Change the "engine" for this forum to something more user freindly

[bieffe]

Use the same engine as www.femalebrides.com
This forum now has verybad searching facilities difficult to look up all the archives.
They using Vbulletin.com software
Please upgrade soon!!
Information here is good but very diffucult to search for it.

 

[creampuff]

Huh? Are you sure? I visited Femalebrides afew times and find their search damn hard to search. Female brides forum is only more colourful. Userfriendly, straightforwardness wise I definitely will want to use Singaporebrides. That's why i go Female brides afew times, give up leow. Maybe you are not familiar with Singaporebrides forum yet. Once you get familiarise with it I'm sure you'll find it useful

 

[wenn]

as a user of both forums, i just wanna give my views. each forum has its own plus & minus points..

in terms of search engine, i find singaporebrides forum is better as it gives me the specific post/message.. for FBO, it throws me the whole thread! it ain't helpful if the thread contains more than 20 pages... does that means i'll have to read thru more than 20 pages to find the info i want?

 

[hazel_t]

Femalebrides is definitely not better than this forum...so difficult to find the things i want and i think no of visitors also not as much as this forum.

But i think if we clean up the forum by deleting outdated stuff...would be better.

 

[beanie]

Still feel SG Brides is good, have no problem searching for things i want!

hazel, i like ur idea of deleting outdated stuff, but i also worry leh. coz sometimes i wish to search for a particular piece of advice on a certain area, i am 95% sure i can find it by using the keyword search. but sometimes, the postings is quite old, though still very useful. so if Chin Leng delete the older stuff, what if we can't find the info we want huh? *dilemna*...

 

[bieffe]

Well so many ppl oppose then I guess...this format of the forum is better then....but I still find it kinda messy and usually never get the search result I want.

 

[bugz^bunny]

Hi Bieffe,
Hehe maybe you very messy person, that's why FBO feel better to you loh. Do get to know this forum better, I'm sure you'll find it alot more Helpful and useful then FBO. I've long given up on FBO. It's just too much hassle. Feel FBO forum like bimbo. Look good but not helpful at all. When I do a search, throw me entire thread I have to look thru one by one. Headache. Singaporebrides is so organize, whatever I want is just a click away. Thou it's less fancy. But that's just the way I like it. CHINLENG!! WELL DONE!!! APPLAUSE!! APPLAUSE!!

 

[nicole]

hi wenn, FYI u can search on FBO as posts instead of threads. there is an option to click below the space where u type in yr keyword to search.

in my opinion, both Fbo and SB are both fantastic forums for wedding preps. and i think they shld be kept the way they are

cheers!

 

[chinleng]

Hi all,

Thank you for the feedbacks. In general, both system have their advantages and disadvantages. It would have made our evaluation much easier if one of them was a perfect system.

This system was chosen for its ease of use. One of the feature that we liked about the system is the results page of "Last 12 hours", "Last 24 hours" and "Last 3 days". It displays one line text of the postings which I thought that it was a good feature.

We have always been in the process of removing and consolidating some of the old topics. We usually remove a topic when the postings are no longer relevant or necessary so it'll not affect the information available in the forum.

Hi Bieffe,

May I know what were you searching for and I can try to search for you. Sometimes a different keyword would yield a better result. Please e-mail me at [email protected] and I may be able to assist you.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[candybar]

Hi Chin Leng,

This version of DiscusWare forum is already pretty out-dated. Shouldn't there be an upgrade to the latest version? The latest version is definitely more user-friendly, judging from the support site :

http://support.discusware.com/cgi-bin/forum/discus.cgi

I do have some comments regarding the current state of SB. I must first say that my comments are not very ear-pleasing but which I feel that you have to seriously consider if you want to retain the users of SB.

I have to admit that I am an avid SB user. But as days go by, I find that the format of the forum is indeed getting more and more out-dated. If we look around the web now, we will hardly find any forums that is still styled like SB. Old-style forums such as SB are already passe because they are practically a nightmare to navigate.

Here's why : I'm sure that all SB users will agree with me on one thing - the listing of threads in alpabetical order serves no purpose at all. Firstly, it takes a really long time for the entire listing of A to Z to be loaded. Secondly, similar threads such as "A good hairstylist" and "Where to find a good hairstylist" are at different ends of the listing.

Hence, I am reduced to using the keyword search to navigate SB. That's not how a forum should be! A forum should be thread-centric, and not merely be a search engine.

I hate to forsake SB as it has a lot of rich contents, but I find that I'm more and more drawn to other more navigable sites such as FBO

Please do something to save SB, Chin Leng!

 

[beanie]

Eerrr...... just a comment from someone who is very happy with the forum..... it doesn't matter to me whether i use the "search" function or "listing" function to find a posting i want. in fact, coz i usually dunno what i am looking for except for a general topic name, "search" gives me much valuable results...

