MVS Forums: what would you like to see?

[matthew1]

Encourage users to not post repair information in the “What did you do today…” threads.

I'll put a message that appears in the two WDYDT threads reminding users of this.

Maybe make the signatures more differentiated from the post content by changing the font color slightly.

Will do.

A dark mode would be cool.

It would. The problem is the forum software phpBB was written in 2000, and (very slightly) modernized in 2008. It's... old, and things like light/dark switching (and 1000 other modern Web things) were just not a design target back then. So why hasn't it been modernized?

Because Facebook, Reddit, etc. killed forums, so the motivation to continue developing them fell off. MVS Forum is actually a pile of kludges on top of old software. It works, but it's absolutely not elegant or particularly modular.

For light/dark I'd look for a solution that may exist today, or may exist in the future, that does this at a higher level, like as a function of your browser.

Perhaps a Helpful icon besides the Thanks.

Not a bad idea, but there's a lot of overlap with Thanks.

On other forums, I'm taken right to the oldest new post, in the thread, that I haven't read yet.

I'll look into this.

On my phone I am often plopped in the middle of a page, not the most recent post I selected.

I'll look into this. Probably a matter of giving elements with a known height that height in the code so that the browser knows how far it must travel down from Top.

[abscate]

Counterpoint, good forums have survived, the crap has not.

[Krons]

IMG_2906.jpeg (31.89 KiB) Viewed 1047 times

Found a typo.

Personally I prefer people add additional input to a thread vs creating a new one. My logic is that if people search later everything is in one place.

VerticalScope encourages people to start new threads, which then scatters info across multiple threads and makes it really tough for people to find it all later. May just be me…

[matthew1]

Krons, thanks for the typo report, fixed now.

The reason for the message is the needle/haystack problem. 90% of the MVS traffic is through search... so if it's not available (or not immediately noticeable) via search, the # of viewers for any one good post goes way down.

It's a suggestion, not enforced at all. I have better things to do . If you or anyone else wants to post big DIYs inside that, it's fine. I won't even note or care if that happens. Everyone here is an adult, and smarter/better behaved than 99.9% of the rest of the internet.

Another reason I don't care/don't enforce this is because I understand it would hurt the "fabric" that holds MVS together. What Have You Done to Your Volvo Today and its P2 counterpart are the equivalent of a neighborhood's dad's hangout -- like someone's garage with a fridge full of beer. It's fun and casual and nobody worries about stuff. It's a bunch of dudes talking Volvo stuff, and that's invaluable.

So I want to cut a fine line between the two arguments and simply leave it at your discretion.

That said, if you have a strong DIY or reference info, and if you want to do a touch more work, there's no reason not to do dual posts, one inside the What Did You Do topic, and one a New Topic.

[Krons]

That said, if you have a strong DIY or reference info, and if you want to do a touch more work, there's no reason not to do dual posts, one inside the What Did You Do topic, and one a New Topic.

I’m definitely good with this. Agree that the What Did You Do threads aren’t the best to place/find info. Making info available through search is important too.

[02V70]

I dont know if it is too late to change now, but I would like to see message previews for the post reply in the email notifications like some other forums have.

[matthew1]

Good suggestion. I'll see if this is possible...

[abscate]

Good annual reminder to encourage people to use part numbers in questions and DIYs.

Part numbers are powerful searchable , and lead to sources of pertinent info directly. It takes 30 seconds to find them in the online parts fiche, but the payback is forever