Ideas to improve AO

[luke]

I would like to see something done to rescue the friendly corner.

Personally I would like to see a politics and religion subforum (but only after the election) or easing of the rules in the friendly forum on discussion of such topics.

Do I realize these topics normally cause some issues? Sure I do. However the friendly corner is pretty well dead at this point anyways.

I would at least like to have a discussion about it.

[Dayspring]

No problem.

Tapatalk and Forumrunner are apps for smartphones and tablets that are running on iOS or android software. They make it easy to use a forum from mobile devices. No browser is needed.

http://www.tapatalk.com/

http://www.forumrunner.net/

ForumRunner and VBulletin are now partnered. All the new VB software downloads come with ForumRunner. Just need to set it up and you can browse it through the smartphone app. Very easy to do.

Tom - I would be happy to help, I'm pretty fluent in the new VB software.

[Dayspring]

Easy registration for new members

This is easy to do. (And it would allow Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail addresses again.)

Have the admins or whomever follow the directions in the link below:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...-registrations

This works WONDERS on my site and I NEVER got a Spam email address.

[sQuidvision]

I like the idea of AGD merchandise for forum support... Other than that all I really want to see it the AGD store come back online w-everything working!

[going_home]

How about a shopping cart for the AGD store so you can click "buy" and pay immediately with Paypal ?

[Chrome]

Luke's comment about the look of new forums made me think of one request:

Please somehow avoid what seems to be the flavor of the month regarding look/style in having solid, bright white backgrounds with black text. The fact that AO has a grey background, colored text in many places, and light blue backgrounds in the text blocks means that I can comfortably read it. All of the "new" web forums I have encountered give me a headache after less than five minutes of struggling to look at them.

Thanks for listening, and thank you to everyone who contributed to keeping the lights on.

[WUNDERWAFFEN]

A new, cooler calendar!

We have a 2006 calendar that goes up to Jan 2007. I say we add a 2013 calendar & maybe a 2014. I would also like pictures of scantily clad women straddling much larger than real life Automags, with big live lions on either side for each month.

[sQuidvision]

How about a shopping cart for the AGD store so you can click "buy" and pay immediately with Paypal ?

now we're talking!

[Lohman446]

Luke's comment about the look of new forums made me think of one request:

Please somehow avoid what seems to be the flavor of the month regarding look/style in having solid, bright white backgrounds with black text. The fact that AO has a grey background, colored text in many places, and light blue backgrounds in the text blocks means that I can comfortably read it. All of the "new" web forums I have encountered give me a headache after less than five minutes of struggling to look at them.

Thanks for listening, and thank you to everyone who contributed to keeping the lights on.

Thats a good point - lets keep AO AO while we are at it

[Lohman446]

The ban list - lets consider getting rid of it and "welcoming everyone back" so to speak. Wipe the slate clean and start over.

I know when it was decided to publically post the ban list it was needed. There were concerns about how it made people feel and if it was welcoming but it was needed. Now it is virtually unused. Its necessity is in question.

[AO Moderation Team]

The ban list - lets consider getting rid of it and "welcoming everyone back" so to speak. Wipe the slate clean and start over.

Its necessity is in question.

What ban list? We don't see a ban list any where.

[Lohman446]

LOL - it was a pretty impressive and quick response. I was reading through it trying to figure out how many of the incidents I could even recall.

Thank you

[BigEvil]

What ban list? We don't see a ban list any where.

Put it back put it back!

[Chrome]

I know I don't chat much on the forums (spending most of the time either lurking or in the BST), but a couple more thoughts reading some of the replies:

"badges", "medals", "rep points", etc.: After browsing PBN for a few minutes to see what people were actually talking about regarding these items, they all just seem like a bunch of clutter that don't really mean anything. Folks time and thoughts, posted to the forum as well as playing/working with folks in the real world, do a pretty good job of teaching folks who is who and who the "good guys" are, I think? I feel that the lack of online things that either promote little cliques or try to segregate folks (in what appears to me to be an already pretty small community) really don't add anything positive, but rather promote an "insiders only" kind of face that isn't very welcoming to new people or casual readers. We do want to find more new, friendly, enthusiastic people to talk to, no?

Signature lines: I understand and respect the idea of these. What bothers me about them, and why I actually like that there are none here is twofold: One, not having every post add at least 2-3 lines of text (let alone graphics, animations, jarring text colors and font sizes. . .) means that I can read more posts per screen view on my monitor - meaning I can actually get to more of the CONTENT of the posts without having to wade through the window dressing. Two, correct me if I'm wrong, but generally all I see out of signature lines is one of two things - either some generally inappropriate/impolite/off-topic rant/shout that doesn't really add anything to whatever conversation is going on, or what effectively becomes a non-stop advertisement circumventing any sort of etiquette asking for business to be done solely in the BST section of a forum. Again, it may just be the sample set I looked through, but neither of these sounds like a good idea to have. Two additional thoughts on this - first, if these signature lines can be turned on/off in user preferences, no harm no foul - no reason for everyone to not do as they please. Secondly, I see the value to providing a quick link to folks' feedback threads in doing business. Maybe a more elegant solution would be to either add a link to these threads in the first post of a thread created in the BST when selling something, or alternately, maybe add the option for a shortcut to the feedback thread in the drop down box that comes up when clicking on a username in a thread/post?

Avatars: My feelings on these are pretty much the same as signature lines. Although some folks after a while (assuming they don't change them every other day) get to be recognized by their avatars, those few people aside, the rest of them are just not really relevant in contributing anything constructive to a conversation on the forum. There are plenty of places online to watch tiny flash animations, view pictures that are all but soft-core pornography (100 pixels big no less!), and have othersuch rotating/flashing/jarring graphics drive one to distraction. Now, I'm not suggesting that this place be all business, all the time, but it seems the flavor of the community created by those who are here quite often has a bit more refinement than that. . . a (little?) bit more grown-up, adult kind of vibe, if that makes sense?

Sorry for the long text blocks, just had a few minutes and thought I would put ideas out there while still fresh in mind.

[luke]

"badges, medals, rep points, signature lines, avatars">>
dont need them

Couldn't agree more.

"A bit more grown-up, adult kind of vibe"