Time for a message board upgrade?

I have no trouble following threads that I have posted in. It does require two clicks. How would you improve it??? Do you only want one. Again quoting someone is, copy and paste,

highlight and hit the reverse commas.

That is pretty easy for me.

I often wish there was a "like" button for tips I think are particularly useful or just for people who are being clever and witty!

Wish I could see PM's that I have sent rather than just ones I have received.

Vick,

The forum was updated within the last year or so, and in my experience it's working very well. The RS web team is always "fine tuning" it, so if you have suggestions, send them a note.

"Difficult to quote someone."

Could you elaborate on that point?

If you want to follow threads that you post in, click on your name and you'll see that option.

"...."Difficult to quote someone."
Could you elaborate on that point?.."

Just as I have done above but in a rather crude way. Some sites allow you to highlight part of someone's post and reply to it by embedding it into your comment in order that it makes sense to whoever reads it. For instance your comment at the beginning of this post would be embedded within and attributed to you by the inclusion of your name and perhaps the text highlighted or surrounded by a coloured text box.

It would be lovely to be able to click on a thread and see the last unread post in that thread instead of having to scroll through the entire thread.

It would be lovely to be able to easily quote a poster above me.

It would be lovely to be able to 'like' a post.

Invision has some great forum software, just FYI. ;-)

(BTW, i dont pay for any message boards elsewhere either)

There are a few here that obviously get what i am talking about.

Anyone who frequents other message boards understands how antiquated this one is.

With such a wealth of information being shared generally, it would be nice if it were a bit more modernized in some of the ways mentioned by a few.

Obviously, most people, particularly the older you get, don't like change though.

I also find it difficult to answer threads because I cannot see the other replies. I usually work around it by using the "back" button on my browser. It is very awkward and sometimes a long response I've written inadvertently gets deleted . . . aack. It just doesn't make sense that you can't see any of the responses, including updates by the OP.

It's also frustrating that I can see the PM's I've received but there's no way to access my own replies. . . or even if I've sent a reply or not.

Since I'm airing my frustrations . . .

1. Trip reports. Lots of new users don't read the instructions and end up posting questions on the trip reports forum as well as others, like the various "tip" and review forums. One result is that the trip reports and review forums are pretty much useless for researching a trip.
2. Which brings me to the "search" function. Every once in a while I try to use it to find a recent thread I want to refer to, or a sight I'm considering. The results are sometimes irrelevant and often years old. I haven't found a way to filter by date.
3. I'd like a few more formatting options for text.

I agree with all the feedback for needed improvements.

On an iPhone, it is impossible to italicize or bold any text.

Yes - what Chani said - if I'm on the desktop, I'll have two windows/tabs open - one where I am replying, and one where I can see what others have said.

And I soooo wish I could see messages I sent to people (yes, I do see them if they reply, but if they don't reply back, I'm like...what did I tell this person?!). I thought they were working on that.

Following threads you've posted in is easy tho - well, not super user friendly but just click on your name and click on view topics X has participated in...

Re: "t would be lovely to be able to click on a thread and see the last unread post in that thread instead of having to scroll through the entire thread."

Just c;lick on the "jump to bottom" link at the top of the thread, to the right, just under the title. Then scroll up from the last post. Or, if your browser has it, click "END", which should take you to the bottom of the page.

I also find it difficult to answer threads because I cannot see the
other replies. I usually work around it by using the "back" button on
my browser.

I get around it by working with 2 open windows: one with the complete thread and another just to respond to the thread. I'm used to having multiple windows open a lot of time so it isn't a difficult workaround for me.

Quoting is also easy - or at least it is from my laptop: copy/paste the text into the response, highlight it, and choose quotation marks from the menu.

It would be lovely to be able to click on a thread and see the last
unread post in that thread instead of having to scroll through the
entire thread.

Yep, the "jump to Bottom" and "jump to top" eliminate a lot of scrolling, unless those functions aren't provided if using mobile devices?

Wish I could see PM's that I have sent rather than just ones I have
received.