Due to the many topics (as you said yourself, the site is RICH with contents), i dun think it's possible for chin leng to arrange it as thread centric, as different persons have difference questions to pose, some may be slightly different from others......

 

[beanie]

Oh something else to add...... sometimes i make a posting and i forget the title of the thread later. with the SB engine, i could always type in some key words that i remembered in my posting, then search for "text of messages"..... never fail me.

I also feel the SG format gives ppl more flexibility and freedom to post whatever they want, in whatever format of questions and queries...

perhaps you are more used to FBO, so u not used to SG brides. for me, i discovered SG brides b4 i even heard of FBO. So got used and likes the SG brides forum beri much......

 

[moonflower]

Hi Chin Leng

Think a posting under "wedding cards-Anyone has contact of Touch of Luv" has vulgarities. You may want to do something to it.

 

[candybar]

It is indeed sad but in my earlier posting, I actually named another forum which SB should learn from. But apparently, it was removed by this forum's administrator (could be Chin Leng or could be other administrators if there are any).

My original sentence was : "I hate to forsake SB as it has a lot of rich contents, but I find that I'm more and more drawn to other more navigable sites such as FBO and [name of another forum censored]."

Chin Leng, if you really feel that the format of SB is better, why should you censor away that portion of my posting? Why should you be afraid of existing SB users flocking to that forum if you really feel that SB is already good enough that nothing needs to be improved?

Afterall, shouldn't we encourage goodwill sharing?

 

[leeway]

Of course lah, he manage this forum, he can delete anything he likes especially those comments that shown him/this forum negatively or even the name of rival forum that have better technology and skill, afraid that people will migrate there if they read it. This is what I call communist censorship, can only said good things about the people governing this forum or else the ending is being 'deleted'.

Come on, Chin Leng, face up to the challenge and improve yourself or this forum for the better of all of us and not hide in you own well.

 

[teoteo]

hey candybar, can you email me the link of that forum?

my email addy is [email protected]

 

[pinokio]

I'm definitely all for the sharing of information among the brides-to-be (or brides-has-been

hehehe...)

Candybar, please email that forum's URL to me too : [email protected]

 

[lady_deathstrike]

Leeway wrote :

<SUP>Of course lah, he manage this forum, he can delete anything he likes especially those comments that shown him/this forum negatively or even the name of rival forum that have better technology and skill, afraid that people will migrate there if they read it. This is what I call communist censorship, can only said good things about the people governing this forum or else the ending is being 'deleted'.
Come on, Chin Leng, face up to the challenge and improve yourself or this forum for the better of all of us and not hide in you own well.</SUP>

Your take on the mentality of this forum's administrator is indeed candid, especially the term that you coined : "<FONT COLOR="ff0000">communist censorship</FONT>".

I guess the main issue here is the problem of navigating this forum. Contents-wise, it's still very much ok.

 

[kelly]

What forum is that? Can email me the link? Thanks.

[email protected]

 

[naddy]

Hi Chin Leng,

Initially I found it a nightmare to navigate through Sgbrides. But after a while, I got used to it. I do visit FBO once in a while but I'll always come running back to Sgbrides because, like what other users here have said, the Sgbrides' forum has a very rich content.

Unfortunately, I have to agree that there are forums that are much better in terms of layout. Icered.com is one. (I hate FBO's forum style, by the way). Posts in Icered are arranged according to how recent it is. Old posts are also available but they are not displayed as prominently.

By the way, I learnt about Singaporebrides from a posting in Icered.

And now I find myself visiting Sgbrides a lot more frequently than any other forums.

I hope you'll take up my suggestion!

 

[pinokio]

naddy, i agree with you : i also dun quite like FBO's forum style.

Maybe that's why Chin Leng did not censor out its URL in the starting post as he didn't see it as a threat?

Perhaps the forum that was censored out in candybear's posting indeed has a better layout than SB's. Hence that's why Chin Leng had to censor it out to prevent it from threatening SB's membership? *juz my 2 cents thots*

 

[chinleng]

Hi all,

Thank you for all the feedback. For all forums, each would have its own appeal and features. We've chosen to arrange the topics in alphabetical order (except the topics in Marketplace and Exchange Corner) as it allows some form of structure. For example, in the "Bridal Boutiques and Services" category, it is possible to locate postings on various boutiques if you look for the names alphabetically. No doubt, there are other similar topics but in general, it has lesser postings and when possible, we'll actually migrate it to their respective topics.

However, in categories like "Anything Under The Sun" the topics would be more varied and definitely it'll seem more disorganised. We have just recently removed 380 topics and we'll continue to do maintenance regularly by removing the older and less active topics.

