What would you like to see on VegWeb?
Posted by Webmistress Laura on Jun 12, 2009 · Member since Jun 2009 · 831 posts
Hello Awesome People Who Know VegWeb Best!
As I'm getting to know the site and learning as much as I can, I thought I'd take a moment to get opinions on any changes you'd like to see. What do you like? Love? Want to throw out a window? Anything and everything! It's obvious the community is active and vibrant and so I KNOW you have some opinions! Let's hear 'em!
If you're feeling shy or don't want to post in a thread, feel free to email me at eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6c%61%75%72%61%40%76%65%67%77%65%62%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%6c%61%75%72%61%40%76%65%67%77%65%62%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')).
Thanks!!
Laura
And after re-reading:
Food Fight
The gloves are about to come off. It’s time for a no-holds barred, battle of the words. If you’re looking for a debate (read: argument), you’ve come to the right place.
Is the one I appear to want.
I ask you, in what world does 'Food Fight' and 'debating'/'arguing' go together. Are we trying to stop people from posting in these forums? If so, and I can only presume this is what is being aimed for, would it not be more efficent to close the forums instead?
And if not, what logic would make anyone who reads "food fight" to just assume "oh, this is a place for debating things".
It could equally go with, (or in this case, more relevantly, as it includes food and some form of competition, which goes hand in hand with a fight, at least by the logic these titles appear to be with) "who has the best diet"
"what foods are and aren't vegan"
etc.
I believe the phrase, 'if it aint broke don't fix it' comes to mind.
AOAS made me also think about - i wonder if some of the titles might have different meanings/understandings for users outside the US. like "what's new pussycat" might not be a universally understood phrase for "what's new with you?"
It will be an opportunity for cultural diffusion! :P
I think they're adorable. They're like what I would have wanted to make but wouldn't have been clever enough. It gives us personality.
ASOAS, the debate section is called "Food Fight" now--just look at the descriptions or the list AC posted.
eta: I like it because, honestly, I don't read the pet threads, or many of the cooking threads or parenting threads. Now they're not in my view all the time unless I want them.
hmmm....Could we have a room specifically for ranting/bitching/venting/whathaveyou? (we could call it the steam room: where you go to let off some steam?)
I can see how some of the forum titles might seem cute, but frankly I find them obnoxious. I can't figure out where any of the threads I want to look at are, and checking my new replies doesn't help because some threads I check , but don't post in. What used to take a few min has now taken over 20 and I am giving up for the time being, I'm going crazy.
I agree that the current list is overwhelming and the learning curve is too steep.
I think if we try three or four main visual sections, it will be easy to build a schema in your brain where you're like "OK, dining section, that's the first one in the "food" category, under the first bar" or whatever. It will become automatic. Plus I know some people are really only about the food, while some people are really only about the other stuff, etc. I rarely read food threads.
I really do like the chosen rooms, though I think the teenager one is dispensible and maybe a couple others. But the overall scheme is similar to not only ppk, but a few other forums I've seen, with waaaaaay more active members than we have. I don't think it will be a deterrent if done properly.
Again, I really like not having to see the threads I never read. It makes it more likely for me to post because I'm not sifting through things.
Yeah, the first time you see it it might take 20 minutes, but with proper organization and a couple times of practice it should become easy.
All the names and long descriptions are a little overwhelming. What if it was switched, at least for a while, so that the forum names are actually very clear, with the more fun name in the descriptive section?
for example:
Food Forum
"Dine 'n' Dish" - From at-home chefs to restaurant regulars, there’s one vegetarian truth: we’re a little food crazy. This is the place to be for tantalizing talk on all things food.
Health And Wellness
"Lean Mean Vegan Machine" - Whether you’re in fierce fighting shape or a champion couch potato, this is the go-to spot for discussing health and wellness. Sweatbands and spandex encouraged, but not required.
Product Reviews
"Nice Package" - Sitting on a must-have vegan product? Spill your consumer secrets about the best merch available, be it exciting and new or tried and true.
I also like KMK's division of forums.
I agree that the current list is overwhelming and the learning curve is too steep.
I think if we try three or four main visual sections, it will be easy to build a schema in your brain where you're like "OK, dining section, that's the first one in the "food" category, under the first bar" or whatever. It will become automatic. Plus I know some people are really only about the food, while some people are really only about the other stuff, etc. I rarely read food threads.
I really do like the chosen rooms, though I think the teenager one is dispensible and maybe a couple others. But the overall scheme is similar to not only ppk, but a few other forums I've seen, with waaaaaay more active members than we have. I don't think it will be a deterrent if done properly.
Again, I really like not having to see the threads I never read. It makes it more likely for me to post because I'm not sifting through things.
