I'm with YOU!! (Confused of Monein)
Now as you might notice - my indented reply to Sam is a perfect example (I think!) of how SFN works!
Sam - just noticed you have a pic uploaded on FB - any chance you can do the same here please? Ta! x
Cool - thanks - now you just all need to hit the donate button.... :)
All constructive input being taken on board - thanks guys!
OK, I admit I also have problems understanding the format. I thought it was a British thing that my American mind couldn't comprehend. Sometimes I will see multiple emails with the same heading and when I respond to one the other comments are not there. And there may only be two or three current comments with dozens of comments six months or older.
Yes - it is the most confusing site I use and I do give up sometimes trying to find the part of the discussion that I was following.
Yep, I am another one who rarely uses this site due to lack of direction(!) and hard to locate threads etc.
I use SMF forums all the time as they are clear and detailed, as well as being easy to follow/find info.
I gave up looking at things here just after joining and only pop-in when I receive an email with something that I can relate to pops up.
All constructive criticism I hope James.
(see SMF SIMPLEMACHINES.ORG as I believe better than both Vbulletin and PHPBB etc. background admin and updating is easy for you also)
really good example!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I read only the first notifications on email, following my post cos I cant work out the order of the comments on the forum
To be honest I find it frustrating as well to the point that I quite often give up so don't read as many as I would like to.
Glad to hear that Amanda! :)
x
me too - am sometimes confused about who is talking to who. But have seen worse sites.
Hi all - me responding as Mr H is still on the sick list. I will try and dig out his response as it was far more succinct and erudite than I could manage - but in a nutshell...
Brian is absolutely right with his explanation.
Paul - you are quite new so hopefully you will 'acclimatise' !
Dave - SFN is NOT a forum!!! It's a network and therein lies the difference. I'm not sure how new a member you are as you still have a black box but hopefully you will also get used to it. (Time for a profile photo?!)
Having said that, we do ALWAYS take feedback on board. Equally, as many of our more longer standing members are aware, SFN is a cottage industry. We started it with no idea whatsoever as to how it would explode. We are always looking to develop and improve. However, we can only do this with funding, so perhaps you can consider using the donate button? Thanks! x
Same here. This is the only forum I have ever seen that uses this format. I have to give up on a thread when it gets beyond a certain length. Just too much searching back and forth to get the continuity.
Thanks Johnny , Sadly I am also one of those people who have never quite got their head around how it all works here either ...... dare I mention that maybe there are others too ? - secretly lurking behind the scenes and too scared or embarassed to own up ! :)
Your comment about "by the time you've got around to seeing where everything fit in" is exactly my problem.
Thanks Brian, that does explain it but the blog/discussion thing is possibly the real problem. Also, allowing individual replies to posts confuses things further , as noted by Johnny below ( Well his reply is below this at the moment but god knows where it'll be when I press " add reply " lol .
If it is a blog (under blog posts) they start at the bottom and work up. All posts on the thread go straight in the comment box and will then appear as the top one, you simply follow the pages as though reading upwards from the first post on a thread. Discussions (under forum) go from top to bottom, so always downward. The difference is that there is the choice of commenting in the comment box and entering it so that it falls in at the bottom or replying/responding to any of the responses on the thread. The complicated thing about that is that some of the sub-threads take on a life of their own and go on for pages and pages. They are identifiable, once you are used to it, by the indentation of that sub-thread.
I suspect most people, me included, really take their time getting their head round this. Some people never quite do, it appears, given that ideal discussions are posted as blogs and potential blogs as discussions, then a few fit neither but let's not make it more confusing by going into that.
Does that help? Well there are other things that might help under FAQ under the headline banner. If you are still not there, all I can add is take a deep breath and go for it anyway ;-)