# Changes in Vocabulario and other forums



## anthodocheio

Acabo de verlo. Por un cuarto de hora lo estoy mirando y me pregundo "*¿Y ahora qué?*".

¿Por qué son todos iguales?

Cristina


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## mkellogg

Hi everybody,

Before everybody starts complaining about the changes, there are a few issues that I still have to resolve before the forums look and act as I want them to.  So please be patient. 

Mike


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## YaniraTfe

Hola! 

Aquí puedes leer un post the Mike hablando del tema, 

que seguramente te lo aclarará:


the-administrator’s-post-about-it

Un saludo


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## ivanovic77

Just an observation. Considering the psychology of internet users, everybody will end up posting in the first forum they'll find at the top. So the favourite forum for everyone will end up being the Grammar forum or the blue (Azul) forum, which are located at the top. I hope this works out well, but taking into account how the human mind works, it won't be surprising if it doesn't.


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## mkellogg

Maybe I hadn't said this before: a click on the New Thread button leads people to a form.  If "Vocabulario" is chosen, the thread is assigned to one of the six forums randomly. (Regular foreros will find that it is quite easy to start threads in their favorite forum if they want to, but that's not a problem.)

Edit: Of course, if somebody purposely starts 20 threads in the Azul forum (as one person just did  ), then it will certainly look like that forum will get most of the posts!  I moved his posts around to balance them out for now.


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## ERASMO_GALENO

Hi Mike,

I just crushed with the new group of colored forums, and my first feeling was surprise (even when there were some previous threads about the topic), and then the need to get back to the known old structuring system. But I suppose it's a natural reaction, and yes, we have to give it some time to see how it works, as it was an urgent need to slow down the new threads appearing rhythm.

My best wishes to the new system, and congratulations for taking the risk. Let's give our time and support to make it work.

Regards,


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## DiabloScott

May I just say that I wish I would have expressed my lack of dissatisfaction with the old system in the "problems" thread.


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## mkellogg

Have you seen the "Combined View" link in the category header?  If you click it, you will see a view that is very similar to what you had before.


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## Hella

If you don't mind some feedback, I am not sure that splitting the forum in six sub-fora is a good idea. There is a risk that most people, in particular newcomers, will only check the blue forum as this is the first one listed by the system. Let’s be realistic; most people do not read the announcements so they won’t know what the division is for…
In fact you are right about new threads disappearing from the front page too quickly to get a good response. However, this has been solved till now by the person concerned posting again when no answer was received – not necessarily opening a new thread but posting in the old one so it comes to the front page again. 
Ideally – and I don’t know if this is technically possible – a better solution might be that the system reposts automatically those threats with 0 replies. This could be done perhaps twice in 24-hour periods of time.
On the other hand, I used to find very nice to meet some of the "regulars" checking the forum as the same time I do, something that will become more difficult if each of us are answering or questioning in different sub-fora... 
I think I'm going to miss the old version. I will use the "combined view" but if others don't it will not be the same again...


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## Cracker Jack

Me extraña lo que está pasando en el foro de vocabulario.  Se clasifican los hilos por colores. ¡Que raro!  Creo que empezó ayer.  Me gusta lo de antes.  Alguien sabe por qué es así.  No entiendo la razón detrás de esta reclasificación. Dice que son iguales.  Ahora, me cuesta localizar un hilo que me interesa. Tengo que ir a cada hilo individualmente.


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## anthodocheio

The "combined view" I think that is the best idea. I had never seen it until now.. all this time..


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## Rayines

anthodocheio said:


> The "combined view" I think that is the best idea. I had never seen it until now.. all this time..


Please, ¿how do you find it?


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## Jana337

The forum homepage:
Spanish-English 
(Combined View) *THIS ONE*




*Grammar/Gramática, etc.*             (246 Lettori)         
         Para preguntas sobre conjugaciones verbales, tiempos gramaticales, adverbios, preposiciones y más.

Edit: This was for the whole Spanish forum (incl. specialized terminology).

For Vocabulario:
General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General 		Palabras, frases y dichos. ¿No encuentra la palabra o frase en el diccionario? ¡Pregunte abajo!
Words, phrases and idioms. You didn't find the word or phrase in the dictionary? Ask it in any one of the forums below with color names. 
(Combined View)


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## anthodocheio

Rayines said:


> Please, ¿how do you find it?


 
¡Hola Inesíta!



mkellogg said:


> Have you seen the "Combined View" link in the category header? If you click it, you will see a view that is very similar to what you had before.


 
Hay dos. Uno para el "Spanish-English" entero y uno para el "Vocabulario general" sólo.


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## Rayines

Jana337 said:


> The forum homepage:
> Spanish-English
> (Combined View) *THIS ONE*
> 
> 
> 
> *Grammar/Gramática, etc.* (246 Lettori)
> Para preguntas sobre conjugaciones verbales, tiempos gramaticales, adverbios, preposiciones y más.
> 
> Edit: This was for the whole Spanish forum (incl. specialized terminology).
> 
> For Vocabulario:
> General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General Palabras, frases y dichos. ¿No encuentra la palabra o frase en el diccionario? ¡Pregunte abajo!
> Words, phrases and idioms. You didn't find the word or phrase in the dictionary? Ask it in any one of the forums below with color names.
> (Combined View)


 


anthodocheio said:


> Hay dos. Uno para el "Spanish-English" entero y uno para el "Vocabulario general" sólo.


¡Perfecto!  .
Igualmente, en mi caso, generalmente voy directamente a "Nuevos Posts" y doy una mirada rápida a todo .


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## alexacohen

Hello:

I can't always post from work. And my line at home is slow. So slow, that it takes from ten to twenty minutes to open a forum. And the same time to open a thread.
Checking on all six coloured forums would simply take too long. And I wouldn't like to stick to one.
What if I choose the green one, and the only questions there are those "hi guyz me mexican boyfriend say te kiero muxo do he mean he luvs me coz i luv him lol i need help your great guyz" questions?
And all the poetry goes to the brown forum and I cannot see it?
I don't know what to do.


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## alacant

Maybe I'm a silly billy, but I just posted a new thread in GV, and now I can't find it!!!

In my opinion it would have been better to separate them in the way that  Lazarus suggested.

Frankly, I know you have tried hard, but I don't think this will work, if we post threads and then they get lost.

Good luck, Alacant


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## Antpax

Hella said:


> I think I'm going to miss the old version. I will use the "combined view" but if others don't it will not be the same again...


 
So am I. I do understand that something had to be done with GV forum, because threads desappeared very fast, maybe splitting it in 2, but in six it is a bit too much, in my opinion, of course. It is impossible to have a look at all of them and maybe some questions that could be answered are not going to be, because people who know the answer just simply don´t see them.

Again, it is just my opinion, and forgive my English, please.

Cheers.

Ant


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## CarolMamkny

Well... No sé si me volví daltónica   pero ya no encuentro los hilos en los que participe esta mañana.


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## belén

There are many ways to find your own threads, and they are all quite easy

1. Through the User Control Panel if you have the option "subscribe to threads you participate in" (highly recommended)
2. Clicking on your name and looking for "all posts by..."
3. Going to your profile and clicking on "find all threads by..."


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## Vampiro

Hola.
Imagino que las intenciones deben haber sido buenas al hacer este cambio.  Pero para ser honesto dudo mucho de los resultados.
Quizá dividir el foro en un par de subforos no era tan mala, pero en seis me parece un despropósito.
Hoy comentaba esto via PM con algunos amigos. ¿Han pensado que pasaría si alguien por alguna razón (amistades, o preferencias de cualquier tipo) desea que su hilo vaya a parar al, por ejemplo, “Foro Verde” empiece a repetir su trhead hasta que el sistema aleatorio lo envíe para allá?  Pareciera que en ese caso el remedio es peor que la enfermedad.
Por otro lado, muchos de nosotros usamos el foro desde el trabajo, donde el tiempo es siempre escaso.  Si abrimos un nuevo hilo y este se pierde en el ciberespacio multicolor, sencillamente terminaremos buscando otras alternativas, y sería una lástima, porque en el WR hay gente que realmente aporta y vale la pena escuchar (leer)
También me parece atendible eso de que el foro que esté ubicado en primer lugar de la lista terminará siendo el más saturado, por una cuestión obvia de ahorro de tiempo a la hora de buscar ayuda.
La idea de que un post sin respuestas vuelva automáticamente a la primera página cada cierto tiempo me parece muy buena; y si después de tres o cuatro apariciones sigue sin respuestas podría dejarse librado a su suerte  como ocurría hasta hoy, ya que evidentemente nadie sabe la respuesta o el hilo no está abierto en el lugar que corresponde.
En fin, soluciones puede haber varias y seguramente a mi no se me va a ocurrir la mejor; pero dividir el foro en seis me parece una exageración.
Saludos.


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## ivanovic77

Antpax said:


> maybe splitting it in 2, but in six it is a bit too much, in my opinion, of course.


 
I agree. I think that splitting the GV in six parts is unnecessary. Two or three would have been enough.


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## mkellogg

The idea of creating six forums is to keep the number of new threads per day under 100. Since the old Vocab forum was getting around 550 threads per day...I set up six forums.

Let me repeat a few things:
 - Do you like the old format?  OK, click "Combined View".  It has the same information as the old forum did! All the threads are there together in one place.
 - To find the threads that you have participated in, I suggest using the "subscribed threads" list. It is much easier than searching through the forum(s).  Do you still want to search through the forums?  OK, please see my comment about Combined View above. 
 - To search the combined forums, either use the dictionary search or click on the Vocabulario category.  You can search all sub-forums from there.

It also might be my imagination, but the server seems faster today after these changes.


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## Argónida

Me gustaba más el sistema de antes. Yo no le veía tantos inconvenientes. Ahora seguirle la pista al Vocabulario General es un tanto estresante.

Por cierto, ¿cuál es el sentido del subforo "Old"?


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## Joannes

Argónida said:


> Por cierto, ¿cuál es el sentido del subforo "Old"?


To not have to spread all its threads over the new colourful forums, I suppose...

I have some minor questions myself:

- On my occasional visits to Spanish-English I always liked the 'combined view'. Obviously I will keep using it. But doesn't the mere existence of such a button work against the idea of having six forums (and, by it, six front pages)?

- I think it's a good thing that more subforums are (more) visible now, but wouldn't it be possible to distinguish in the forum's last post and that of its, erm, superforum? I mean: the last post displayed on the WRF homepage of CD and Congrats Pages are the same on this very moment (happy birthday indeed, alexacohen, btw ). But the latter has its own 'last post display' now, so it seems kind of useless to me to still have it copied to the one of CD. Just a detail anyway.

- Who got to decide on the colours?  I would like to have the red forum replaced by a purple one, please.


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## ryba

Disculpen, por favor si posteo algo que ya se ha dicho, pero...

*Esto no va a funcionar bien ni resolver el problema.*



> All the colored forums (Azul, Rojo, Negro, etc.) are equal. If you ask a question , it will be randomly assigned to one of them.


So, let's say I posted something and it goes to the Verde forum. And what? Are you going to tell me the number of people aswering questions will be equal in all of the forums? Or maybe someone entering the first (Azul) forum will be randomly directed to any of them?



anthodocheio said:


> ¿Por qué son todos iguales?



Dividing the forum phisically in several sections that have the very same purpose won't work any better than simply setting the number of threads to show in a page before splitting the display into multiple pages (for example pages 1-5 seen as one long page).

It's going to be an unnecessary drag to have to enter each of the six forums to see what's up. You'll end up having people who always enter the Negro forum que nunca llegan al foro Verde (por cansados después de haber leído mucho en el Negro, porque no les gusta el color verde, porque es el último, etc.).

Splitting them this way won't let the new sections develop their own caracter, their particular ambience.

This has been broadly discussed in the *Problems with English-Spanish forums* thread.

Una opinión personal mía, no va en contra de nadie.


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## alacant

Hi,

Too many sub-forums, why didn't you just do 2 or 3? Why didn't you just paste the rules more prominently? In my humble opinion, it's a mess and all it will do is encourage PMs. 

It's no good at all if I open a thread and then have to go looking for it.

Sorry, but you know what they say about good intentions.......

All the best, Alacant


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## Hella

mkellogg said:


> It also might be my imagination, but the server seems faster today after these changes.



It also might be my imagination, but I got the impression that today there were more 0-reply threads than ever before...


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## lazarus78

Well.. it is Tuesday, 19:23 Central European Time, and I just opened the WR and wow... such a changes and such a mess. I will need some time to get used to the idea and to make comments (if any) but I just noticed something:

*General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Azul* (13 Viewing) 
*General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Blanco* (4 Viewing) 
*General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Marrón* (5 Viewing) 
*General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Negro* (5 Viewing) 
*General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Rojo* (7 Viewing) 
*General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Verde* (7 Viewing) 
*"Old" General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General forum* (3275 Viewing) 

well... I guess we will all need some time.

Regards.
Lazarus.


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## DiabloScott

mkellogg said:


> Have you seen the "Combined View" link in the category header? If you click it, you will see a view that is very similar to what you had before.


 
Yes, that's a nice feature, thanks.

Regarding the "0 reply" posts and threads falling off the first few pages; I think foreros should be encouraged to top their own threads if they don't get a response.


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## Jana337

lazarus78 said:


> Well.. it is Tuesday, 19:23 Central European Time, and I just opened the WR and wow... such a changes and such a mess. I will need some time to get used to the idea and to make comments (if any) but I just noticed something:
> 
> *General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Azul* (13 Viewing)
> *General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Blanco* (4 Viewing)
> *General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Marrón* (5 Viewing)
> *General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Negro* (5 Viewing)
> *General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Rojo* (7 Viewing)
> *General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General - Verde* (7 Viewing)
> *"Old" General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General forum* (3275 Viewing)
> 
> well... I guess we will all need some time.
> 
> Regards.
> Lazarus.


Not surprising at all. The 3275 are mostly people not registered in the forum who googled something and were referred to WRF.


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## María Madrid

Expongo no mis quejas sino mis dudas:

¿Cómo voy a elegir un foro en especial si las nuevas preguntas se asignan al azar? Podría elegir si hubiera un criterio lingüístico, pero al no ser así, no tiene sentido apuntarme al azul si las preguntas que me interesan acaban gracias al azar en otro. 

La vista combinada: Sí, muestran el primer hilo de cada subforo, pero como el resto está también asignado al azar, no es orientativo de nada, dada esa ausencia de criterio en la asignación de los mensajes a cada hilo. 

Estoy de acuerdo en que es una buena idea dejar más tiempo a la vista las preguntas nuevas, pero no estoy segura de que me apetezca entrar en seis páginas diferentes a ver si hay algo que me resulte interesante o si después de haber entrado en varios hilos aún me acordaré de si había mirado ya el foro verde o no. Como los foros, pese a sus coloridos nombres, son visualmente idénticos, no facilita las cosas a la hora de recordarlo. Por supuesto entiendo que quizá no sea posible asignar a cada foro el color de su nombre, pero si fuera posible quizá fuera menos "gris", navegar entre foros de español todos idénticos entre sí.

Nunca me ha importado mirar en páginas anteriores por si había hilos sin respuestas, pero es que ir navegando por páginas numeradas de un único foro no me parece complicado. 

Entiendo que es muy humano resistirse al cambio, incluso cuando sean mejoras, y hay que hacer un esfuerzo para adaptarse, es sólo que ahora mismo me resulta bastante lioso. Saludos,


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## jester.

I remeber that the mods said on various occasions that a vast majority of threads goes to the first forum due to psychological reasons.

Don't you think that most help will now go to the azul forum for the same reason?

And: Why do the forums bear the names of different colours if they're still all blue?


