Not being a big user of forums until I got a scooby and discovered scoobynet, I really had no idea how antiquated this program for the forum really was.
I have now had experience of another forum, which is light years ahead of this one.
Do any of the moderators know why we are still using this old program, when there are much better and faster programs out there that do a much better job.
examples: No proper signatures for members, pics of cars, graphics ect...
no email notification switch off.....
no ability to watch a thread without contributing.....
and the annoying way you always go to the first page of a thread when you get a notification of new posts, and then have to click thru to the last page.....arrrrggggg...
Come on scoobynet moderators, sort it out, get rid of the archaic system, and get a decent forum program.
The content on the other hand is absolutly without question first rate, no complaints there at all, and thanks for all your hard work moderators,
chris.

well i think it works just fine

CW42

It's easy to have all those things when your traffic is low. Scoobynet has a massive amount of traffic(the exact figures are frightning), which all the above would make it use even more bandwidth and demand more processing power.

As for signatures, a year ago Scoobynet members were asked if they wanted them or not. The majority said no.

Why fix it,if it aint broken?
dave

It is maybe missing a few useful things like quick reply, notifications (although I'm not a big user of the latter) but outdated and obsolete? Not by a long stretch. Swift, concise and purposeful possibly?

Neil

Let's have them then :D

David

The last time Si mentioned them I think it was something like they were on a par with the Met office :eek:

They're going to be large - corsasport.co.uk peaks at 4000 visits per day and we have like one third of the member count.

We left our old hosts in Merseyside as we were passing more traffic than Tranmere Rovers haha.

[Edited by Ian Griffiths - 8/15/2003 8:49:38 PM]

it does its job and it does it quickly. All that matters for me TBH.
Besides, whats the point in 30 seconds more load time (not all of us are braodband yet) when all it is a series of photos of a car that you've seen 10,000 times before and some blokes proclamation of "aspartame kills!" or whatever.
Theres a lot to be said for minimalism, not least what you can get away with surfing at work with ;)
astraboy.

A lot of the other forums with the fun-fangled-gagets are difficult and cluttered to navigate. If it ain't broke don't fix it :D

Didn't Simon mention around 30000 hits and that was last year.

Also read in an internet mag that Scoobynet is the biggest Europe based motoring BBS and one one the biggest motoring bbs's in the world.

Simon also said that scoobynet has to run bespoke software as none of the off the shelf packages will cope with the amount of traffic scoobynet generates.

Personaly I hate bbs's that run with pictures and signatures all over the place, they just make the threads look messy and difficult to follow.

Lee

It's fine as it is

Hi,

Both Simon and myself actually own Scoobynet Ltd, so I would just like to take the time to answer your post personally.

Firstly, thankyou for your comments. Whether they are negative or positive, you have the right to voice your opinion.

While we really do take in to consideration what the community think of these forums, I certainly have never know it to be called "antiquated" and "archaic" before.

You say that you have had experience of *another* forum, would you like to say which forum that is (you can of course, do this via email to me if you wish), that you state is light years ahead? It's hard to guage what others think as being light years ahead, so it would be interesting to have a look.

As regards to Scoobynet using an "old" program, that simply is not the case. Up to about 2 yrs ago, we were required by sheer traffic, to develop our own BBS software. This was purely because the previous off the shelf software (market leader), was not up to the task of dealing with the traffic that Scoobynet was attracting at the time. This was just as well, as since then, the traffic has doubled, increasing month on month. FYI Scoobynet receives circa 30 million hits a month, and is one of the biggest motoring sites in the world and one of the biggest sites overall in the UK.

You say there are faster programs out there? I have certainly never used any other BBS software that has been faster and as reliable as ours, considering the amount of traffic we attract. But again I would be interested to know these sites using this software, if nothing more but for bench marking.

As has already been highlighted, the communiity decided against the use of sig's and avitars (which I thought were rather cool tbh).

The beauty with our software though (is time pending), we are able to implement anything we like, so the other suggestions you have made (which are valid), could be implemented at a later date.

I'm certainly pleased you find the actual content excellent and also notice we have one of (if not THE best) moderating team around, as I'm sure your aware without such an excellent team we would certainly not be what we have become! Last, but by no means least, is the amazing community itself!!! :)

Regards,
Shaun.

