Forum change

[Paul-R]

Um, well I'm not too sure this is an improvement. I like to look across the posts for three sections only (For Sale, Citroen and Peugeot). Just looking at the Citroen section I find it very difficult to get an overview. I would have to go in to each sub-section and back out rather than just refresh a single page. It just takes too much time.

I tried to use the New Posts function but that brought up loads of posts from sections I don't go into as well. Way too much.

If you're going to continue with having these subsections is there any way that you could arrange for a New Posts just for each section?

I'm not a great fan of what's being done I'm afraid.

[ekjdm14]

I'm not 100% sure myself, but seeing as there's still this "general Citroen" area for either non model-specific or pan-Citroen kind of posts I think it still works pretty well. Depends how many of the sub-forum models you're after reading about I suppose.

Does seem a pretty sound idea though, having a "New Posts" list just for each forum, bringing all new posts from the sub-forums together...

[GiveMeABreak]

Thanks for the feedback both - it is still a work in progress and will take some time to complete. The basis for doing this is that currently the 3 technical forums we have (especially Citroen) are very large. It makes browsing through thousands of posts quite a challenge - especially for the public or newcomers who may need some help on a specific car model. This would make it easier to scan through the topics within a specific model section.

I believe the New Posts feature is designed to work across the whole site - but I'll check with Mike on that.

[bobins]

Is the intention to, for example, make the whole of the 'Citroen' section only categorised into sub-sections e.g. car model, telematics, etc ? If so, I'm not a fan I'm afraid. I prefer to see all the new posts in one go and delving into the ones I want to read more about - be it a 2CV suspension issue or a C6 sat nav problem. I can absolutely see the reasoning in wanting to have model categories in the forum - i.e. to make it easier to find info on a specific model, but not everyone is here to concentrate on just one model - I'm interested in all of them !! Apologies in advance if this was always the intention, but would it be possible to also have a 'sink' category where everything gets posted as before (and therefore duplicated), so those of us who like the 'overview' picture can keep it that way

[GiveMeABreak]

Bobins, thanks for your comments. We appreciate that established members like things how they currently are and that they do like to read a variety of topics. We also have a further obligation to the public that use the forum as a source of help and information. For those that may not be sure of their car model or where to start looking the overall 'Citroen' Forum can be quite overwhelming. When people can't find what they want relatively quickly, they tend to move on. When we consider that not everyone is a search engine guru either, with few having time to wade through endless pages of posts in the hope of finding something relevant, having at least some level of categorisation should help.

If I wanted to a book on Chinese cooking, I would at least want to go to a Cooking Section; I wouldn't expect to have to go through the whole library book by book.

We will still be keeping the main Citroen, Renault and Peugeot sections, as not everything posted will be relevant to a specific car. People are already posting into the new sections, so this is encouraging.

[bobins]

I appreciate I might have missed an announcement at some point, but is there an easy way to view the new posts in the (currently) 14 different Citroen categories in one go, or do I have to visit each one in turn to see the new posts ? That's intended as a genuine question as I'm quite capable of missing the bleedin' obvious - I'm not trying to be awkward and I'm not against progress.... as long as it's good progress !!

[moizeau]

Is it possible to leave all posts in the general section as well? Use the model sub-sections as a filter for those who want to look at specific cars. ,I for one will miss a lot of useful information gained from general browsing. For example, a lot of models share the same engine, the same problems.

[GiveMeABreak]

I appreciate I might have missed an announcement at some point, but is there an easy way to view the new posts in the (currently) 14 different Citroen categories in one go, or do I have to visit each one in turn to see the new posts ? That's intended as a genuine question as I'm quite capable of missing the bleedin' obvious - I'm not trying to be awkward and I'm not against progress.... as long as it's good progress !!

I believe the 'New Posts' will work across the forum, - but as you can probably appreciate, at present there are a lot of transactions being made on the database, so it will take time to re-index and they may not show up immediately. I know it won't be possible to please everyone, but we're not intending to add any further layers - unlike some other Forums where there are multiple categories for every car model!

