[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by turbo

Dont like the new emojis, and would like to have the old ones back, especially the I'm stupid, biggrin and offtopic ones.

Keep the new emoji's if you want to but we'd like some of those old ones back - I'd like to see the Eeek! and Shocked!! ones back.

[Carpainter]

Recently there are lot of advertisement coming up in between posts and sometimes even in a post that makes a single post fragmented. This happens specially when I'm not logged in and when I'm browsing through my phone. Is there some issue with the site or at my end. Ads inside a post don't crop up when I'm logged in. I wish I had a screenshot to show.

[VKumar]

Originally Posted by turbo

Dont like the new emojis, and would like to have the old ones back, especially the I'm stupid, biggrin and offtopic ones.

Absolutely, the :biggrin or say has completely lost its charm. Heck, even my avatar is :biggrin, one can clearly see the difference between the one that felt so lively and this new one

[GrandTourer]

Started seeing these kind of ads on desktop. The previous setup where ads would be between posts and not overlayed on the page. These ads cover up the content and requires unnecessary clicks to close the ads. It's very annoying.
Mods - Can anything be done about this?

On threads:


On 'New Threads' section:

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by GrandTourer

Started seeing this kind of ad on desktop. The previous setup where ads would be between posts and not overlayed on the page. These ads cover up the content and require unnecessary clicks to close the ads. It's very annoying.

I agree it is annoying but are these Ads visible even if you are signed-in?

I don't see these ads when I am browsing as a member but can see them when I check as a guest.

[GrandTourer]

Originally Posted by a4anurag

I agree it is annoying but are these Ads visible even if you are signed-in?

I don't see these ads when I am browsing as a member but can see them when I check as a guest.

Yes, these screenshots are from when I am logged in. When browsing as a guest, I have seen ads like carpainter mentioned - inside the post on phone, especially when opening a link on the FB page. Those ads look like they are images attached in the post itself. Thankfully, I don't see those when logged in. But yes, these overlays are visible even when logged in.

[frewper]

I want to make a few suggestions so that the forum can be more intuitive and more engaging to the reader.

The Problem

Since the site is more of a forum, we do expect every member to have a say about any topic, which contributes tremendous value to the thread. But it also leads to a lot of posts that create a lot of noise around the topic.

The reason why this becomes a problem, is when the thread grows over the time, sometimes over a couple of years, the thread because so long (100s of pages) that it now has more noise than the important stuff.

Example: Now I am trying to get some aftermarket headlights for my current car. Now as any member I do know that the best advice, comparision and personal recommendations can be found in our forum, and I dont look at any other sites. For headlights particularly we have the following thread.

93908-auto-lighting-thread-post-all-queries-about-automobile-lighting-here-799

Similary for car detailing, one of the best threads as we all know is

102011-superb-car-cleaning-polishing-detailing-guide

Now if I were to go the headlight thread, I have spent a lot of time going through the posts, but it would have been great if I could have avoided reading atleast half of them. Because it contains a lot of random thoughts,questions or not so great suggestions. Or posts that have been just for the sake of it. As of this writing it has 799 pages and if I could have avoided reading atleast half of those pages because they were not that important.

Because of all the noise that goes into a thread, users will not find the thread that intuitive and engagement will be affected. Its like the annoying ads in between the overs in a cricket match. Would have been great to see the bowlers switching over and fielders changing position.

Important Member contribution: Now in this thread alone, if i try to skip posts thingking that they are unimportant, I may miss out on the important ones. Ex: If our admin Gannu makes a comment on the way the headlight thows up its high beam and how the the beam pattern is incorrect and points out the difference, this is a post that i definetly want to read and do not want to miss out on. But there is a chance that I may miss out on it when I am skipping pages.

Current method of skipping posts: Now to skip on posts that may not be that important and I am not skipping pages, what I normally do is scroll through and read only those posts that are liked or keep an eye on the member who has posted it. There are some members whos opinion are always spot on so cannot miss them even if they are not thanked for that particular post.

Probable Solution

One of the solution that I belive will work is to avoid non important posts to be marked as such. No I dont mean down voting. It just means that someone who is going through an older but very important thread, can go through the important stuff and avoid the noise. Once a post is marked as non important multiple times, a new reader will know what to read and what not to.
I believe that a user can save hours at a time by just doing this simple option.

See the example below. These posts are from 2007. They were important at that point in time, but not today. The information requested here is easily available on google. So today these posts are just not needed. Its a waste of half a page.
If a new user logs in today to learn about detailing he has lost a precious few seconds going through these posts alone. And all these adds up to a couple of hours for every serious user on this site.



Additionally to extend the functionality of this we can even hide the post, but still have an option to read it if needed. Its like minimising the post, so that the user know some posts have been hidden, but can choose to read them on a click.




Why can we not use the current thanks count to decide if to hide a post or not.
May be, may be not. Some times a post can be importat and may not be thanked. Maybe its not important enough but is worth the mention. So I think thanks count can be left as is to denote how valuable the contributions made by this user is.