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## TrentinaNE

DiabloScott said:


> Regarding the "0 reply" posts and threads falling off the first few pages; I think foreros should be encouraged to top their own threads if they don't get a response.


If by "topping" you mean "bumping" their thread back to the top of the forum, this is exactly what we *don't* want to encourage. It just becomes a game of trying to stay on page 1, which is counterproductive for everyone. If a thread has received no replies after 24 hours, the moderators generally either answer or bump it for others to see. In general, people need to be patient and wait for a response. 

Elisabetta


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## Jana337

jester. said:


> I remeber that the mods said on various occasions that a vast majority of threads goes to the first forum due to psychological reasons.
> 
> Don't you think that most help will now go to the azul forum for the same reason?


If you study the mechanism, you will see that threads will be assigned randomly. This way, newbies with dull love questions will not be isolated in a forum that nobody reads.


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## Genecks

I have no idea what the admin is doing, but if it's trying to unclutter the vocab section, I have this suggestion:

1. Categorize things

nouns, verbs, adjectives, phrases/idioms

those things ought to clear up the mess

Randomness has never helped to sort out chaos. While some of you talk about psychology, how about throwing in some determinism?
I don't think randomizing things is going to help. Categorizing things would be a better choice.

I've been on the Internet way too long. All I know is that chaos doesn't help the userbase. It doesn't.
Another thing is how the front page is way too long. Concision is the key.
Make boards, and inside of those boards, create subboards.

Am I one of the few who still knows how to make the best out of a webpage these days? Has the eyecandy revolution destroyed the common sense of web developers? 

ugh !!@#!@#$!@#!!!!

Some of the stuff is really basic, such as a noun and an adjective. I keep reading people asking how to choose the correct words to make those two work together. A lot of it seems to come from people trying to transfer their language to the Spanish language; they're trying to capture the meaning, emphasis, and implicit nature of something and trying to transfer it to the Spanish language.

I figure some simple tutorials with each board ought to help users make the correct choice in putting things together.


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## romarsan

Supongo que, en parte por costumbre, a mi también me gustaba mucho más el viejo sistema y, creo que Lazarus78 hizo en su momento sugerencias muy interesantes para mejorar y facilitar el uso del foro.
Para mi el mayor fallo era que los hilos que no obtenían respuesta quedaran en el olvido. He dedicado, cada dia, un rato de mi estancia en el foro a buscar aquéllos que no tenían respuestas y a los que yo creía que podía aportar algo, aunque no me resultaran particularmente interesantes. Eso en un foro es viable, pero en seis... imposible. Cierto que, con este sistema, las preguntas quedaran más tiempo a la vista, pero lo mismo sucedería haciendo subir cada cierto tiempo los hilos a cero a primera página.
Ahora será mucho más costoso la busqueda de hilos. 
Siempre me ha gustado la "combined view" como paso previo a entrar en un subforo, pero, con la nueva división no se ofrece una información tan completa con solo un vistazo a la primera página como antes.
Deseo intensamente que desaparezca esta sensación de que abrir un hilo es como jugar a la ruleta...
¿Positivo? pues si, que se está haciendo un gran esfuerzo para mejorar el sistema y eso hay que valorarlo.
Un saludo a todos


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## María Madrid

Jana337 said:


> This way, newbies with dull love questions will not be isolated in a forum that nobody reads.


IMHO there's nothing wrong about that even if there's a risk we might end up getting a lot more dumb requests by pm. 



Genecks said:


> Randomness has never helped to sort out chaos.


Amen to that.

Saludos,


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## TrentinaNE

Genecks said:


> I don't think randomizing things is going to help. Categorizing things would be a better choice.
> 
> I've been on the Internet way too long. All I know is that chaos doesn't help the userbase.


You may be right, but the impetus here wasn't "bringing order to chaos" it was "lightening the load." The model was a checkout line at retail stores, where everyone stands in one long queue, and then goes to the next available check-out clerk. As Mike said, why don't we give it a chance for a little while, and see if the perceived problems really persist. 


> Another thing is how the front page is way too long. Concision is the key.
> Make boards, and inside of those boards, create subboards.


This is the current structure. You can make the front page much shorter by collapsing (at your choice) some of the sub-boards into their higher level. For instance, I see none of the individual Spanish boards, nor any of the French.


Genecks said:


> Another thing is the specialized terminology section.
> 
> This thread (http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=748901) could be put there. It's not completely specialized, but I consider it educated at the least.


You do realize that reporting this here is not going to help, right?  Please use the Report-a-Post feature to send a message to the place where moderators actually look to find forer@s' help in identifying problem threads! 

Elisabetta


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## Jana337

Genecks said:


> I have no idea what the admin is doing, but if it's trying to unclutter the vocab section, I have this suggestion:
> 
> 1. Categorize things
> 
> nouns, verbs, adjectives, phrases/idioms


Rest assured that this suggestions of yours would result in a looooooooooooooot of additional workload on moderators who would move threads and delete duplicates like crazy.


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## mkellogg

romarsan said:


> Para mi el mayor fallo era que los hilos que no obtenían respuesta quedaran en el olvido. He dedicado, cada dia, un rato de mi estancia en el foro a buscar aquéllos que no tenían respuestas y a los que yo creía que podía aportar algo, aunque no me resultaran particularmente interesantes. Eso en un foro es viable, pero en seis... imposible.


Yes, and the six forums is part of the solution!  

Before:
In the "single forum" that we had before, you and others would have to scan many threads to find the few threads that needed attention.  Many threads did not get the attention that they needed since it appeared that they already had answers, though they didn't.

Now (hopefully): 
You might decide to do it in one of the six forums.  Maybe five other people will choose five different forums.   Now instead of a few good people like yourself taking on many threads, each of you could choose a forum.  There will be around 80 threads per day there.  A small group of you in one forum can scan those 80 threads to make sure that people's questions have been answered.

The whole point of this change is to get some of you to concentrate your efforts on a specific colored forum.  If 10 people concentrate on the _Verde _forum, and another 10 on each of the other forums, this will achieve the goal of making sure that the questions get good answers.

Also, I agree that the six forums are visually overwhelming on the screen.  It looks awful.  Once people understand that they six forums are all the same, I can take away the long, repetitive description that each has. That should help some.  It is not that easy to work within the structure that is allowed by the vBulletin software.

Regards,
Mike


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## alacant

Jana337 said:


> Rest assured that this suggestions of yours would result in a looooooooooooooot of additional workload on moderators who would move threads and delete duplicates like crazy.


 

No it wouldn't if we could make the choice regarding the category ourselves. I already suggested to Mike that we had categories.

a. literature
b. love letters
c. news, current affairs

I'm sure you can think of a lot more, rather than this rainbow lottery. 

Also a lot of people, myself included don't have broadband connections and to keep switching colours would take forever. 

I think my solution is PMs and take the push to improve my french. Pity!

With all due respect, alacant


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## María Madrid

mkellogg said:


> Now (hopefully):
> You might decide to do it in one of the six forums. Maybe five other people will choose five different forums.  ...
> ... The whole point of this change is to get some of you to concentrate your efforts on a specific colored forum. If 10 people concentrate on the _Verde _forum, and another 10 on each of the other forums, this will achieve the goal of making sure that the questions get good answers.


My point is, why should anyone want to focus on a specific "colour" if all forums are the same? My selection criteria is choosing threads I find interesting, questions I think I can help with, etc. Now it's a lottery. Besides I'm not so sure the number of posters will be evenly distributed on all the forums.

Alacant: if there were a "love letters" forum then it would help me decide at least which forum I don't want to check. Saludos,


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## jester.

Another question: Why have the minor forums, which originally were sub-forums, like "Multilingual Glossaries" or "Congrats Pages" been extended so that they now have the same size as the other forums? I think that makes the forum more cluttered.


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## Modosita

mkellogg said:


> In the "single forum" that we had before, you and others would have to scan many threads to find the few threads that needed attention.


 
Hi Mike, the scanning is easy as the essence of the thread is shown as soon as you put your mouse on the thread. But why should a contributor want to contribute only to the threads "which need attention"? Some contributors only contribute to the cultural discussion threads, which don't "need" attention as far as help goes.



> Now instead of a few good people like yourself taking on many threads, each of you could choose a forum.


 I wonder why the free contributors should be limited to do this. In that forum, there might be only threads which have no interest at all for the contributor. 


alacant said:


> No it wouldn't if we could make the choice regarding the category ourselves. I already suggested to Mike that we had categories.
> 
> a. literature
> b. love letters
> c. news, current affairs


 
I think this is an excellent idea.



> Also a lot of people, myself included don't have broadband connections and to keep switching colours would take forever.


 
What about people who live in the stone age, like Alacant and me, she not having a broadband connection and my computer being like 10 years old?? I get blocked all the time, as I have tried to keep 6 different forums open. 

It does take forever to change from one forum to the other. 


María Madrid said:


> My point is, why should anyone want to focus on a specific "colour" if all forums are the same? My selection criteria is choosing threads I find interesting,


 
I think we probably all agree on this. After all, why should you participate in something which has no interest for you?


I have also been observing the viewers. At this moment there are only like 5 or 6 viewers on each of the new forums. I think people will change forum, as simple as that. The grammar forum is crowded (so to speak) and so is the "solo español". I had never seen this before.

I have also made a quick check for answers (sorted by number of replies). You have to get to the third page to find threads with more than two answers. And we all know that two answers are very seldom enough.

As a short reference this thread, in which post four is the only reasonable answer (at least in Spain).

I thought this forum's attractiveness lay precisely in the quick changing threads and the amount of answers you could get for a single question. Now you have to be lucky to get a correct answer at all.

saludos


----------



## zebedee

alacant said:


> Hi,
> 
> Too many sub-forums, why didn't you just do 2 or 3?


Please see Mike Kellogg's answer. 


			
				Mike Kellogg said:
			
		

> The idea of creating six forums is to keep the number of new threads per day under 100. Since the old Vocab forum was getting around 550 threads per day...I set up six forums.





> Why didn't you just paste the rules more prominently? In my humble opinion, it's a mess and all it will do is encourage PMs.


If you can find a way to post the rules any more prominently than they already are posted, please let us know. We're all ears.



> It's no good at all if I open a thread and then have to go looking for it.


Do you not use your User Control Panel? (Top left of every page in the dark blue heading). It takes you straight to all the threads you've ever opened or participated in. You'll never have to 'go looking' for a thread ever again.



> Sorry, but you know what they say about good intentions.......


Yes, well, lets all keep to our good intentions and give this new system the benefit of trying it out for a while. If we see after a while that it's not working we'll put our thinking caps on again and go back to square one.

Thanks for your input.


----------



## Vampiro

> Genecks
> 
> Randomness has never helped to sort out chaos. While some of you talk about psychology, how about throwing in some determinism?
> I don't think randomizing things is going to help. Categorizing things would be a better choice.


 
De acuerdo con eso.
Aún más: Randomizar las entradas es la forma más eficiente de generar un caos.
Ubicar un hilo de interés o relacionado con nuestras profesiones ahora es mucho más dificil que antes y con esto sólo se logrará que muchos foreros (me incluyo) terminarán por elegir un color y permanecer por siempre en él, y los otros cinco foros se perderán el aporte de mucha gente valiosa (en este último concepto no me incluyo)



> romarsan
> 
> Para mi el mayor fallo era que los hilos que no obtenían respuesta quedaran en el olvido. He dedicado, cada dia, un rato de mi estancia en el foro a buscar aquéllos que no tenían respuestas y a los que yo creía que podía aportar algo, aunque no me resultaran particularmente interesantes. Eso en un foro es viable, pero en seis... imposible.


 
No tan asiduamente como Romarsan, pero también suelo ir a la página cinco o seis al rescate de hilos sin respuestas con el sólo fin de ayudar un poco, muchas veces sólo para decir "No conozco la respuesta, pero veamos si algún nativo nos ayuda", aunque el slang utilizado en las canciones de Nirvana no sea particularmente interesante para mi.

Insisto en lo ya dicho por muchos: seis divisiones me perece una exageración, más aún si no están hechas por categorías y las entradas se organizan al azar.

Saludos, y buen día para todos.


----------



## alacant

zebedee said:


> Please see Mike Kellogg's answer.
> 
> 
> 
> If you can find a way to post the rules any more prominently than they already are posted, please let us know. We're all ears.


 
Hi Zebedee, thanks very much for your reply. Yes, I had the idea that the rules should be posted on the first page so you don't even have to go into the thread to read them.




> Do you not use your User Control Panel? (Top left of every page in the dark blue heading). It takes you straight to all the threads you've ever opened or participated in. You'll never have to 'go looking' for a thread ever again.


 
Yes I use my user control panel a lot, but the message I posted yesterday has gone into rainbow cyberspace, and it's not on my list of posts.

Thanks again alacant


----------



## ivanovic77

El problema es que siempre se ha hecho un uso incorrecto y abusivo del foro de Vocabulario General. La gente no lo usaba para preguntar palabras o expresiones concretas, sino para plantear todo tipo de dudas (traducciones enteras, cartas de amor, documentos administrativos, jerga legal o científica, cuestiones gramaticales). ¿Por qué al final todo el mundo estaba en el GV y pocos entrábamos en el Grammar o el Specialized Terminology? Porque el GV estaba el primero de la lista. Ahora el que está arriba es el Grammar Forum, y con el tiempo los moderadores van a tener que rendirse y dejar que el Grammar forum se convierta en el "foro multiusos" que hasta ahora había sido el GV. 

Y totalmente de acuerdo con las observaciones de otros foreros. ¿Elegir un color favorito? La gente que entra a ayudar busca temas interesantes de los que aprender algo, no limitarse a un foro de color como quien elige fichas en el parchís. No somos profesionales de la ayuda. Esta división multicolor sólo tendría sentido si los que ayudamos fuéramos una especie de funcionarios empleados aquí a cambio de un sueldo. Entonces sí que se nos podría decir: 

_—Tú cubre el foro azul, tú el verde y yo cubriré el marrón. ¡Vamos chicos, a trabajar!_

Pero claro, no es el caso.

La única solución que yo veo de momento sería poner 4 foros principales:

1. El Foro de *Vocabulario General*. Sólo para palabras de uso común, expresiones idiomáticas, refranes, etc.

2. Un *Foro de traducciones*. ¿Tienes una traducción y quieres que un nativo te diga si suena bien? ¿O se trata de una canción de Shakira y necesitas que te digan lo que significa? ¿O quieres decirle a tu novio irlandés que tiene unos ojos bonitos? Éste es tu foro.

3. El *Foro de Gramática*. Para los que no saben si poner una preposición u otra, si el adverbio se pone delante o detrás, si los verbos están bien conjugados o no. Este foro hasta ahora había sido poco empleado porque la mayoría de gente se iba al GV ya que allí había más movimiento y se conseguían respuestas de inmediato.

4. Y el *Foro de Terminología Especializada*, que hasta ahora lo usaba muy poca gente. Aquí irían las preguntas sobre deportes, ciencias, medicina, jerga legal, etc., que siempre han saturado el foro de Vocabulario General.

Creo que con estos 4 foros bien empleados habría más que suficiente de momento. Para eso tal vez sería necesario reclutar más moderadores y que éstos fueran más severos redirigiendo topics o incluso borrándolos. 

Espero que entre todos encontremos una solución mejor.


----------



## CarolMamkny

No soy una autoridad en el tema pero encuentro que es a veces exasperante la cantidad de hilos que se abren con las preguntas como: ¿Cómo se dice “te extraño”? “¿Cuál es la diferencia entre “te quiero” y “te amo”? “Si alguien me dice “te quiero” ¿eso quiere decir que está enamorado de mi?” creo que deberíamos seguir el ejemplo de nuestros amigos en el foro de italiano-inglés en que ya existe un hilo permanente que trata exclusivamente con preguntas relacionadas con el *“AMOR”.* De igual manera creo que serviría crear otro hilo como este en el foro de gramática que explique *“Ser y Estar”* he contado y existen BASTANTES hilos en lo que se hacen preguntas básicas sobre estos verbos.  Bueno es solo mi opinión….


