New SAPFM Website & Forum

Antiquity

Well-known member
I think the new website looks much better than the old site. However, I find the Forum not user friendly. Please correct me if I am wrong but this is how I must use it.

If there is a new posting you will not get an email notification in your inbox. You/I must first check the Forum to see if there are any new postings and then change the "Watch" button (upper right) to "Unwatch". Then you/I will receive notification that there is a new posting and follow ups to this posting. I don't find this very user friendly. If I am having this problem I'm sure others are also. It was not like this on the old site.

Why can't all new posting start with the "Unwatch" button? I also realize that by me posting this new posting many members may never see it.

Dennis Bork
 
Not to pile on, but you used to see how many views a posting had when you opened the posting, but not anymore. I'm curious how many have actually read a topic.
 
I think the new website looks much better than the old site. However, I find the Forum not user friendly. Please correct me if I am wrong but this is how I must use it.

If there is a new posting you will not get an email notification in your inbox. You/I must first check the Forum to see if there are any new postings and then change the "Watch" button (upper right) to "Unwatch". Then you/I will receive notification that there is a new posting and follow ups to this posting. I don't find this very user friendly. If I am having this problem I'm sure others are also. It was not like this on the old site.

Why can't all new posting start with the "Unwatch" button? I also realize that by me posting this new posting many members may never see it.

Dennis Bork
Dennis, I think that capability is still available - select a subforum (e.g., "Member Events") and you can then select to watch the entire sub-forum. This notifies you of any new post via an email alert, just like the old forum did (and it's a little easier to set).
 
Not to pile on, but you used to see how many views a posting had when you opened the posting, but not anymore. I'm curious how many have actually read a topic.
The presentation is a little different depending on how you are accessing the forum, but on a laptop or tablet you see the # of replies and the # of views listed on the subforum (before you click on the thread). On a phone you can only see the # of replies.
 
Mark,
I know what you mean, but I am willing to bet that most members to not know to do this. the words "Watch" & "Unwatch" mean just the opposite on this Forum. When I first saw the word "Watch" I thought it meant that I was watching this subforum and that I would be receiving email notifications. But as we know that is not the case. You must switch it to "Unwatch" to receive notices. Both words mean just the opposite in this case (bad computer programing).

On the old site you automatically received email notices unless you checked the box for each subforum to not receive notices. In the 1990's and early 2000's there were postings almost every day and sometimes every day. Now there are only a few or none every week, at least that is what I can see. Sad!

Dennis Bork
 
Mark,
I know what you mean, but I am willing to bet that most members to not know to do this. the words "Watch" & "Unwatch" mean just the opposite on this Forum. When I first saw the word "Watch" I thought it meant that I was watching this subforum and that I would be receiving email notifications. But as we know that is not the case. You must switch it to "Unwatch" to receive notices. Both words mean just the opposite in this case (bad computer programing).

On the old site you automatically received email notices unless you checked the box for each subforum to not receive notices. In the 1990's and early 2000's there were postings almost every day and sometimes every day. Now there are only a few or none every week, at least that is what I can see. Sad!

Dennis Bork
Dennis, I know what you mean, but when I saw the "Watch" button it seemed apparent that if I clicked it I would be able to watch the thread or forum. I'm sure some others would come to the opposite conclusion just as you did. It makes me think of a grad school course I took ~20 years ago called "the Human-Machine Interface." We spent a semester discussing how to make the interface so simple that it could not be misinterpreted...the conclusion was that you never can fully achieve that (but you can design to minimize the confusion). Alas, here we're using COTS software so we have to hope the original designers took a similar course.

I agree it's sad that the traffic has diminished on forums...a victim of social media I fear. We just heard from a member lobbying us to establish a SAPFM Facebook "Group" and decided not to pursue because it was redundant with this forum (and would take just as much effort to administer).
 
I agree it's sad that the traffic has diminished on forums...a victim of social media I fear. We just heard from a member lobbying us to establish a SAPFM Facebook "Group" and decided not to pursue because it was redundant with this forum (and would take just as much effort to administer).

Wonderful!
I'm not sure what the answer is but am sure it isn't Facebook. Yes, I would be one of those folks who refuses to sign up for Facebook.
It is sad, nearly every group I am a member of has some small faction that pushes for a move to Facebook and when they succeed I move on.
There are groups that I had planned on being a member for life that I have left, likely to never return.
 
Wonderful!
I'm not sure what the answer is but am sure it isn't Facebook. Yes, I would be one of those folks who refuses to sign up for Facebook.
It is sad, nearly every group I am a member of has some small faction that pushes for a move to Facebook and when they succeed I move on.
There are groups that I had planned on being a member for life that I have left, likely to never return.
Just to clarify: we were never considering taking anything out of our domain to move it to Facebook or any other social media platform, and wouldn't expect members to use those channels as the sole (or even primary) means of getting information. But we have embraced social media as an important element of our online presence...there are many prospective members out there who learn of us through those channels. It's also a good means of announcing our events to members who aren't visiting this forum (however much we might wish they would). All credit to Dave Redlin, who runs our Social Media committee and invests a considerable amount of his time to our FB, IG, and (to a lesser extent) Twitter channels.

It appears I've now pulled us well off the original topic - sorry!

Mark
 
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