Tekforums

Hey, Mainly aimed at Sam and the admin and mods but what are the plans for the forums?

Hopefully stability will be something that will get sorted, Hosts have been at fault a few times of late I believe so stability will be a nice thing to get sorted, Sam has done like me and had a big change in lifestyle and very busy and good on ya Sam but it has ment a few things..

1. Jforum is pretty good for a java forum really compared to others but it is quite a way off and quite buggy and being Java your limited with the server and who can look after it hey? PhP and simplemachines seems a popular choice for stability and features.

2. But what is the point of new features etc if there is a low population?
One thing Us lot should look to change, get Tekforum noticed again, get people back and get some new people in. Getting into google, SEO and dig etc.
- People have their personal websites out here, should make sure we link to them here for one and also link back to tekforums on our sites also.
- Write something cool on your site and dig it or put it out into one of the popularity link sites, post it on the forums as well. If Mark put is car thing all in one thread or the forums could merge them you could dig that etc and get that out there for example.
Things like that.

3. S is gone I think, not Sams fault he can not get it back really, He did forget to renew but as with quite a lot of domain stuff they did not really let him know it was about to run out. It is bought by someone else now just sitting on the name. They wanted Sam to do all manner of stupid things to get it back, meant sam needed to scan and send Nige stuff or something, sounded crazy.
So Tekforum.co.uk

4. I have gained a lot of skill and experience further in the last year with my graphic and web skills and I was wondering if we should go for a new modern look to the forums? Now I have learnt my lesson big time for over the top designs and I am not talking about anything drastic, People that I have shown my new site development too know I have kept streamlining that as I have gone as an example.

I was wondering if we could...

- Have a proper and big logo competition, put something effort in a nice cool pro looking logo, see who comes up with one we/most of us like and have a proper poll, finalists and so on?
- Look at some layout designs, see what features and things people like on forums and how it could be tweaked etc?

Once with a new look etc then do some banner adds and get them out there also?


Would be nice to get to somewhere like a while ago with so many people on here, everyone is older and busier but why cant we have something we can interact with? Things like simplemachines have twitter support for example now and I am sure one of us may make a tekforums iphone or mobile app in spare time or something as well to make quick fire posting or text to post etc.

I am doing nothing more then just putting some thoughts and ideas down for 09 rather then potentially going stale?

1) A mainpage / blog / Frontend to the forums?
2) Bring back the Monkeys!
3) Black forum skin :)
4) All that Nexus said
5) I want a nice sig picture thing designed for me, to make my posts look pr0 :P
6) More activity from Tekheads staff, get the whole Scan/Hexus thing going on tekforums, daily/weekly specials, bundle deals etc etc, you could make it so that forum is hidden unless the member is registered, i.e. signup for specials :P i dont know im just crazy!
7) I want my spot as trading mod when it picks up xD

I do not think I would mind a bit more Hexus from the tek store side, They are on here now and at the top so would be nice if they made more of an appearance if they are having a section. Not see the need for a blog section or frontpage but you can have a featured / top / latest area at the top with forum software like SMF. I and others could make default php generated sigs etc.

Quote from: neXus3. S is gone I think, not Sams fault he can not get it back really, He did forget to renew but as with quite a lot of domain stuff they did not really let him know it was about to run out. It is bought by someone else now just sitting on the name. They wanted Sam to do all manner of stupid things to get it back, meant sam needed to scan and send Nige stuff or something, sounded crazy.
So Tekforum.co.uk

If you want it back why dont you go chat to John Poller

Anyone could have bought it for a few quid if they really wanted it back, it sat there with no owner for months.

.co.uk domains are very easy to change or renew.

Judging by some google results it seems he owns a variation of domains, i say f*ck the s, let him keep it.

Some great ideas here.

Quote from: White GiantSome great ideas here.

I like Tek the way it is pretty much.

I like the ideas but I just like Tek the way it is.

We need to get someone to do something outrageous that gets posted all over the geek news sites for its craziness.

How about someone shows how hot processors can get by cooking an egg on one, that would be awesome.

I could always hold a teddy bear hostage until we get the S back?

/protects teddy

 :yarr:  :yarr:  :yarr:  :yarr:  :yarr:

Quote from: GoblinWe need to get someone to do something outrageous that gets posted all over the geek news sites for its craziness.

How about someone shows how hot processors can get by cooking an egg on one, that would be awesome.

That experiment was in the RI Chirstmas Lectures this year. I was content in my smugness at having seen it before.