----------



## Modosita

ivanovic77 said:


> Ahora el que está arriba es el Grammar Forum, y con el tiempo los moderadores van a tener que rendirse y dejar que el Grammar forum se convierta en el "foro multiusos" que hasta ahora había sido el GV.


 
Hola ivanovic, creo que es una observación muy correcta. En primera página ya hay varios hilos con simples traducciones.



> Y totalmente de acuerdo con las observaciones de otros foreros. ¿Elegir un color favorito? La gente que entra a ayudar busca temas interesantes de los que aprender algo, no limitarse a un foro de color como quien elige fichas en el parchís. No somos profesionales de la ayuda. Esta división multicolor sólo tendría sentido si los que ayudamos fuéramos una especie de funcionarios empleados aquí a cambio de un sueldo.


 
Eso también lo he querido expresar con menos acierto que tú, ivanovic. Ahora parece que se quiere "obligar" al forero voluntario(!!) a participar de una determinada forma. El participante no solo quiere ayudar sino también aprender. 




> La única solución que yo veo de momento sería poner 4 foros principales:


 
Esta idea es similar a la mencionada por Alacant. Me parece más adecuado que el juego de colores que se sugiere. Sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que los colores no tienen ningún sentido práctico.

saludos


----------



## Jana337

> No it wouldn't if we could make the choice regarding the category ourselves. I already suggested to Mike that we had categories.
> 
> a. literature
> b. love letters
> c. news, current affairs


Yes, it would. Not all people think before posting. I move my share of misplaced threads every day so I would know.


> Also a lot of people, myself included don't have broadband connections and to keep switching colours would take forever.


Sounds like you didn't have to click before. Of course you did have to click a lot because you couldn't see more than 20 threads on one page. If you use the Combined view, you can generate a list (of at most 500 threads) similar to the old Vocabulario.

If you create bookmarks for the 5 colored forums, you will surpass the need to go to the new Vocabulario (the umbrella category) before you can enter Azul etc. Clicking on your Azul bookmark first and on your Marrón bookmark second will show you 2x20 threads - exactly like clicking on page 1 and then on page 2 of the old Vocabulario. 2 clicks, 40 threads.



> My point is, why should anyone want to focus on a specific "colour" if all forums are the same? My selection criteria is choosing threads I find interesting, questions I think I can help with, etc. Now it's a lottery.


Inevitably. As Mike explained above, he hopes that regulars will create communities. That can't happen overnight. 





> Besides I'm not so sure the number of posters will be evenly distributed on all the forums.


They needn't be absolutely equal. The point is that they should have a manageable size. Each will be approximately like the Italian forum, which is quite tractable. Correct me if I am wrong: I don't believe it was humanly possible to check (meaning to verify whether or not you are interested) all Vocabulario threads anyway.

Another thing: If you want to quickly scan new thread titles, you can use the archive. Here's Verde.


----------



## mkellogg

I keep hearing how hard it is to click on six forums.  Let me repeat that the "Combined View" link will show them all the threads together.  Next time you complain about needing six clicks, please explain why this single-click solution does not work for you.  I don't understand.

More specialized forums?  I agree.  A love letters forum?  Will any of you be interested in going in there to answer questions?

You don't want to focus on a specific color?  That is not a problem.  Those of you with high post counts will probably still want to see all the forums.  Have I mentioned the "Combined View" link before?

Everybody is still on the "Old" forum and the Grammar forum?  Yes, all the people who come from the dictionary to _read _old threads are sent to old forum.  All the old threads with their answers are in the forums with all the older threads.  The numbers are misleading.

Why are minor forums like "Multillingual Glossaries" now visible?  Because the forums now give a full line and description for forums "three levels deep".  It was just two levels deep, but I had to change it to get the new Vocabulario forums to show right.  I will probably be moving those forums somewhere else.

Nobody is obligated ("obligar" above) to participate in a single colored forum.  Did you know that you can see all the threads together almost like the way it was before?  There is a "Combined View" link within the Vocabulario category header. Did you know???

You can also post directly in the forum of your choice.  Just change the f= number in the URL of the New Thread page.



> ...exactly like clicking on page 1 and then on page 2 of the old Vocabulario. 2 clicks, 40 threads.


Jana, that is _too _funny.  You are right.  These people are talking about how they didn't have to click much in the old Vocab forum, but it only showed them 20 threads per page, and they had to visit 20+ pages per day to see all the threads.  Modifying the Combined View link (have I mentioned that it exists?) a little (make a bookmark out of it EDIT: it can't be bookmarked. Add &pp=200 to the end of  ?searchid=xxxxx) will allow you to see 500 200 threads on one single page - even better than before!

OK, it has been fun, but it seems that my messages in this thread are getting repetitive. I have very little new to say, and what I have said seems to be ignored.  You will probably see a few more changes today, but the forums are going to stay more or less as they are for a while.  I suggest getting used to it.

Mike


----------



## Hella

mkellogg said:


> OK, it has been fun, but it seems that my messages in this thread are getting repetitive. I have very little new to say, and what I have said seems to be ignored.  You will probably see a few more changes today, but the forums are going to stay more or less as they are for a while.  I suggest getting used to it.
> 
> Mike



That's a _nice_ way of ending this discussion. That's what you have, no more feedback welcomed, take it or leave. 
I'm the one who feels ignored - and I guess not the only one. The only explanation we get is "use combined view". So, if using something that _looks like_ what we had before is the solution... why we are forced to change in the first place?
Dramatic changes in something that people were quite satisfied with shouldn't had been done ignoring the opinion of the foreros...


----------



## brian

Hella said:


> That's a _nice_ way of ending this discussion. That's what you have, no more feedback welcomed, take it or leave.


Feedback is always welcome as long as it hasn't already been proposed and rejected. Post after post in this thread has brought up the same issues that Mike has already explained to his liking.


			
				Hella said:
			
		

> I'm the one who feel ignored - and I guess not the only one. The only explanation we get is "use combined view". So, if using something that _looks like_ what we had before is the solution... why we are forced to change in the first place?


The "look" is not the issue here. The problem was functionality, and the solution we were looking for was to increase functionality while still retaining, as much as possible, that wonderful "look" that people so love, _if_ they so choose to continue using that look. The result is a new organization that will _eventually_ be more functional by allowing more posts to receive more attention, and _not_ at the expense of any other post.


			
				Hella said:
			
		

> Dramatic changes in something that people were quite satisfied with shouldn't had been done ignoring the opinion of the foreros...


As has been mentioned, not everyone was "quite satisfied" with the prior organization. Users had to continually bump their own threads--which clutters threads with useless posts and which inevitably leaves behind other posts by users who do not bump, thus creating a bumptastic competition of inane bumpery! In addition, the moderators and Mike were clearly not satisfied by the system, and being that they are the ones running this business from behind the scenes--where organization is even more important--I think they have good reason to make any changes they believe will increase functionality.

That said, I still don't even really understand the problems here. I would think of the colored subfora simply as distinct Spanish Forums in their own right. Each one will contain its share of love translations, word usage questions, tattoo translation requests, etc. The only randomness is where the new post initially gets placed. Otherwise, imagine that each subforum is a unique WF Spanish Forum--as if the old style forum had miraculously shrunk by 1/6 the size--and you should be able to understand how _much more functional_ it now is. And if you get bored with a particular forum, just head to another color.

As a last point, I said functionality will increase "eventually." By this I mean that over a short period of time, but of course not right away, these 6 forums will inevitably evolve into distinct but equal Spanish forums in their own right. This is not randomness at all. This is in fact mathematics. This is organization.


brian


P.S. Also, if I may speak rather bluntly, I think categories based on part of speech (or on any other type of grammar-related denomination) would be terrible. First of all, from experience I've seen that many newbies simply do not know what prepositions and conjunctions are, what the difference between an adverb and an adjective is in some contexts, etc. Secondly, would a verbal adjective be a verb or an adjective? (and other such confusing cases..) Thirdly, what about a sentence or phrase that contains more than one confusing word, each of which is a different part of speech? Fourthly, I'll stop there.  In this case I would say attempted categorization does not help, but rather adds to, chaos!


----------



## Vampiro

So, It's my way or the highway…
OK, crystal clear for me.
Eventually I’ll be at the Rojo Forum, just in case someone needs some help.
All the best.


----------



## Modosita

> So, It's my way or the highway…




Wonderful, let's all go there. The red forum it is!

saludos


----------



## brian

If a handful of you all want to camp out in the red forum, that's perfectly fine. Either you'll have enough threads there to keep you busy, and all those threads will be continually satisfactorily responded to, which of course is a plus and which is the goal of this re-organization, OR you'll soon run out of threads to answer and end up moseying over to another color forum, where, even though YOU'VE been posting in red all along, there will undoubtedly be many another interesting post in which you can then lend a hand, which, again, is the goal of this reorganization.

Thank you for embracing this change. We really do appreciate it, and I think in time you will understand how much nicer it will be. 


brian


----------



## Hella

It's a pity but I am considering leaving... and maybe return "eventually" when/if the new system works...


----------



## cuchuflete

Modosita said:


> Wonderful, let's all go there. The red forum it is!
> 
> saludos



As Mike Kellogg said in the Announcement:



> I would like to encourage regular foreros to pick a favorite vocabulary forum.



So whether you prefer red or azul o blanco o verde...¡bienvenidos!


----------



## ivanovic77

brian8733 said:
			
		

> P.S. Also, if I may speak rather bluntly, I think categories based on part of speech (or on any other type of grammar-related denomination) would be terrible. First of all, from experience I've seen that many newbies simply do not know what prepositions and conjunctions are, what the difference between an adverb and an adjective is in some contexts, etc. Secondly, would a verbal adjective be a verb or an adjective? (and other such confusing cases..) Thirdly, what about a sentence or phrase that contains more than one confusing word, each of which is a different part of speech? Fourthly, I'll stop there.  In this case I would say attempted categorization does not help, but rather adds to, chaos!


 
No más caos del que provoca que un novato intente publicar un mensaje en un foro y luego no lo encuentre. Por otro lado, decir que no se divide el foro en temáticas (vocabulario, gramática, traducciones, términos especializados) por culpa de la ignorancia de los novatos me parece desacertado. Si es cierto que la gente es tan ignorante, ¿cómo van a encontrar una pregunta que trataron de postear en el foro Azul pero que ahora está en el foro Marrón? ¿Cómo hacerles entender que tienen un *User Control Panel* donde aparecen los hilos suscritos? ¿No hemos quedado en que los novatos no saben nada?

Sólo quería resaltar esta, a mi juicio, ligera incongruencia. Pero estoy de acuerdo en que habrá que darle tiempo al nuevo sistema para ver si funciona.


----------



## Rayines

ivanovic77 said:


> .............. ¿cómo van a encontrar una pregunta que trataron de postear en el foro Azul pero que ahora está en el foro Marrón?


Cuando la persona cliquea en "new thread", o sea al hacer la pregunta, ya le indican que su pregunta será enviada aleatoriamente a alguno de los 5 colores. Es decir que tendrá que estar atenta para ver en cuál aparece, pero no esperar que aparezca en un color, de antemano.


----------



## ivanovic77

Rayines said:


> Cuando la persona cliquea en "new thread", o sea al hacer la pregunta, ya le indican que su pregunta será enviada aleatoriamente a alguno de los 5 colores. Es decir que tendrá que estar atenta para ver en cuál aparece, pero no esperar que aparezca en un color, de antemano.


 
¿Desde cuando la gente lee y está atenta a las cosas? 

Rayines, el mecanismo lo conozco igual que tú, pues soy un forero habitual. Básicamente estaba respondiendo a brian acerca de los novatos y su presunta ignorancia.


----------



## TrentinaNE

ivanovic77 said:


> No más caos del que provoca que un novato intente publicar un mensaje en un foro y luego no lo encuentre. Por otro lado, decir que no se divide el foro en temáticas (vocabulario, gramática, traducciones, términos especializados) por culpa de la ignorancia de los novatos me parece desacertado.


I don't know how ignorant people are, but I've helped the ES mods move a bunch of everyday-language questions out of "Specialized Terminology" in the last couple of hours alone... 

Elisabetta


----------



## ivanovic77

TrentinaNE said:


> I don't know how ignorant people are, but I've helped the ES mods move a bunch of everyday-language questions out of "Specialized Terminology" in the last couple of hours alone...
> 
> Elisabetta


 
Not surprising at all. It was expected that this would happen. The Specialized Terminology Forum will increasingly become the favourite forum for newcomers.


----------



## Philippa

Hi Mike,
Thank you for saying how to make a thread in the colour of my choice. I'm really cross that I couldn't work it out for myself and I did even stare at code thingy in the address bar!   I'm a little bit concerned that I might have chosen a slightly rebel colour judging from the posts above!! 
I like the 'form' to choose from when you start a thread. I think it should help newbies get the right foro. Is it possible to include EO and Sólo Español as options in that form too as alacant suggested here? I think sometimes I forget that these may be better places for my question and I'd quite like to be reminded, but maybe you don't think this is such a good idea as they aren't bilingual in the same way as the others on the form.
I do already feel a bit less overwhelmed with a nice smaller forum to look at and I hope it does make more of a community again. I think it's cool you're trying something so dramatic - I'm only disappointed that the new foros are still all in WR blue!! - do you get just one colour when you buy the forums from vBulletin?!!
I wonder, have the SpEn mods have chosen colours too? Although it'd be tricky to spot repeated threads if every forero sticks to just one colour.
Saludos *multicolores*
Philippa


----------



## TrentinaNE

ivanovic77 said:


> The Specialized Terminology Forum will increasingly become the favourite forum for newcomers.


Because people can't read and/or are that lazy about scrolling?  If we divide the forums into the 8 parts of speech and put *Interjections* at the top, will that become the favorite sub-forum as well?  If so, it seems we don't have many viable solutions...

Elisabetta


----------



## Jana337

For those who complain that it will be harder to find threads - please explain one thing to me: Say you opened a thread in Vocabulario and then you logged off for half a day. You came back and did what to find your thread? Did you comb Vocabulario, clicking like crazy on its first 15 pages? Didn't you by any chance go to your User Control Panel and click on your threads directly, or (if you use e-mail subscriptions) go to your mailbox and click on your threads directly? I bet you did the latter. What prevents you from continuing it?

As far as newbies are concerned, they all have e-mail subscriptions by default and can find their threads easily.


----------



## alacant

Hello,

At the risk of being banned or told off, I personally haven't read one post from someone who likes this system.

Is this a democracy,or is it a case if you don't like playing cricket my way, I'll take my bat and go home?

With all due respect. Alacant


----------



## Priss

Antpax said:


> So am I. I do understand that something had to be done with GV forum, because threads desappeared very fast, maybe splitting it in 2, but in six it is a bit too much, in my opinion, of course. It is impossible to have a look at all of them and maybe some questions that could be answered are not going to be, because people who know the answer just simply don´t see them.
> 
> Again, it is just my opinion, and forgive my English, please.
> 
> Cheers.
> 
> Ant


Yo estoy de acuerdo, pienso que dos divisiones para "Vocabulario General", serían suficientes.


----------



## TrentinaNE

alacant said:


> Hello,
> 
> At the risk of being banned or told off, I personally haven't read one post from someone who likes this system.


People who are happy tend to be quiet.  



