Working party to help improve the Tssc forum

[Pete Lewis]

in the forum header there are a number of unused facilities we could maybe  get functioning 

eg EVENTS

[Pete Lewis]

im open to help with any testing , but sorry too old and short on any new idea's 

Pete

[Triumph948]

Hi All, we are not looking at making massive changes and i am fully aware of the other clubs forum that didn’t work well.

following on from comment’s made it seems that people feel the club favours social media over the forum.

It does not i can assure you, Jane does a great job with the Tssc socials and posts every day i am aware this is not carried over to the forum but it is a different sort of place.

We want to have a discussion / working party to see what improvements we can make if any, it doesn’t even need to be a working party we can all discuss on here.

I am very aware we have an ageing forum membership and that we need to direct people onto the forum from the socials.

Are we missing any tricks with directing traffic onto the forum ?

News and events are covered on the website do we need to officially post on here as well or will a forum member copy it over ? 

The forum is busy enough but i think you all  feel we need more traffic?

[Sue Franklin]

My thoughts are that it is usually the same people posting on the Forum - the same contentious issues raised time and time again by the same people - which makes the Forum boring and seemingly unhelpful apart from a couple of wonderful members and you know who you are.

I agree that more use could be made of the Forum Announcements section but realised recently that any Moderator or Staff can do this.  This is where I was trying to get an announcement put re the imminent closure of the Club Shop, as well as in the Club Shop section and on the Home Page of the website.  

In answer to Chris's comment above, yes I do think the Forum needs more traffic generated.  Maybe the headings are too loose / too tight?

Must admit, I was not really aware of the Events section on the Forum and think I will use this instead of Local Meetings?

Edited September 18 by Sue Franklin
Addition

[mcevedy]

I helped run a Forum - it was on a site called Beoworld - a B&O related site . I found out about it as the owner at the time had 'borrowed' a large number of photos I had taken and given to another site. Once the misunderstanding was sorted, I noticed he had set up a forum which was really not doing anything. I discussed this with him and took over the role of moderator. I made it my duty to make sure every post was answered within 24 hours - this was when I owned a ridiculous amount of kit as well as manuals and the major topic of posts was how to get certain things to work or to suggest suppliers. I did this and this site quickly became the biggest B&O site in the world and was sponsored by B&O themselves - they closed their forum as they mainly got complaints and a number of their staff contributed to the site. We built up a large team of moderators with the same goal to make sure everything was answered promptly - even if the answer was that we didn't know but would endeavour to find out. The site was bought by a good friend of mine and continued to flourish. He sold it a few years ago and as I no longer collected the newer equipment, I gave up my role. It has just undergone a complete revamp and has been taken over by a repair company (I have used them and they are good - the forum seems to attract business) - they seem to be gradually finding their feet but it is not as flourishing as it was but early days. 

The secret however is the quick reply - and clearly it helps if you have someone or a number of people who know what they are talking about. I am afraid my knowledge of Triumphs is limited so I cannot volunteer. We attracted people in - the site was free - but we ran gold silver and bronze memberships. Bronze was free, silver was fairly nominal (I think £10 a year) and this gained one access to the service and user manuals (I had scanned a large number). Gold gave that but also a prize draw which won a number of prizes - the majority were relatively low cost but there would be a star prize which was well worth winning and usually a not bad second prize. The draw was originally monthly but gradually became less frequent though the prizes improved. Some of the best ones were donated by B&O. I imagine some of the bigger suppliers could donate the odd prize to the forum - maybe discount vouchers or branded items. 

Sorry to go on but I confess that I rarely use this forum as low traffic - I use the US Triumph Experience as it is far more lively. 

Edited September 18 by mcevedy

[Pete Lewis]

with over 25k posts  i think i have covered the quick reply when i have an answer.

something i had done for all 3 forums we have had over the past 20 years 

it takes time , many dont have free .

Pete

[dougbgt6]

One of the things happens on here is the same questions over and over. Installing a bigger/better fuse box, Re-furbishing carbs, etc.

For the fuse box question I have stored the link to the definitive thread and insert that in the new thread. For the carbs question I, and others, say go to BukeyeTriumphs.com.

Buckeye Triumphs have a "Technical  Articles" Tab, that's what's we need, our articles are all here, but you try and find them! Colin, No.2 poster was only complaining recently how poor the search facility is. And the fact that I've recorded the Fuse Box link elsewhere, because I can't find it in search shows the search facility isn't up to it. Neither newbies looking for help or No2 & No3 posters can work it.

No.1  has it all in his head so doesn't count.