That would be very nice. I sometimes wonder if I've successfully sent a reply to someone but there's no way to double check.

I'd love to see the search box be more prominent? The grey text recedes and your eye goes right to the large, dark-blue subject text so it's really easy for new users to miss, IMHO.

Not a fan of "like" buttons, however.

I enjoy surfing through this Forum, and I wish there was a "like" button so I could show my appreciation for a good comment.

Which brings me to the "search" function. Every once in a while I try
to use it to find a recent thread I want to refer to, or a sight I'm
considering. The results are sometimes irrelevant and often years old.
I haven't found a way to filter by date.

Chani, while I don't know as you can filter a search by exact date, you can narrow it to just posts 6 months and newer. Or are you wanting to narrow more than that?

I would love to see results of the 'search' function able to be by date, most recent first. Even when narrowing to 6 months can give many responses, and if you include up to 1 or 2 years it can be annoying to have the dates all helter-skelter. In fact, if you always gave most recent date first you probably wouldn't even need to narrow the time frame at all. As it is now, I hesitate to suggest people use the search function because it is so cumbersome.

I wouldn't mind a 'like' button, but I think it was shot down the last time webmaster asked for input on changes desired. Not sure of the reason. You can always add a post on the lines of "ditto - Jo" or something like that but it just clutters up the thread with more responses to wade through. The 'like' button would also eliminate many of the responses that are just reiterating what others have said. I'd rather see a few responses with lots of 'likes', than lots of responses saying the same thing or agreeing with others.

Would also love to be able to see sent messages, even if not responded to. It is odd that this is the only place I've not seen that option available.

I agree that it's easy to see threads you have posted in and also easy to quote someone.

Webmaster, are you listening?

"Like" buttons often degenerate into popularity contests a la Facebook. Multiple buttons will soon be needed...i.e. "dislike", "wow", "angry", etc. I'm not sure it's a good idea to mimic social media in an information-sharing context. The attention seekers tend to get the most reaction but may not offer the most real value in their posts.

"I have no trouble following threads that I have posted in. It does require two clicks. How would you improve it??? Do you only want one. Again quoting someone is, copy and paste,
highlight and hit the reverse commas.
That is pretty easy for me."

Works for me. I can not see a lot of need for changes.

Ed

No like buttons, no changes, everything is fine. This Forum is a unique design and set up, it's not like some other forums that people seem to be more accustomed to, and that's okay. Such problems.

It just seems foolish at least to me that if you want to quote somebody's post that you can't just click a button and it would reply with their quote.

Yes I understand it's not much work to copy paste and then click a button but it is multiple steps that do make it a hassle for communication especially when you're used to message boards that you just click one button and it quotes the person and you can immediately start typing from there.

I mean, it is 2017 after all. Haha

And, with as many OCD people as obviously post on this board, that would be widely welcomed I'm sure. (Once they got used to it. As evidenced by many posts here people don't like change. But you get used to it)

I mean you look at the time and effort people on this board put into simply packing a shaving kit.......or name any other travel thing ppl fret over for weeks if not months, I'm surprised there isn't more call for tweaks than there is

Italicized text = one '*' at the front and end of the text

BOLD text = two "*"

Nothing to it.

All from an iPhone.

I have messaged the webmaster a few times with suggestions, and he is open to them. I'm sure he has or will see this post.

One feature I asked him about that he said he hopes to implement is tagging. If you have a question about three or four countries, you are forced to pick one and post it there. (Or some people duplicate their post for each country.) With tagging, you post once and identify the country or countries your post is related to.

Not having used the other message boards some of you have seen, I will say this. The most common reason that people quote other posts on our threads is usually to highlight a particular point, just a sentence or two out of a longer message. Repeating a whole post sounds like a waste of space, to me, necessitating more scrolling.