> Is this a democracy,


Not to sound snippy, alacant, but Mike has answered that question before. His words are preserved in the How New Forums Are Created sticky thread above and read:


> I also want to add one more note. I have seen quite a few references to democracy in the forums here. I just want to politely remind everyone that WordReference is a business, not a democracy. Like any good business it listens carefully to suggestions, of course.
> 
> And thanks for the suggestions,
> Mike


I'm sure he stands by those words now. The forums just underwent a massive change, change takes time to adjust to. If experience shows that the change needs adjustment, appropriate measures will be considered. 

Elisabetta


----------



## anthodocheio

Modosita said:


> I thought this forum's attractiveness lay precisely in the quick changing threads and the amount of answers you could get for a single question. Now you have to be lucky to get a correct answer at all.


 
A proposito, this was everything for me. That's why we ask here and not a friend of ours by e-mail for example.



mkellogg said:


> Why are minor forums like "Multillingual Glossaries" now visible? Because the forums now give a full line and description for forums "three levels deep". It was just two levels deep, but I had to change it to get the new Vocabulario forums to show right. I will probably be moving those forums somewhere else.


 
I prefer them as they are now. One detail already mentioned somewhere is that there is no reason to keep having the same first post both.

Thanks for the attention, (sorry for my English)
Cristina


----------



## speedier

First let me say that any changes to alleviate the "growing pains" of this website will not please all of the people all of the time, but it is good to see that most of the comments are of a constructive nature.

One problem that I found is that the "ask in the forums yourself" hyperlink now takes you to a page which does not have an "ask a question" hyperlink. Perhaps another "ask a question" hyperlink could be added alongside the hyperlink for "combined view"?

This would save having to go to one of the coloured vocabulary forums in order to ask a question, and perhaps clicking on the proposed link could also take you to the forum that has been randomly chosen for your question.

Edit. I have since found that there are in fact "ask a question" hyperlinks on each of the various new forums, it's just that I had been looking for the link in or about it's old place. My point is still valid though, in that an "ask a general vocabulary question" hyperlink could be added next to the "combined view" link, which could direct you to the randomly chosen forum, so simplifying the page.


----------



## Cecilio

Hello everybody. In a recent thread about problems in the Spanish-English forums (here) we have read quite a few interesting posts proposing solutions. One of the things we highlighted was the need for more post-reporting, using the little red triangle. In fact, I decided to switch on my reporting-mode and got used to it, always thinking that reporting would be useful and would be a possible solution. Yesterday I discovered the new layout, with the various colour forums, and my first thought was that something like this would never work (I still think so by the way). I entered one of these colours and realized that there were some posts that I could report, but then I thought: the foreros who have posted this here must be quite confused already, so imagine how they would feel if they receive a moderator message telling them that they had done something wrong... Let's face it: a language forum like WR should be a bit more user-friendly and effective.

However, I can see an interesting development in the recent changes. As someone has mentioned, this form or dialogue box that you have to aswer before the post is sent is probably the good way forward. We might have all sorts of new foreros but I'm sure we can design a form that's quite comprehensible for a relevant percentage of people in general.

By the way, I'm surprised to see that no-one has ever proposed a very obvious ES-SE forum: one about pronunciation.


----------



## Eva Maria

mikekellogg said:
			
		

> I also want to add one more note. I have seen quite a few references to democracy in the forums here. I just want to politely remind everyone that WordReference is a business, not a democracy. Like any good business it listens carefully to suggestions, of course.


¡Ah, es verdad! Por un momento había creído que estábamos aquí para aprender y enseñar, recibiendo una cosa a cambio de la otra, a chain of favours. Y más que nadie, los mods, que trabajan gratis para ayudarnos a que esto sea posible.




			
				brian8733 said:
			
		

> In addition, the moderators and Mike were clearly not satisfied by the system, and being that they are the ones running this business from behind the scenes--where organization is even more important--I think they have good reason to make any changes they believe will increase functionality.


También la satisfacción de los foreros es importante. ¿Qué pasaría si muchos foreros decidieran irse a cualquier otro de los millares de foros de idiomas de los que el ciberespacio está plagado? Peor aún, ¿y si estos foreros que decidieran irse fueran los foreros que ayudan, los experimentados, los que sólo vienen a ofrecer sus conocimientos (y a aprender ayudando, por supuesto), y los que se quedaran fueran la gran mayoría de foreros que vienen a pedir ayuda? El caos, ¿no? No answers, no foreros, no forum, no business.

By the way, could you clearly explain the steps in order to post a new thread in the colour forum of choice? I’ve come to the point of changing the forum number in the URL address, but could not go further: the random system decided for me, instead, and sent my thread to another colour forum not of my choice, the predetermined one. Can I expect any feedback?


----------



## brian

ivanovic77 said:


> No más caos del que provoca que un novato intente publicar un mensaje en un foro y luego no lo encuentre.


In Italian-English (which has much less traffic) we occasionally have users who can't figure out where they posted, or who accidentally post in the wrong forum. It happens; it's natural. Some people are not computer savvy, but we help them along. If this happens (and it will) in the new Spanish forums, the mods will be more than happy to direct foreros.



			
				ivanovic77 said:
			
		

> Por otro lado, decir que no se divide el foro en temáticas (vocabulario, gramática, traducciones, términos especializados) por culpa de la ignorancia de los novatos me parece desacertado.


The "ignorance" I was referring to was more linguistic than technological (though as mentioned above, users lacking perfect computer skills will always need helpful hands); to me it seems "desacertado" to create categories that will inevitably lead to confusion to those who don't understand them _as well as_ to those who, for one reason or another, disagree where certain threads belong (and this will happen, even, or especially, among the un-"ignorant").



			
				ivanovic77 said:
			
		

> Si es cierto que la gente es tan ignorante, ¿cómo van a encontrar una pregunta que trataron de postear en el foro Azul pero que ahora está en el foro Marrón?


As mentioned already, users are notified about which color forum their thread has been placed in, and then there's always the useful Control Panel [see below].



			
				ivanovic77 said:
			
		

> ¿Cómo hacerles entender que tienen un *User Control Panel* donde aparecen los hilos suscritos?


Again, I was mostly talking creating unnecessary confusion for people who won't understand well enough linguistic-based categories, but if you want to bring up the overall ignorance of users in general, I'm not going to deny that some users just will not know where the Control Panel is. But these same users, whether or not there are 6 subforums or not, are eventually going to have to discover it, right? Or else go through the trouble of scanning through 15 pages of the old-style Spanish forum, or browsing through the first page or two of 6 subfora. In either case, they're in trouble. But again, mods (and fellow members) are here to direct such users.



			
				ivanovic77 said:
			
		

> ¿No hemos quedado en que los novatos no saben nada?


I'm neither saying nor trying to convince anyone that new users are absolutely clueless about everything. In particular, however, when it comes to linguistic issues, many users (old and new, in fact) would find themselves questioning whether some word or phrase were one thing and not another, leading to much more chaos than if subfora were all simply equal. And in the case of such equal subfora, any "ignorant" user finding himself in confusion most likely would have been in just as much if not in more confusion in another situation. But again, we're here to help out those foreros and will do so kindly.



			
				ivanovic77 said:
			
		

> Sólo quería resaltar esta, a mi juicio, ligera incongruencia.


The "incongruency" is between the two types of "ignorance" that I hope I have differentiated above. Technological ignorance, which you considered alone, will be around with or without these new subfora. But enough about that.



			
				ivanovic77 said:
			
		

> Pero estoy de acuerdo en que habrá que darle tiempo al nuevo sistema para ver si funciona.


Yes, I think if we at least give it a try for some time and work together to make things happen, then it will work just fine. 


brian


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## Jana337

> ¡Ah, es verdad! Por un momento había creído que estábamos aquí para aprender y enseñar, recibiendo una cosa a cambio de la otra, a chain of favours. Y más que nadie, los mods, que trabajan gratis para ayudarnos a que esto sea posible.


Yes, we are here to learn and to help. Which doesn't make it a democracy. You don't pay for the software and the server, do you?


> By the way, could you clearly explain the steps in order to post a new thread in the colour forum of choice? I’ve come to the point of changing the forum number in the URL address, but could not go further: the random system decided for me, instead, and sent my thread to another colour forum not of my choice, the predetermined one. Can I expect any feedback?


Change the number, hit Enter. The New Thread form will load again. Then write your post and submit it. 

If you post on a frequent basis, I'd bookmark the link of your prefered forum's New Thread form.


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## lazarus78

*By way of syllogism:*

*A thread: *


Cecilio said:


> In a recent thread about problems in the Spanish-English forums (here) we have read quite a few interesting posts proposing solutions.


 
Actually I have the feeling that the thread Cecilio mentioned has been the origin of much of all this. A forero raises a topic about the problems in the General Vocabulary forum. Other foreros participate on the discussion. Some of them get thinking about the WR's problems and if they come with an interesting idea, they suggest it. And for these foreros, WR's problems are _their_ problem, because they spend hours and hours a day in there. And I'm sure many of them were thinking "after-hours" -unplugged from the forum- about possible solutions. Since last Monday, some of them might have even problems to sleep. 

The issue is that some of the ideas suggested were accepted, as Mike said in the mentioned thread




			
				mkellogg said:
			
		

> I just wanted to write in this thread to thank you all for your suggestions. As many of you see, I've decided on a course of action. Hopefully, it will work out well for us. I'm pretty sure it will. There were more suggestions in this thread that I liked. I hope to get some of them implemented in the next few days.
> 
> Mike


 
*The context:* OK that this is not a democracy. Very OK. Mike has created all this. And moderators help to maintain it and use a lot of time, energy and patience on this task. And we all are aware of it and very thankful for that, to them and to him. And I'm sure that they carefully read and study and talk about the comments and suggestions.

*As conclusion:* But also we all have to admitt that WR is mainly what users do of it. And if users' opinion is not considered, mistaken or misused, users will wonder if it is worthy to make suggestions at all. Final solution undertaken in the GV is very far from what was proposed in that thread, and most of the people who participated there have shown their dislike or upset about the new measures. I participated in the famous thread, and somehow I feel a little responsible for what has happened. Because it is some kind of unexpected and unwanted result, at least from the point of view of the suggestions discussed in that thread.

With my most truly and sincere respect,

Warmest regards to all of you,

Lazarus.


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## Eva Maria

Jana337 said:


> Yes, we are here to learn and to help. Which doesn't make it a democracy. You don't pay for the software and the server, do you?


 
I was waiting for this answer; pity it's you who had to cope with the untasty task this time. True indeed! But worse to pay for a software and a server running an _unsuccessful _forum...



			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> Change the number, hit Enter. The New Thread form will load again. Then write your post and submit it.
> 
> If you post on a frequent basis, I'd bookmark the link of your prefered forum's New Thread form.


 
Thank you. It's very kind of you.

Eva Maria


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## Paulfromitaly

lazarus78 said:


> .. and *most of the people* who participated there have shown their dislike or upset about the new measures..




I beg your pardon?
*Most of people*? Define "most of people" please, elaborate the concept because I have the feeling someone is fiddling the figures here..
"Most of the people who post in GV" would mean at least the 90% of those who post there, that is thousands of foreros...
What I can see is only a dozen of people who keep complaining about the changes without even taking the time to get used to them or test them, the same people who have already been complaining about the most various and petty matters.


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## lazarus78

Paulfromitaly said:


> *Most of people*? Define "most of people" please, elaborate the concept ...


 
I'm not a native English speaker and I apologize if I'm not able to make myself clear, but I think I defined and elaborated the concept: 



lazarus78 said:


> ... what was proposed in *that thread*, and most of the people *who participated there* have shown their dislike or upset about the new measures.


 
The thread in question is well known, but I provide the link again. 

So far, I didn't complain about the changes. This is only a young forero with less than 500 posts, who nonetheless was feeling committed with the principles of WR since posted for first time. Foreros with thousands of posts in their CV are having much bigger authority to complain than I do, so it's up to them to do so. 

Lazarus.


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## cuchuflete

Along with many other foreros, I'm getting used to the changes.  Slowly.  There is some minor inconvenience for me in adapting to the new look of the main menu page.  I think I'll get used to it about as quickly as I did the August 2004 version of the main page.  It took a few days to be comfortable with that.  I managed to learn, and not put too many threads in the wrong place.  

I'd like to share a few more reactions to the change, some positive, and some still uncertain.  First, I need to remember that this change had a _single motivation_: give all new SP<>EN threads more time to be visible to all of us who might wish to offer help.
I think it does that.

About a year and a half ago, most new threads stayed on the first page of the VG forum for at least an hour.  Then we grew rapidly, and threads often had only a minute or two before disappearing onto a page that was visible only when we clicked on a different page number.  Now the new threads get a lot more time on the first page.
What else?  Well before the BIG change, Vocabulario general had these characteristics:
—A nice mix of EN>SP and SP>EN threads.  This hasn't changed.
—An interesting mix of new foreros, those who had been around a while, and some "ancient" ones with over a year of experience here.  That hasn't changed either.
—A vast range of topics, something to interest almost anybody: ridiculously semi-literate chatboard translation requests, lyrics, literary passages, scientific terms, idiomatic expressions, and lots of other things.  We still have that same broad variety.

In short, we have the same membership and content. The process is changed, but not in ways that will bedevil us for very long.  Suggestions for fine-tuning the process will continue be welcomed.


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## alexacohen

Thank you so very much, dear Cuchu.
We know it's not our forum; but we love it all the same. 
I just wish the long captions will disappear soon. There are so many letters that I can't focus on the right colour.
All the letters dance a wild dance before my eyes. I am utterly and completely lost.
I'll stick to one forum; whenever I may find it.


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## ivanovic77

A mí me parecería injusto ser encasillado en la categoría de "moaner". Yo no me veo perjudicado, sigo usando la "Combined View" e ignorando los topics que no me interesan. No tengo ningún interés en esto, por lo tanto no veo qué ganaría quejándome. En realidad, expreso mi opinión porque me preocupa el futuro de los foros Spanish-English de WR. Sigo pensando que dividir el foro de Vocabulario General en 6 partes es una medida excesiva.

La presunta avalancha de usuarios que abarrotaba el foro de Vocabulario General no era para tanto. Y lo dice alguien que se ha pasado muchas horas allí. Dividirlo en 6 partes es una medida desproporcionada que parece tomada por alguien a quien le han contado un cuento de terror y de infundios sobre el foro. Hubiese sido suficiente, creo yo, dividirlo en 2 partes, o mejor aún, haber creado un foro adicional para traducciones.

Y ahora añado una opinión que va a molestar, sólo apta para espeleólogos de la psique: Los foros multicolores son una idea divertida, pero tienen un trasfondo casi imperceptible, muy sutil y tenue, de pedantería. 

¿Por qué pedantería? Porque se parte de la premisa de que la gente es una masa informe y desbocada que va a seguir usando los foros de WR _per saecula saeculorum_, empujada por una furia ciega y una gula insaciable. La intuición me dice que es peligroso subestimar a los usuarios dirigiéndolos a rediles, a establos de colores, como si fueran vaquitas. Tan sólo hay que recordar que en internet la gente se va con la misma facilidad con la que viene. No es una amenaza, es una realidad.

Esto lo digo no contra la medida en sí, a la que aún hay que darle unos días de prueba, sino contra la posible actitud defensiva que podría tomar la administración de WR. Es decir, que estoy adelantándome, ya lo sé. Espero que a Mike no le haya costado mucho tiempo implementar los foros multicolores, porque de lo contrario, tendremos una administración empecinada en mantener algo que le costó mucho tiempo y esfuerzo parir. Yo de verdad espero que esta medida sea revocable en caso de que se demuestre que no funciona. Creo que al mínimo indicio de que se pierden usuarios, habría que hacer marcha atrás sin pensárselo dos veces.

Y por favor, que nadie diseccione mi texto mediante quotes y me responda 10 veces lo mismo, que soy tímido y me da vergüenza. 

