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Improving talkclassical user experience?

6K views 28 replies 19 participants last post by  Krummhorn 
#1 ·
Hey there classical music lovers,

I want to ask users how they find their experience with the website. I am looking to do a case study on talkclassical and it's user experience to see how it can be improved (as a personal project, that could potentially help the community?).

For now, I am simply interested in what you see could be improved, to follow the nowadays popular reddit and quora for example which are consistently updating features to ease their user experience.

Also, it would be interesting to know if you use TC mostly on desktop, mobile, both or one more than the other? I will also consider what has been said around the site feedback sections.

Thank you in advance! :)
 
#4 ·
I use Desk Top and laptop, my biggest gripe is that I keep getting locked out and the only way back in is to reg as a new member under a new user name, my only other gripe is (sorry BG & art rock) all the games which may please some just not me. :(
 
#8 ·
As a site administrator I can only use a desktop computer. There are times when I must have multiple windows open for the site (Admin control panel, spam reporting, etc).

As for improving ... I have a saying "don't fix what ain't broke". The current version we use is working as expected and we have few problems (bugs) that can't be easily solved.

As for updating to the newest version of vBulletin ... I personally vote NO WAY. I am a member of a sites that use vBulletin 5 and ... well ... it's far from being user friendly. The whole format stinks ... and their admins have been having many problems getting matters resolved.

With each upgrade that we do, all the other apps that are used for database tables updating and operation also have to be upgraded and those come with a hefty price tag.
 
#10 ·
As a site administrator I can only use a desktop computer. There are times when I must have multiple windows open for the site (Admin control panel, spam reporting, etc).

As for improving ... I have a saying "don't fix what ain't broke". The current version we use is working as expected and we have few problems (bugs) that can't be easily solved.

As for updating to the newest version of vBulletin ... I personally vote NO WAY. I am a member of a sites that use vBulletin 5 and ... well ... it's far from being user friendly. The whole format stinks ... and their admins have been having many problems getting matters resolved.

With each upgrade that we do, all the other apps that are used for database tables updating and operation also have to be upgraded and those come with a hefty price tag.
Any thoughts on switching to XenForo?

From a user point of view this has the best usability and features of popular online forum software I've used. A big one being you can type out a reply and not post it and it is saved in the post box every few seconds and you can come back to it weeks later to complete it.

And it just feels like a "nicer" experience all around.
 
#14 ·
Virtually all the time I access on my desktop.

What I would love to see is a functionality wherein threads could be ignored in the same way as users can. That would be quite a programming change though...frontend and backend...as such I don't think we will be seeing that.
 
#20 ·
The only feature I would like to see is a notification when someone has replied to one of my responses. But that's nitpicky. I'm happy here.
Yeah, in an ideal world that'd be nice but I make do just fine without it just like yourself. I actually use the "Like" function as a way of pinging people to start/continue a conversation when I reply to someone's post.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Desktop.

:)

I've been a longtime member for a different blog site that also used the same vblog or vbulletin, but the owner/admin likes to tinker with the settings.
That site is using vBulletin™ Version 4.2.1;
TalkClassical is using vBulletin™ Version 4.2.5.

:)

The tabs at the top of the page have been configured slightly differently (e.g., there's a "3 Days Posts" tab). So, under the site banner, instead of TalkClassical's

What's New . . . . . Forum . . . . . Blogs

it has

Forum . . . . . What's New . . . . . Band Alumni ˘ . . . . . 3DaysPosts . . . . . Shoppe . . . . . Chat . . . . . MyEmail

:)

The second line of tabs, instead of

ActivityStream . . . New Posts . . . NewGroupMessages . . . NewEvents . . . NewBlogEntries . . . MarkForumsRead

It has

NewPosts . . . PrivateMessages . . . FAQ . . . Calendar . . . Community ˘ . . . ForumActions ˘ . . . QuickLinks ˘ . . . WhereAreTheyNow . . . Wiki[band name] . . . AdvancedSearch

This collection of tabs actual overwrites itself if your browser window isn't wide enough.

