Latest forum posts

When the website first started items would remain on the 'Latest Forum Posts' list on the front page for some time. However the site traffic is now large and unless their is a lot of discussion for a particular posting it disappears very quickly of the end of the list and it is easily possible to miss an item of interest. I know it is possible to view the full list but this is not very convenient. Could the list on the home page be made longer?

Mike

+ 1 for a longer list. It would be nice if "all" the advertising was on the Home page, with a bypass on the Toolbar to click onto to get to the meat of the forum.

Problem with that is a lot of people don't bother with the homepage and go straight to teh forums so the adverts would not get seen so revenue would drop and it may not be possible to keep the site running with less income.

What is not convienient about clicking "latest posts"? It is easier to see the time when the last post was made so you just look back to the time you last visited and easier to see who posted last incase you are not interested in what they had to say.

It is interesting that none of the other MTM mag forums have a longer list, some are shorter, some no list at all and on at least one the link to the forum is well down the page.

It would be nice is the "join our newsletter" was lower down or did not appear to those who have signed up.

Also when the banner add space along the top of the page is not being used (seems most of the time now Myhobbystore is no more) could the blank space be done away with which would move things up the screen

Mike,

I suspect that [for reasons previously explained by Neil] nothing is likely to change ... But; my suggestion would be to have a longer list that can be scrolled within the existing frame size.

That would allow the adverts to remain prominent, but would also provide the functionality that you need.

MichaelG.

I believe that the blank space at the top came about due to some error which took place at the end of April. It is space which MTM has allocated for advertising, but it doesn't work.

Ketan at ARC.

Probably beyond the software capabilities but if the pages were divided based on the date column it would be easier to relate to when you last looked and go back say 6 days.
I have the 'latest forum posts' as my favourites link to the site so rarely view the home page. I it says "sub true" near the top so something is broken there as it must be a flag for something more meaningful.

Making a site 'responsive for mobile' is a big thing. I wonder how that will work out for this forum if and when MTM decide to go down that route. An interesting task for whoever takes it on. All okay up to ipad sort of size, but when viewed on the phone, it could become challenging to find the balance between sponsors/advertisers and the readership, without the adverts becoming irritating

Ketan at ARC

I'm sure we can all think of improvements and changes that could be done to this website, however as an ordinary member I feel it would be best to leave it as it is.

If MTM were able or prepared to spend large sums of money and pay top flight web writers to give it a complete makeover it would be one thing, but given the current situation its better that we live with the devil we know. I have no idea how many people currently manage and maintain the existing site/s but they do a good job. In the past I have been fairly critical of the website but I've mellowed and am now of the opinion that if its not broken dont try to fix it.

Based on past experience with this site it is possible that making relatively small changes as Michael suggested will result in errors and problems with other features.

Ian P

The latest forum posts list is handy, but Bazyle's suggestion of making the "more latest posts" your default setting for the forum should do the trick. Would save you 'one click' every time you access the site, so not that big a deal.

IIABDFI seems to be the state of replies. YCPSOTPSOTTBNATPATT applies?

Ketan, I don't think it is an error, just a space waiting for an advert banner. If you visit the other MTM sites you will see for example that Mil Mod had a banner for Euro-militair and one of the others for those models that come in 99 installments with a magazine so obviously working for them using the same software.

Edited By JasonB on 13/06/2017 15:41:14

Oh okay, thanks for the clarification Jason.

Maybe Neil could do you a good deal on filling the space if you have a pound to spare

LoL... i dont think so.

.

Fair comment, Ian

Personally, I don't normally use that list

MichaelG.

.

Edit: deleted an erroneous observation

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 13/06/2017 15:54:42

Mike,

I suggest you use the 'more latest posts' link which takes you to a big page of loads of recent posts and also offers links to enough pages to cover the latest posts on every topic since the forum started!

www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/latest_posts.asp

I use this as my bookmarked 'landing page' and I can't see the point of extending the 'quick list' when access to the complete one is so easy?

Neil

My opinion is leave the site lay-out as it is, getting web designers in would probably kill the forum off, you would get about a tenth of the information on screen that is provided now, new web designs all appear to want great big boxes with little information on view and on a laptop you are forever scrolling down to read the page, goodness knows what it's like on a phone.

Emgee

Quote "Yesterday the Home workshop advert site got hacked or was attacked
Fortunately it's clever enough to just shut down but it's going to cost my lad possibly 2 or even 3 nights to rebuild this with no loss of data at a time when he's busy with his day job"

Thanks for that John. Have been trying to access to change my advert, so will give it a couple of days. Best of luck to Adam

I thought you typed 'without the advertisers becoming irritating' for a moment

>ducks<

Neil

It should be displaying the father's day offer... perhaps not much missed as most of teh people reading it will be hopeful recipients not givers!

Neil