New administrator / Future site development

[webmoo]

Hi everyone,

Right, I've finally sorted my life out (mental health problems have massively affected me in the last few years but I'm in a better place now).
I'm now appraising everything I do in life and everything I own, this forum included.

To this end, I've finally done what I've been talking about for a long time: I've brought in a paid site administrator. He'll be along pretty soon to introduce himself.

His first tasks are, of course, updating the forum software and security etc, and updating some stuff in the background. Once that's done, his remit is to develop the forum and enhance it.

Please have a brainstorm and let us know what's wrong with the forum and what needs to change. What new features would you like to see? What have you always wanted the forum to be able to do? What needs deleting, changing, adding, removing, whatever?

All ideas welcome. It's time for the forum to take on it's next evolution, to grow and develop.

I know I've been very quiet (understatement!) and I apologise to this.
I must say a massive thank you to Casehardened and Peter1975 for manning the ship while I've been away, plus to all the fantastic moderators and senior members who have been so wonderful and supportive of this place.

Over to you!

[Casehardened]

Hi P*** (unsure as to whether you'd prefer anonymity atm?)

I'm delighted beyond words to see this post from you but guessed all along you were somewhere in the background stoking the forum boiler

I'd long been concerned about the survivability of the forum should I become incapacitated for any reason and I'm so grateful for Peter agreeing to share the Admin role; incidentally promoting him was one of the more challenging tasks I've faced, lol!

TBH, the admin role was always above my pay grade but I've been pleased to be able to undertake it in order to keep the forum afloat. However I'd be more than happy if one of the first jobs of the professional admin was to return me to mod status......

As for new features, one of the things I've often wished I could do is to 'like' a post a la FB style.

[webmoo]

Hi CH.
Adding a paid admin is in no way booting you out - I'm so grateful for your efforts here and cannot thank you enough. You are most welcome to stay on as an admin if you wish, or can happily drop back to just a mod if you prefer.

I'll leave our new admin to respond to the suggestion re the 'like' but it's a good first start.

Thanks!

[Peter1975]

Welcome back Webmoo.

This is great news. CH and Frantic have done a fantastic job but none of us are confident enough to tinker under the bonnet.

To be fair, DM mostly runs itself but my first suggestion would be to allow members a longer period in which to edit or delete their own posts as this currently falls to us mods and admins that are not around all the time.

I will second CH's suggestion. I did look into a like button but it didn't seem to be available on the current software version. I think it may be an idea to allow all visitors to like posts and for the most popular/helpful posts to then be searchable if possible.

Edited to add... the timeout for writing posts is too short as I have just been reminded! The software doesn't always do a good job of saving a post when signing back in!

Regards.

[atobweb]

Hello All

Hi All,

I'm Andrew operating under the name A to B Web. I have been appointed by Phillip to update and improve upon the already existing platform that exists here

If you have any queries or requests to what could be changed or added to the site please do let me know!

[Casehardened]

Hi Andrew,

A very warm welcome from me, to follow on from Peter's theme, it's like now having a garage to be able to take the car to instead of having to DIY!

Will reply on your other post re. thoughts about the forum.