I am struggling to find my way around the threads on this site and as much as I enjoy coming here , I get very little time and it is frustrating. I wondered if it's just me or does anyone else struggle to follow what's going on ??? I am subscribed to many forums but this one has got me a little bit confused.
As an example;
The Discussion thread "Good News" currently has 23 pages. When I log in, it shows the last message posted on page 23 , and on that page the last comments are at the bottom of that page .
Conversely the thread entitled "Member of the month" has 24 pages and the last mesage posted is shown on Page 1, and the last comments posted are at the top of that page !!!.
Then on top of all that , some sneaky buggers have inserted messages as replies to other people which could be anywhere inbetween pages 1 and 24 !!!
I agree with you Anna, I have just received an email saying that you have posted a reply, I click on the email and it opened the forum up but at the beginning of the thread which completely threw me because that was dated March 2013. I clicked on the next button and that didn't work and I eventually found your message. I belong to quite a few forums of one sort and another and this one i find most confusing. Perhaps I don't use it enough although I must say at times it is very informative. Good forum but confusing.
agree, this is the most confusing web forum i have ever been on, but i think it has to do with the way the page is formatted, not sure if there is any way round it. The chronology of posts is generally ok to follow, but the replies and replies to replies are very tricky.
I can get my head around it all right but I detest reading from bottom up, which also means scrolling back to the bottom to go to the preceding page, and having to find the top post when people have answered an individual post, read down, then go up again to reach the next consecutive post. I often give up on those threads.
To me it is illogical not to read from the top down. I find it irritating and uncomfortable. Reading top down also means that the replies to individual posts are read as one goes and one is already at the bottom of the page to go to the next.
Very much better as far as I am concerned, though I'm sure there are people here who think that these criticisms are petty and are rolling their eyes in pity! LOL
Thank him. I still just occasionally quote him. My copy is easy to pull out by identifying the yellowing sellotape on the spine. Why do I have it? Strange to say, but our lecturer in economic anthropology, bless him in memoriam, believed we should look at it as a major influence in the way exchange systems (meant 'flogging stuff') would be shaped by particular market strategies in the future. He was not that far from right and it certainly made a change from reading Mauss's 'Essai sur le don' (The Gift) for the umpteenth time.
in my 'yoof' about a thousand years ago, I found the 'apparently' miraculous book by Vance Packard on 'The Hidden Persuaders' and was completely overwhelmed by what seem a fantastic world where we were all manipulated by deep, dark advertising agencies with hidden psychological abilities intertwined.
Pure magic to an over-imaginative 15-year old just starting out in life. I still have the copy in my library, along with others of a similar persuasion (sorry couldn't resist that one!)
Of course with the 'manipulation' hopes that most creatives want to find, or think they have found - and I was one for more than 50 years, this book was seminal if easily disproved.
BUT it did launch me on fascinating excursion through life, that was maddening, satisfying, stressful, emotionally exhausting, that took me to large chunks of the world, enabled me to make ditto money (on occasions - but all gone now), and became both my job, passion and remains my hobby. How lucky can you get?
So, should I thank Vance for his input or not? On balance I think I should, as I think an ill-educated yob from Slough in 1955, needed to have a vision of some sort to kick-on.
I started this discussion mainly to see if I was alone in my difficulty navigating here and if anyone else was having similar problems. I was becoming paranoid that I was the only numbskull who didn't "get it". I suppose I'll get used to it. I have no intention of leaving and welcome all the comments that have been made thus far. On the various platforms I've used on over the years nobody ever likes change , whether it's forums, facebook or whatever so I appreciate what a difficult job it is to try and provide a free service and please everyone. J & C do a great job here and it is a very welcoming Network and I know only too well how much of a lifeline the internet and places like this can be in rural France.
Personally I think the setup will change eventually here anyway , ( Probably just when I've got used to it Lol ! ) , but I do think it's time to put this one to bed now ......... :)
yes that really is the kernel of the whole thing isn't it? James and Catharine have provided us with a free forum on which to contact and comunicate with other people, and I for one appreciate it very much.
