Poll - Next Steps for Community Site

Hi Geoff,

Virus & Spyware Discussions, Networking, Internet, Wireless and not sure how many others seem to have been reverted back to day one of the new look Forums, those bookmarking sites (Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit) are back and more importantly, once again, only three posts are displayed per page in a thread.

Could you please also have a look at Favorites, no matter how many are saved, only the latest three are ever displayed

Thanks.:emotion-1:

Geoff,

More posts per page, like Red Dawn mentioned, also mark all read button is there but I don't see it do anything. In the old forum, it would change the unread posts from bold to regular text, so we could see which posts were new and which ones weren't. Also under the general listing, there was a date of last post and we could click on that instead of going through 100 pages to get to a post. Something like the latest post, which in ONLY in GROUP Forums but NOT in the Regular Forums. Actually we'd like something where when we enter a post, we can go to the first unread thread in that post so we can start from there.

Favorites, save 10, 3 only show. We have no way to get to any of our favorite posts to find the one we need to help others.

Search, you used to be able to select the number of posts per page, 10, 20, 50, 100. You only get 5, so you have many pages to look through to find the post you're looking for.

All images(Avatars) get messed up with every upgrade. They just don't show.

How about a special message, under the user panel on the whole website, when performing some type of maintenance or upgrade so we all know what's happening and when. After the last upgrade, we had things revert back to the old way, which is NOT good.

Navigation would also be great for all the users. It's hard to navigate from the New to the Community page. The navigation should be in the right column for all the pages here.

Many suggestions(VIP). Go through the first 3 pages carefully. We always suggest something or report problems.

Wiki's need cleaned out. People post their problems there. Where it says Dell Wiki, add your input, I think it should tell people what Wiki's are and that if they have problems, please post them in the Forums and give them the link to click on.

Our Forum Ranks used to be with every post we had.

Any way to find out how many Verified Answers we have. The old forum had Verified answers go to the top of search, when you would search the forums by username. You could count how many you had. (10,20,50, 100 per page)

Points, stars??? What are they for??? What good are they, especially if I give bad advice and then someone clicks all 5 stars??? They're useless. No one has explained this to everyone. Maybe you could shed some light on things for everyone to read.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure many other members will be able to provide more suggestions.

Rick

One of the first problems I run into when I enter this community is the scrolling back and forth it takes to read or write a post.  Someone wrote that the width of these pages are geared toward those with wide screens.  What about those of us that do not own wide screens? 

Nissi1

I think it is very simple, just put back the old forum

One of the first problems I run into when I enter this community is the scrolling back and forth it takes to read or write a post.  Someone wrote that the width of these pages are geared toward those with wide screens.  What about those of us that do not own wide screens?

I agree make the Forum posts 715 pixels, if they're going to use this size. Actually make the reply boxes the same size too, as when you're replying, it also terrible scrolling through the information.

Rick

Geoff,

Please put fixing the posting problems back at the top of this list. Forums were working very fast until they applied the 18 fixes, then they got slow again and error messages appeared when we posted, even when the post went trough. We would click the back button and then paste the post again and click post and then get duplicate post.

We are losing valuable member contributators bacause of the posting and the slowness of the forums. I clicked reply and it took over a minute for the page to load, that's unacceptable, sorry but it's getting fuftrating again. I used to be able to post quicker late at night when hardly anyone is here and I still have problems posting. The problems came back after the update.

Try using the forums for a day and help others and you'll actually see what we're talking about.

Rick

Quite right; the rejigged forums are abysmally slow, AWFUL to navigate, search would be a joke if it weren't tragedy as well as farce.  Where is the option to search by forum?  To specify exact phrases?  All the stuff that, you know, was actually USEFUL?  Whoever came up with this abysmal redesign should be shot. :emotion-12:

I suggest that more time is spent making sure orders are shipped rather than being delayed for 6 weeks rather than invest more money in a website. If Dell continues to frustrate and annoy what is left of their customer base, a website for feedback will really not matter.

Geoff,

Polls should have some type of a coding in them, when made, they become a sticky in the forum postes until they expire. Put a limit on the time polls can be taken for, say up to 30 days. Or at least have Dell employees have the ability to make them a sticky. Ask Larry or Gina how to do this.

Rick

I won't be satisfied until this abysmal excuse of a forum is trashed and the previous one restored.  As that is extremely unlikely to occur, Dell will no doubt be satisfied when it achieves the goal it has set for itself: a forum in which no one bothers Dell to provide meaningful and substantive support, a forum in which there is an extreme lack of experienced users volunteering their time and effort to help other users, a forum which is just as pretty and just as useless as the average Facebook or MySpace page is. Congrats Dell...you're well on your way. 

I voted "User Interface".  Keep your social networking site and the current data base, but add on a GUI linked to the user to user portion of the  database that looks and works like a normal BBS.  Make it functional and useful again. 

Aesthetic appeal?

Wake up, DCF powers-that-be, and listen to your customers. They ain't complaining about aesthetic appeal.

By the way, I think Facebook is super,  and this site can be just as good with a few tweaks.

I would like to see added:

1. The username and date of the most recent post for each thread displayed in a forum's main list of posts. (As it is now we have to open individual threads to see who last posted and when.) I've mentioned this before and included my reason, so I won't elaborate here.

2. The ability for members to subscribe to individual threads (rather than to an to entire forum).

Have a great day, everyone!

The WIKI's do need to be cleaned up because, as mentioned above, some members do not know how to use them, but please keep the WIKI's and blogs. They are a good way to share information.