Who should mark a post as non important.
Now since its the moderators who maintain quality, that would be the first option, but since that may be tremendous amount of work of the moderators, we have to extend the functionality towards the users itself. Mainly users who are active and whose opinions matter. Maybe only those users are allowed to mark a post as not important, who have been thanked 1K times or more.

What can we achieve from all this.
1. So I think one of the major gains will be that the forum will be more engaging to the user.
2. The forum has quality threads. Now we are going to make sure that the data in it is also of the highest quality. So hide all the noise that exist.
3. With this the user will save a lot of time reading only that data which is valuable and skip the rest. It will save her/him tremendous amount of time.

[Sreesh1009]

Guys, when I open the page on my phone's browser, I'm not able to see any of the threads on the homepage.

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by Sreesh1009

Guys, when I open the page on my phone's browser, I'm not able to see any of the threads on the homepage.

I got the same error. Shall ask Rehaan to check.

[aashishnb]

Originally Posted by GrandTourer

On 'New Threads' section:
Attachment 2106979

+1. I'm also getting similarly large pop-ups. Covers a lot of screen real estate and is really really annoying.

[Govardhansupra]

This suggestion is a little grave, and maybe, would also have been suggested before too.

Mods, usually when you read an ownership report, you intend to know the maintenance costs, overall vehicle and other updates from the OP, if he has posted any. But, in both Official reports and ownership reviews, many comments are in the like of "Wow! Superb writing skills man! Really loved your writing, keep it up."
Some comments also goes like "Congratulations on the new purchase. Extremely clean can, man. You seemed to have got a very sweet deal. Enjoy miles and miles of service."

The usual Team-BHP readers wouldn't mind this, but there is a chance that a guest looking to purchase the same car would get a little annoyed. He would have come to know how the car is, what the maintenance costs are, and issues faced and all other updates from the owner. The guest wouldnt also mind questions asked by other BHPians. If there was a question posted and the owner answers it, that would also enlarge the information in the thread. The guest would actually appreciate it too. Who knows, even he would be facing a similar problem with his car.

Most people who post congratulation messages and appreciation comments would have an intention of increasing their post count. We all know that, and we do agree to that fact. I'm also stressing on the word "most".

Cool car, cool wheels, nice this, nice that comments can be deleted, or mods can advise everyone to avoid posting those types of comments.

I wouldn't mind people posting questions or queries, or even stating facts about the car.
Example: In a Maruti Suzuki car's ownership review, we would all love Leoshashi to say his opinion, and also state some facts about the car.
These actually increase the value of the thread.
Even questions are encouraged, and that also increases the value of the thread when someone answers it.

All I wanted to convey is that, those types of comments add no actual value to the thread. The only thing they increase are the bandwidth costs.
Maybe, mods can enforce a new rule that condemns posting of those types of comments, which will make the thread full of solid information.

Sorry if I sounded harsh

[Kosfactor]

On our home page there is a "Materials used in making cars" entry under Hot Threads, its taking me to a Raspberri Pi page , is that normal?

[padmrajravi]

When I am not logged in I get a big banner of advertisement in the bottom left corner. This used to be a small banner earlier. This is a serious issue in the user experience for non registered users. I think the size of that banner should be reduced.

[ShankarG]

Originally Posted by Govardhansupra

in both Official reports and ownership reviews, many comments are in the like of "Wow! Superb writing skills man! Really loved your writing, keep it up."
Some comments also goes like "[i]Congratulations on the new purchase. Extremely clean can, man. You seemed to have got a very sweet deal. Enjoy miles and miles of service...

Dear Govardhansupra. I concur with your points.

Dear Mods, is there a way where you add smiley depicting reactions to a post along with thanks button? For example clapping for well written, something for congratulations etc. This has been done in LinkedIn and to some extent in Facebook.

This may help in
- reducing the redundant messages from the thread and the length of the thread resulting in significant time savings of a reader looking for a particular aspect in a thread.
- reducing your effort of filtering the non value added posts.
- to an extent, increase the quality of posts citing real content, queries, suggestions etc.
- somehow increase meaningful additions by our knowledgeable members.

All in all, it may improve the overall user experience.

Thanks

[Govardhansupra]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

On our home page there is a "Materials used in making cars" entry under Hot Threads, its taking me to a Raspberri Pi page , is that normal?

Yes, that had happened to me too. It would mostly be an error that occured while putting up the hyperlink.

Originally Posted by ShankarG

Dear Mods, is there a way where you add smiley depicting reactions to a post along with thanks button? For example clapping for well written, something for congratulations etc. This has been done in LinkedIn and to some extent in Facebook.

You mean, like reacting to messages on instagram using smileys?
How feasible would that be?

Better option would be to just hit the "Thanks" button instead of thanking them for the amazing review or appreciating them for their new purchase.
Also, if they really want to congratulate or wish them, they can always do it via PMs