We'd like to hear from you about the future of our forums

-Craig

Oh, I think you should include all posts for at least a year in your new system. Another thing that would be nice would be for threads to be automatically locked after, say, six months of inactivity. As you know, occasionally irrelevant threads from several years ago are (probably unwittingly) revived.

Hi Craig, good topic for discussion!

My initial thoughts:-

# I agree with Maharg on automatic locking, but I’d make it after 12 months.

# The option to state and save my time zone so I see what the real time was when the posts were made rather than what the date and time was in San Francisco then I can judge whether I’m making a timely reply without lots of mental arithmetic.

# The ability to edit/delete a post. But I think once a reply has been posted changes/deletion should be locked, it could be really confusing trying to follow the thread with points in posts being commented on only to have those points removed from the original post.

# I’d vote like Maharg for a notification option so I know when posts I’ve made have been replied to, sometimes I forget to look – especially embarassing if they have asked a follow up question.

# An option to quickly see a list of (recent) posts I have yet to read. Implies some form of tag to say I’ve read them though. If the latter not possible maybe an option to say show me the posts made in the last (say) 24 hours (maybe timeframe could be adjustable).

#  A "Report SPAM" button. Letting you know when I see a bunch of spam posts takes way longer now you’ve "improved" your Contact Support dialogue. All those (very tempted to put an expletive here) options and questions may make life easier for your team when the e-mail arrives but it makes raising a simple issue quite frustrating these days – why do you need to know which web browser and operating  system I was using when I spotted the spam?

#  A BIG banner on home page of the forums saying how, and when, to contact Customer Support and that forums are mainly for user-to-user communication. Most people will not sit down and read the Community Guidelines before making their first post so do not realise that the forums are not the way to get help from Blurb staff. Or on a user’s first use of the forums suggest they read the Community Guidelines.

#  Ability to upload an image into the post rather than having to spend time uploading it to another site then pasting that url into the "tree" pop-up in the post itself.

#  An option to send a poster a private message PLUS an option for a user to say yes or no to receiving private messages.

#  I’m not sure about statistics, could be interesting. But how about a book token for every 500 posts – that would mean you owe me about six or seven book tokens now :-) Maybe I should have made each of these suggestions via a separate post?

…..Tony

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the suggestions and we’ll see what we can implement. As far as us asking for browser and operating system; I’m not sure we still ask for this. I would try clearing your cache and seeing if it still asks (sometimes old sessions get stuck if you don’t do this).

-Craig

Voice from the past. I couldn’t help myself. I echo everyone’s really good suggestions. Hi Tony and CSM. Looking forward to the changes, though I have to admit I don’t hang out here like I used too. ; )

Also, the word "here" in the thread title should be "hear".  Now would be a good time to have a post editing feature :)

Mike