Not having used the other message boards some of you have seen, I will say this. The most common reason that people quote other posts on our threads is usually to highlight a particular point, just a sentence or two out of a longer message. Repeating a whole post sounds like a waste of space, to me, necessitating more scrolling

I understand what you're saying. However it would be much easier to just delete out the parts that you don't want. I just did the copy and paste for the first time ever I believe because it wasn't readily apparent how to do it without having somebody tell you. That's just kind of crazy in my opinion. But since I did just copy and paste this I'm not sure if it worked right or not until I actually hit the send button below. Just more complicated than it needs to be

Furthermore, it didn't copy your user information Etc.

Again not trying to be a pain in the butt but just stating the reality of the situation

None of this is anything earth-shattering or major. Hopefully some that become frustrated easily don't complain about people complaining about the message board...... but these are all honest attempts at making the board and more user-friendly atmosphere and it will encourage new users to participate more which in the end is really what the goal behind having a message board is, right?

Posted by Mark
Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
07/14/17 11:05 AM
1064 posts
Report
Italicized text = one '' at the front and end of the text
BOLD text = two ""
Nothing to it.
All from an iPhone.

Sure, there's nothing to it. But you know how to do it. You obviously took the time to figure it out. It's a message board and with technology what it is we shouldn't be using programming language we should be clicking buttons

Posted by Keith
Malta / Sometimes UK
07/14/17 12:49 PM
1243 posts
Report
I'm probably one of the "older" people referred to above who don't like change. I think the current set-up is good. I like that using it is easy peasy lemon squeezy and would prefer not to have a whole lot of new bells and whistles added which make it more confusing. I have no idea what a "like" option would be for.

I'm 50. I don't like change any more than the next person. But these tweaks people are talking about really wouldn't make it any more complicated it would actually make it easier.

Thanks everyone! I'll respond at length here in just a minute.

"The most common reason that people quote other posts on our threads is usually to highlight a particular point"

True for me. If you wish to quote just part of a post, in my experience you'll be copying and pasting when in those other forum formats. If you simply quote that whole post to respond to one point, you "force" folks to figure out which point you are referring to.

As evidenced by many posts here people don't like change.

I don't know as that's necessarily a correct assumption? Maybe many just don't think it's broken enough to need fixing?

The most common reason that people quote other posts on our threads is
usually to highlight a particular point, just a sentence or two out of
a longer message.

Agreed, Laura. Up to personal preference, maybe, but it doesn't sound like, as suggested, copy/pasting and then deleting out unnecessary text would make it any simpler. It's pretty simple just to highlight>copy>paste>quote. It works that way on Thorn Tree, BTW.

It can be necessary to have two open screens on other forums which break responses into separate pages. For instance, if the poster I'm responding to is the last entry on the page behind most current post - as on Thorn Tree - I need that 2nd screen to back-reference their post while I'm typing. Anyway, having to do the same here is nothing out of the ordinary depending on other forums you are active on.

If you simply quote that whole post to respond to one point, you "force" folks to figure out which point you are referring to.

Agreed, Dave!

Overall I think things work great.

Please don't start copying in entire posts just to make a one sentence response! On another message board I read only sporadically, the copied posts take up many times more room than the actual reply. The inclusion of all that nonsense about the original poster is unnecessary. I can get including their handle, but not the rest of it. I do agree with most of the other shortcomings, though.

Just thought of one other thing that I would love to see. I wish we could look up a particular poster's profile or what topics they have posted in or send them a pm, without having to slog through posts looking for a response they have posted so we can click on their name. There must be a better way. Maybe there is and I just don't know what it is.

The point just mentioned by Nancy, is my biggest complaint. Everything else I can live with, but it is difficult sometimes to send a message to somebody until you can find the last time they posted.

I think everyone has some good points here. Generally, we know that this is not a feature-rich forum and some of that is intentional. This forum is unique in many ways and we couldn't use an out-of-the-box forum system for it. So, any features that you commonly see elsewhere are things we have to custom build ourselves and that takes time. I'll try to quickly respond to a number of things.

Quoting others posts. It's easy if you're on a desktop, but it's a pain on a mobile device. What's App has a nice solution, but requires an app interface. I agree that a better method is needed here, but until then, we do have the "blockquote" button to indicate quoted text. This isn't the modern approach, but it is still a common approach.