Go check out buckeye Triumphs.

Buckeye Triumphs

Doug

Edited September 18 by dougbgt6

[AidanT]

1 hour ago, Triumph948 said:

News and events are covered on the website do we need to officially post on here as well or will a forum member copy it over ? 

Hi, sorry but where?? This is the News page, last post in Oct 23!

The closure of the shop was first up when I went into yhe site which is great btw

I looked at events as well  thd last post was thd AGM.

Looking on Facebook,  there's a club post every day in yhe last 5 days. This I think, is yhe disparity that's being talked about.

 

0

Edited September 18 by AidanT

[Triumph948]

2 hours ago, AidanT said:

Hi, sorry but where?? This is the News page, last post in Oct 23!

The closure of the shop was first up when I went into yhe site which is great btw

I looked at events as well  thd last post was thd AGM.

Looking on Facebook,  there's a club post every day in yhe last 5 days. This I think, is yhe disparity that's being talked about.

 

0

I am not saying things are perfect as I know they are not 

Announcements on the front header page are done by Tom 

I would really like someone to offer to regularly post on the Forum for event’s etc ?

 

[Sue Franklin]

What sort of stuff do we want on the Forum Announcement section - I put the AGM on there in response to comments that it was not there.  I don't think there is any harm in announcements like the Club Shop etc being duplicated in various threads so that it is easier for users to find.  Have often wondered along with others why so little goes on the Announcement thread.  Happy to help if appropriate.

[Pete Lewis]

not easy to post events unless you have some leads to inform you of whats going on 

most Ao have clues of their own area , think i would start  there.

i posted our shuttleworth event in forum events and with 300 cars and some work we got 1.9k hits and 92 replies 

where as the agm has 92 hits     its all down to the work you put in , 

any idea a volunteer can drum up a fully years events  is just not feasible 

Pete

[AidanT]

22 minutes ago, Sue Franklin said:

What sort of stuff do we want on the Forum Announcement section - I put the AGM on there in response to comments that it was not there.  I don't think there is any harm in announcements like the Club Shop etc being duplicated in various threads so that it is easier for users to find.  Have often wondered along with others why so little goes on the Announcement thread.  Happy to help if appropriate.

 

I'd just like to see all the posts that are made on Facebook, added to the forum as well. I then don't have to hop between the two.

( I realise this may not be possible ) 

[Colin Lindsay]

15 hours ago, dougbgt6 said:

Colin, No.2 poster was only complaining recently how poor the search facility is. And the fact that I've recorded the Fuse Box link elsewhere, because I can't find it in search shows the search facility isn't up to it. Neither newbies looking for help or No2 & No3 posters can work it.

Now THAT I agree with (do I post a lot of No2?) but yes the search function is woeful. A good example last weekend when I was trying to help a member who was posting about wiper wheelboxes and gears and so find a previous thread I'd commented on.

I searched 'wipers' and 'wheelboxes' and got hundreds of answers. The text prompted me "search for 'wipers AND wheelboxes'. I did. I got no results at all. Zero. I tried again and it seems by then I had carried out too many searches so had to wait a minute, then another minute, then another minute... so gave up on the search. I had to go back manually through dozens of pages to find it, under a title similar to wipers and wheelboxes. THAT is frustrating.

[johny]

Sorry Colin I find the search not bad and think its down to operator error. I search 'wipers' AND 'wheelboxes' and get 5 hits, 3 of which all have comments from you over the years. To get zero you have to search 'wipers wheelboxes' which obviously isnt going to work.... 

[AidanT]

4 minutes ago, johny said:

Sorry Colin I find the search not bad and think its down to operator error. I search 'wipers' AND 'wheelboxes' and get 5 hits, 3 of which all have comments from you over the years. To get zero you have to search 'wipers wheelboxes' which obviously isnt going to work.... 

Guess we need a "how to" on the Search engine as well     😊

[johny]

To be fair you do have to be a little bit careful as for example if you search directly from the top of this page it searches only the current topic so can easily return zero which unless you read closely can make you think the search has failed for the whole forum....

[Mjit]

Forums like this a stores of a lot of information, much of it often requested and the secret is curating it and surfacing it - which is often something people only guess at when setting the forum up, then ignore.