The ˘ denotes a dropdown menu:
The BandAlumni opens a dropdown with all of the many former band members.
Community gives links to Albums, Friends & Contacts, and BlogMembers.
ForumActions gives links to MarkForumsRead, GeneralSettings, and Profile.
QuickLinks gives you Today'sPosts, SubscribedThreads, OpenContactsPopup, ViewSiteLeaders, and Who'sOnline.

:)

That site has many, many more emoticons available, but doesn't allow special characters like ñ or é or ü. If you try, it simply shows up as a ?. So, instead of "Dvořák", you'll get "Dvo??k".

It allows unlimited editing of posts/comments, which is quite nice for fixing typos, or fixing links that later go dark. There are also several different custom "skins" available (not really a useful feature, but it's nice to have a choice). At least once they've had a member say farewell to the site in anger, and delete all of his posts. However, any posts of theirs that were "quoted" in someone else's "Reply With Quote" will have the quote as it appeared when it was quoted.

That said, that OTHER site has occasional glitches, and sometimes a combination of characters typed into a comment will trigger a command that makes a comment page disappear (so it's possible that page 5 of 15 pages will simply give you a blank screen instead of posts 61-75. Of course, you can reset the number of posts seen per page, so you can force posts to display; e.g. if post 64 is the glitchy post, you could still see posts 71-75 if you set your posts/page to 10.)

There's one glitch I've noticed on THIS site. Occasionally when I attempt the "Multi-quote" feature the multi-quotes will continue on and give the multiple quotes when attempting a different ReplyWithQuote in a completely different thread. The multiple quotes should delete themselves after one use. Of course, as an intermittent glitch, it's tough for an Admin or Mod to isolate the problem..
 
#19 ·
I have had a very good experience with this website.

I access it solely through a very old, but still quite functional, Macbook notebook computer.

Some people might think that the site's appearance and functions seem a bit 'dated.' But others of us might actually like slightly [or even greatly] 'dated' things. Such as my antique Mac. Or classical music.

Over the years I have seen many websites attempt to 'update' their appearance and functionality, often at great expense and with great fanfare. But in many cases, such 'updates' have actually made the sites less attractive and more inconvenient or annoying than before. Similar to the debacle when Coca Cola replaced its original recipe with the 'New Coke' in 1985.

Nothing is perfect, and if we think hard enough many of us could find minor things about TC that we might like changed or 'updated.' But, in my humble opinion, this is an excellent website that serves its purposes very well as is. It really does not need any tinkering with all the attendant risks.
 
#27 ·
We used to have that feature, like, 10 years ago or so. It was very handy as one could de-select forum areas they wished to not see. I think it developed bugs and had to be removed; I don't foresee it ever returning, not if we continue to use vBulletin.

We are experimenting with another app on our sister site, MIMF.
 
#24 ·
Not easy. I wrote a URL to get all except the polls subforum:

Code:
https://www.talkclassical.com/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=62&contenttype=vBForum_Post
I then stuck this on the bookmark bar. It takes a great deal of diving around in the depths of the forum to get the sub-forum numbers, but it can be done.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I don't know the language, so tried a crude method that did not work,

Code:
https://www.talkclassical.com/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=community-forum/=vBForum_Post
However, I see there are a few threads in there that I follow, so maybe I have to approach this differently. Maybe exclude Community Forum but then bring up those I still want to follow as subscribed threads.
 
#26 ·
Here is the code to search for new posts not in community area that works

Code:
https://www.talkclassical.com/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=11&contenttype=vBForum_Post
Here it is as a URL

https://www.talkclassical.com/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=11&contenttype=vBForum_Post

This excludes the polls subforum as well

Code:
https://www.talkclassical.com/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=11,62&contenttype=vBForum_Post
You can get the forum numbers by starting a new thread in the relevant area. The address bar, before you post shows

Code:
https://www.talkclassical.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=11
for a thread in the community area. Once you've got the forum number (the bit after the f ), just close the tab so you don't post a thread. It's a bit tedious but it does work.
 
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