Returning to a thread and jumping to posts you haven't read. It's a good idea, but complicated to implement. This would require a lot of data to be kept on your viewing habits. As most threads (not this one) are shorter in length and serve to answer a single travel question, this isn't a high priority.

Like buttons. We didn't entirely shoot this down in the past, but didn't make it a priority as "like" doesn't fit our forum well. We'd want something that can indicate the most helpful post/answer to a question, not your favorite response. Stack Overflow has something close to this.

Viewing PMs you've sent. Yes, this is needed. It's on our list.

Search. Allowing you to filter by custom date ranges would be a natural evolution of existing functionality there. This is something I can see happening. Allowing for sorting search results (e.g. by date) would be more complicated and will take more time.

Search is too easy to miss for new users. This means we have repeat questions. You can only do so much to encourage searching, but the reality is many people just won't. I think there are other solutions, but they're not quick.

Search should allow you to find forum members. I'll look into how feasible this is.

Tagging to make one thread appear in multiple forum sections. I want this to work, but the UX (user experience) is tricky because we don't want to over-complicate posting by adding a laundry list of forum sections.

As before, we'll continue to make changes as we can. We have big changes happening in other parts of the website soon (the first phase - tour registration - has already been released) and one of those changes will (finally!) unify our account systems. This will allow you to log in once for access to the forum, tour info (if you've purchased a tour of course), and more. We'll be able to have a "Sign In" link site-wide.

Cheers!

I just did the copy and paste for the first time ever I believe
because it wasn't readily apparent how to do it without having
somebody tell you.

Vick, you did a copy>paste>quote on 6/28 so you know that it worked for you before?

That was my point. I've been posting on this board for several years and didn't know how to do it until today. I'm a pretty Savvy computer user. Not an expert but certainly able to figure out message boards and whatnot.

Most people who post on this board probably come on it once a year or one time in their life just to ask a few questions. It should be easier for them.

So if we want to compromise, How about if you make the quote marks so that when you hover your cursor over it it gives you instructions?

I agree, it is not difficult once you know how to do it. But it isn't simple to just pick it up right away without somebody explaining it to you or you having to do research.

Webmaster, I noticed the changes to the registration process-Yay! Much, much easier to get through the process without losing my place while signing up. Many thanks for that!

Quoting others posts. It's easy if you're on a desktop, but it's a pain on a mobile device. What's App has a nice solution, but requires an app interface. I agree that a better method is needed here, but until then, we do have the "blockquote" button to indicate quoted text.

Thanks for the reply on this. I think if you just made it so when you hover over this icon it gives you instructions. That might be a good solution.

I almost exclusively access this on my mobile phone which is an Android and I have no problem doing it now that I know how to do it. It just wasn't readily apparent until somebody showed me.

Thanks

"Most people who post on this board probably come on it once a year or
one time in their life just to ask a few questions. It should be
easier for them."

I don't disagree with you. However, I'd note that ease usually comes with simplicity. Sometimes that means not adding features. I think you've successfully made the case that we should do more with quoting others, though. No promises as to when we can get to that.

Vick,

I learned the things I noted completely by accident -- using the "*" for other purposes like trying to highlight text etc. It worked, but was totally unexpected by me to do what it did!

It would be nice if there were maybe some instructions on what you can embed in text to produce various effects.

It would be nice if there were maybe some instructions on what you can
embed in text to produce various effects.

Notes on this are here (linked from our Get Started/Using the forum page):
https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/understanding-markdown

Thanks. One of the things I thought of (and I think this would actually be my biggest complaint) was when replying to a thread that you didn't start.

If you make a post in a thread and then somebody responds to you there isn't a notification given to you.

So somebody could respond to your post in a thread today that you participated in two weeks or 2 months ago and you have no way of knowing unless they responded to you without actually go back to that thread.

That is kind of one of the problems with copying and pasting, IMO, instead of being able to reply to a specific post.