[bobins]

Thanks for the info, Marc. I shall watch developments with interest

[GiveMeABreak]

Is it possible to leave all posts in the general section as well? Use the model sub-sections as a filter for those who want to look at specific cars. ,I for one will miss a lot of useful information gained from general browsing. For example, a lot of models share the same engine, the same problems.

I'll take your comments up with colleagues as soon as I can - at present there is a lot of work to do and this may be something we can look at at a later date. We obviously can't have duplication of posts as that would be inefficient in terms of the database operation. We want people to be posting their model-specific data into the relevant model section, but there may be a way to have a 'ghost topic' left in the general Citroen area, that if 'clicked' will link to back to the 'real' topic where comments and posts can be made. Again, this is something that we will have to look at and whether it is possible or not.

Thanks again for your comments.

[Paul-R]

I really do think there are too many sub-forums already. I can understand the reasoning behind it absolutely but it's just too much. Unless a way can be found to provide a New Posts function that only works on the Citroen section without the rest of the showing up it's just too busy.

Frankly I fear for the forum. I've seen too many forums come up with a grand idea to improve things and have not recovered from the innovation. Several I used to post on no longer exist as a result whilst others are a mere shadow of what they used to be as regular posters voted with their feet and now post elsewhere.

[daviemck2006]

I think it's making things more complicated and more awkward for numpties like me who are not computer literate. OK there's nothing changed on Tapatalk yet, which is how I read the forum, but for me simpler is better.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

[mickeymoon]

I generally only use the "new posts" and the "participated" filters, and read absolutely everything as I'm a knowledge hungry sponge!

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

[Richard_C]

The new specialist 'top level' section on Audio and Telematics is good. Maybe make it more explict and add Satnav to the title? A Peugeot owner might not read the Citroen forum but they may know as much as anybody about SMEG and SMEG+.

I much prefer the old way in the rest of the Citroen discussion group. A lot of members previously owned many Citroen's so chip in with advice on cars they no longer own. That will dwindle if people only look at the sections for what they have now. A discussion on, say, a problem on a C5 moves into a discussion on Lexia which is helpful for owners of other cars. There is commonality of engines and parts, so a discussion on an XUD engine in a Xantia is relevant to an XUD in something else, a puretech petrol in a C3 is much the same as one in a Cactus, C4, C1 or (now I think about it) almost any recent petrol model.

I wonder if reverting to the old way and posting a tutorial on using search might help? The main difficulty with search is the 'looseness' of description people use in posts - to find everything about a C5 X7 you have to search for C5 X7, C5 III and C5 111 and C5 2009, 10, etc. but I don't really know how to overcome that - moderators certainly don't have the time to tag every post.

[Paul-R]

As the search function is provided by Google you can use their search parameters. So, using the examples given, if you put

"C5 X7" or "C5 III" or "C5 111" or "C5 2009"

exactly as written into the search box, including the double quotes and the word "or", it'll find all circumstances. What it won't find, of course, is C5 Mk3 or any other variation. Apart from which, it's a faff.

A lot of members previously owned many Citroen's so chip in with advice on cars they no longer own. That will dwindle if people only look at the sections for what they have now. A discussion on, say, a problem on a C5 moves into a discussion on Lexia which is helpful for owners of other cars. There is commonality of engines and parts, so a discussion on an XUD engine in a Xantia is relevant to an XUD in something else, a puretech petrol in a C3 is much the same as one in a Cactus, C4, C1 or (now I think about it) almost any recent petrol model.

That is so true. I have owned a Mk1 C5 and a Xsara and have contributed (I hope) to answering queries in the past.

Will I look in to the Mk1 C5 or Xsara sections now? Quite possibly not.

Will I look into the C1, C3, Picasso, etc, sections? Probably not. And I don't think I'm alone there.