Thread-centric layout may not be as suitable for us as compared to other forums as we have topics that are very specific like boutiques and wedding venues. If the specific topics are not arranged in alphabetical order, it'll be more difficult to locate them and new but similar threads would be created instead. This would make the postings of a similar topic distributed all over the forum instead of mostly being found in one main topic.

For users who would like to join the current active topics, it is made available by the search results of "Last 12 hours", "Last 24 hours" and "Last 3 Days" respectively. The results will be similar to the forums' whose layout is thread-centric.

As Candybar has pointed out, new versions of this software has been made available. However, the new version is only officially released on 31 December 2002, we would feel better to test out the upgrade before we implement the changes.

I apologise that some of you may have taken offense as I've removed the link of a forum. The purpose of the link was to show me an alternative layout which I've already taken a look.

It is common for moderators to frown upon the insertion of a link in the forum as it could be an attempt to redirect visitors or achieve promotion.

As it is difficult to know if the insertion of a link was a deliberate intention to abuse, we would generally remove the link especially when it is unrelated or no longer necessary. The link was removed since its objective (which was to show me the layout) was met.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[tpk]

Hi Chin Leng,

agree with you that every forum has it's pros and cons. but i do agree with some of the people here that the layout of the forum is kinda "OLD"

New forum like vbulletin, allows the user to choose the sort order they prefer. Thay also have "flags" to indicate if a thread has new posting since their last visit.

This is especially helpful. Imagine iff i came in at 1pm and gone through the last 12 hours new message. When i come back at say 4pm, i gotta search through the whole list again to find out what are the new post since i last log in. With the feature to display new post, members reading the forum will definitely have a more wonderful time.

these are just some of the many features in vbulletin. Maybe you will seriously think of upgrading. But well, even if you say no, there will still be many ppl willing to come in because of the rich content.

Final words .. time to upgrade ..

 

[tpk]

I went to the new discus page. They are already at the new version 4.0 .. and well, they have a pro version that you have to pay for it. But @149.95, i reckon you get a better forum software

my 2 cents

 

[chinleng]

Hi TPK,

Thank you for your feedback. I do agree that the SingaporeBrides may not be as visually appealing as compared to other forums but this forum was chosen mainly due to the following reasons:

<FONT COLOR="ff6000">1. It has frames based navigation whereby the navigation is always available on the left side of the forum no matter how far down you may have scrolled down to read the messages.

2. It has a one-click search functions whereby you can click to view the active topics of last 12 hours, 24 hours or 3 days.

3. The search results are still arranged in the order of the categories that have been arranged, meaning that new posts on "Bridal Boutiques and Services" will still be grouped under "Bridal Boutiques and Services", instead of having new posts only grouped by its posting date.

4. The search results show you a brief one-liner of each messages posted within the selected time-frame.

5. Even though the 'look' of the forum seems old but it actually differentiates itself from other forums as it looks different.</FONT>

I agree that there are some limitations in this forum but so far the above features have served their purposes well.

We are definitely opened to comments and feedbacks but it is just that we've also received comments and e-mails that the forum is easy to use. I guess for all forum layout, it'll definitely have its own group of supporters and detractors. It may not be possible to have a forum layout that fits everyone's needs and requirements.

As posted in my previous message, we are aware that the new version 4 has been released. It has just been released for 4 months only. We'll be watching the stability and reviews closely before we implement the upgrade. We'll also need to conduct our own testings to see if the new upgrade suits our needs. The upgrade definitely has added features that we like but it also has added features that we didn't like. As such, we'll need to evaluate the changes before implementation.

You can identify new messages since your last visit by noting the different colours of the postings as illustrated below:

<CENTER>

</CENTER>

<FONT COLOR="aa00aa">Purple</FONT> would mean "threads with no postings since last visit" and <FONT COLOR="0000ff">blue</FONT> would mean "threads with new postings since last visit".

Alternatively, you can also use the Search By: Days option and select the newest messages up to the minutes since you last checked.

Changing a new forum engine is a very drastic decision which will not be made lightly. All forums have its own pluses and minuses and we'll consider all comments and feedbacks serioulsy.

We really appreciate everyone for taking the time to post the comments and suggestions.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[lsc]

Hi Chin Leng,

Back in May 2002 (a year ago!), there is already a posting informing you of better forum engines
that allows each user to sort topics in their own most preferred way (hopefully this link won't get censored off "after you have looked at it and it has served its purpose"

)

Hence, these better forum engines solve the existing SB problems once and for all! By all means, sort the "Bridal Boutiques" and "Wedding Venue" topics by alpabetical order while other topics by date... these engines allow you to do that! Furthermore, each individual user can even sort the topics according to the way that they most prefer! On the other hand, the existing SB engine can do none of these!

To repeatedly use the phrase "each forum has its pros and cons" to defend the SB forum engine (which obviously has no pros but only cons when compared to the suggested engines) is definitely starting to sound like a lame excuse.

