Let's upgrade/reform the USER FORUMS

I would like to suggest Pond5 consider upgrading the user forums. I suggest this because, personally, I want to encourage more comments from a broader number of forum readers. If not more actual comments, then a means of polling the vast non-writing readers on the comment read. We do know the number of readers out numbers contributors - I don't know by what amount.

All posts, including posts by forum hounds (such as myself) with strong opinions need to incorporate a means of ranking the reputation of the poster. Sounds drastic - but not if you have ever played a multi-user online game. Quite useful. With only occasional moderator intervention here, I suggest we crowd-source the forum participants. Why? - if it isn't broke don't fix it. I think it is broke, in terms of potential posters. With thousands of contributors and readers, why is the forum dominated by the usual suspects - because we just don't count those who don't write. Let's change the feedback loupe. People are hesitant to speak up when confronted by small cabals of insistent opinion. I think twice. I have received unsolicited private posts, from several Pond5 forum members, saying they didn't want to post on a particular issue in anxiety of being mauled highly visible forum members. I am certain some folks feel the same way about me.

Specifically, I would like to see a poll for ranking of relevance/reputation. This would be: How useful to do you find the post comment? Not useful. Useful. Very Useful. This poll could generate a contributor reliability reputation symbol, graded in percent somehow and an icon on the comment. This would have good feedback (I think) on the quality of the posts. We care what the other monkeys think of us. At the most basic, there could be LIKE button.

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The forums really needs a touchup. When we started Pond5 we chose to do our own forum code because the existing forums softwares seemed to announce security exploit patches more often than I change underwear and I'm a reasonably hygienic person.

How about we all write suggestions we want for a week in this thread and then we'll try to compile the features you'd like?

We could also cut out the forum to another server if there's an existing forum software that is stellar.

Tom's already explained to me, in a way that cannot be misunderstood in any way, how much the [tag]things[/tag] suck compared to a proper wysiwyg editor of some sort.

Like or unlike is a bad idea. Too many artists here who enjoy the personal attack policy will do it more in an anonymous way. Far too many strong opinions to start a rating system in these forums. As long as everyone keeps out of the personal attacks leave it alone. Everyone here talks about everyone else behind there back. Keep it in the background, it's a much nicer thread that way. It's already easy to block threads or artists comments from those you don't want to hear from. My only suggestion is better overview in stopping personal attacks faster.

Also fix the reply block so when it expands we can still see all the writing. Once it's expanded the lines are cut off and can't be recovered.

Phanto, respectfully, the problem with your suggestion is in a largely unmoderated forum - some very dominant personalities do just that. Dominate. Sometimes, they have limited or negative social skills. Sometimes they are neurotic and controlling personalities. In this system, certain social types become the most vocal and we are in a de facto tyranny of the loud with time on their hands. This is typical of unmoderated forums, although this one is better than most. These tools I'm suggesting incorporating have proven results - at this point they run out of the box. Of course, the majority of conversation here is civil and informative. It's all just rather limited to a vocal few talking endlessly to each other. Not an accident.

In a normal community, where we are face to face, we all size each other and our value up. This keeps people playing square and honest. My one time "not useful" check if I don't like you personally isn't a particular danger. 30 of them from 30 different readers you should consider useful input! Or the reverse. Don't you want some real feedback on your social behavior? Don't we all need it? No man is an island.

The thrust of this suggestion is to give the forums a tiny chunk of the checks and balance of a real community, up the level of exchange and encourage "the silent majority" to somehow be heard and participate.

In my opinion any anonymous polling in public forums is a bad idea. There are few long-term and new spammers on Pond5 forums and nobody was able to stop their behavior in changing topic of any thread.
In the old Uploads page there was a Rating column similar to suggested Polling and now this rating gone for good.
Marcus can tell what is ratio of Writers / Readers in Pond5 Forums.
Zygis

I've been selling on Pond since late 2008 but only just started posting in the forums a few months ago. The main reason for that was I didn't realise the forum was here a good couple of years! Maybe a more prominent link on the homepage might encourage more visitors?

I'm not a fan of the like / unlike option either. I think it'll be too easily open to abuse and focus more on negativity. I also think it would deter newbies who might fear a tidal wave of "unlikes" if they rehash old topics / ask basic questions without researching etc.

Web forums are a well known haven of anonymity across the internet and to be honest if anyone is "scared" from posting here by some of the more active participants I think that says more about their own social skills rather than those of the regular posters on here! We're hardly a scary bunch!

Now what would be quite fun and useful way for newcomers to see who are the more established posters is a post count and corresponding ranking. For example someone with less than 50 posts could be ranked "$10 HD seller" and poster with 5000+ tally could be ranked "James Cameron's DoP." (Jokkkeeeee)

- Improve the search engine to search by forum.
- General Discusion Forum should be rename "Artists Latest Additions" and double the topics that you can see. Many newbies put ridiculous things there, because it is the first forum and therefore the more visible.... I did.
- Place General Discusion Forum some place else hidden from people that are not logged in.
- Maybe make a "Buyers Inquiry Forum"
- "Comments and suggestions", "General Discussion Forum". "Critiques" should not be seen if you are not logged in to P5.
- Let us embed photos in forums.

Spend the time and money fixing the buyer side, search side, data side first. Then when the programmers have enhanced the sales for everyone to the maximum and they are bored to death then the artist forum can be tinkered with. Yes the insert photo would be an easy and positive enhancement. A count on thread comments would be nice.

I think a rating system of some type might not be a bad thing. I have seen this on several forums and it really makes it quick to sieve through stuff that may not be applicable to an inquiry or question. Many of the "how to" forums do this. Heck, even Creative Cow has a Like or (thumbs up) and a Dislike (thumbs down) on any response or inquiry. The counters are totally anonymous but sure make it easy on deciding which response or inquiry to read first. Many of the news type sites' comment boards do this as well. Perhaps something even as simple as this might do that trick. Youtube also comes to mind. Simple, yet effective.

I totally agree with phantomewo!