Microsoft Office Live Small Business Community

Most of you liked The new Community Site.  Some not so much.  Can you share specifics about what's working for you -- and what's not?

I miss the feature from the old community that put an asterisk on posts that were new since you were last there, made it very easy to know which ones to check and which ones you had already read.  Same with pinning important posts on top, the push pin gave an indication that this post was different and drew more attention to it's importance.

Some instructions on how to use the forum, edit your profile ect for newbies and those that may not be familiar with forums might be nice too.

Sue

www.sjrivers.com

www.click-to-score.com

Here are the things I like:

1. The Signature option is nifty.  You don't have to keep retyping your URL.
2. Posts with links are apparently not screened out as "spam" for users who have not figured out the settings.  For a forum about web sites, links are an important tool for answering questions and helping others solve problems.
3. The profile page is fun.  More people should make use of it, and probably will as everyone gets the hang of it.
4. Now that I have figured out the filter and sorting options, it's gotten easier to find my way around.
5. The private message option is handy for communicating with an individual.  Sometimes it's more appropriate to speak privately rather than broadcasting to the whole community.
6. It's fun to see who else is here.

Here are things which could be improved:

1. I also miss the flags for new posts.  Number 4 above is only a partial solution. 
2. The "Content Selector" in the message tool bar is still a mystery.
3. Bold and Italics still don't work.  Underline and strikeout do.  See?

Thanks.  I hope this info is helpful.

www.fidalgoweather.net
Check the Masters Forum for help and good ideas.
For beginners: Getting started with OLSB.

The signature option is very cool, I can see where you can type stuff in, but having your URL - I haven't a clue how to do that, there are no directions, not even a 'help' button anywhere.   :(  

Sue,

whose html knowledge is limited to altering something she copied and pasted from somewhere else...

www.sjrivers.com

www.click-to-score.com

Overall much improved!!

But there a couple things that would nice to change

1. more than five posts per view

2. Someway to tell if it is a old or new post, or pinned to top ect. or even if it is a question or just a comment.

I follow a couple of forums, and one of them will send me emails, when new topics are posted.

Is it possible to do that??


Hudson

I think there is an option for that in your profile settings.

Link on Front page of Community to a list of people who post and reply.

 I am aware of receiving emails concerning replies to threads of postings I have contributed to.

My suggestion is to receive new emails regarding New Topics as they are created.
If John Perkins could point to the Link he is referring to in his post, would be much appreciated.
If by Front Page of Community, he is referring to the Home Page, I was unable to find said option.

 I think we would all benefit from being made aware of new topics posted.
Learn of new items, and perhaps head off any issues that might crop up.

Or just plain learn better ideas on how to utilize my site.

 As of now, trolling around the forum for new topics is tedious.

Hudson

These aren't dial up days anymore... showing only 5 posts per page resulting in perhaps dozens of page clicks is very inefficient.  Fix the pager to show a reasonable number (25, 50 or custom).

Post times seem to be all over the place.  The old forum showed all posts in Pacific (i.e. Redmond) Standard Time or GMT-8 hours.  That made it easier to find new posts.  Now they are apparently showing the local time of the poster.  Together with the lack of flags for new posts, this is adding to the difficulty finding new ones.  One consistent time stamp, GMT, PST or whatever, would be desirable.

The main category index page shows the last post by day of week.  "Thursday" isn't clear if it was "Thursday" two weeks ago.  How about listing the actual post date instead?

Thanks

www.fidalgoweather.net
Check the Masters Forum for help and good ideas.
For beginners: Getting started with OLSB.

Love the layout, however, links used to open in a new window with the previous version.  Now it is dangerously easy to close the entire window.

Since the upgrade I have increased page rank, Alexa ranking, and appraisal value for both my websites so I voted that I like the new community (since the forum can now be indexed by the search engines).

Gary
New Mountain Tavern	Silver Moon Furniture