 

[tpk]

LSC : harsh words you have

to be fair to SB, the forum has serve it's function well. But the many of use who are requesting for a change in the engines just feels that a new engine will do a better job

my 2 cents

TPK

 

[toothfairy]

dear chin leng,

is it possible to provide pagination for the pages that display listings? the other forums that i've been to actually allow users to control the number of items to be listed in each page.

for people like me who are using dialup connections, it can take ages for the current SB listings to be loaded. sometimes even worse, the page just stops loading halfway and i've got to click on 'refresh' to repeat the whole process again.

it is also quite frustrating to wait for all the messages in this thread to be loaded before the text box appears for me to post this reply.

 

[chinleng]

Hi LSC,

My posting was not meant as excuses. I'm sorry that you viewed it that way. The posting was more on sharing the reasons behind the choice of the forum software.

I am also aware of the advantanges of the software you mentioned. However, it may not be possible for us to use another engine as the conversion tool for our current data is not available. If that's the case, we'll have to wait for future improvements on this engine instead.

Like I mentioned earlier, we also have users who like the current format and would like to keep it the way it is.

In general, from the feedback received, one thing that is of more immediate concern is to remove the outdated threads which will be constantly done.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[chinleng]

Hi Toothfairy,

Currently, this is a limitation to the forum. It can't allow users to choose the number of topics to display for each listing.

However, for the new messages listing, you may like to use the function "Search By: Days" and choose "Messages posted within the last x hours". X can be anything between 1 to 6 hours and it'll return you a much shorter listing and easier for your download.

Regarding the messages in the thread, we have a similar pagination process. Whenever a thread has 100 messages, 60 messages would be moved to an archive and 40 messages would be left. We have now increased the frequency of the archiving process and you should be able to load the thread faster as each thread would have lesser messages.

It'll take a while before the process is fully implemented and we apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[lazy88]

can we search by key word? eg, so that in the headings 'honeymoon and travel', we can immediately access those threads with maldives, rather than having to go through topic by topic. Some people can create topic with Maldives anyone? that starts with M, others Honeymoon in maldives that starts with H, Anyone been to Maldives that starts with A. SO a search by key word would be good.

 

[chinleng]

Hi Lazy88,

Yes, you can search by keyword by clicking on "Search By: Keyword" link available on the left side navigation of the forum.

You'll be presented with a page as shown in the image below:

<CENTER>

</CENTER>

Just type in the keyword "Maldives", for example, and select to search the "Subject lines". That should return you the results you are looking for.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[lazy88]

thanks you. now i know why i asked the stupid question. IE does not show the left side navigation of the page. i went to netscape and everything is self explanatory. BUT netscape is slow.

 

[chinleng]

Hi Lazy88,

Thank you for the feedback. May I know which version of IE are you using so that I can investigate further. I've used both IE 6 and Netscape 7 to test the forum and both showed the left side navigation.

You may like to upgrade to Netscape 7 if you've not already done so. The performance of Netscape 7 is an improvement over its earlier version.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[lazy88]

I'm using IE6. Communicator is 4.76.
rgds

 

[ssb]

recruit some volunteers as moderators, arrange all the theads in date order for easier browsing. those that visit other vBulletin forums before will know what i talking.

 

[chinleng]

Hi Sunsetbay,

Thank you for the suggestion. We've visited vBulletin forums before but we actually prefer the current forum software that we have implemented.

For our topics that are related to wedding, we think that it would be more helpful to couples if the topics are arranged in alphabetical order. It would be easier for couples to locate their topics of interest. However, our fourm also allows users to check for the most current thread that is within the last 12, 24 or 72 hours too. For that, it is simply just a click away.

We currently do not recruit volunteers as moderators as we hope that the moderation of the forum could be consistent and thus the task lies mainly on my shoulder. But this decision will constantly be relooked as it is getting tougher each day for the moderation to be done by me alone.

I also need to apologise that the link which you've included in your post was removed. This is because we normally do not encourage local links to be posted in the message.

However, that said, I do know of a friend who is working in the company which you've posted. He has helped me before and it does pain me to have to remove the link but being a moderator, I do have certain rules to abide to.

Regards,
Chin Leng.

 

[filippo]

This is a great forum but it's very difficult to track the threads I'm currently active in. The search engine is probably good enouogh but I can't remember which threads I've commented on so inevitably I'll give up tracking some after a while.

Search results are also organised in a "tree" sort of way, which is noble but very un-forum like so there is a certain learning curve involved. Right now when I click "post" on this message I don't think I'll be able to come back to it later easily - it's just so hard to find. I'll have to remember the exact name of the thread and do a "control-f". Yikes.

 

[filippo]

Hi mods, is it just me or do I have to re log-in everytime I come back in? There's no "Remember me" option anywhere.. am I doing something wrong?