Jason Ramsey
Admin
Ok, guys... I guess I'll use this thread as kind of the home base for discussion, feedback, whining, news, etc as it pertains to some upcoming changes.
Changes will begin probably this week, and will continue for an undefined time after that.
Here is kind of a roadmap of what you can expect.
Coming (hopefully) this week, we'll be doing a full version upgrade of our forum software. I'm wrapping up the main styling/skinning, etc for the new software now over on the dev site.
We'll roll out the new version with the new style and let everyone have time to get used to things.
The first thing you will see will be the forum software itself. There will also be a cms main page and updated blogs, but the latter two will not roll out with the initial software upgrade.
Either at the same time, or shortly after, there will be some forum re-structuring re-organization. We'll be re-naming, moving, eliminating, adding, etc forums on the board to help make the site more navigable and organized for the average user.
Right around this time, the cms landing page will roll out. This will primarily be for q/a on using the site, and site news, etc. maybe also for featuring some content from users (posts that we'll promote to articles, etc). This will largely take the place of "DVXuser News" at least for all of our internal stuff. There will be a News forum still that will be geared towards user submitted industry news, press-releases, etc.
Over time, we'll be making some functional and layout changes to the forum software to help make things clear and smooth as possible. You'll probably just see little things like additional search boxes, etc popping up from time to time after the upgrade. anything major, you will be made aware of ahead of time.
Additionally, the articles system will likely receive a complete overhaul. We'll rollout an entirely new articles system to replace the antiquated one we've been running. More details on this at some point in the future, but coming in the relatively short term. The CMS stuff of the new software may serve as a stop gap for the articles until I am able to incorporate something better.
Also, at some point after the upgrade, we'll be rolling out some sort of "Helpful Answers" system on various sections of the forum (not in the cafe, but in camera discussion forums, etc). The system I'm looking at now, is fairly robust and will be customized from there as well. This is more for usability. With so many members and a lot of discussion on hot topics, things get noisy and muddy for people just looking for info. In a nutshell, users will be able to rate posts up and down (though not so simplistically) and then the goal will be that people will be able to sort threads so that they can see only helpful answers if they want, etc, etc... This is still pretty early in development, but should roll out within the next couple of months in some form. More details to come.
Lots of other stuff (as always) in the pipe, and we'll talk more about it as we move forward. Manpower is a bit limited, so we can't always move as quickly as we'd like on a lot of things, but some of the big pieces will begin to fall into place over the next weeks.
Once the initial upgrade is made, you guys can feel free to give mindful feedback, and submit suggestions for additional improvement. I've already received some pretty great suggestions over the months from several folks, and plan to incorporate as much as possible.
Also, if any of you were members prior to february of this year and would like to mess around on the dev site and provide some feedback prior to the upgrade, please feel free to volunteer.
So, there is a bit of a primer on some of the things coming in the (relatively) short term. If all goes according to plan, most of this should be incorporated in some form (if not completely) by end of the year, beginning with initial changes in the next several days.
There are quite a few new features that should make using hte sites easier for the average person once folks get used to things, i.e. easy video embedding from multiple sites (youtube, vimeo, hulu, etc).
Changes will begin probably this week, and will continue for an undefined time after that.
Here is kind of a roadmap of what you can expect.
Coming (hopefully) this week, we'll be doing a full version upgrade of our forum software. I'm wrapping up the main styling/skinning, etc for the new software now over on the dev site.
We'll roll out the new version with the new style and let everyone have time to get used to things.
The first thing you will see will be the forum software itself. There will also be a cms main page and updated blogs, but the latter two will not roll out with the initial software upgrade.
Either at the same time, or shortly after, there will be some forum re-structuring re-organization. We'll be re-naming, moving, eliminating, adding, etc forums on the board to help make the site more navigable and organized for the average user.
Right around this time, the cms landing page will roll out. This will primarily be for q/a on using the site, and site news, etc. maybe also for featuring some content from users (posts that we'll promote to articles, etc). This will largely take the place of "DVXuser News" at least for all of our internal stuff. There will be a News forum still that will be geared towards user submitted industry news, press-releases, etc.
Over time, we'll be making some functional and layout changes to the forum software to help make things clear and smooth as possible. You'll probably just see little things like additional search boxes, etc popping up from time to time after the upgrade. anything major, you will be made aware of ahead of time.
Additionally, the articles system will likely receive a complete overhaul. We'll rollout an entirely new articles system to replace the antiquated one we've been running. More details on this at some point in the future, but coming in the relatively short term. The CMS stuff of the new software may serve as a stop gap for the articles until I am able to incorporate something better.
Also, at some point after the upgrade, we'll be rolling out some sort of "Helpful Answers" system on various sections of the forum (not in the cafe, but in camera discussion forums, etc). The system I'm looking at now, is fairly robust and will be customized from there as well. This is more for usability. With so many members and a lot of discussion on hot topics, things get noisy and muddy for people just looking for info. In a nutshell, users will be able to rate posts up and down (though not so simplistically) and then the goal will be that people will be able to sort threads so that they can see only helpful answers if they want, etc, etc... This is still pretty early in development, but should roll out within the next couple of months in some form. More details to come.
Lots of other stuff (as always) in the pipe, and we'll talk more about it as we move forward. Manpower is a bit limited, so we can't always move as quickly as we'd like on a lot of things, but some of the big pieces will begin to fall into place over the next weeks.
Once the initial upgrade is made, you guys can feel free to give mindful feedback, and submit suggestions for additional improvement. I've already received some pretty great suggestions over the months from several folks, and plan to incorporate as much as possible.
Also, if any of you were members prior to february of this year and would like to mess around on the dev site and provide some feedback prior to the upgrade, please feel free to volunteer.
So, there is a bit of a primer on some of the things coming in the (relatively) short term. If all goes according to plan, most of this should be incorporated in some form (if not completely) by end of the year, beginning with initial changes in the next several days.
There are quite a few new features that should make using hte sites easier for the average person once folks get used to things, i.e. easy video embedding from multiple sites (youtube, vimeo, hulu, etc).
