Your Forum Wishlist

[Phillip]

In the near future we're going to be making some major upgrades in our forum as we'll be moving to a new software platform. Therefore, we wanted to see if there were any requests from you of forum updates that you would like to see.

Basically, post here and let us know what your requests are. If there are features you've seen implemented on other forums that you would like us to consider feel free to post the details here.

Please Note: We'll be announcing in advance when these upgrades will be occurring. The forum will experience some downtime during this process, so please follow our Facebook and Twitter accounts if you want to stay up-to-date with the upgrade process as it happens. We'll announce on Facebook and Twitter immediately when the forum is back on-line again.

 

[dmoss]

I would love to see fully-integrated and interactive user profiles...the kind where you can leave a message on someone's wall, and you can design the background for yourself, and show some individuality.

Also, has the rep system ever been used here?

 

[GonzoLover85]

I would love to see two things:

1) the ability to add pictures or thumbnails even to posts.

b) while it may be highly unlikely, I would love to see a real-time chat-room type thingy. Where members can chat back and forth in a group setting about whatever comes to mind.

 

[D'Snowth]

I would love to see two things:

1) the ability to add pictures or thumbnails even to posts.

b) while it may be highly unlikely, I would love to see a real-time chat-room type thingy. Where members can chat back and forth in a group setting about whatever comes to mind.

We tried the first one before, but it did NOT last long, because of concerns of bandwidth usage... but as large as this forum is, with countless members (a lot of which have 0 post counts), I don't see how a few little images here and there is going to eat up that much more bandwidth.

Speaking of which, I think one thing that would help the forum, if you ever decide to take this into consideration Phil: if there are accounts that still retain a 0 post count after X-amount of time, don't you think it would be benefit to delete the account altogether? I see accounts with 0 post counts that say the member's last sign on was like way back in 2002, 2003, 2004, etc... if they haven't signed on since THEN, what are the odds they're going to even use their accounts at all? Just something to think about, I believe.

My personal forum wishlist is this: an option for members to remove or "close" ads, banners, etc; again, I always felt they cluttered the forum and made it look rather unprofessional... I don't believe that will ever happen though.

And I know we're not going to do customer member titles ever again, but that might be nice to see come back.

Oh, and one thing that we DESPERATELY need around here, and we've been requesting it for years: GENDER OPTIONS IN OUR PROFILES. How many times have we been confused as to whether or not a member is male or female? Remember way back when people thought I was a girl because of the pink Snowths in my old avy? Lol.

 

[dwmckim]

Two suggestions...

(1) Many people have their dream features to enhance the forum experience. But while they seem good and fun "on paper", in practice they may make the forum slower-running or harder to navigate or access particularly for those with older or slower systems. If such a feature mucks with the forum's useability, then it should be avoided as it goes beyond enhancement and crosses the line into obstacle.

(2) I'd like to see some kind of button for a thread where a user can reccomend the thread in question be "Sticky"'d (or "un-sticky'd" as the case may be) This wouldn't actually *make* the thread sticky'd, but would alert the mods that the desire exists. The user can either just hit the button or add optional comments as to why they think a status change should be made. The decision as to what threads get sticky'd tend to be very random, solely at the whims of the mods and the judgements quite frankly aren't always sound. By extension, many sticky'd threads remain sticky'd long after they should be. Such a button allows the users at large to offer suggestions from the ground-floor instead of awaiting some higher-up to bestow the gift.

Speaking of stickys, i think they should be generally avoided in the Buy sell or trade forum (unless the subject of the thread is more along the lines of rules or guidelines as opposed to a specific service) The reason being is that if someone's offering something and it's sticky'd, then it implies an "endorsement" from Muppet Central of that specific person over all others who may be offering the same. Bad protocol.

