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[Administration]

Welcome to Your Talk, the open discussion forum on MonroeTalks.com. To get started, register by clicking the following link:

http://www.monroetalks.com/user/register

Once you're registered and logged in, you can post topics and reply to existing topics. You'll also be registered for Your Pics, the online photo gallery on MonroeTalks.com. And by registering you'll be entered to win a $50 cash prize or an iPod.

We'd also like to hear your thoughts on the new site, whether suggestions for improvements or new features you would like to see. This is a new concept and we're looking forward to your help in shaping its future.

You can add your comment to this thread, or go to the Back Talk button on the home page to send a comment directly to us.

Thanks for joining the conversation.

[Administration]

If you'd like to see the old Eyes & Ears at monroenews.com, you can view the archive by clicking the following link. We'd ask that you continue any of those old threads here, at the new forums.

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/news_messages?Category=FORUM&ThemeID=877&GroupID=234798

[MonroeMom]

Navigation Suggestion: The front page should have a list of all topics like the old forum, so a user can go directly to the thread that interests them. Off to the side, perhaps, should be the most current posts from different threads.

[jcastellese]

Hi, MonroeMom: 

I believe the page you're referring to is the main page of MonroeTalks.com, which pulls content from all the areas of the site (pictures, calendar, forums). If you're looking for a listing of all forum topics, you can get that by clicking Your Talk at the top of any MonroeTalks page or by going directly to this URL (feel free to bookmark it if you aren't interested in the other content):

http://www.monroetalks.com/forum/index.php?www;board=1

[supermom]

Are there only two topics or I am just unable to find them?
The "Key Stats" say there are 91 posts in 23 topics but I can not get to them
Navigation nightmare!

[MonroeMom]

When will the old threads be transferred so we can continue our discussions?

Same here.... I see there are supposedly 93 posts, but I have no idea how to get to them!!

[jcastellese]

supermom and and MonroeMom,

I understand what you mean.

As for the Key Stats, we had a testing platform where people could post about features and problems with MonroeTalks.com--that's where the invisible posts are coming from--they've been moved to a different board so we could start fresh here.

As for transferring old posts, we'd thought to just encourage people to continue the posts they were interested in continuing here. (You can start a new thread from the topic listing by clicking 'Start new topic'.) Having said that, it's a reasonable request that we would move the most recent topics. I'll start that process now. Thanks for your patience as we make the necessary adjustments to this new system--it is much more flexible than the previous system.

[jcastellese]

I've transferred a solid number of recently modified posts from the Eyes & Ears archives to this forum. If there are any older threads anyone would like to continue, simply repost the subject in a new topics, and, if you'd like, provide a link to the archive by copying and pasting the address from the address bar when viewing the thread.

Thanks for your patience and your input!

[Mayonnaise]

jcastellese, I noticed that you transferred some of the posts from the older forum and I noticed that you attached your name to them. Why is your name there instead of the person who started the thread?

[nerd]

I'm not sure on the forum engine being used here but user accounts in most forums are tied to an ID of some sort and this ID is not going to match between two separate forum pages.  When the old forum posts were moved over my guess is that there was no easy way to attribute them properly.

[jcastellese]

Mayonnaise:

There were a number of factors involved. The forum system we were using before didn't conform to the most recent software conventions, so user / post data was nearly impossible to export. Also, there were many registrants in the old system that were, quite frankly, inactive, and to spend time and resources transferring them to this system seemed wasteful.

In addition, this forum is only one part of MonroeTalks.com, the core of which is designed to synchronize to each of its parts.

All of these factors contributed to the need for a fresh registration process--I think the community as a whole will benefit from this decision.

Of course, there were a number of ongoing conversations at the old Eyes & Ears forums, and a great deal of demand for their continuation, so I recreated the first page or two of recent threads here with links to the old posts, under my account since, as nerd said, the original posters had not yet registered here. You'll notice that I include the name of the last comment on the old forum in each transferred thread.  I realize this creates inconvenient navigation, but I don't expect that to last. Already, we have many new topics.

So far the transition has been a smooth one, but we'll continue to work out the bugs and  improve what I hope is an already superior community site.

Thanks for posting!

[jcastellese]

A quick update!

I've just enabled basic HTML, so, for those of you who know it, it's now available.

Here's a quick tip on how to make a link!

Code: [Select]

Here's a quick tip on how to make a <a href="http://www.monroetalks.com">link</a>!

Looking for more on basic HTML? Click here.

[MonroeMom]

Thanks, jcastellese, this new site is wonderful and you guys are doing a great job!

One question... On the main Your Talk page, what is the significance of the second column from the left? A few topics have emoticons, and I don't see a legend to explain the icons there. Enlighten me, please?

Thanks!

[daniels11435]

What is the signifigance of showing whether a person is online or not?  Is there a chat room feature I'm not seeing?  I also think the column of emoticons (re: MonroeMom's comment) should go.  For a lot of people, the fewer the columns, the less overwhelming.

MomEm

MomEm has a pont.Where's the chatroom?

[jcastellese]

MonroeMom:

The column you're referring to is intended (I believe) to imply the tone of the message. When you post a topic, or even a reply, there's a drop-down menu labeled 'Message icon:'. For example, on this reply, I've chosen the emoticon named 'Sad'.

Not many people (including myself) have used this feature, so the message index doesn't have much variety. Maybe this isn't a necessary feature (like MomEm said)--something to think about.

MomEm, daniels11435:

It's true; we don't have a chat room. It was brought up during development, but (and this is just my opinion) it would seem to disrupt the forum conversation, as those in the chat room might discuss topics and anyone not present (especially those who wouldn't be able to use chat rooms at work  :'() might miss something. For example, if there was a heated topic, and the protagonist and antagonist were both online, they might get all their discussion out in a chat room and the forum topic would sit idle.

Then again, it's something to consider again, and I'll make sure to mention that people were calling for it.

Another benefit of knowing if someone is online? You can send private messages and know that the person should get it right away.