Eso sí, estoy de acuerdo con que hay que probar este sistema durante unos cuantos días. Los cambios siempre son instructivos.


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## Tampiqueña

Lo consideré y reconsideré muchas veces antes de decidirme a participar en esta discusión. La sección se llama "Comments and Suggestions" pero tengo la impresión de que las sugerencias sobre este tema no están siendo bien recibidas o son etiquetadas y descartadas como "quejas fastidiosas". Bien, entonces me atreveré a hacer un comentario esperando correr con mejor suerte. 
Al implementar un cambio drástico es lógico el descontento. Entiendo que no formamos parte de una democracia (esto es un negocio) pero el foro es muy importante para los que colaboramos en él, en mi caso he encontrado ayuda, compañerismo y una oportunidad de conocer personas cuyas opiniones valoro y respeto.
Espero que los cambios funcionen (y si no es así que se busque una solución que involucre a todos) y no ver cómo se marchan frustrados, de uno en uno, los miembros que son el alma de este foro y la razón principal de que nos conectemos aquí todos los días. 
Incluso el capitalismo toma en cuenta el factor humano para lograr el éxito.


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## Fernita

To my mind, all changes should be made gradually. Drastic changes are bound to fail sooner or later, but *not always*. 
Needless to say, it does take some time for all of us to get used to new systems or formats. I know that. 

But I was just thinking (I sometimes do) that it could have been a good option to split the GV forum into *two* categories:
azul: translations from English into Spanish.
rojo: translations from Spanish into English.

I hope Mike's idea works out well. If it doesn't, I'm sure he'll come up with another option. 

My best regards to all of you and see you ...somewhere!

ps/ To be honest, although I know perfectly well how to find my "subscribed threads", I can't help feeling lost.


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## María Madrid

Finalmente he encontrado la famosa "combined view". Pensaba que era pulsando en el título "General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General como entraba en esa vista combinada pero no, sólo veía un listado de los seis foros y el título del hilo más reciente de cada uno. Al pulsar ahora en esa pequeña frasecita entre paréntesis con letra pequeña en la que pone "Combined view" debajo del párrafo me aparece una lista de hilos combinados de los diferentes foros. 

Por lo tanto sugiero: *¿No se podría poner eso de "combined view" con letra más grande y visible?* Para que quede claro que pulsando sólo ahí es como se llega a una página que muestra los hilos combinados de todos los colorines, no los nombres de los foros y al lado el título del primer hilo de cada uno.

Eso sí, entiendo que al usar la vista combinada el problema de la breve permanencia de los hilos nuevos en la primera página queda igual que antes, pero para los que buscamos hilos que nos resulten de interés y no tengamos problema en mirar en páginas anteriores nos resulta más cómodo que entrar en seis subforos diferentes. 

Creo que el motivo por el que muchos foreros hemos expresado nuestra disconformidad (que dista mucho de ser quejas y lloriqueos infantiles) es porque pensábamos que lo único que podíamos ver era una lista de seis foros y para ver sus hilos tendríamos que entrar de uno en uno. Y eso es ciertamente incómodo. Saludos,


----------



## cuchuflete

María Madrid said:


> Finalmente he encontrado la famosa "combined view" (pensaba que pulsando en la



¿ésta? (Combined View)


----------



## panjabigator

Fernita said:


> But I was just thinking (I sometimes do) that it could have been a good option to split the GV forum into *two* categories:
> azul: translations from English into Spanish.
> rojo: translations from Spanish into English.



Or perhaps, 3 forums for ES and 3 for SE, but the system will probably be pretty hazy that way.  Anyway, I am embrace the change and I think the new system will work fine, but I do use this forum almost as much as I check my email (both insanely, unhealthy amounts), so I envision things running smoothly on my end.  If I can't find my thread, I'll look in the Control Panel (or just ask again).  If I long for the old version, then I'll dabble in the combined view.

I'm pleased that a course of action has finally been taken.  VG has been extremely stressful in the past, and I stayed out of it as much as possible because the turnover rate was too high; either I could never get my question answer or never find an interesting thread it again...

My two rupees worth of input.


----------



## romarsan

brian8733 said:


> If a handful of you all want to camp out in the red forum, that's perfectly fine. Either you'll have enough threads there to keep you busy, and all those threads will be continually satisfactorily responded to, which of course is a plus and which is the goal of this re-organization, OR you'll soon run out of threads to answer and end up moseying over to another color forum, where, even though YOU'VE been posting in red all along, there will undoubtedly be many another interesting post in which you can then lend a hand, which, again, is the goal of this reorganization.


 
He estado pensado sobre el tema ¿como no? Y creo que, igual tenemos más ideas coincidentes que no coincidentes y que, el caos inicial de un cambio radical que no nos esperabamos puede tener una solución buena para todos.
En principio, no veo problema para dedicarme solo a un foro y, esporádicamente visitar el resto, creo que es la tendencia natural, por otra parte. Ahora bien, si vamos a participar en un foro y hemos de hacerlo con ilusión, considero realmente importante algo que ya se nos ha concedido: elegiri color, pero es vital poder abrir hilos también en el foro que hayamos elegido para trabajar. Parece una filosofía un poco absurda estar colaborando de continuo principalmente en un foro y tener que comprarse una red de pescar hilos para ir por los foros a buscar el que tu has abierto y que ha caido Dios sabe dónde. Si, en un futuro, tras dejar elegir libremente se ve que el sistema no obtiene los resultados deseados y no ha mejorado, sería el momento de introducir nuevos cambios. Habrá un porcentaje de foreros a los que no les importará caer en un color u otro y, a los que quienes hayamos elegido un color determinado, podremos ayudar, con la buena disposición que ofrece el colaborar con gusto.
Si, como parece esta elección va a ser posible, creo que estoy en disposición de empezar a trabajar en el nuevo sistema y plantear mis dudas o disconformidades (si las hay) después de un periodo de prueba.
Un saludo a todos


----------



## romarsan

Perdón, una cosita más que en mi "breve" intervención anterior no me acordé de exponer 
Cuanto antes se pueda cambiar la presentación de la "combined view" en el sentido de  acortar la frase que identifica los foros para hacer más efectiva su consulta, mejor, será una herramienta realmente efectiva, como lo era antes del cambio.
Saludos


----------



## polli

Creo que ya se ha dicho todo o casi todo, pero obviamente coincido con los que dicen que los cambios radicales generan caos.
Esperemos un poco para ver si funciona esto de poder elegir el color donde colocar los hilos para los que nos interese ¨caer¨en un color determinado, y si no, esperemos que haya voluntad de mejorar el sistema.
Me parece más práctica la idea de los dos colores de Fernita (EN -SP y SP-EN), pero por ahora esto es lo que hay.
Y supongo que exponer un comentario en esta sección no nos convierte en ¨moaners¨, todos opinamos porque queremos que esto funcione, porque nos gusta estar en el foro, y no por el gusto de quejarse. Si bien queda claro que esto no es una democracia, existe una página para comentarios y sugerencias y simplemente estamos haciendo uso de ella.
Bueno, saludos a todos


----------



## mkellogg

Let me try to be less defensive in this post.

Please understand that I do listen to what you say.  I have read every post in this thread.  I try to read very closely what you are saying and try to do my best to make sure that these forums continue to be the best English-Spanish forums available.  That is why I was distressed to see comments like these in the other thread.


> Whenever a new thread is opened, it receives one or two answers and then it's completely forgotten, regardless of how interesting the thread might be.





> The Vocabulario General has grown so monstrous that I no longer dare open a thread in it. A few times that I tried it was actually very frustrating. The questions are too many and if you have already got a few answers, practically no one is going to read the thread again, even if the answers are not quite satisfactory. Putting more questions in the same thread doesn't help much, either.


There were a lot of suggestions on how to improve the Vocabulario forum, but I really believe that the forum could not continue as it was.  We had to change it somehow, sooner or later. In my opinion, more changes are needed.  The end goal is that people's questions get good answers, something that hasn't always been happening lately.

So, please give the new format some time.  I hope it works. If it does not, then we will try something different.

Mike


----------



## Cecilio

Today is Bank Holiday in Spain so I have some free time to do some calculations. Let's see. So far 39 foreros have posted in this thread. I have added up the toal number of posts that these foreros have in their record (an amazing 153,199) which gives as the average numer of posts of the foreros who have participated in this thread:

*3,928*​
That's obviously a very high number. Only a small percentage of foreros have reached such figures. It seems that the debate about the Spanish-English forums is in the hands of the most experienced foreros, but it's a pity that we don't often hear the opinions of the newer members of the community. I suppose that little by little some new forms of democratic debate will be developed in this community, but that will take time. For the moment I find the contributions here quite constructive, and I still think the SE forums will finally be reshaped according to people's opinions.


----------



## alexacohen

Hello Mike:

I, at least, have read very carefully what you said. 
I understand perfectly well that this is your business, and that you want the forums to continue to be the best English/Spanish forums available.
That's why we are all here, after all. And that's why I registered and accepted the rules of the forum. Some of us, in the middle of the mayhem, might have forgotten them.
Thank you very much for your patience.

Alexandra Cohen



> II. The Forums promote learning and maintain an atmosphere that is serious, academic and collaborative, with a _respectful_, helpful and _cordial_ tone.


----------



## Venezuelan_sweetie

Hi everyone,

What an interesting, heated discussion this is! It feels like a thread in the Cultural forum, instead of Comments & Suggestions. 

Now, to the point (or rather, points):





lazarus78 said:


> So far, I didn't complain about the changes. This is only a young forero with less than 500 posts, who nonetheless was feeling committed with the principles of WR since posted for first time.


Yes, that commitement can be felt through your posts, Lazarus. Thanks for that.

We all are, of course, most interested in hearing people who love WR forums speaking their mind. However, doing so is considerably easier when criticisms are focused on aspects that have not already been dealt with to a point of _overexertion _)) within this thread. It is nice to see that people care about the forums enough to get involved, but it is *not* so nice to read such negative input, so often, so repetitive, and so bluntly put. I'm pointing no fingers on anyone, I'm just expressing how some of those comments feel, on the other side of the screen.

Let's keep in mind that these changes have been made *in order to improve WRF's functionality.* Sometimes, we need to give up a share of our personal comfort in order to give way to practicality, which appears to be the case now -I do trust that, on the long run, we are all of one mind as to how good these changes are to WRF and every member of its community-. So, if there are sound reasons to believe that a certain aspects of the changes made are probably tending to the opposite direction, it is good to know. 

But if most comments focus on how deeply we regret losing a bit of personal comfort (no matter how big or small that bit appears to be at the moment), then I fail to see the usefulness of such comments.

I'd love to comment a bit more, but this post is way too long already.


----------



## DiabloScott

Any chance the "Combined View" can be added to the "Forum Jump"?  I recognize that the combined view is a search macro and this may not be possible.  It's a minor annoyance but that's how I navigate. 

Thank you Mike.


----------



## Tampiqueña

Gracias por agregar la opción _My Threads_ en la esquina superior izquierda, así será más sencillo seguirle la pista a las consultas en las que hemos participado. Consumía mucho tiempo estar persiguiendo threads por todos los subforos.

Es un avance.

¡Saludos!


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## Trisia

Ah, come on, just because the Spanish-English forum changes we all need to have that "My Threads" feature added next to the Control Panel? And I did notice it _before _it was highlighted...

Just kidding. Thank you for the new and quite pretty shortcut. I love it.

EDIT: I see Tampiqueña had the same idea


----------



## María Madrid

Veo que ahora el acceso a la vista combinada aparece también resaltado en un recuadro en la página principal de EN-ES. Mucho más cómodo para los que queremos ver los hilos en una sola lista!  Saludos,


----------



## Jaén

Bueno, volviendo de una penosa ausencia por motivos de salud, me encuentro con todos estos cambios que se han hecho en nuestro querido foro y que no son del todo satisfactorios para muchos, incluido yo.

Después de varias horas poniéndome al día con la discusión, y a partir de todas las opiniones expresadas (las consideradas y las rechazadas), me llevan a formarme mi propio juicio. Ojo: no estoy "moaning", "groaning" ni "complaining", es simplemente mi opinión, si me la permiten.

Lo que más me encanta(ba) era la facilidad y rapidez para obtener una respuesta para mis dudas, o a veces un muy útil "brainstorming" (con nativos y no nativos) que me ayuda(ba) a encontrar el camino. Ahora veo que todas estas posibilidades de ayuda se dividieron entre seis.

Y ya que quedó claro que esto es un negocio, pues que sea rentable para todos. Yo me gano el pan de cada día traduciendo (como la gran mayoría aquí), muchas veces con la ayuda desinteresada de muchos foreros (nativos y no nativos), y este desprendimiento de esas personas me motivaba a ayudar también desinteresadamente a otros. Muchas veces, atascado de trabajo, necesitaba hacer una consulta, pero al abrir la página de los foros, inevitablemente respondía unas o varias antes de hacer mi propia consulta.

Mi criterio para responder consultas (por si a alguno le interesa) es primero el asunto. Si el título está bien planteado, y me llama la atención, entro para leerlo, independientemente de si ya ha obtenido respuestas o no, independientemente de si sé la respuesta, o no. Muchas veces no tengo ni idea de lo que se trata, pero investigo. Y, sin ser nativo, ya he ayudado a mucha gente con mis sugerencias, resultado de mis búsquedas. En estos casos, yo les agradezco más que ellos a mí, ya que sin duda aprendí algo nuevo.

El segundo criterio es si la consulta no ha obtenido respuestas. En este caso también, si no sé, y tengo tiempo, investigo. Si el resultado de mi búsqueda es infructuoso, y si no hay alguna opinión que me lleve a hacer mi propia propuesta, entonces no respondo nada.

El tercer criterio es si la persona que inició la consulta o la última que la respondió es un forero amigo o alguien que ya me ha ayudado. Una vez más, puede que ayude, puede que no. A veces algún comentario por medio de PM, sólo para mostrar mi interés en su consulta.

Ah, sí! Ahora sí, inicio mi propio hilo, con la certeza de que alguien (nativo, o no), me va a dar una luz, cuando no la antorcha entera.

Bueno, es así como trabajo. Mejor dicho, como trabajaba, ya que a partir de ahora sólo voy a dedicarme a ganar dinero a través de los otros foreros (a cambio de dar "rating" al foro). Si tengo alguna duda, entraré al foro del color escogido por mis amigos, abriré mi hilo y esperaré su generosa ayuda. Si la ayuda viene de alguien con quien nunca he intercambiado bits, se lo agradeceré muchísimo y lo incluiré en mi lista de amigos, para ayudarlo cuando lo necesite (si tiene la fortuna de que su consulta caiga en el foro del color en que estaré plantado, claro!).

En fin, que lo que antes era un foro abierto, ahora se convertirá (para mí) en un conjunto de "ghettos", ya que yo no pienso salir del foro del color en que pienso crear raíces.

Esa es la idea de WordReference & Co., lo cual me llevó a crear las reglas de Jaén & Co.

Repito, por todo lo que se ha dicho aquí, esta es la conclusión a la que he llegado. Esto es lo que siento (y lamento). Por suerte estamos en el foro de Comments and Suggestions, así que no corro el riesgo de que me censuren 

Saludos a todos!

Alberto.

PD - Ah! "My city" que se menciona en mi firma, es una alusión a WR. Como comenté al inicio, estuve enfermo y echaba mucho de menos a mis amigos virtuales (y algunos de carne y hueso). Espero que siga teniendo ese mismo sentimiento por mucho tiempo.


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## Jaén

Amigos moderators:

Disculpen por abrir un nuevo post en vez de editar el anterior. Primero, para no hacerlo (muchísimo) más abirrido, segundo, porque es importante.