Hopefully that makes sense. But I know there been many times when I've participated in a thread and asked a question or answered a question in the middle of a thread that I did not start and 3 months later I go back and happen to find that thread and somebody had responded right away to me and here it is 3 months later and I never responded.

It's particularly frustrating when it's a very long thread or you've participated in dozens of different threads

If you make a post in a thread and then somebody responds to you there
isn't a notification given to you.

Yup. I get it. Right now, there is no function to know which post you might be replying to within a thread -- which would be necessary to deliver you a custom notification. Given the current construction, we could set something up that allows you to get a notification anytime someone replies after you, but most people won't find this useful as it'll just flood your inbox. This has been a failing point with other forums.

I think this is a function of the type of forum we have. Other forums allow for sub-threads (think SB Nation websites like this) which makes it easy to indicate who you're replying to (and thus could send you a personalized notification if you turned such a feature on). While this works well in some formats, it can also cause discussions to become disjointed. The most common use of this forum is a Q&A format in which the OP gets direct answers. As such, the discussion typically tends to be linear (or is suppposed to be) and isn't set up for sub-threads/side discussions/replies to individuals other than the OP. Thus, custom notifications for when someone replies to you is a very difficult feature to build and build it well.

This is all good to discuss as it helps us learn what the right improvements are. We want to be thoughtful and make sure our updates are the right approach for this forum.

Thanks everyone!

Yay Webmaster, you and your team are the best! It's wonderful just to know you're listening and willing to work on some of these issues as time and programming allow.

Thanks Vick for starting this thread!

"Italicized text = one '' at the front and end of the text
BOLD text = two ""
Nothing to it.
All from an iPhone."

"Nothing to it" ... lol. How would someone know that? I see the webmasters response... I've been on this forum for 14? yrs and I don't even know where to find the "get started" place you're talking about. I just come to the All Topics forum, I don't have time to explore and try to figure this technical stuff out. Shouldn't be that hard.
I agree with all that Vick Vega has said.
I think this forum is very user un-friendly.

I would like a "like" button... people repeat the same answers ad nauseum.

Thanks for all your responses - I have learned a lot my reading them.
but, I can't get the bold or other ideas to work....is that starting with
a quotation mark? - thanks in advance

test
test

Got it and thank you so much for explaining the asterisks to me. YOU ALL ROCK !!!!

Frances: no, don't use quotations marks for that formatting. Instead, put one asterisk at the front and back of what you want to put in italics, and two asterisks in front and back of what you want to bold.

Extra credit: if you put three asterisks in front and back of something, it underlines it. Note that it doesn't show up that way in the preview window (it shows as bold italics), but it will indeed be underlined when it posts.

I'm not seeing how having a like button would solve the problem of oft-repeated questions. From what I see on other travel forums, it happens on all of them. If you doubt me, see how many questions on the New York City Forum of TripAdvisor are about getting from the airports to the city - even thought it's flagged as an FAQ!

I think the fact that you don't get notified when someone responds to anyone other than the original poster is actually a strength rather than a weakness - it cuts way down on side conversations.

And yes, the Search function has two problems: one is that you can't sort by date, and two is that it is the very definition of "hiding in plain sight!" Maybe making a bold color (lime green or Technicolor red), instead of the current, lightest possible blue-grey, would help. I've lost count of how many times I've had to explain to other posters where to find it!

I would definitely like to be able to see private messages I've sent, however. And if I could see a whole thread when writing a response, not just the original post, it would make it easier, so I wouldn't have to jump between multiple tabs (not too hard on my desktop, but a real pain on my phone).

I agree with Harold, completely!

...the Search function has two problems: one is that you can't sort by
date, and two is that it is the very definition of "hiding in plain
sight!" Maybe making a bold color (lime green or Technicolor red),
instead of the current, lightest possible blue-grey, would help. I've
lost count of how many times I've had to explain to other posters
where to find it!