Quote from: Mongoose

Quote from: GoblinWe need to get someone to do something outrageous that gets posted all over the geek news sites for its craziness.

How about someone shows how hot processors can get by cooking an egg on one, that would be awesome.

That experiment was in the RI Chirstmas Lectures this year. I was content in my smugness at having seen it before.

I remember the Trouble that caused, jammed toe forums for weeks.

And we hardly got anyone staying either.

Quote from: Serious

Quote from: Mongoose

Quote from: Goblin...
...

...

I remember the Trouble that caused, jammed toe forums for weeks.
....

What are these toe forums?! is this a secret club I aint heard about?

Yeah. for chiropodists :P

Im not sure with the current software this is possible but....

1. Could introduce news feeds into the forum from other worldwide forums eg hothardware.com tweektown etc
2. Could possibily look at reviewing products within the forums?
3. Everybody loves to play games so could build in a mini arcade section (flash games) with top scores  :nana:

Although saying that we (tekheads) do own a fully licenced copy of vBulletin which would open the forums upto alot of features everyone could choose to have as a community? Whats everyones thoughts?

Andrew
Tekheads.co.uk

The present version of Jforum is more stable and has had a lot of the bugs fixed, but its still very basic. In some ways SamBB was much better but I think almost any software change would be preferable. Merging and splitting threads should be basic features of a forum but they arent available.

At least Ive not found them yet. Getting the forums onto a server where it can be backed up regularly, at least once a week, should be the priority.

1 Nice idea
2 also interesting really though these are already covered on other sites. We dont have the membership to really review things properly. If there was a new forum specifically for reviews and linked threads from items on tekeads it might encourage membership.

3 Links to internet games come up every so often and end up in one of the talk forums, normally GD or Waffle.

I will move the forum to a php based one if people prefer.

Quote from: SamI will move the forum to a php based one if people prefer.

More could look after it if it was m8 for a start, save you having to address all the issues all the time.

As i mentioned previously,

1) Better relationship between the forum and the store
2) Get the staff on here posting, im sure some of you like to chat somewhere on the net
3) Weekly specials, group buys or promotions?
4) New forum software, Vbulletin, a lot of nice mods for it

News feeds would be a change, but i think it would clutter the forum, and linking news from other forums your kind of promoting those forums, and we are really trying to get the members to stick around on tek. However we can have a tech news forum, where daily industry news can be posted, and then you can have  top stories at the top of the forum page, im sure there is a mod that will extract the 3-5 random or latest posts from a specific forum, i might even opt myself in to post news :P

When its gets busier you can always arrange Samcrasher! without Sam this time though :P and i still wont attend, 2-300 miles is a long way for someone who rarely ventures out of his city !

not vbukm too bloated. Simple machines.

Quote from: neXusnot vbukm too bloated. Simple machines.

I would disagree there.  I love vBulletin, hasnt died on my once in nearly 4 years.  Its also highly customisable, and when you flip the sh*t off you dont want, and tinker the templates around it works brilliantly.  I also like SMF, but its annoying to skin.

Little blast from the past for you:

(http://img.skitch.com/20090116-8yi2s77xw7d31pnfeip2iqtbmr.preview.jpg)

(http://img.skitch.com/20090116-cns1y1f68qttfi68u37tg1e66t.preview.jpg)


Also available, one slightly soiled copy of the SamBB source code.

Quote from: Beaker

Quote from: neXusnot vbukm too bloated. Simple machines.

I would disagree there.  I love vBulletin, hasnt died on my once in nearly 4 years.  Its also highly customisable, and when you flip the sh*t off you dont want, and tinker the templates around it works brilliantly.  I also like SMF, but its annoying to skin.

That is the funny thing, for what I do SMF is quite powerful and easy to skin, lol. Depends on how they design these things and who they are targeting it at I suppose.

Quote from: neXus

Quote from: Beaker

Quote from: neXusnot vbukm too bloated. Simple machines.

I would disagree there.  I love vBulletin, hasnt died on my once in nearly 4 years.  Its also highly customisable, and when you flip the sh*t off you dont want, and tinker the templates around it works brilliantly.  I also like SMF, but its annoying to skin.

That is the funny thing, for what I do SMF is quite powerful and easy to skin, lol. Depends on how they design these things and who they are targeting it at I suppose.

I think the best solution is to check which forum software has the mods you need in advance, then make a decision based on that. Just a thought :)