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wish you would return to having the top markets as subjects for boards..
- Thread starter audiofool
- Start date
Yeah---I have to say, I miss being able to see at a glance if something was happening in the big markets. I'm really unlikely to ever click on anything but the "California" board as it's designed now. And looking at L.A. or San Francisco now requires three clicks--"Western States">"California">(Specific Market)" instead of one.
All boards are accessible directly from the home page. Just click sub-forums under each region.
The poll we conducted last month backed up my thoughts that the majority of users use the "What's New" tab to get an overview of all of the posts in one place. The intent in the switch was to prevent endless scrolling on the homepage with people being overwhelmed with choices and to enable the display of the top markets and the wider regions in the same place. This is why we've been consolidating low usage boards as well.
But since this does keep coming up, some sort of compromise will be implemented to enable all the boards from being listed on the main page.
Yeah, but, Lance---that was part of my complaint:
I appreciate the reasons for the changes, your being back in charge and the hard work involved. This is just constructive criticism. It takes more work to see the markets I'm naturally interested in and things that I might find interesting elsewhere won't immediately be obvious with a glance at the Top 20 markets on the home page.
"What's New" is an okay compromise, but it now includes stuff I'm absolutely not interested in---and depending on the timing of the new comments, it can be an entire list of stuff I'm not interested in.
I don't think I'm alone in this, or even in the minority, but I could be wrong.
There's always the option to add the forum you want to look at to your "Watched Forums" page:
Just click "Watch" on the right hand side once you're in the forum you want to stay updated on.
Just click "Watch" on the right hand side once you're in the forum you want to stay updated on.
Okay---how did I not know about that? Thanks, radiofan!
....and now that I've done that, I see that I could, in fact, use "Watched Forums" as my de facto homepage, and simply "watch" the Top 20 markets to replicate the original view.
That's an interesting factoid, and I too intend to try it out.
That notwithstanding, I have some advice for Lance, acquired from decades of professional software and support work: Listen To Your Users. I've been detecting a strain of "I know better" arrogance in the last few weeks, and if you keep it up it's going to come back and bite you in the ass. (Speaking from experience, with a lot of scars to prove it.)
Unless you want to follow down the well-trodden path of a certain dentist, show a little humility. (I think that was one of the traits that endeared Frank to us.) In this particular case, I seriously doubt recreating one additional homepage entry with 20 links to other established pages would be a heavy lift, or much maintenance effort. And Mike ain't the one and only participant who's asked for the feature, it's been a steady drumbeat for awhile now.
Again, Listen To Your Users.
That notwithstanding, I have some advice for Lance, acquired from decades of professional software and support work: Listen To Your Users. I've been detecting a strain of "I know better" arrogance in the last few weeks, and if you keep it up it's going to come back and bite you in the ass. (Speaking from experience, with a lot of scars to prove it.)
Unless you want to follow down the well-trodden path of a certain dentist, show a little humility. (I think that was one of the traits that endeared Frank to us.) In this particular case, I seriously doubt recreating one additional homepage entry with 20 links to other established pages would be a heavy lift, or much maintenance effort. And Mike ain't the one and only participant who's asked for the feature, it's been a steady drumbeat for awhile now.
Again, Listen To Your Users.
You are forgetting that Lance has two things going for him: 1) the experience as a founder of that board who saw it nearly ruined by improper management and 2) keen awareness of the fact that radio today is very different from what it was even a decade or so ago.
There is a system for making specific boards "favorites". That should replace the need for screen after screen of subsets.
And, if you really want to make sure you see everything, just do a click on "what's new" and you will see all the newer posts... often some in boards you may not be interest in but, in some case, subjects you do want to read.
My advice is to try adapting to the new system. It is cleaner and more compact and there are several ways of keeping up with your favorite boards.
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This is what I do - I have most of the radio boards selected as "watched" but exclude the television side which is high traffic and generates a lot of "new posts" but is of no interest.
If there can be 25 "format" links on the home page why can't the top 20 or 25 markets have a direct links too?
If the goal is to declutter the home page I would like to suggest a link that says "formats". You click it and you get the laundry list of format links. Replace the format links with direct links to the top 20 or 30 markets.
I am pretty sure today, July 2nd there are more folks trying to FIND the NYC board than is visiting the Christmas format page. I don't have access to your traffic counts but I believe there are more threads on the New York City and LA sites than all of the format sites' threads together.
I realize us posters are not the "customers" but our head count and activity brings in advertising.