Acabo de recibir por email tres notificaciones de mensajes en WR, a pesar de los muchísimos PMs de amigos y algunas felicitaciones en el foro de Congratulations. El último aviso lo recibí el día 28 de noviembre.

O sea, si los avisos a través del email registrado en el perfil son una herramienta para saber a las cuántas andan nuestras consultas, qué debemos hacer cuando esto no funciona?

Gracias.


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## deslenguada

I don´t like it by now... maybe if they were a little bit more concise about what the threads in those "coloured rooms" are going on... 

Hope they are distiguished by subjets instead by colours soon... 

and yes I agree to many rooms/colours, it makes it to complicated in my opinion, hope it is improved soon.


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## Tezzaluna

The supposed problem was that the new threads were disappearing much too quickly to get a proper response. Now the opposite is true. I refresh, I refresh, and 10, 20 minutes go by and there is nothing new to see. Before we had to be on our toes, on the lookout for any opportunity to help. Now boredom seems to color my visits to the colorful forum.

Too many businesses have failed because of rash, hasty, bad decisions. Unfortunately, this decision is one of them. Change is good, but only when it is for the better.

I hope that this one is reversible, if nothing else because enough "moaners, groaners, complainers" or just faithful users like myself speak up. I hope this change is indeed reversible. If not, the saying on my favorite poster from my teenage years will be exemplified brilliantly in this instance:

*Once a job has been fouled up, anything done to improve it will only make it worse.*

This is my two-cents' worth.

TezzaLuna


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## Venezuelan_sweetie

Tezzaluna said:


> The supposed problem was that the new threads were disappearing much too quickly to get a proper response. Now the opposite is true. I refresh, I refresh, and 10, 20 minutes go by and there is nothing new to see. Before we had to be on our toes, on the lookout for any opportunity to help. Now boredom seems to color my visits to the colorful forum.


There's an easy way to solve that: Click here to find out.


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## Tezzaluna

Venezuelan_sweetie said:


> There's an easy way to solve that: Click here to find out.


 

VS,

Thanks for the assistance, but this is not my question. 

If I have to click 1000 times to see the new threads, I´ll be more than happy to do it. The issue is that there is little movement within each individual colored forum.

The issue is that already the discontent from this major change, without prior notice, I might add, has already changed the desire of the regulars to participate regularly.

My buddies and I are here still, not so much out of loyalty for Mr. Kellogg and his forum, but out of solidarity, out of friendship with people from all over the world.

But again, thank you for your help.

Tezza


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## Trisia

May I add my less-than-two-cents? I know it's really none of my business, because I rarely browse the Spanish-English forum, and I don't think I actually posted more than twice. But I'm sorry you're experiencing such hard times, everybody.

Of course there's less activity. People are trying to adjust, and it will take a while. These days we've had an unusually great number of translation requests on English Only, and I suspect that's because we're all just a tiny bit disoriented (so I suppose that if you're bored you could come by and give us a hand at discovering the subtleties of your native language ).

Something tells me that nobody can say for sure if this was a great idea, a horrible idea, or simply something in-between. Not before having tried it for a certain amount of time.

And now... I have something I wish to ask in one of the colourful forums


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## Vampiro

Bueno, creo que todo está dicho y recontradicho en este hilo, y la verdad no pensaba volver a postear.
Pero hoy, temprano, me encontré con la sorpresa de que el amigo Jaén reapareció tras su período de enfermedad e hizo su aporte, lo cual me movió a escribir esto.
Creo que Jaén dio con una palabra que es clave y que nadie había mencionado aún, pese a lo variado de las opiniones: *ghetto*.
Creo que los organizadores debieron prever que esto terminaría convirtiéndose en seis ghettos separados, porque no hay que ser muy brillante ni pitoniso para darse cuenta de que hay grupos bastante definidos dentro del foro.  Al menos yo me di cuenta a los dos o tres días de rondar por los hilos.
Estando todos juntos estos grupos funcionaban de forma bastante armónica, y pese a algunas veladas (y otras no tan veladas) agresiones o ironías todo se daba dentro de un marco políticamente correcto y la cosa marchaba bien.
Ahora, divididos, está el terreno fértil para que cada uno busque refugio donde están sus amigos o foreros conocidos.  Y quiéranlo o no también sucederá con los que se incorporen de aquí en más.. la gente tiende estar donde se siente bien tratada, y tiende a repetir lo que hizo la vez anterior; si un forero nuevo ingresa por primera vez al foro azul, tengan por seguro que tenderá a volver allí una segunda o una tercera vez, hasta que se convierta en costumbre.
Esta división no es sana, se pierde el aporte de gente valiosa que podría estar en ese momento en un color diferente. 
Empeora la situación el hecho de que el cambio haya sido imprevisto, sin previo aviso.  Muchos foreros habituales (me incluyo, pese a mis modestos 500 y tantos posts) lo sintieron como una falta de respeto; porque si bien es cierto este no es “nuestro” negocio, muchos colaboran en forma habitual y desinteresada con sus conocimientos, su buen humor, y su sentido de solidaridad.
En fin, ya me estoy extendiendo demasiado.  Que tengan suerte con su arcoiris
Those are my two CLP (Chilean Pesos) to this matter.
Regards.
.


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## mkellogg

Have I mentioned that there is a "combined view" of the colored forums?

Click this link.  (Combined View)  I dare you. 

Bonus hint:
Now add "&pp=200" to the end of the search.php?searchid=... URL.


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## Tezzaluna

mkellogg said:


> Have I mentioned that there is a "combined view" of the colored forums?
> 
> Click this link. (Combined View) I dare you.
> 
> Bonus hint:
> Now add "&pp=200" to the end of the search.php?searchid=... URL.


 

MKellogg,

It's been mentioned. Ad nauseum.

TezzaLuna


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## Venezuelan_sweetie

Tezzaluna said:


> MKellogg,
> 
> It's been mentioned. Ad nauseum.
> 
> TezzaLuna


With all due respect, but it has also been ignored repeatedly, it seems.

By clicking on that, everything looks (and for all practical matters, _*is*_) just like the "old" forum.  No divisions, no ghettos, no change.    So, if I don't like the change, all I have to do is click on "Combined View", and the change is gone.  Surely, most of the senior contributers will do so, at least while we all get used to it and start to find how useful the divisions are.

Or, so I hope.


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## Vampiro

Mike:
Ya has repetido hasta el cansancio que existe la dichosa “Combined View”, así como muchos foreros/as te han repetido hasta el cansancio que les resulta odioso usarla.
El punto que yo estaba planteando era otro; pero si como respuesta lo único que obtengo es un insulto a mi inteligencia, fin de la conversación para mi.
Lo único que lamento es haber perdido parte de mi hora del almuerzo para tratar de ayudar en algo.
Saludos.


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## mkellogg

I don't want to get into an argument, so I am not responding to many of the comments, no matter how insulting some of them they might be. This will probably be my last post in this thread for the day.

I don't see the difference between the previous single forum that provided these columns.
Previously you got these columns:
icon | Thread | Last Post | Replies | Views
Now you see:
icon | Thread | Last Post | Replies | Views | Forum

I see each list as providing basically the same information.  Some of you do not see it that way.

Considering what I have been saying _ad nauseum_, I don't understand these comments:


> I refresh, I refresh, and 10, 20 minutes go by and there is nothing new to see. Before we had to be on our toes, on the lookout for any opportunity to help.





> lo que antes era un foro abierto, ahora se convertirá (para mí) en un conjunto de "ghettos"





> les resulta odioso usarla


Again, I am having a hard time trying to follow your logic.


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## Tezzaluna

mkellogg said:


> Considering what I have been saying _ad nauseum_, I don't understand these comments:
> Again, I am having a hard time trying to follow your logic.


 


Tezzaluna said:


> I refresh, I refresh, and 10, 20 minutes go by and there is nothing new to see. TezzaLuna


 
MKellogg,

This has nothing to do with the combined view.

What I meant to say was that taking each new forum individually, just clicking and entering each one, one at a time, is where very little happens over a pretty extended period of time.

We are not insulting you, Mr. Kellogg. We are just frustrated to no end at having something that was not broken, fixed, and fixed to the satisfaction of no one.

Cheers!

TezzaMoon


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## Eva Maria

mkellogg said:


> I don't want to get into an argument, so I am not responding to many of the comments, no matter how insulting some of them they might be. This will probably be my last post in this thread for the day.
> 
> I don't see the difference between the previous single forum that provided these columns.
> Previously you got these columns:
> icon | Thread | Last Post | Replies | Views
> Now you see:
> icon | Thread | Last Post | Replies | Views | Forum
> 
> I see each list as providing basically the same information. Some of you do not see it that way.
> 
> Considering what I have been saying _ad nauseum_, I don't understand these comments:


 
Dear Mike,

*Insulting *comments? 

All I can see here are foreros giving their opinions, just like the administrator and the mods do, not moaners and insulters.



			
				mkellogg said:
			
		

> Again, I am having a hard time trying to follow your logic.


 
Me, too.

Eva Maria


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## lazarus78

Dear all,

I think we are all missing the point here. Actually, I'm quite surprised that the thread wasn`t closed so far... 

We all have to admitt that this is not a democracy, but it is also a very special private business. Is one of the few where the boss has direct contact with the users/customers, and even has created a specific tool for that -the C&S forum. I have the feeling that we all are killing this spirit. 

The C&S forum is a very powerful tool. My contribution in this thread was only to stress its power in the context of the last changes... that foreros were giving their suggestions to a problem raised up by another forero, but nobody expected the final solutions taken. I have nothing to say about the changes, it took me a time to get used to WR when I first entered here, and it will take me again a time now. People are conservative by nature, we don't like changes. But the newbie who just signed today will act as I did months ago and will learn the mechanism naturally, as we all did by the time we joined the WR.

My main feeling is that of frustration, as I guess is that of most of the most active and committed foreros, because we were imagining a better WR in another way. This frustration is provoking now very violent reactions, from both sides, foreros and mods/admins. 

C&S forum allows users to give ideas. Rulers listen to them but implement their own measures. Forum is now used to attack one another. Is like talking to a wall, and I think there's nothing positive on this chat. We all learnt something, but the lessons can be misused... foreros might stop their "braimstorming" in the thinking that ideas will be misunderstood and will lead to unwanted measures, or simply to demonstrate by some kind of "passive revolution" the failure of the changes. Admin and mods could think that the C&S is counterproductive, or even decide to ban the foreros who made the most aggressive comments. 

The dissatisfied already expressed their opinions. I think it was more than enough and it is useless to continue with it. 

I would like to propose a constructive approach, but I'm not sure how. Although I had not much time to think about it, just two ideas came to my mind:

1. We (foreros) could inform about problems with the new system, and let's try to ameliorate it, because so far that's what we all have, and we like it or not, system will not change because a bunch of people complains here.

2. If many of the changes implemented were somehow inspired by comments and suggestions of the foreros, I guess the same foreros could claim their right to participate more activelly in the decission process. Not just to propose and suggest in an active manner, and then to be passive observers of the final result. Maybe, in the future, when further changes were to be implemented, some of these foreros to have access to some kind of "beta" version of the WR, in order to be more participative in the executive process. In this way, it will be a restricted democracy, but at least we will prevent the feeling of frustration and even betrayal that some of us might have.


Warmest regards to all of you.
Lazarus.


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## brian

Tezzaluna said:


> MKellogg,
> 
> This has nothing to do with the combined view.
> 
> What I meant to say was that taking each new forum individually, just clicking and entering each one, one at a time, is where very little happens over a pretty extended period of time.
> 
> We are not insulting you, Mr. Kellogg. We are just frustrated to no end at having something that was not broken, fixed, and fixed to the satisfaction of no one.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> TezzaMoon


Perhaps I misunderstood the whole reason for the change in structure, but isn't the fact that "little happens" within each forum a good thing? The point was to allow threads to remain visible on the first page for longer time, and as a consequence this implies less activity (within each forum). In short, the total amount of activity was stretched over 6 forums so that it is of course _inevitable_ (and desired!) that each forum get less activity than usual.

Now you may say that there is _too little_ activity. First, I'd say simply bounce around the forums for now. Second, it's my opinion (as I've suggested numerous times already) that eventually, once people get used to the structure and everything sorts itself out naturally, each of the 6 forums will pick up in activity and before long be just like the old Spanish forum. It is a way of dealing with the ever-increasing amount of activity in the Spanish forum, and this activity will re-emerge very soon...don't worry.


brian


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## María Madrid

Vampiro said:


> Ya has repetido hasta el cansancio que existe la dichosa “Combined View”, así como muchos foreros/as te han repetido hasta el cansancio que les resulta odioso usarla.


Ahí discrepo. No entiendo por qué resulta odioso usarla, porque es como el antiguo GV, con un montón de hilos por página (se muestra el texto del primer mensaje al pasar el ratón por encima). La diferencia es que combina los hilos de todos los foros de colorines más los del especializado (o sea más variedad de temas). A mí, como usuaria antigua, a la que no le resultaba ningún problema ir a páginas anteriores en busca de hilos interesantes me resulta más cómodo esto que ir mirando de foro en foro y luego de página en página. Aclaro que para ver la vista combinada hay que pulsar no en el título del foro (como yo hacía) sino en el enlace subrayado en el que pone "combined view". 

A la hora de poner preguntas en uno u otro foro, es harina de otro costal, pero ahora mismo no entiendo por qué puede ser un jaleo usar la vista combinada si es prácticamente igual que el añoradísimo GV antiguo. Saludos,


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## anthodocheio

Vampiro said:


> te han repetido hasta el cansancio que les resulta odioso usarla.


 


María Madrid said:


> Ahí discrepo. No entiendo por qué resulta odioso usarla, porque es como el antiguo GV, con un montón de hilos por página (se muestra el texto del primer mensaje al pasar el ratón por encima). La diferencia es que combina los hilos de todos los foros de colorines más los del especializado (o sea más variedad de temas). A mí, como usuaria antigua, a la que no le resultaba ningún problema ir a páginas anteriores en busca de hilos interesantes me resulta más cómodo esto que ir mirando de foro en foro y luego de página en página. Aclaro que para ver la vista combinada hay que pulsar no en el título del foro (como yo hacía) sino en el enlace subrayado en el que pone "combined view".
> 
> A la hora de poner preguntas en uno u otro foro, es harina de otro costal, pero ahora mismo no entiendo por qué puede ser un jaleo usar la vista combinada si es prácticamente igual que el añoradísimo GV antiguo. Saludos,


 
No tengo más nada para decir. Si una cosa iba a decir es lo que dice María aquí y vengo sólo para secundar. (Y yo que pensaba que nosotras dos no nos entendemos, María..)

Chau, buenas tardes a todos,

Cristina


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## Modosita

Words, phrases and idioms. You didn't find the word or phrase in the dictionary? Ask it in any one of the forums below with color names. 
(Combined View)

I would like to add that the words "combined view" cannot be read properly in this colour with a white background. I clicked on the yellow "something" just to find out what it was....

I have just seen that on this page, suddenly the "yellow blur" appear as _blue words_. Well, on the main page, with the white background, it is yellow.

saludos


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## ludovic111

brian8733 said:


> Perhaps I misunderstood the whole reason for the change in structure, but isn't the fact that "little happens" within each forum a good thing? The point was to allow threads to remain visible on the first page for longer time, and as a consequence this implies less activity (within each forum).


 
Right. There are two different points of view on this matter: that of the teachers and that of the students. So far, from what I gather, we've mostly heard the opinions of the teachers. But what do the students think? Were they dissatisfied before? Are newcomers satisfied with what they see? To me, that's the main issue, and the key to the long-term continued success of this forum. The comfort of the teachers is secondary. If they like the intellectual challenge, they'll stay, since the changes are not as drastic as many people have made them out to be.
Ludó

PS--Why is the old vocab forum still accepting new threads?


