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The forum itself.

edited June 2006 in - WM and WN

Comments

  • Does anyone else find it incredibly difficult to keep track of what threads they are interested in and whether or not there are new posts since they were last around?
  • Hmmm, I guess if you're away for a while and don't check in, then it can take a bit of time to catch up.  But if you want to keep up with the particular threads you've participated in previously, click on your name and it will give you a chronological track of what you've done to date.

    Is that what you meant?
  • so you haven't read my wonderfully profound football poem then?? LOL
  • Where do I find this poem, Sal?
  • I would read it, if I could keep on top of where all the posts are ;)
  • Stan, it's either in one of the poem threads, or even in the football poets thread. See everyone really has been busy.
  • Stan - It's in the Writing Poetry section, Football poets thread.
  • This is my first time on Talkback in 8 days, so I'm in a catastrophic state of confusion.  I don't recommend such a long absence...
  • I find it confusing as well. Having a short time span to do my posts and read others makes it very frustrating when I have to search around everywhere.
  • lol

    its a real pain at times :O)

    Gary.
  • It can be confusing sometimes. I take the same approach as Dorothy, and look for anything that's had a post added since the last time I was on, but this is easier said than done if you are away for more than a couple of days.
  • Yeah, I was in Hippo's situation after going on holiday in Norfolk for a week. Although we took the laptop and a GPRS card, we were conserving bandwidth and only doing the essentials, since GPRS can get hugely expensive.
  • Yeah...I know what you mean! In two weeks time I'll be on holiday for 3 weeks, I think I'll introduce myself again when I'm back...I'm afraid nobody will remember me. :S
    I usually follow the threads I'm interested in...so basically every thread. I SHOULD be writing actually....
  • Talkback seems to be a victim of its own success; it's difficult to keep up and some threads get pushed off the 'front page' so quickly, they seem to die a premature death. It feels like the quaint old corner shop has become a supermarket.
  • There are other formats for forums where you are notified of posts and not told the content, so you have to visit again. You are taken straight to the post you have contributed to or taken an interest in. I believe these formats are available on the net for free download by webmasters. Any comments Webbo?
  • The innate problem with freely available forums is that they're freely available. While this is great for the average Joe just wanting a little community on his site, the moment you are remotely high profile you become a target for hackers, and if they have the source code for your forums to hand ('cause they can download it as easily as you did) it's a lot easier for them to figure out where any security holes may be and then exploit them.

    That's not to say freely available forums aren't good. Many of them are excellent, including SMF, which I use myself. But the "hackerability" of GPL Ware is a consideration.

    Having said that, this forum seems to let us log in as each other anyway ;)
  • Hi Troo,

    I understand what you are saying but if you go to:
    http://www.selfdevelopmentforum.com
    that's the sort of format I'm talking about. I know of other writer's forums with this format but it wouldn't be fair to mentione them here. They seem to keep going O.K. without scam worries.

    On an aside, if anyone is worried about putting your email address down use this format: 'name'at'yahoo'dot'co'dot'uk' replacing your relevant details and deleting the quotes. This is great to use when posting on blogs/guestbooks. Sorry to preach if you already know this ;)
  • selfdevelopmentforum.com uses a freely-available piece of Forum software called SMF (Simple Machines Forum). It really is fantastic software, but could potentially be a security loophole. I've never come across a hacked SMF forum, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
  • I hope she's better soon, Dorothyd.
  • Hope she feels much better soon.
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