Here! Here!

J

them pictures people get for there weee bit at the bottom pisses me rightly off leave scoobynet as it is

When setting up a new account on a BBS,I alsways chose not to receive email notification if someone answers my thread and I NEVER subscribe to threads as it's no effort to manually check on them.
I've found Scoobynet to be the quickest forum I've used and lately has had minimum downtime.

shaun

If you and simon both own scoobynet, how come you aren't the 'Deputy Webmaster' then ?

:D

Thanks Shaun and Simon - I like it the way it is - The pics and so on would just be additional bandwidth - I AM on broadband, but at 'just now' am using 68%, so I don't really want anything too flash, thanks.

It does the job and any niggles can be worked around -

Cheers,

Mark

PS - My mate hosts my site - I put a video on once and posted a link from scoobynet - it was downloaded 500 times in the first day and used his monthly bandwidth allowance, so I removed it - I'm not surprised that you get so many hits !

shaun and simon,and everyone on scoobynet, firstly let me say how humbled I am by the overwhelming majority of posts for keeping scoobynet as it is. I really didn't mean to open such a large can of worms with this subject, but evidently I have!
The problem with a BBS is that you type down exactly what you want to say, and sometimes, as in this case, don't choose your words as carefully as if you were speaking to someone.
I should know better than to use such strong language as "antiquated" and "archaic", so my apologies to the moderators on that one.
The other forum is as you say, a comercially available one, and when I read your hits traffic a month I was astounded, 30 MILLION!
That is phenomenol!
I can now fully understand why you want to keep it simple, and as some users have pointed out, if your not on broadband, scoobynet with avatars, signatures and kb's of graphics would take an age to load. So keeping it simple is obviously the best way.
Thanks again everyone for their opinion on this one, and thanks also to shaun and simon for doing such stirling work on this huge forum.
(Now, can you guys implement a "stop following this thread" button please, as I feel I am going to get a few more email notifications on this subject!
thanks,
chris.

I think an avatar limited to say 75x75 linked from people's own webspace would be good.

That way it would only be a few more chars per post in traffic with regards to scoobynet.co.uk - hardly a lot of data.

The stop notify would be *very* useful i think!

Andy

[Edited by SiDHEaD - 8/15/2003 11:02:08 PM]

The only useful addition I can think of, is a full text search engine (i.e. not just the subject field).

The amount of useful stuff we must miss from threads, just because the search text doesn't appear in the subject.

E.G. Someone replys to a thread, giving an answer of "Prodrive". If you do a serach for prodrive, you won't find it.

Annimated GIF's and JPG's are a waste of time and space. Don't even bother.

People are here to share info, not watch crappy cartoons.

Anything that helps people get answers to their questions, or share info, sounds like a good idea to me.

Chris

Chris

click the "Search Posts" radio button on the search to text of posts :)

Dave.

Shaun/Simon

30M hits/month........why would you want to change anything ?? ;)

F**k,

Cheers Guys.

Maybee I'll think next time.

Chris

I once got email notification 89 times in a day from another forum
Ive watched this site grow from a few scoob fans to A Sub culture..........Move over New world order!

Personally i like the way this BBS is now as i can read threads all night most nights whilst surfing japanese auctions man do i know lots of subaru info beauty is its only useful to similar peeps like me and you.

SN is one of the better ones Thumbs up from me!

G

:cool:

CW42,

No problems as regards to your post content. After my brief explanation of the reasons, I see you understand why it is how it is.

This truly is an amazing resource and on-line community, that has grown (and continues to grow) out of all proportion. I dare to think what the magnitude will be in another couple of years!!! :)

Regards,
Shaun.

All that animated sh1te is annoying, clutters up the screen and increases the time it takes to load the page - especially if you're on a crappy, slow connection.

It's just not needed. It would certainly put me off.

There is a facility to upload pics if required, so there's no reason to change the current system.

Close on 30,000 members is evidence of that.

My god it works (sorry i'm in shock, I joined when all search was down).

Now I won't need to bother people with stupid questions.

Cheers

Chris

you should get free donuts while you surf:D

I say BAN! cw42 for daring to besmirch the workings SN, it is perfect and its moderators more so



[Edited by Paul Habgood - 8/16/2003 7:35:49 PM]