Of course I have to say that James did inadvertently 'lead with the chin' when he opened the subject, but 'them's the breaks' as they say.
It is desperately easy to criticise others, and seems equally difficult for some at least to appreciate the work of others.
So you are not talking to yourself, and I also think the 'smileys' option is not a bad one.
Dunno, but on the other thread you did mention the immor(t)al Mr Packard, the conman's greatest teacher of all time. I bet old Vance would have loved blogging!
Doreen, I may get slapped over the wrist for saying this, but I find you are nit picking. An hour ago your last word and then this unnecessary question. Ask that of any site and the responses will be similar. So what if they are in the USA (many), Nepal (a few) or Mars and ditto whether they are second or twenty-second home users. Of the latter, there are plenty in their home countries or wherever they are based outside France who are regular contributors. Assumptions are like bear traps. Fall in and you don't get out again too easily. I use Facebook, sometimes, I do not like what they have done with data harvesting methods and what may come of it. Likewise, I joined and tried to use LinkedIn but had thousands of people wanting to be links I had no interest in linking with, so I quit. Etc. Extraordinary as it may seem, thus far none of the things that irritate me on many other networks have happened here. So think about what you say before further nit picky comments.
James put up an example of people wanting threaded posts. I read a lot of newspapers, the majority of them use threads rather than flat formats. One German newspaper actually has a little 'quip' at the beginning of reader's comments that says that if people do not like threads then read another newspaper...
I thought I had sort of got the hang of it but now I don't know if I'm replying to Tom, Dick, or Harry or simply talking to myself.
We've had the experts beating their chests, "ordinary" folk scratching their heads or whatever & ten pages later nothing has changed except a few points have been scored & a few egos stroked.
All I do know for sure is that one of my favourite forums closed when the "owner" chucked his toys out of the pram following too much criticism. I'm not saying who or what is right or wrong, but, if the SFN owners want it to operate this way whilst charging me nowt, it's OK by me.
If I'm not replying to the correct post or in the right place, tough. I,m just off to a dark room for a bit.Where are the smilies when you need them?
I have also had moments of confusion, but having seen the explanatory example shown, the last thing I would want to see is the fatuous 'Facebook' approach of some sort of single word replies coupled with e-mail notifications. That simply would become too unwieldy for me. Again I suggest that addressing the person to whom you are replying does seem to work for me.
If an old fart like me can handle that I'm sure all you sharper pencils in the box could also do it? Perhaps that is also a key? Having to search back a bit helps me remember the thread of the conversation?
I have had four business websites running over the past few years and have consistently found the 'analysers' statistics completely misleading to the point of being untrue, and that's being polite about it.
Most of these companies have a commercial 'agenda' and that's fair enough, but to just accept their findings as fact, is I suggest is naive - as is much so-called research and reporting across the Web.
I accept I do not have a computer background, but I agree totally with your final statement of 'what I have got - versus what I do with it', but relying on suspect research I suggest is not the best methodology to use as a basis.
As an ex-Marketing Prof (and 50 year + Professional) this was an early lesson to learn. Remember the old adage of 'Lies, damn lies, and Statistics'
Finally trying to apply 'science' to human activity is an elusive dream, and those of us who have spent our lives in trying to understand it, and yes, manipulate it, learned many moons ago that scientific approaches have very little effect. Despite what 'The Hidden Persuaders' tried to prove.
I also tend to agree that your comments to Catherine were a little demeaning, but perhaps that was unintentional?
Well reading back through the discussion it's clear that although some would accept it to stay as is, the overwhelming majority ( yes Brian Milne !) who have posted in response to my original topic would find it easier to navigate if it was changed . By no means have I tried all the "other" sites, not enough hours in the day but depsite all that has been said , I happen to like it here and feel I have a lot to offer , but whether I stay around depends on how I get on I suppose with the format as it currently is .