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## anthodocheio

ludovic111 said:


> PS--Why is the old vocab forum still accepting new threads?


 
But, this is not happening! Why do you say that?


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## TrentinaNE

ludovic111 said:


> But what do the students think? Were they dissatisfied before?


If by "students" you mean forer@s who don't happen to be moderators (mods are forer@s, too ), well, uh, YES.

But I don't buy the teacher/student analogy to begin with.

Elisabetta


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## anthodocheio

ludovic111 said:


> Are newcomers satisfied with what they see? To me, that's the main issue, and the key to the long-term continued success of this forum.


 
Those are the students Elisabetta! Those who came for the first time now. What do they see?
That's all..


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## TrentinaNE

I'm sorry, anthodeocheio, I don't understand what it means to ask if a newcomer "was dissatisfied before."  ludovic asked about "students" and then about "newcomers," so I didn't interpret them as being the same group.   But perhaps s/he could clarify the point.  

Elisabetta


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## Jana337

A few random thoughts: 

Privately and publicly, many users had been complaining about the monstrosity of Vocabulario (threads sinking too fast, some not receiving good answers). This was certainly not due to lack of helpful people in the Spanish forum. If you look at the maps that Mike publishes from time to time, you will see that Spanish-speaking countries are extremely well represented, and so is the United States, a major source of demand for Spanish. Hence, the problem was organization, not scarcity. 

Mike decided to split Vocabulario in six smaller forums similar in size to Italian-English and English Only - neat forums that do not experience such problems. 

The change involves some inevitable changes in layout. Those of you who liked the old one can easily replicate it (I really fail to understand what exactly makes Combined view _odioso_).

Many posts ago, some people voiced their skepticism about the viability of the new system - foreros are not paid for helping; they are volunteers who can't be assigned to individual colored forum at Mike's whim. Of course. No one wants and will make you stick to a specific forum. The difference between "you" and "us" is that "we" believe in equillibriating forces (in math, in law of large numbers, in dynamics etc.) whereas "you" can't imagine the new system in work without a fair share of dirigisme. 

Many of you rooted for a non-random split of Vocabulario. Mike and Spanish moderators would have preferred that as well but there were no foolproof solutions available. If a newbie who has an affair with her boss sees subforums called "Love" and "Work", she will plant her thread in both with an unpleasantly high probability.


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## ERASMO_GALENO

Jana,

I don't know if I'm confused but I remember Mike posting the idea that he expected the foreros to stick to one color forum. Of course there is free will, but I don't know if that is the idea.

I understand why some foreros are unhappy with the changes, it isn't easy for me either. But as I said a lot of posts before, we all should try to make it work. Troubles are an oportunity to grow, aren't they? And I don't mean WR is a trouble, but it is to get familiar with changes.

I also hope Mike is open minded enough to hear all the opinions and to decide, not now of course, if it is appropiate to make new changes or to go back to the previous system.

Regards,

*Erasmo.*


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## Jana337

ERASMO_GALENO said:


> Jana,
> 
> I don't know if I'm confused but I remember Mike posting the idea that he expected the foreros to stick to one color forum. Of course there is free will, but I don't know if that is the idea.


No, Mike *encouraged *(a major difference in my book) foreros to do so if they want to. The underlying idea is that hardly anyone was able and willing to follow the whole Vocabulario. So now you have six smaller forums and many people may want to nest in one of them (and lurk in the other ones occasionally). Social interaction is one of the features that keeps people here, and it will be probably easier to form closely-knit communities (not ghettos!) in reasonably-sized forums. Whether it happens or not is not certain.


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## ivanovic77

Sólo un par de observaciones:

1. Casi nadie ha mencionado que una de las razones del éxito del antiguo Spanish-English GV era la *inmediatez* con la que se obtenían respuestas. Esta inmediatez se ha perdido y el número de posts totales por minuto ha decrecido, pues mucha gente deja de plantear dudas porque el atractivo de la inmediatez ya no existe. Cecilio alarmó a la comunidad diciendo que los topics desaparecían rápidamente sin haber obtenido una respuesta satisfactoria (y era cierto), pero se le olvidó mencionar que una de las grandes virtudes del foro era que se podía obtener una respuesta en menos de *5 minutos*. ¿A nadie le suena la respuesta "Wow, thank you for the quick reply!"?

2. No me identifico con el grupo de usuarios que se quejan del cambio porque les molesta o les cuesta adaptarse a él. No es mi caso. A mí no me ha costado ni 5 minutos acostumbrarme. Mi problema no está en mis hábitos, que los modifico en un abrir y cerrar de ojos, sino en la idea, que me parece desacertada y peligrosa. ¿Dividir un foro en 6 partes idénticas, en lugar de crear foros temáticos? No conozco ningún foro de internet que tenga 6 foros distintos para lo mismo. ¿Por qué no se crean foros temáticos? Porque entre los moderadores existe la idea de que el usuario medio no va a aprender nunca a respetar la temática de cada foro. Parece que hay la necesidad de proteger la relativa comodidad de los moderadores, evitando cargarlos de trabajo. Y yo me pregunto: ¿aquí qué prima, la comodidad de los moderadores o el buen funcionamiento de WR?

Pregunto esto porque sigo sin entender por qué cuesta tanto poner foros temáticos en vez de foros clónicos coloreados. Y cuando digo foros temáticos no me refiero a "nouns, adjectives, adverbs..." sino a:

1. General Vocabulary [EN --> SP]
2. General Vocabulary [SP --> EN]
3. Translations [EN --> SP]
4. Translations [SP --> EN]
5. Grammar
6. Specialized Terminology

Con esto habría más que suficiente, y es infinitamente más racional.

_Edito para añadir que, el __form__ que ha añadido Mike me parece una idea muy acertada, y ayudaría a que la gente respetara más la temática de cada foro en caso de que se quiten los foros clónicos y se pongan foros temáticos._


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## Elibennet

Entiendo por qué hicieron la división del foro de vocabulario general en colores. Me parece bien también que traten de solucionar los problemas que se van presentando (había notado que las preguntas desaparecían demasiado rápido.) Sin embargo, ahora si bien no desaparecen tan rápido, hay muy poca gente en cada uno de los colores. ¿No sería mejor que hubiera menos colores? Es sólo una sugerencia, para que la piensen.


----------



## romarsan

lazarus78 said:


> Dear all,
> 
> I think we are all missing the point here. Actually, I'm quite surprised that the thread wasn`t closed so far...
> 
> We all have to admitt that this is not a democracy, but it is also a very special private business. Is one of the few where the boss has direct contact with the users/customers, and even has created a specific tool for that -the C&S forum. I have the feeling that we all are killing this spirit.
> 
> The C&S forum is a very powerful tool. My contribution in this thread was only to stress its power in the context of the last changes... that foreros were giving their suggestions to a problem raised up by another forero, but nobody expected the final solutions taken. I have nothing to say about the changes, it took me a time to get used to WR when I first entered here, and it will take me again a time now. People are conservative by nature, we don't like changes. But the newbie who just signed today will act as I did months ago and will learn the mechanism naturally, as we all did by the time we joined the WR.
> 
> My main feeling is that of frustration, as I guess is that of most of the most active and committed foreros, because we were imagining a better WR in another way. This frustration is provoking now very violent reactions, from both sides, foreros and mods/admins.
> 
> C&S forum allows users to give ideas. Rulers listen to them but implement their own measures. Forum is now used to attack one another. Is like talking to a wall, and I think there's nothing positive on this chat. We all learnt something, but the lessons can be misused... foreros might stop their "braimstorming" in the thinking that ideas will be misunderstood and will lead to unwanted measures, or simply to demonstrate by some kind of "passive revolution" the failure of the changes. Admin and mods could think that the C&S is counterproductive, or even decide to ban the foreros who made the most aggressive comments.
> 
> The dissatisfied already expressed their opinions. I think it was more than enough and it is useless to continue with it.
> 
> I would like to propose a constructive approach, but I'm not sure how. Although I had not much time to think about it, just two ideas came to my mind:
> 
> 1. We (foreros) could inform about problems with the new system, and let's try to ameliorate it, because so far that's what we all have, and we like it or not, system will not change because a bunch of people complains here.
> 
> 2. If many of the changes implemented were somehow inspired by comments and suggestions of the foreros, I guess the same foreros could claim their right to participate more activelly in the decission process. Not just to propose and suggest in an active manner, and then to be passive observers of the final result. Maybe, in the future, when further changes were to be implemented, some of these foreros to have access to some kind of "beta" version of the WR, in order to be more participative in the executive process. In this way, it will be a restricted democracy, but at least we will prevent the feeling of frustration and even betrayal that some of us might have.
> 
> 
> Warmest regards to all of you.
> Lazarus.


----------



## Cecilio

ivanovic77 said:


> Sólo un par de observaciones:
> 
> 1. Casi nadie ha mencionado que una de las razones del éxito del antiguo Spanish-English GV era la *inmediatez* con la que se obtenían respuestas. Esta inmediatez se ha perdido y el número de posts totales por minuto ha decrecido, pues mucha gente deja de plantear dudas porque el atractivo de la inmediatez ya no existe. Cecilio alarmó a la comunidad diciendo que los topics desaparecían rápidamente sin haber obtenido una respuesta satisfactoria (y era cierto), pero se le olvidó mencionar que una de las grandes virtudes del foro era que se podía obtener una respuesta en menos de *5 minutos*. ¿A nadie le suena la respuesta "Wow, thank you for the quick reply!"?



This is a very interesting point and I agree with you. When I started the thread about problems in the ES forums I was basically trying to highlight the problems, but that does not mean that everything was so bad. In fact I still think that the old version was better than the new one: it was more attractive, more easy-to-use, more simple. Or better said: making a few adjustments to the old version would have been more useful than introducing a radical change like the random classification of subforums in colours. When you open the WR site the fist thing you see is a strange list of forums divided into "colours". The layout is far from attractive. Simplicity is the key on the Internet.Look at the first page of Google for example. It is quite minimalist. It doesn't create confusion.


----------



## speedier

I have posted before on this, but that was before I had read the whole of the thread. Difficult decisions regarding necessary changes had to be made, and it is now clear that we will have six forums unless the system cannot be made to work, and with so many new visitors being directed from Google some sort of “future proofing” had to be attempted. One advantage not mentioned must be easier sharing of duties by the moderators.

However, several points have been repeatedly raised. One of these is the problem of choosing a forum (whether posting a question or helping others).
I believe that to reduce the confusion for people posting in the forums, it would be better if the “ask in the forums yourself” link did not take the user to the WR forum page, where the clutter of different forums can be quite confusing and it is not immediately clear where to ask a question, but to take them directly here, where the choice is so much simpler:

*http://forum.wordreference.com/misc.php?do=page&template=chooseEnEsForum*.

As for the question of which colour forum to choose to help in, at the moment of writing there were only 21 people in total viewing all 6 of the coloured GVs, yet 1010 people were viewing the old vocabulary. One explanation put forward is that Google users are directed there, but it still suggests to me that very few foreros have so far selected their forum of choice.
One way to tempt them might be to have one forum for unanswered questions. Those questions that have remained unanswered for say, 24 hours, might be transferred there automatically (older unanswered ones, even those from the old GV, might also be drip-fed there – and before someone mentions that it is already possible to select unanswered posts by sorting the view on ascending number of replies, I would point out that this isn’t now possible in the combined view).
Another recurring preference is to have different forums devoted to En>Sp and Sp>En. Opinions are divided on this, but some foreros would clearly like to answer questions asked in their own language, whereas others have expressed a preference for forums with mixed questions. Now that there are 6 coloured forums, it seems possible that a compromise arrangement might work. If one of these coloured forums was devoted to questions asked in English, and another for questions asked in Spanish that would leave four forums with mixed questions (or three and one with unanswered questions). In this regard, I know that the software is already capable of distinguishing between some Spanish and English words, because a translation is often provided even if the wrong language option is selected (e.g. En>Sp instead of Sp>En), but I’m not sure if the software could analyse question titles in the same way and direct them to the two selected forums, while leaving the others to be populated randomly. Having said that, I wouldn’t like to be the brave soul who had to decide which of the existing coloured forums would be used for such an experiment at this stage <grin>.
Another theme raised a number of times (though possibly in some of the earlier threads referred to in this thread) is the lack of knowledge of the forum rules. We all had to read and acknowledge them when we joined, but how many of us read them thoroughly, and some rules get forgotten over time. One way to continually remind us of the most common broken rules would be for links to be posted on all deleted posts which would direct us to the individual particular rule that was broken in each case.
PS. I was also disappointed with some of the changes, but every organisation needs to change as it grows or face the possibility of failure. The sooner we realise this, forget what we had before, and concentrate our suggestions on improving what we have now, the sooner we can all move forward together. We are at a crossroads, and positive thinking is what's needed now (sounds a bit naff, but nevertheless true I think).


----------



## anthodocheio

speedier said:


> One way to tempt them might be to have one forum for unanswered questions. Those questions that have remained unanswered for say, 24 hours, might be transferred there automatically (older unanswered ones, even those from the old GV, might also be drip-fed there – and before someone mentions that it is already possible to select unanswered posts by sorting the view on ascending number of replies, I would point out that this isn’t now possible in the combined view).


----------



## Víctor Pérez

Anoche estuve leyendo este hilo por completo y he visto que la pasión de algunas de las manifestaciones demuestra el interés de muchos de los foreros por WR. Yo diría que de todos. Eso pese a que siendo un negocio, tal y como se nos ha puntualmente recordado, no obtengamos ningún beneficio crematístico al ceder parte de nuestro tiempo libre intentando ayudar a los demás -nuestros beneficios siendo otros- y contribuir indirectamente a que WR se haga cada vez más grande y prestigioso (espero que nadie me rebata esto).

Como todo negocio, WR es dirigido por un grupo restringido de personas que, no lo dudemos, sabe lo que se hace pese a que también tengan derecho a equivocarse. Creo que debemos dar un voto de confianza al Administrador y a su equipo y ver como evolucionará el bullicioso GV. En el hilo abierto tan oportunamente por *Cecilio* ya dije que el GV estaba corriendo cierto riesgo pero no aporté ninguna idea. He visto que algunos habéis emitido ideas que podrían ser perfectamente válidas para el caso en que la actual no funcionase. También yo ahora tengo algunas que, en este momento, llegan demasiado tarde... 
Propongo que dejemos crecer a la criatura y que colaboremos lo mejor posible para que no se colapse. Si lo hace, supongo que el Administrador avisará.


----------



## chicalita

Hella said:


> If you don't mind some feedback, I am not sure that splitting the forum in six sub-fora is a good idea. There is a risk that most people, in particular newcomers, will only check the blue forum as this is the first one listed by the system. Let’s be realistic; most people do not read the announcements so they won’t know what the division is for…
> In fact you are right about new threads disappearing from the front page too quickly to get a good response. However, this has been solved till now by the person concerned posting again when no answer was received – not necessarily opening a new thread but posting in the old one so it comes to the front page again.
> Ideally – and I don’t know if this is technically possible – a better solution might be that the system reposts automatically those threats with 0 replies. This could be done perhaps twice in 24-hour periods of time.
> On the other hand, I used to find very nice to meet some of the "regulars" checking the forum as the same time I do, something that will become more difficult if each of us are answering or questioning in different sub-fora...
> I think I'm going to miss the old version. I will use the "combined view" but if others don't it will not be the same again...




I agree wholeheartedly.  I used to enjoy scanning the forum to see what I could learn or where I could help.  Now I see all these different forums and it's little overwhelming, and absolutely discouraging.  I don't want to bother.

Also, what happens if you don't get a response in the forum you've been assigned to? Before if you didn't get a response, received an incomplete response or just didn't like the responses you could easily comment in the thread and everyone would have a new chance to see it.  Now your post is only exposed to the people who just happened to be in the forum you just happened to be randomly assigned to.  It's too limiting.


