Big changes to veganfitness!!!

[JP]

We are sorry about the downtime folks!

You probably got something like "forbidden" error message while we were working away in the background.

Please bear with us as we implement these new changes, the start will be quite confusing and there will be a lot of rough edges to smooth out. This will take us the best part of this week (we have jobs and kind of like a life as well ).

Anyways, i'm exited about all the possibilities these new features will give (and more coming up!).

[JP]

and regarding the new features, many of them don't yet work as you would expect them to do, and some features don't yet have all the needed categories, but watch this space over this week and you will see the forum evolving to something new and exiting

[fredrikw]

jeez, the front page looks cluttered... many new cool features indeed, great work!

[Rochellita]

yep, well we are still experimenting and the portal needs work obviously. Let's see what the overall reaction to the changes will be.

You can minimise the left upper navigation by clicking on the box and you can jump straight into the forum as well and stay there if that's what you prefer as a user, so there's flexibility at least.

Hopefully people will enjoy the added image galleries

[fredrikw]

well, when you have entered the forum, there's no way of getting back to the feature filled front page... so you should consider some other way of getting to these new features without using the portal-esque front page. personally, I think less is more and that the simplicity of the last version was a strength (visual simplicity that is, the new features are good I think)

[JP]

at the moment you can get back to the "home page" via the logo which goes to www.veganfitness.net

So what you are suggesting is that the new features would be added as just links on top of the page or something similar? That is possible. The portal software has a way to have the navigation spread horizontally instead as a side bar, so that could be on the top of the page.

The main aim here is to get new features such as articles and so on easily available and maintainable, as well as get the long awaited athlete profiles up. How the information is arranged on the home page is not set in stone at all and we can change it relatively easy.

[michaelhobson]

Thanks for the work you do to keep Vegan Fitness up and running!!!

Looking forward to seeing all the new features in use!

[fredrikw]

at the moment you can get back to the "home page" via the logo which goes to www.veganfitness.net

hm, this can very easily get confusing, since there's no clear difference between "Vegan Fitness" and Vegan Fitness Forum" for most users here. The question here is what Vegan Fitness really is, or rather should be. SO far it has been a forum. period. But what you/we are doing now is redefining this, and I'm not sure it's for the better since we are decoupling the information from the forum, which in effect is the community, but the strength here is the community and that the information is a community effort. By creating the portal thing we are making a distinction. Is this what we want to do?

So what you are suggesting is that the new features would be added as just links on top of the page or something similar? That is possible. The portal software has a way to have the navigation spread horizontally instead as a side bar, so that could be on the top of the page.

well, I would rather see the new features as add-ons to the forum/community, than the forum/community as an add-on to the features as it looks right now, it you understand what I mean.

The main aim here is to get new features such as articles and so on easily available and maintainable, as well as get the long awaited athlete profiles up. How the information is arranged on the home page is not set in stone at all and we can change it relatively easy.

yeah, that's a good idea.

[JO]

Those are good points that Fredrik has made. I do like the idea of an image gallery. Maybe at the top in the welcome section there could be copied forum highlights (by number of views) such as popular polls/threads, images, forbidden (but popular) tempests, etc?

[JP]

hm, this can very easily get confusing, since there's no clear difference between "Vegan Fitness" and Vegan Fitness Forum" for most users here. The question here is what Vegan Fitness really is, or rather should be. SO far it has been a forum. period. But what you/we are doing now is redefining this, and I'm not sure it's for the better since we are decoupling the information from the forum, which in effect is the community, but the strength here is the community and that the information is a community effort. By creating the portal thing we are making a distinction. Is this what we want to do?

i disagree with your assumption because everything we are building will be a community driven: articles can be written by anyone, submitted to a workflow and then published, links can be submitted by all members, every member has their photogallery and so on.

So the distinction is not what you described, community vs something else, but it is true that this will trancend from the pure forum format into something much bigger, but still community driven.

But lets see if this works in practise

But how this is done visually has to be decided over this week. We didn't want to install all of this and then just say "there you go". Active users will be seeing this develope and grow and can have input to the direction. We might need to set up some polls as well at some point to cauge opinion.

[fredrikw]

i disagree with your assumption because everything we are building will be a community driven: articles can be written by anyone, submitted to a workflow and then published, links can be submitted by all members, every member has their photogallery and so on.

we're not disagreeing on this at all, I know this, what I'm talking about is how it's packaged and presented to the user. making a distinction between the forum and "the rest" gives the image that there is a difference, which obviously is false, and that was the reason I commented on this, otherwise there wouldn't be any problem.

So the distinction is not what you described, community vs something else, but it is true that this will trancend from the pure forum format into something much bigger, but still community driven.

not on your side, or anyone else that knows this, but it might be percieved this way since the forum at present seems like a part of the new features and not the other way around.

But how this is done visually has to be decided over this week. We didn't want to install all of this and then just say "there you go". Active users will be seeing this develope and grow and can have input to the direction. We might need to set up some polls as well at some point to cauge opinion.

as I hope you understand my comments are strictly about the visual presentation, not about the fundamentals of the community.

[JO]

right: just formatting/visual presentation. why, it's the very feedback you were seeking

[JP]

we're not disagreeing on this at all, I know this, what I'm talking about is how it's packaged and presented to the user. making a distinction between the forum and "the rest" gives the image that there is a difference, which obviously is false, and that was the reason I commented on this, otherwise there wouldn't be any problem.

cool, though i'm not sure if I understand I would welcome suggestions on how else things could be organised, and we are of course somewhat constrained by the technology, but have a lot of room to manouvre.

I thought that the fact that the forum takes about 70% of the screen page on the home page would have sent a clear message that it is a forum driven online community site.

"the rest", like an article section or an image gallery, can only be incorporated to the forum via the look and feel, as well as the familiar usernames and controls - how else could that be done?

not on your side, or anyone else that knows this, but it might be percieved this way since the forum at present seems like a part of the new features and not the other way around.

i would love to hear more feedback on this issue, because i can't see it (though might have my eyes crossed now due to being a bit tired of staring at the screen )

as I hope you understand my comments are strictly about the visual presentation, not about the fundamentals of the community.

yeah, i think i misunderstood your first message a bit.

[JP]

made couple small changes:

The "welcome to VF" block is now on the right hand side, so that gives the forum section more space.

The right hand side column is now 40 pizels narrower, again giving forum more space and prominence.

Maybe at the top in the welcome section there could be copied forum highlights (by number of views) such as popular polls/threads, images, forbidden (but popular) tempests, etc?

we thought of that too, but when you place a block like that it takes the threads automatically from a database according to either reply numbers or views, and because of the nature of our boards all the "most popular" threads are training logs and then vegan strength table - and they remain constant throughout So that block would quickly lose its meaning...

[willpeavy]

Cool. The image gallery is a good idea