Any thing the site can do to make it easy to navigate to the active threads should be a priority. Right now NYC is 3 clicks: Northeast, New York State then New York City. The site is now requiring long time users that were used to checking out favorite major market (Atlanta for me) with one click now to navigate 3 steps. IMHO not user friendly.
If the goal is to declutter the home page I would like to suggest a link that says "formats". You click it and you get the laundry list of format links. Replace the format links with direct links to the top 20 or 30 markets.
I am pretty sure today, July 2nd there are more folks trying to FIND the NYC board than is visiting the Christmas format page. I don't have access to your traffic counts but I believe there are more threads on the New York City and LA sites than all of the format sites' threads together.
I realize us posters are not the "customers" but our head count and activity brings in advertising.
Any thing the site can do to make it easy to navigate to the active threads should be a priority. Right now NYC is 3 clicks: Northeast, New York State then New York City. The site is now requiring long time users that were used to checking out favorite major market (Atlanta for me) with one click now to navigate 3 steps. IMHO not user friendly.
Thanks for calling attention to the "watched forums" option! Is there some way to call more attention to it? Maybe a pinned post?
Just an observation: it seems that a handful of participants reply to every post on every forum. For them the the "new posts" and "what's new" links are perfect. But others might just want to follow NYC or PA or LA or some other specific topic.
The current format supports both, but it's a little tricky to configure. Overall I think the forum is moving in the right direction.
Just an observation: it seems that a handful of participants reply to every post on every forum. For them the the "new posts" and "what's new" links are perfect. But others might just want to follow NYC or PA or LA or some other specific topic.
The current format supports both, but it's a little tricky to configure. Overall I think the forum is moving in the right direction.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I don't know why I didn't think of that either, Mike. We'll need to form a club.
But I had just been using the Los Angeles board as my bookmark for this site (which is a habit I had going all the way back to the Radio-Info days).
I just set up "watched forums" and it is a great feature! I feel really dumb. This is my 20th year on this board and I have never looked at the more advanced features. I can now see my favorite big markets and some of the smaller ones I like. I always like to see those Alaska posts when they show up. 
That's how I answered, but it was a poll that only allowed respondents to pick one answer. Truth is, I use multiple methods to navigate the board depending on what device I'm on, how many alerts I have when I arrive, and what used to show up in the at-a-glance summaries. On my PC I would check all of those places before clicking on "What's New" at the top of the page. I miss seeing the Top 20 Markets list because you could see the latest post subject line under each market name at a glance, which has been removed from all the categories now. It was a super quick way to see if there was anything new or interesting trending at the top of each forum with no clicks.
On my phone, yes, I would click "What's New" first because the phone display lacks as much detail as the full site, so that was the best way to check. But I'm only using my phone maybe a third of the time or less to come here.
The trouble with polls, and focus groups, is very often they put words into peoples mouths, or force them to make a choice that doesn't really reflect reality. And then you get the answer you wanted to see because the way it was presented steered their answers that way. For what it's worth, when you asked the question, the answer I would have given wasn't in the list so I thought I picked the closest match, but not really.
I never use my phone for this board. As you stated, there is less detail. Part of my happy time each day is to sit at my 17" screen laptop and read the forums I like. The top is RD and right behind it is Cruise Critic. How is that for diversified interests?
The reason I suggested substituting top 20 or 30 markets for formats is for "new" folks that might use this site. Bookmark and following is great for experienced users but someone new that came here for "his / hers" market shouldn't have to recall geography*. Based on the number or responses which most likely reflect the interest levels the top 20 or 30 markets way out number the formats.
* Google maps, Waze and GPS have just about destroyed any map reading skills with anyone under 30. My son only learned the state maps to get out of 6th grade. If you ask him where a city is he is clueless until he looks it up on the Internet. He is is an Engineer who is graduating this August Magna or Summa *** Lauda (depends on his last class grade Calculus 3 grade). My Dad had a Mathematics degree and would have done a Physics Masters but his GI bill ran out. BTW: the math knowledge skipped my generation.
* Google maps, Waze and GPS have just about destroyed any map reading skills with anyone under 30. My son only learned the state maps to get out of 6th grade. If you ask him where a city is he is clueless until he looks it up on the Internet. He is is an Engineer who is graduating this August Magna or Summa *** Lauda (depends on his last class grade Calculus 3 grade). My Dad had a Mathematics degree and would have done a Physics Masters but his GI bill ran out. BTW: the math knowledge skipped my generation.
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