[Writhedhornbill]

I just really like the way that the forum is currently set up, especially for the European zoos where there are more zoos per country.

I suppose I'll get used to it in time.......

[Sim]

Originally Posted by Writhedhornbill I just really like the way that the forum is currently set up, especially for the European zoos where there are more zoos per country.

It was an experiment to set it up that way - but once I actually started creating all of the zoo forums, it was becoming a nightmare to manage - especially since we now have discussion about over 300 zoos worldwide!

Just give it a bit of time - once I've finished migrating all of the existing forums to the new structure, hopefully things will start to become more clear for you. If necessary, I'll revisit the way things are labelled to make things more obvious.

[Sun Wukong]

Originally Posted by Sim If the zoo you want to write about isn't listed, just choose "no zoo" initially and then let me know so I can define a new zoo for that country.

Thanks, that's what I was referring to.

[bongorob]

I liked the new system, but when I made a test post I couldn't find out how to delete it.

[Sim]

Originally Posted by bongorob I liked the new system, but when I made a test post I couldn't find out how to delete it.

You can't.

If you ever need to delete a post, just use the "report this post" to make a request and one of the mods will do it.

[Chlidonias]

the self-delete option has been removed for all posts from now on?

[Sim]

Originally Posted by Chlidonias the self-delete option has been removed for all posts from now on?

Well technically, you should be able to delete your own posts right now (within the first 2 days of posting)

If you click on "Edit" on your post you should see a "delete" option ... however when I tried to test this earlier today, it wouldn't work for my test user ... and I don't have time to work out what's going wrong at the moment

So, the jury is still out on that - for now, use the "report this post" feature if you have a post that requires deletion.

[taun]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I seem to be experiencing a few problems with new structure (or some other issue),

1) My unread posts have on occasions turned them self to read!

2) At work I dont seem to beable to get onto the home page keep recieving this message

"Sorry, the ZooBeat forums are currently offline while we perform some maintenance to the site. We will be back up and running soon!"

Yet if I google a know thread I can get on the back way?

It may not be related to the new strucutre but its driving me nuts not havng my lunch time fix of Zoobeat :P

Hopefully you can help

[Sim]

Originally Posted by taun 1) My unread posts have on occasions turned them self to read!

Not sure about this one, but it sounds like it might be a cookie problem. This can happen occasionally when the cookies get confused with the sessions if you swap computers regularly. It shouldn't happen though.

Not related to the new structure - but possibly related to some of the maintenance work I've done recently with software upgrades and such?

You can try removing all your ZooBeat cookies so that they get re-created cleanly - do it on all machines that you use.

vBulletin > My Cookies (select all the cookies listed on that page and click "delete my cookies").

Originally Posted by taun 12) At work I dont seem to beable to get onto the home page keep recieving this message "Sorry, the ZooBeat forums are currently offline while we perform some maintenance to the site. We will be back up and running soon!" Yet if I google a know thread I can get on the back way?

That's a cache problem - either with your browser, or your company has a caching proxy server which is storing an old version of the forum home page and not checking for updates like it should.

Try forcing a page refresh (Ctrl-F5), which should tell your browser to check for a new version of the page.

[taun]

Originally Posted by Sim That's a cache problem - either with your browser, or your company has a caching proxy server which is storing an old version of the forum home page and not checking for updates like it should. Try forcing a page refresh (Ctrl-F5), which should tell your browser to check for a new version of the page.

Thanks Sim, I should of got this one myself considering I have been having major problems with my PC at work.

[docend24]

Originally Posted by Sim It was an experiment to set it up that way - but once I actually started creating all of the zoo forums, it was becoming a nightmare to manage - especially since we now have discussion about over 300 zoos worldwide! Just give it a bit of time - once I've finished migrating all of the existing forums to the new structure, hopefully things will start to become more clear for you. If necessary, I'll revisit the way things are labelled to make things more obvious.

Is it the final solution? I quite like subcategories for particular zoos within a country category - I was going to make an overview of my home zoo in english (because of insufficient english version of the zoo ofiicial website) if I would have enough free time. But I don't want to flood a whole country category by information threads of one specific zoo. I would prefer whole Europe thread as it was or more specialised. My two cents.

Why the "Shor news from Europe zoos" thread was abandoned? I think it was perfect how it was. But I can live without it. I recently added a comment about hatched orlitia borneensis (which is not so common pleasant event) in this thread now I found it as a thread on its own in Czech rep. category making no reason. I really doubt such there will be any discussion in such a thread and I would start a one like this.

I'm not complaining, tags can be useful but I would like to know more about the concept of the forums and where is what supposed to be. And I would like to know how it will be before I start to contribute eventually.

[Sim]

Originally Posted by docend24 Is it the final solution? I quite like subcategories for particular zoos within a country category - I was going to make an overview of my home zoo in english (because of insufficient english version of the zoo ofiicial website) if I would have enough free time. But I don't want to flood a whole country category by information threads of one specific zoo. I would prefer whole Europe thread as it was or more specialised. My two cents.

The new structure will be staying as it is now - it achieves exactly the same result as the one forum per zoo, but is far easier to manage from my end and much more flexible.

You won't be flooding a whole country category - that's just where you create the threads - if you then want to view information about a specific zoo, use the drop-down list to show only threads about that zoo. It achieves exactly the same result that we had before.

I want people to be creating lots of smaller threads about specific topics, rather than very long threads about everything.

Originally Posted by docend24 Why the "Shor news from Europe zoos" thread was abandoned? I think it was perfect how it was. But I can live without it. I recently added a comment about hatched orlitia borneensis (which is not so common pleasant event) in this thread now I found it as a thread on its own in Czech rep. category making no reason.

Having everything in one long thread is fine if you read the forums regularly and can keep up with the conversation. But if you are new or don't read regularly enough to keep up, these long threads get very confusing because they jump around so much and have so many different topics in them.

If this forum is to become a useful resource of information about zoos and animal conservation - we need to structure our discussion a bit differently.

For example, rather than posting in a "Short news from European Zoos" thread something like:

The second Dolphin at Dolfinarium Harderwijk is born.

I want to see a thread created in the Netherlands forum assigned to the Dolfinarium Harderwijk zoo titled something like "New dolphin born".

Otherwise, someone like me would never know about it - since I don't read enough about European zoos to keep up with that "short news" thread.

By creating a new thread like I described - then people who are interested in zoos in the Netherlands will see that thread and people who are interested specifically in Dolfinarium Harderwijk will see the thread.

More importantly, if I'm not particularly interested in European zoos or zoos in the Netherlands, but I am a huge fan of dolphins - I can see that there is a new dolphin that has been born ... which I would have missed completely if it is buried in the short news thread.

More importantly - when searching for information, I can search on Netherlands, Dolfinarium Harderwijk or Dolphins to find that information ... where as I am unlikely to find it if it is in the short news thread.

Does that make sense?

Originally Posted by docend24 I really doubt such there will be any discussion in such a thread and I would start a one like this.

I actually think it will generate more discussion because it won't get lost as part of a long thread - it is there for everyone to see, both fans of Dolfinarium Harderwijk and fans of dolphins!

Originally Posted by docend24 I'm not complaining, tags can be useful but I would like to know more about the concept of the forums and where is what supposed to be. And I would like to know how it will be before I start to contribute eventually.

I'm trying to educate everyone about this - the forum will become much more useful if we keep it to one topic per thread.

I run 5 other forums - two of them are much larger than this one and managing the information and making it useful is very important.