One only has to click on that subforum to see examples of stuff in there that should not be sticky'd (and i must stress i have absolutely nothing against the people who originated the threads - i'm only using them as examples because they're actual current examples of threads that both should not have been sticky'd or done so as long as they have). There's Philip's Palisades figures for sale thread which (a) calls attention to a specific seller of Palisades figures over several others offering them and (b) is an offer that was initially made a VERY LONG TIME AGO. Let's face it, the only reason it was stickied was because it was the forum leader's thread and that's an abuse of the system in all raw honesty. Another major example is Kermiclown's "My Massive Video Collection". I love Kermiclown, i've had many great transactions with him, but there is no good reason why one out of several tape traders is highlighted and endorsed over others. It reeks of favoratism and again is just plain bad protocol.

(The only exceptions i might make may be things that have some kind of time-sensitivity...where there's a deadline involved like a seller trying to gain money to pay for a specific bill that must be paid by a particular date or a buyer trying to find something for an upcoming birthday or anniversary....and then unstickied when no longer relevant to that deadline.)

...and i "second" Snowth's request for gender included on the profiles...they can be an optional choice for each person to have it displayed but that option should be there.

 

[dwmckim]

We tried the first one before, but it did NOT last long, because of concerns of bandwidth usage... but as large as this forum is, with countless members (a lot of which have 0 post counts), I don't see how a few little images here and there is going to eat up that much more bandwidth.

I think you may have answered your own question. Yes, there are "countless members" "as large as this forum is" (and expected to get a lot larger as "The Muppets" becomes Disney's pet project this year). "A few images here and there" can very quickly become a whole heckuva lot of images here and there by a large number of people.

 

[GonzoLover85]

(1) Many people have their dream features to enhance the forum experience. But while they seem good and fun "on paper", in practice they may make the forum slower-running or harder to navigate or access particularly for those with older or slower systems. If such a feature mucks with the forum's useability, then it should be avoided as it goes beyond enhancement and crosses the line into obstacle.

After reading your post I thought I'd add to my own regarding an interactive chat-room.
I'm not saying have it running at all time on the main page or anything like that because that would definitely slow down the site, even for people with newer systems.
I was thinking just having the option to click on it and have it open up as a pop-up or additional window or something.
Again, there are issues with bandwidth as a chat room would use up quite a bit of it....

 

[Puckrox]

b) while it may be highly unlikely, I would love to see a real-time chat-room type thingy. Where members can chat back and forth in a group setting about whatever comes to mind.

I like this idea. It'd be a fun way to get to know members even better.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Phillip,
Go check the forums at www.bluesbrotherscentral.com and check out some things that Chris Rossi has done there. He has a chatroom set up. I don't think a chatroom would be a bad thing. Long ago several of us used to meet up in the Yahoo chats and do voice chats to hear each other's character voices and would sing to each other--those were the days! Fun, too! Miss doing that.

On other points:
Getting rid of ads: you guys may not realize it, but you help support MC website and forums when you click on an ad through the website and through the forums. If it were a paid website then I bet you probably could see those things gone. I don't mind them and have actually ended up buying stuff I needed in my collection by clicking on those--AND helped support MC along the way. But, that's only because it worked for me a few times and I may be biased because of that.

Interactive profiles: I think it's a bad idea to be able to leave messages on someone's wall. Unless the "block" feature could stop that from happening because I know over the how-ever-many-years I've hung out here there have been stalkers and trolls and that is never a good thing.

I enjoy Muppet Central Forums as they are now and can't think of too much needed otherwise.

 

[The Count]

What about revisiting a hierarchy of new user titles? Titles that have Muppet-ish references at varying post total intervals added to what we already have.
Junior Member: 0 posts,
Member 30 posts,
*Insert Muppet title: 50 posts,
*Insert new Muppet title 100 posts, and so on.
Senior Member: 1000 posts.

And maybe set a feature so we could customize that title after a higher post total afterwards.

Might not be implemented since that'd get us the problem of post fluffing again, but it's an idea that'd bring back some fun since we're with the whole MC Revival kick and all. If not, then that's okay. Hope this helps.