Yeah, the first time you see it it might take 20 minutes, but with proper organization and a couple times of practice it should become easy.
see, i think everyone just has their own way of surfing, but for me it takes longer this way. before i just clicked on chit-chat (that was my bookmark) and then either if i was bored or if their were threads i was currently interested in i would go to news and debate/events/food.
now, because there is no way i am going to spend a bunch of time clicking on individual forums, i use "show unread posts since last visit".. so now i have to look at everything + all of the food reviews. so this way takes me longer.
i do agree with you about grouping things together in a clearer way. much more inviting and organized.
but i think there are users on here to came to vw because it wasn't like the other boards. i think we have a strong base community centered on having a good idea of what everyone is up to. for example, from the last set up, i know a lot of people b/c i saw their posts. now if they only post in "hobbies" or other areas i don't visit i might know them as well as if the groupings were big enough to be relevant for me to click into. i know that bigger boards to have community but i've always valued the really small feel of vegweb. i like not having to spend 5 hours a day on here to know what is going on. again, we have more hits than the other sites and majority of users aren't using the forums - they are using the resources on the site (recipes, etc). as such, i don't think we need to be like the others. we should pave our own paths, adding/adjusting forums as the need arises (such as adding an Adult topics area).
i agree 100%. most of us are on ppk occasionally (that's usually where i post dumb queries i have at the last second before i start cooking bc i know someone will answer fast) just as many of them are on VW occasionally. i think we can just use different boards for different reasons rather than all becoming the same thing.
Hey All!
Just wanted to let you know that we're reading all of your concerns and taking everything you say into account.
I started a thread to talk specifically about the new forums! You can find it here: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=29567.0
Thanks so much for all your great feedback and just for making VegWeb awesome in general!
Laura
Wasn't sure if I should post this in this topic or the above:
Also what about for specific threads we add tags (optional of course), so for instance, the one on india and milk could be tagged with, 'culture', 'milk', 'ethics', 'india' so on so forth.
This one could be, 'topic burocracy', 'admin work', 'suggestions',' improvment'?
The rest of this is probably in the right place.
People should either be able to delete their own topics (at least if no-ones posted on the topics apart from themselves) or report their own posts/topics. Perhaps even be able to move them.
Not applicable anymore:
Also with so many divides we could have a veg web spy application perhaps?
I've only seen one on a forum that closed down a few years ago but it was brilliant.
What would happen would be you'd click on "veg web spy" and you'd see the latest topics to be made/posted on. It would stream so that if a new post was made that would go at the top, in order of what happened, and the last one would be pushed off. You could have two posts from the same topic at a time etc. Meaning you can read what is currently being spoken about on a topic, and if it happens to be something specifically want to discuss, you wouldn't of needed to click on that topic to find out.
I always found that really useful (as did many from that forum).
only just seen these:
Show unread posts since last visit.
Show new replies to my posts.
Show recent posts.
so that veg web spy thing, nevermind.
Is there a way to make them look bigger? More eye catching?
I think it would be nice if users could rate recipe comments by usefullness. And then be able to sort the recipe comments by usefullness, or how many stars the reviewer gave the recipe, & so on. Some of the recipes have a lot of reviews & sometimes you just want to see the reviews that may help you with the recipe.
Thanks. :)
It'd be great if the passwords were 6 characters long if we wanted.
However it says in the changing thing they must be 6 characters long at least, however if you have a 6 character long password it says at the top in red, after pressing enter, that it must be 8 characters long. heehee.
my suggestion for vegweb..although it is coming rather late...is that when we're looking through recipes, it would be great to have an indicator of whether or not you've already added it to your recipe box. I come across great-sounding ones and try to add them and then get a message that it's already in there...lots of them are ones I added ages ago so I don't remember.
It would be nice if there was a place we could add our own notes to recipes once they are in our recipe box. It would save time w/o having to read the comments again. We could make note of any changes that have been suggested or that we've tried and liked.
Nice idea!
There are some seriously good pictures on here - maybe there could be a place just to look at the pics (links to recipes provided).
First off I think vegweb is perfect, I have been to a lot of different foodie places/ groups and this one is set up where the poster has a lot of control, like with being able to remove a picture or recipe for example.. Seems simple but this last recipe site I was at I literally had to manually delete word by word each recipe and you couldn't even delete the photo only replace it, so I replaced every single recipe with a large deleted image. Really rude in my opinion which is why I had to leave even though it was full of great people just the people behind the scenes were not so great.
So this place is perfect.. I'm really liking the " My Meal Planner, Grocery List and Recipe Box" very helpful.
The only thing I would like to see is a place where you can go to ask questions, you may already have this and I just haven't found it ??? which is most likely. Because I have a question.
There's a place on our profiles where we can designate our diet as vegan, ovo-lacto, etc. I would love to have a choice for "transitioning vegetarian to vegan" or "transitioning omni to vegetarian". It may not be all that important, but I assume it would be really simple to do.
Correct me if I'm wrong....now we can all PM? I hope so!
Also, it bothers me to have an eating disorder thread right next to a fitness thread. I don't really know if there is a better place to put it, and I know that people don't have to read it if they don't want to, but it is just unsettling to me and makes me anxious. I don't know if other people feel the same way. I think both threads are valuable, and they have to do with wellness, so........I dunno. Just had to mention it.
I've started to post that at least a dozen times now, kmk, about the ED thread on the fitness board. I couldn't think of a better place to put it, so I didn't hit post. Even Happy Hour would be a better place for it.
Correct me if I'm wrong....now we can all PM? I hope so!
oh oh oh, can we?! I'm gonna send KMK a PM just to test it (coz she was the one who told me about it)
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