Suggested Improvements

[Iceaxe]

Here are my suggested improvements to this forum......

Motorcycling
Four Wheelers
Off Road 4X4
Motorsports/Racing
Snowmobiles

should all be consolodated under

Motorsports
Racing, 4x4, motorcycles, ATV, Snowmoblies

Snow Boarding, Skiing, XC & Nordic
Snowshoeing

should all be consolodated under

The Greatest Snow on Earth
Skiing & Snowshoeing

Flatwater: Canoeing & Tubing
Whitewater: Rafting & Kayaking
Boating

should all be consolidated under

Boating
Rafting, Canoeing, Tubing, Kayaking, sailboats and motorboats

There are probably a few more topics that can be combined....

And that dumbass slide show at the beginning if you enter under uutah.com needs to go!!! I get more complaints about that then any other feature of this board. Beginners get lost and bail out without and easy to find ENTER button. At the very least the dumbass slideshow needs a major overhaul....

[stefan]

Snow Boarding, Skiing, XC & Nordic
Snowshoeing

should all be consolodated under

The Greatest Snow on Earth
Skiing & Snowshoeing

... and the snowboarders will complain that they feel left out and need their own license plate

if this were to happen i'd say ... well, just remember, a snowboard is technically a ski

[scoutabout]

And "Environmental Issues" and "Political Arena" should be consolidated into "Troll Central."

Leave it as is.

[Sombeech]

Beginners get lost and bail out without and easy to find ENTER button.

We call that the "filter".

[Alex]

Beginners get lost and bail out without and easy to find ENTER button.

I have seen that in the past as well, people would just sit there and look at pretty pictures and wonder why I sent them there in the first place. Also, going to uutah.com on a blackberry is a pain in the royal ass, I have to type the whole url out for the forums, cause by the time the whole page loads it reloads itself over, so I have to a be a super ninja and time it right to push the "enter" button.

[tanya]

The group also has a ton of big photos, which might be the reason for all the log in errors we get. Perhaps deleting older photos is a good idea and not having them on the opening slide show.

On the otherhand.... the slide show makes 'Beech happy! He loves doing that.

The number one most important aspect of a site is that it must open fast and be usable by everyone! Flashy sites with big photos loose a bunch of people because their dial up is slow.

[stefan]

[Also, going to uutah.com on a blackberry is a pain in the royal ass, I have to type the whole url out for the forums,

forgive me if i sound ignorant ... but do blackberry's not have bookmarks?

[Sombeech]

The slideshow photos aren't linked to any of the threads. They are in an independent folder, and most are sized around 640 X 480, and around 40kb in filesize, so these shouldn't be too much of a problem to open.

Overall, there has been a majority who like the slideshow, so....

As far as being confused at the homepage, I've heard that once from somebody, but this is the same person who just opened his first email account, and I had to help type his first message. I don't get the feeling that this is a general consensus.

Maybe an "Enter uutah.com" sign may help up top, but people would think they could only click that link, rather than ANYWHERE on the page.

No offense to anybody, but this is the internet. If pictures and features scare people away, Yahoo's main page has probably driven them into seizures. I've never heard of somebody taking more than 10 seconds trying to find the "search bar" amongst Yahoo's titles and pictures.

We are a group that love to take pictures. I'd hate to keep pictures locked away in the threads where only canyoneers would enjoy canyon photos, and bikers would enjoy biking photos.

If we are sending a forum link to somebody who may be challenged in this area, maybe it's best to send the www.uutah.com/forum link. There will always be programs and sites that my father doesn't understand, like YouTube, but I think we know which of them needs to do the changing.

[Sombeech]

I agree with condensing some more of the forums, according to the topic of creating a new photo forum. (my vote is undecided on the matter)

Some of the forums with under 100 topics are the focus, and especially under 50.

But there's a lot of work that can be done, and I'm already busy. That's really what it comes down to, is how late do we want to stay up, without pay, to fine tune this hobby?

I think this will go on the To Do list though.

[hank moon]

And "Environmental Issues" and "Political Arena" should be consolidated into "Troll Central."

Leave it as is.

spoken like a true conservative!

[hank moon]

ignore button

[tanya]

I think 'Beech called us old.

[Sombeech]

I think 'Beech called us old.

No comment, except, if you can find your way past the home page, you've passed the test. I actually have experience with a bunch of 20 year olds who are still clueless on the computer.

But seriously, if this homepage filters people out, how would we ever expect them to reply/create a thread, let alone attach a picture?

[gonzo]

The group also has a ton of big photos, which might be the reason for all the log in errors we get. Perhaps deleting older photos is a good idea and not having them on the opening slide show.

Based on the error messages, the White Screen of Death errors we've been seeing lately ("Could not connect to the database") isn't caused by the large number of images on the site. It's caused by too many people connecting to the site at once, and maxing out the number of available database connections.

[Iceaxe]

Maybe an "Enter uutah.com" sign may help up top, but people would think they could only click that link, rather than ANYWHERE on the page.

I think there should be a BIG ASS ENTER BUTTON on both the top and bottom of the slide show entrance if you intend to keep the stupid slide show thingy..... and filtering out noob's is a massive mistake!!!!

If a computer noob joins your forum and is comfortable right out of the gate they usually stick around and contribute for a long time. You want to grab a noob before he finds anther forum where he is comfortable. You have to do a little hand holding with computer noob's but it's well worth the effort when building a strong net community.

That you are getting multiple complaints about a feature should be reason enough to review and improve it.

[Sombeech]

That you are getting multiple complaints about a feature should be reason enough to review and improve it.

K, so is the ENTER button the main issue? That should be easy enough.

[Iceaxe]

K, so is the ENTER button the main issue? That should be easy enough.

I would call "Navigation" the main issue. An easy to identify enter button above and below the slideshow should eliminate the problem.

[hank moon]

I would call "Navigation" the main issue. An easy to identify enter button above and below the slideshow should eliminate the problem.

yes. see attached for screenshot w/o visibly obvious "enter" link.

[Sombeech]

It seems there is a problem with more than just the ENTER link, but anyways.

When I was a newbie to the internet, I realized that when my "pointer thingy" went from arrow to finger, I could click there, and magical things awaited me.

This problem can be easily fixed. But let's be honest, would a top ENTER sign solve all of the negative feedback?

Plus, wouldn't another ENTER link be more flashy?

[tanya]

The group also has a ton of big photos, which might be the reason for all the log in errors we get. Perhaps deleting older photos is a good idea and not having them on the opening slide show.

Based on the error messages, the White Screen of Death errors we've been seeing lately ("Could not connect to the database") isn't caused by the large number of images on the site. It's caused by too many people connecting to the site at once, and maxing out the number of available database connections.

But there are only a few people that post or log in every day... it's not like there are hundreds... or even a hundred?