This style or feature-overload forum style?

I frequently use sites that run on vBulletin and, of course, I use Coasterbuzz a lot, too. I think the quality of the site has very little to do with the software it runs, so I don't think that bloated forum software is going to offer anything advantageous.

I'll echo that access to a list of members would be nice. Enhanced search capability might be neat. I want to say that you should include something like vBulletin's "Find new posts" but I suspect that it's already here and I haven't found it yet.

Then, well, there's always karma systems ;)

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--Maddie--
What do I Listen-To?
Hot stuff.

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Black 7 said:
I actually would like to see small avatars too. I find that I end up reconizing a poster just by the avatar.

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As much as I like the occasional avatar, I actually prefer the 'cleaner' look of this site. I do like the forums on Campusfish a lot, though, and look forward to their integration on this site. My main beef with avatars is you can bet that there will be 1,001 cedar point avatars and 1,001 TTD avatars because many will be kids with no imagination.

Rob - you don't want to see MY avatar. ;)
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Between Dill pickles and Donuts, my secret awaits.

I like the fourms the way they are. Too bad there isn't a varient of the software for linux/unix servers. I would buy that.
This is one of the best forums for ease of use I have ever used.

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Hi.....whats your name again?

Tenchi-online.com Theme park photos and more. Your new home for the Jeff Siebert fanpage

The forums are unique, although I'm not so hot on the colors. Actually I looked at the back-up of the old CBuzz on the "Way Back Machine" and it made me miss that layout and those colors. Still, great forum. Avatar or no avatar, doesn't matter to me. Don't want to sound like a broken record...

Also, a little off topic, but congradulations on the 1,000+ photos now in the database!

Edit: (link to CB archives on the Way Back Machine) http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://coasterbuzz.com

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Parker - http://www.sfmwzone.com/p_coastercount.htm>>My Coaster Count
www.SFMWZone.com
*** This post was edited by GoliathKills 10/16/2003 2:46:50 AM ***

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nasai said:

As much as I like the occasional avatar, I actually prefer the 'cleaner' look of this site. I do like the forums on Campusfish a lot, though, and look forward to their integration on this site. My main beef with avatars is you can bet that there will be 1,001 cedar point avatars and 1,001 TTD avatars because many will be kids with no imagination.

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The way to solve that is to make you host your own avatar. Members who go to that trouble will be a little more creative, additionally, it won't waste any of CBuzz's server space.

If it needs to be made uploadable, make it for Club Members only. It would be nice to see a few more perks for club members too.

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The Phoenix, its Schmecktacular!

What is the real point of even having an avatar? They are so stupid IMHO. And a real waste of space and bandwidth. Certainly not something we need to have here. I cant think of any other features on other forums that I like that we dont have here already.

If you were to do an avatar thing for here I would have to suggest using our "personal photos" instead. That would help deter people from being stupid as everyone would know who they are.

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Zero G Thrills - Moved and Improved

The point of an avatar is that not everyone looks the same... we each have a small picture that, in most cases, will set us apart from everyone else - and the avatar hosting for club members only is a good idea.... forcing people to upload their own avatars will make them actually pick a decent avatar, I believe.

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« adix@nedesigns.com »

Raging Bull is best when you're first. [6/16/03]

Avatars are great when they are not a mess. I think you guys are thinking banners signatures, large avatars, and moving parts. I think that's real clutter. Now if we had small avatars to distinguish ourselves from each other, I think that would be nice. I don't know about you guys, but often when I am reading, I don't exactly look at the person's name who made the comment.

Also, a different color for us general members.

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"Do what you believe in and believe in what you do," Jeffrey E. McCants

The colors aren't going to change, so you can stop asking. What's changing is the underlying code base, not the design. The part that counts, the black on white text is as readable as it gets.

Black 7: Usability studies show non-underlined links are harder to find in the body of text.

As for avatars and everyone "looking the same," uh, if you read the forums frequently you can tell people apart by their writing style, not to mention their name. No avatars, so it shall be.

Maddie: Is this what you were looking for? If not, you will get a list of topics that you've posted in recently, kind of like on CampusFish.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Simplicity is a wonderful thing. I, for one, would be happy if CBuzz stayed this way for years. It works, so there is no need to fix it.

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-Rob
A.C.E. member since 1990
Posting @ Coasterbuzz since 2000
E.C.C. member since 2002

Change for the better is good... Change for simply the sake of Change is bad....

So I would say keep things just they they are.

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Half of the people surveyed agree, half disagree and another half are unsure.

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Black 7 said:
The way to solve that is to make you host your own avatar. Members who go to that trouble will be a little more creative, additionally, it won't waste any of CBuzz's server space.

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That would be a nightmare. One of the reasons CB doesn't support direct embedding of images is to avoid copyright issues. Another is to avoid linking away to adult content not appropriate for our younger members. Allowing people to host their own avatars opens that can of worms with a shotgun.

Allowing users to upload them is more feasible, since CB already has member pictures, but then you run into the issue of moderation. We'd need to approve the images before they appear. You should see some of the whining we already get if we don't jump immediately on approving photos and the like, imagine what'll happen if someone's avatar doesn't show up right away.

All for a feature that more people don't want than do? Doesn't sound like a win to me...

--Greg, long-time shell + Emacs user (even while working at Microsoft)

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--Greg, aka Oat Boy
My page
"Friendship -- more lasting than love, more legal than stalking."
*** This post was edited by GregLeg 10/16/2003 10:49:17 AM ***

I know that I'm Johnny-come-lately here, but yah, keep the font consistent. It makes it much easier to read and scan.

My only wish would be a spell check in this mode.

Other than that, it's very easy to use.

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"I go out at 3 o' clock for a quart of milk and come home to my son treating his body like an amusement park!" - Estelle Costanza

Only thing I'd like to see is automatic marking of individual threads as read as well as the "Mark Posts Read" link, because then it's easier to pick and choose what one wishes to read. :)

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Harry Baer IV

"It's not going to stop 'til you wise up..."

Great, now I'm outnumbered by emacs users, although I find it interesting that Greg used emacs while working at Microsoft. Anyone out there still using lynx/links or mutt/pine?

I'm glad to see that things will be staying the same around here, although I'm still looking forward to POP Forums v7.0. Looks pretty cool judging from the docs. :)

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Joe Cernelli
My CampusFish Blog

I think you should make everything gray/black and the text white... much easier on the eyes. Great thing about CF, it has a black scheme.

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God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts!

If you have love for Top Thrill Dragster, copy this and put it in your signature.

Would it be possible to see News Item discussion topics show up under "General Buzz"? It seems a lot of people miss good discussions because they don't check the news items. The subject could be title as "NEWS: Disneyland...etc" to indicate there is a news story that correlates with the topic, and a link to the news story.

-seth

It'd be easy to do that going forward, but a pain to retro-fit the previous 2,700 news items.

And enough about the color... I didn't ask for opinions and I'm not going to change it. There is no universal color scheme that everyone likes.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

How about bright pink and radioactive green, Jeff? ;)

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- John
Homepark: CP Home-away-from-homepark: PKI
My Campusfish Blog

Jeff, you did ask for opinions, but anyways, I think the colors look fine, I would just like the embedded hyperlinks to be a slightly different color so they are easy to find.

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The Phoenix, its Schmecktacular!