1. Look at the forums and sub-forums.  Do they still make sense based on how people are actually using the forums and realign if not.
   Just a quick looks shows a lot of activity in the Technical forums - so should some of these be split and if we look at topics in each do we have any that don't really fit anywhere (I know I had a question that sort of fell between sections a while back - but of course can't remember what it was now ?
   But only the Lounge Bar forum under Member Chats has much activity - could/should we merge some of the quieter ones, or are we under utilizing others?  For example do we really care about the difference between "Club Events" and "Other Events"? And do all events get posted?
2. Does our forum solution support sticky threads?  If so where we have repeating topics create a sticky thread and post summary that just captures the question(s) and answer(s) to cut down on thread repitition.
3. Search is hard even for large companies, to the point the one I'm working for has a team that are constantly working on tweaking and changing the search config to try and make it both easy to use and returning useful results.  I don't know what logging or analytics tracking we're capturing but that should give an insight into what/how people are searching and some areas to improve search. That could be giving more control over which sections the search filters by (using the windscreen wiper wheelbox example would the thread be under "Bodywork and Fittings", "General"?), tweaking exclude lists and minimum string lengths ("PI" might be a valid search on here - but 3 characters the minimum search string length), or defining a custom pseudonym list (so the search engine knows "PI", "petrol injection", and "fuel injection" often mean the same thing in the context of THIS forum.

[johny]

I think the extended 'rebuild' threads can make things difficult for searches because interesting issues come up in them, often with solutions, but are buried so deep that you lose the will to live trying to find what you want to know. Of course really we should start a new thread for these separate issues but too often the discussion is underway before theres a chance...  

[JohnD]

The AND that Colin refers to is otherwise known as a "Boolean Operator", after George Boole - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole - who was a Victorian logician and mathematician.     The others are the OR and the NOT, which together form very basic tools in computer structure and programming.     When used in a search engine they allow us to dig down to the roots of the search>   Being logic tools they must be used carefully, but may be used together.

Some search engines use other, equivalent operators, for instance to type the search words in quotes is the equivalent of AND between them, and may provide more accurate results.     Colin would have found more  from "wiper wheelbox" than  from wiper AND wheelbox (See Showing results for '"wiper wheelbox"'. - The Triumph Sports Six Club Forum (tssc.org.uk) ) But beware!    Use of quotes will only find the literal content of the quotes!    "wiper AND wheelbox" will only find the words wiper AND wheelbox, in that order and with the capital letters!

   eBay uses a minus sign instead of NOT, EG Triumph -motorcycle , and a comma between words instead of AND.  

For more on Boolean operators, see: Boolean operators - Searching information on computers - KS3 ICT Revision - BBC Bitesize

John

 

Edited September 19 by JohnD

[johny]

Thank you John. Colin also used plurals of both words which changes the results too🤔

[dougbgt6]

Not fogetting NOR and NAND

Doug

[AidanT]

17 hours ago, JohnD said:

Boolean Operator

Hi all

Although some may understand these, I think 🤔 the point is being missed. 

Mr average doesn't know this and quite frankly doesn't want to know. All they want is to add a search word or search string and get the relevant search results. So the search does require improvement 

 

[Gully]

I suspect the search functionality is embedded within the forum software, so not something TSSC can alter. Moderators being able to make key threads 'sticky' is possible on most forums, and could be useful for repeat topics.

Would it be too much to ask of whoever is generating the news stories for the TSSC Facebook page to also post them in the New or Events (whichever is relevant) sections of the forum? I think that would satisfy most.

It would be helpful to occasionally promote the forum for technical advice on social media posts. Also, for the TSSC Facebook / social media moderators to direct people to the forum when they have asked technical questions on, say, Facebook. The response times here are pretty good, courtesy of a couple of key individuals.

Gully

[Mjit]

1 hour ago, Gully said:

Would it be too much to ask of whoever is generating the news stories for the TSSC Facebook page to also post them in the New or Events (whichever is relevant) sections of the forum? I think that would satisfy most.

Yep, and it's basically just a copy/paste job so shouldn't add significant extra work, especially if it's restricted to things like just news and events rather than all the 'noise' you tend to get on SM.

[Colin Lindsay]

Yes guys, it's probably just me. I like the simple things - put a word into a search and it gives me the results; I do this on Google, or Bing, or Duckduckgo, and it works. Here, however, it's not that the search function isn't straightforward or user friendly, it's just me, and I probably should realise that two searches close together overloads things, I'm a nuisance and so I should mend my ways or else go sit in the sin bin until timer says otherwise.

Perhaps the Gov could use it? "Uh Oh! Looks like you've turned your heating on twice this month! Please wait one week before trying again." (Apologies, couldn't resist it...)

Thanks to John for the informative post which diverted me off to look at Boolean searches so I've learned something this morning, and made me grateful there isn't an Ulster version which asks 'why' and 'what for' to every query.