalarm.com/wwwboard/wwwboard.html Our plan is to email a survey to all of the board's registered users, almost 700 people, with special attention on the 150 or so people who visit regularly. (Surprised? I was. Chip reports that most evenings, there are about 150 folks visiting the board.) Accipiter has a series of questions, from which features of the new board folks find most useful to whether we should consider running the fund discussion board with one set of software and the off-topic board with the other.
Nothing has been decided. Mostly we're just listening to folks' concerns and trying to make this as good a place as we can.
Thanks for your patience and support. I'll share updated information as it becomes available.
As ever,
David
Comments
You mean that it may be possible to bring back the look and functionality of the original FundAlarm discussion board? My vote is yes yes yes yes yes.....
Archaic
Is there a possibility of discussion threads being lost?
There are some threads that I copy/paste to save for further review; and would have to get a go'in on this, if discussion threads may be permanently lost.
Thank you very much,
Catch
Accipiter has the two boards set up and running on his own machine, and so I'll have to defer to him on the limits of the possible. In general, I imagine we could keep the current board as an archive, for a while or permanently.
David
wwwboard is a text file driven board software and files needs to be trimmed occasionally to keep performance in reasonable levels. I think a database driven software is a better option. I like the option of being able to refer to older posts, threads. I also like to be able to preview my own posts, edit them to fix spelling or an error I've made. These are only possible on more advanced forum software.
Re-write of wwwboard is possible but it will be additional chore to maintain it. I would rather avoid it. In addition, wwwboard has several vulnerabilities in its code. Not really wise to use. I agree we need another board software. I found Vanilla half baked in some of the ideas it is inspiring to be. It is not production quality.
You mentioned WorldPress blog software recently. There are several forum plug-ins that goes with world press. They should be investigated. bbPress is from the makes of WorldPress. Simple:Press is another. I think you would like the integration of forum with blog (being able to use the same users etc.) as a plus.
Update:
I just looked at the plug-ins for WorldPress and found BuddyPress.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress/
It allows threaded commenting similar to wwwboard.
---Fund Alarm: I liked the laddered affect for a given thread run. A brief look at a thread I had previously viewed and/or read through gave me the "big picture" in one glance as to new replies to a particular area of the thread. Perhaps this is just an easy method for my mind to view and process. In particular, until I refreshed the pc browser, I could rely upon the color shift as to which thread pieces I had already opened.
---MFO:
1. I like and use the "save draft" feature using MFO. Previously, with FA; I would compose a thought train that may be only a short period of time; or have thoughts added through the week for a "Funds Boat" write. I would park all of this on my pc and then copy/paste to FA.
2. As Maurice noted, posting links is a no brainer here; which should provide for more linked stories for an increased knowledge base; including YouTube, which has a very large knowledge base relating to money, finance and investing related items.
3. The "edit" feature here has been of great value. I attempt the perfect write, but tend to speed along with the typing not always staying in place with the thinking. Edit is most handy for corrrections and especially to add additional info/links as an after thought.
-----ADD/EDIT, Sat..................
4. I will presume that Falcon's Eye will remain in place; as well as the linking feature for ticker symbols placed in posts. These are most useful tools.
I have used WordPress in some form when connected to our public school system; but I am not aware of its plus or minus status as to its use for this forum. I can not offer a valid opinion in this area.
I will use the "edit" feature, when I may pop another thought about this subject.
Take care,
Catch
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thanks for all the work. WE do strongly support mutual fund observer and been buyin' lots of stuff at amazon.com
we do miss fundalarm, and looking back, I do believe both sites are very well run but I do like mutualfundobserver just a tiny bit more because of all the new techs/gadget. Hope you'll continue to be the moderator for quite sometimes.
regards
Two separate issues. The status of the board software is open for discussion and we (Accipiter, Chip and I) are just starting to look at it. The other changes are fait accompli; the look was designed in great haste during the transition and the navigation was never as good as it could be, so I'm intent on trying to clean both of those issues up. The board, though, is a special part of the site and there especially, I want to be responsive to the needs and interests of its members.
Hope that helps,
David
And thanks for the kind words. I've never doubted the support of the community here, and I'll trust to warrant it.
David
I'll start copying today (Sat.), then. A few older threads I have been meaning to store and review at leisure.
As opinions are now being offered, the MFO format allows all comments to be read by opening a single thread; discourages chat-room-type responses ("Boo-yah!," "Me 3!"); and allows multiple links in a single post (as johnN has very obligingly provided from inception). Its capability is more agile.
The FundAlarm format was certainly vivid, but it required a lot of clicking merely to view empty or inconsequential posts. (And are we not a thoughtful and sober bunch?)
For example, on just the responses for this topic -- because there are no subject headers, I have to pretty much read the responses to see if I want to read them. Other format much more skimmer/selector friendly.
PS. I see that Randynevin pretty much said what I am saying-- but I didn't get that far down because of all the reading I had to do to check out earlier posts.