Exactly the point I was trying to make earlier: it's too hard to SEE! Making it more visible doesn't mean that EVERY poster will use it but it sure wouldn't hurt to try?

people repeat the same answers ad nauseum.

I don't see that as a problem, really, and no different on other travel forums. It can happen that multiple people are typing the same or similar info at the same time: that has happened frequently enough to me. Also, if I was the OP, getting a number of same/similar responses would add credibility to the information versus, maybe, just one responder's weigh-in. Depends on the question, I guess. Responders often tend to add a little extra so that their post isn't exactly like those which have come before them.

The forum software is far, far better than another travel forum I visit (Fodor's).

Harold, the Like button is not for often repeated questions... it is for ad nauseum repeated answers.

I tried to copy and paste what Harold said, which I can usually do although it's tedious on an iPhone, but today wouldn't work. Gave up after 5 frustrating min.

Kathy, to me, it's annoying, and a very common occurrence, to see the exact same answers over and over to the point of ridiculousness in a thread. Most of the time it's not because two people were posting at the same time. Doesn't make it less annoying that it happens on other forums.

With or without improvements, I'm glad this forum is here. I appreciate it very much and I've learned a lot from many wonderful people here... : )

I suspect that the real reason there are so many very similar posts on a thread is because a lot of people do not read all the previous posts before responding. They read the OP and then just jump in with their two centimes, glad to offer what they think is important and original. Nothing to be done about that.

I suspect that the real reason there are so many very similar posts on
a thread is because a lot of people do not read all the previous posts
before responding.

Right, Norma. No different than any other travel forum. But it's up to the OP whether they think a lot of the same responses are tedious or not? I guess you could view them like hotel, restaurant or attraction reviews: the more times you hear the same thing, the more you're apt to believe what's being communicated?

The only 2 things I would like to see:

1.) The ability to see my sent messages.
2.) Being able to see all of the posts in a thread I am answering instead of just the one from the OP.

Ms. Jo....

Like.

On an iPhone, it is impossible to italicize or bold any text.

So why are you using an iPhone? (Inferior product, IMO.)

Lee, iPhone is not inferior imo. I love it. I'm out and about a lot so it's what I use most often. Super portable. Have a new Apple laptop but I much prefer my iPhone.

Norma, I agree with you. Many do not read what's already been said over and over.

Ms Jo... a Like from me too.

'Italicized text = one '' at the front and end of the text
BOLD text = two ""'
Testing

I would like to be able to flag a thread so I can find it easily in the future, without having to participate, first. When I post, just so I can find it in the future, I'm wasting space, and it is not adding any value.

Cheers,
Vivian
Ps... thanks for the tips on how to add 'italics' and "bold" (or is that ''bold?'')

Ugh. Ok... THAT didn't work. :-(

It isn't quotes, it is asterisks

one asterisk gives one gives

two asterisks gives two gives

three asterisks gives three gives

Thank you, Nigel

Tried to respond earlier but my ISP decided to take sick day (bleh!). To get back to the original title of the thread, the forum isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than many travel forums. Yes, it can use tweaking here and there, but in my opinion it is not broken enough to warrant a major upgrade. The webmaster, in my opinion, is doing a darn good job fixing things when they really need to be fixed. As I've often said to our local government, there's a lot of difference between a real need and a want. With regard to "how to" something, between all of us on the forum I'm sure we can help others with technical issues whether they are newcomers or old hands.

Vivian - when I want to refer back to a thread, I bookmark it. I do that a lot for information on places I hope to visit, usually keep them sorted by country.

I would like what Ms. Jo would like too. I get tired of saying "a previous poster" when I'm responding to or agreeing with a thread within a post and can't remember the person's name. If I could see all of the people's posts, not just the OP, I could give credit to the person I'm trying to credit.

Chani, how do you "bookmark" a thread? I'm usually on an i-device and haven't found a forum-specific way to do that.

Thanks,
Vivian

I think that one addition I would like to see would be the numbering of the thread responses. A numbered post would be easier to find again or reference, or recall where you left off when reading new posts to a thread.