----------



## chicalita

anthodocheio said:


>



What about post that hae received incomplete, unsatisfactory or incorrect responses?  Can those be re-posted? Or is that considered spamming?


----------



## scotu

My three senses:
1. I *like the new combined forum better *it gives me an overview of all the forums including the specialty and grammar forums. This is a major improvement, thank you.

2. I have no incentive to choose exclusively one color to participate in while new thread posters get assigned to colors at random.   

3. If there were a distinction between the colors (EN>SP & SP>EN or beginners/experienced) I would have an incentive to choose a color.

scotu


----------



## anthodocheio

chicalita said:


> What about post that hae received incomplete, unsatisfactory or incorrect responses? Can those be re-posted? Or is that considered spamming?


You think I don't care?
Have a look:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=3957282&postcount=28
http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=3958122&postcount=8


----------



## Argónida

¿Alguien se ha dado cuenta de que desde la _revolución arcoiris_ el foro de Gramática se está llenando de solicitudes de traducción?


----------



## María Madrid

Efectivamente el foro está "raro" en estos días, pero supongo que también tiene mucho que ver con el hecho de que los que contestábamos de manera habitual también estamos de adaptación, quizá viendo menos hilos que antes y quizá no se están reportando las consultas "despistadas" tanto como antes. Y no olvidemos que en artículo sobre diccionarios de El País Semanal decían que en este sitio se traduce entre x, x y x idiomas. Me parece que esa frase era casi una invitación a "pasen y pidan, que nosotros se lo apañamos", no aclaraba que se trata de un diccionario con un foro de discusión y aprendizaje, en lugar de un foro donde se traduce gratis. 

Lo que sí me resulta curioso es que haya tanta pregunta de vocabulario en Gramática. Saludos,


----------



## Cecilio

Today I have started participating in the new rainbow forums and I have realised that it's true that things in the Vocabulario forum are going much more smoothly and that there are more options for a thread to receive attention. However, I can still see a lot of the old problems, as we have variously described them. It is also obvious that for the more experienced foreros using the new version is not a complicated thing: we can easily understand what it's all about, but I still think that the current layout may be seriously discouraging for the newcomers. I feel there's something wrong about it.


----------



## scotu

I estimate that about 40% of new posts are made by Junior Members. I would I think that if Junior Members  had an introductory forum (or sub forum) many of the problems discussed above would disappear. 

When one becomes a "Member" he/she should be able to *choose their color* (instead of being randomly assigned) If people could choose their color (for new posts) my guess is that groups would eventually form based on similar interests. Especially if the groups had a name that hinted at the type of interest.

scotu


----------



## Modosita

Argónida said:


> ¿Alguien se ha dado cuenta de que desde la _revolución arcoiris_ el foro de Gramática se está llenando de solicitudes de traducción?


 
Acabo de ver al nuevo formato de la página principal. En efecto, el foro de gramática, como yo también dije antes, está adquiriendo un protagonismo inusitado. Se llena de traducciones:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=756669
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=756635

Simplemente dos hilos en primera página que está lleno a estas horas de peticiones similares. Los moderadores no dan abasto. Creo que simplemente se debe a que el foro está en primero lugar. ¿Por qué no situarlo debajo de "General Vocabulary" que fue su lugar de origen?

Veo que también se ha cambiado el enlace: "combined view" a color azul (sobre fondo blanco) que ahora se _ve_. 


Creo que se ha ganado mucho con el nuevo formato y causa menos confusión. Pero queda situar el foro de _gramática_ por debajo de _vocabulary_, en mi opinión.

saludos


----------



## cirrus

For me the split hasn't made that much of a difference because I tend to scan new posts hovering with the mouse and then go into ST as specific forum. I have noticed that Specialised Terminology has become spectacularly less specialised since the change.

I have reported several posts but don't know what happened to them. Looking at ST I see lots of moved threads and wonder whether this has meant an increase in moderator workload. It certainly makes for a messy read.

Fingers crossed this will all settle down.  Meanwhile I am more than happy to support changes to GV which, for a lot of things, has become a victim of its own success.


----------



## chics

Hola. Pienso que el "vocabulario especializado" debería estar jerárquicamente al mismo nivel que el general, gramática y recursos. Además se han perdido los accesos al legal, médico y financiero en la página principal.


----------



## anthodocheio

chics said:


> Hola. Pienso que el "vocabulario especializado" debería estar jerárquicamente al mismo nivel que el general, gramática y recursos. Además se han perdido los accesos al legal, médico y financiero en la página principal.


I agree. "Specialized terminology should be outside of "Vocabulario general" and its sub-forums could be shown as the colorful other sub-forums.

I liked very much this truly colorful line under each of the pages of the new sub-forums. Really useful and time saving. 


> Direct forum links: Azul Blanco Marrón Negro Rojo Verde Combined View


 
One little detail;


> Palabras, frases y dichos.
> Todos los foros designados con colores son iguales. Si formula una pregunta, ésta será asignada al azar a uno de ellos.
> Words, phrases and idioms.
> All the colored forums (Azul, Rojo, Negro, etc.) are equal. If you ask a question, it will be randomly assigned to one of them.


I think that this will look better if the one is under the other and not next to the other. But this is a minor detail.

Thanks Mike for listening
(and excuse my English..)


----------



## Eva Maria

Por cierto, ¿a quién se le ha ocurrido la genial idea de crear un foro blanco...

Azul ( ) Marrón Negro Rojo Verde 

.... que tenemos que escribir en azul para poder verlo?

Azul Blanco Marrón Negro Rojo Verde 

¿No han gustado 

Turquesa

Púrpura

Naranja 

Rosa ?

Eva

NOTA: He llamado a este tono Púrpura para no llamarlo Berenjena. No es que me aclare mucho con estos matices, pero supongo que también podría haberlo llamado Lila o Violeta.


----------



## Joannes

Eva Maria said:


> Púrpura


Great idea! And let's get rid of the red one.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Eva Maria said:


> Por cierto, ¿a quién se le ha ocurrido la genial idea de crear un foro blanco...



Some days ago I was asked to explain what  "destructive and useless criticism" was: this comment is a perfect (and rude) example of it.


----------



## Eva Maria

Paulfromitaly said:


> Some days ago I was asked to explain what "destructive and useless criticism" was: this comment is a perfect (and rude) example of it.


 
Well, Paul, what's perfectly clear is that you have no sense of humour at all! 

You cannot distinguish between one of your rude comments and my "joke".

Eva Maria


----------



## ERASMO_GALENO

Sigh... Now I know why democracies are so difficult to handle...  I've realised there have been several changes in the web design these days, and I don't know if it was due to the multiple suggestions made by the foreros. But if so, well, nothing is perfect for all, so there always will be people coming with a new suggestion and we will never get the perfect equilibrium for everybody.

Good luck Mike handling all these suggestions, we will keep giving our best to make the forums, with or without further changes, work.

Regards,

*Erasmo.*


----------



## CarolMamkny

Well Mike... Hope it's not too late to say it... but *"Thank you!"* I guess will just have to work *together* and make the new format work. 

Guys!! Lets keep up the good work!! 
!!Menos charla y más trabajo!! Jejeje just jokin'


----------



## Argónida

Joannes said:


> Great idea! And let's get rid of the red one.


 
WHY?! I like the *red* one. I like *red colour* indeed, it's the colour of blood, and blood is life. 

Pero para no dejar atrás tu propuesta y la de Eva María se puede estudiar la posibilidad de una paleta red-purple-pink con distintas tonalidades: *nazareno*, *berenjena*, *violeta*, *lila*, *fucsia*, *rojo*.


----------



## jonquiliser

Wow, this really exceeds my level of caring about what the forum looks like. I mean, I never liked the blue forum guise but hey, it's just a minor thingy. Really!

I do like the new apparance though with the subsections elegantly small making the page easy to get an overlook of.


----------



## alacant

Jonquiliser,

Have you see the definition of overlook, do you mean that you like it because it's easy to forget?

Saludos, Alacant


----------



## mkellogg

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll probably move some of the forums around to see what happens. Gramática and Specialized Terminology will probably move, and I might even rename the Blanco forum eventually... I also plan to update the links from the dictionary.

Feel free to write me through the Contact Us form with any more suggestions.  I am especially interested in making sure the newbies (new visitors or posters) aren't confused.


----------



## chicalita

mkellogg said:


> Feel free to write me through the Contact Us form with any more suggestions.  I am especially interested in making sure the newbies (new visitors or posters) aren't confused.



I'm confused.  Seriously.  I have questions about how the new format works and can't find answers.  Is there a forum I can go to get answers to how this is supposed to work now?

Thanks.


----------



## Jana337

chicalita said:


> I'm confused.  Seriously.  I have questions about how the new format works and can't find answers.  Is there a forum I can go to get answers to how this is supposed to work now?
> 
> Thanks.


Ask here.


----------



## jonquiliser

Alacant, no, I meant overview


----------



## jester.

I'm very content with the last change Mike. Making the coloured forums smaller restores a lot of the overview of the main forum page which it had before the General Vocabulary Forum was split.


----------



## Sidd

Hi,
I like to use the combined view, but after checking a post there is no way of going right back to the "combined view" page (no link in the top menu to go back), 
so I have to go to "Vocabulario General" and then to "Combined View". 

I would suggest to add a link to "Combined view" somewhere.


----------



## Bonjules

hello,
I apologize if this has already been suggested.
1. I find it difficult to always have to remember the assigned color.
suggest: Let folks choose their sub-forum initially and see what happens.
2. Colors are for some loaded with symbolism. To prevent crowding/avoidance on this basis, choose other, value-neutral words or 
symbols. There should be an even distribution of choices on this basis.
3. Or, assign the sub-forum 'permanently' for each contributor to GV.
saludos


----------



## Fernita

Bonjules said:


> hello,
> I apologize if this has already been suggested.
> 1. I find it difficult to always have to remember the assigned color.
> suggest: Let folks choose their sub-forum initially and see what happens.
> 2. Colors are for some loaded with symbolism. To prevent crowding/avoidance on this basis, choose other, value-neutral words or
> symbols. There should be an even distribution of choices on this basis.
> 3. Or, assign the sub-forum 'permanently' for each contributor to GV.
> saludos


 
You don't need to remember the assigned color. Just click on *My threads* which is written in yellow on the left of the screen at the top.
This will help you a lot.


----------



## jester.

And: letting people choose the forum won't solve the problem. The idea behind the random assignation of the threads was to achieve an even distribution.


----------



## Jana337

Bonjules said:


> hello,
> I apologize if this has already been suggested.
> 1. I find it difficult to always have to remember the assigned color.
> suggest: Let folks choose their sub-forum initially and see what happens.


As Fernita said, you don't need to remember anything - the My Threads link takes care of it. Moreover, Mike explained somewhere how to place your threads (meaning threads opened by you) into a forum of your choice.


----------



## anthodocheio

Sidd said:


> Hi,
> I like to use the combined view, but after checking a post there is no way of going right back to the "combined view" page (no link in the top menu to go back),
> so I have to go to "Vocabulario General" and then to "Combined View".
> 
> I would suggest to add a link to "Combined view" somewhere.


 
Yeah, that's true...
I usually go back and then I refresh the page, since there is no other option..


----------



## lazarus78

When asking a question, now the system leads foreros to the "choose a forum" page, where different options are offered. There, I think two very important fora are missing: The "Sólo Español" and "English Only". 

Many of the threads in the GV are not related to translations, but monolingual discussions about the usage of language. Moreover, many non native foreros use another language to ask their question, as I do myself very often when I'm looking for the term fitting the better in a given context. 

Shouldn't these options be included as well in the "choose a forum" hub? 

Regards.
Lazarus.

PS.1. When I proposed this change it was before the last revolution and I guess it was having a bigger sense before, when the GV was unique and overloaded. However, I wanted to remind it in case would be considered useful by other foreros or the management team.
PS.2. An aesthetical remark: wasn't before the "choose a forum" page left aligned? The current centered display looks a little weird to me, but OK, maybe the rest of the community likes it


----------



## Bonjules

Thank you Jana, Jester and Fernita. I must -shamefully- admit
I was not aware of the 'My Threads' feature. It makes of course 
all the difference.
Have great Holidays everybody!
bj


----------



## anthodocheio

Since you mentioned aesthetics.. 
Look at the first page.

“Vocabulario general” is so much wide in comparison to “Gramatica” and “Recursos”. It’s good that the later are now together but I’d prefer to see all six sub-forum’s first thread. After all, there is so much spare space now..

Maybe it’d seem better if it was like this:

P.S.: Well, I hate it I had to turn it so small. Nothing can be seen now


----------



## yecru

Bonjules said:


> 2. Colors are for some loaded with symbolism. To prevent crowding/avoidance on this basis, choose other, value-neutral words or
> symbols.


Or wouldn't the simplest option just have been to number the different sub-forums 1 to 6?

I noticed that in the General Vocabulary sub-forums list there is a small folder icon next to each of the different sub-forum names and was wondering if maybe it would be possible to change that icon to a small block of colour that corresponds to the colour of the forum's name?

Surely the only advantage of using colours instead of numbers or anything else to name the forums is that you can easily use a small bit of colour (like a small block, a line, or the forum's title written in its respective colour) as an instantly recognisable visual indicator. Otherwise, why not just use numbers?

I think new users who see the home page for the first time might be confused as to why there is a blue, white, brown, etc, sub-forum, instead of just sub-forum 1, sub-forum 2, sub-forum 3...


----------



## Bonjules

Here I go again..... and apologize beforehand if this is a silly comment because I overlooked something obvious or it has been brought up already:
Checking the 'big list' (WRForums) where the latest entry shows up in
each forum I don't see in which 'color'(in GV) this thread is running or, if
an new one, it ended up in. 
Esp. in the latter case that means that if you want to check on it later -when there might be some or more responses- you still have to click on it now to see which 'color' or you'd have to hunt in 
all of them at that point 'till you find it. Im I missing -again- s.th. basic?
(if not, how about some marker on the side of the color list -if this list is indeed necessary at all- or some other indication?)


----------



## Kelly B

Bonjules said:


> [...]
> Esp. in the latter case that means that if you want to check on it later -when there might be some or more responses- you still have to click on it now to see which 'color' or you'd have to hunt in
> all of them at that point 'till you find it. Im I missing -again- s.th. basic?[...]


If a thread interests me, but I don't want to post a reply, I subscribe to it (click Thread Tools/Subscribe to this Thread.) Then I can find it through My Threads or the User Control Panel. Perhaps that will work for you.


----------



## Bonjules

Yes Kelly; this would seem to work also, along with just clicking on it and noting where it's at.
Since by the time it appears it is already allocated somewhere, I thought
it would be the simple thing to just show where.
Thank you so much!
bj


----------



## shreck2

I must say that answers for a question is slower than ever. Maybe people don't get to the colour where I posted the thread. I think this new system was a good idea, but I agree with Hella in all she/he said. When I had no answer for a thread I posted a new message so that it came right to the front...

I started 2 threads today, and answered a couple and I got not answer at all!!! I have the feeling that I lost my time today!! And I really needed the answers to feel more secure!

I hope this is taken into account.

Best, 
Shreck2.


----------



## danielfranco

Ah! I've been away for a few weeks, and what do I find when I return?
The forum is... well, it's still the WRF. Looks a bit different. Moves a bit slower. Pity... Before I took off in my soul-searching trip to the Himalayas, I used to spend many hours playing a game: I would park my bahookie in the General Vocabulary forum and try to answer as many threads as I could (of course, only if I knew the answer  ) before all the new threads would push all my answers off to the second page...
I could never keep up!

So, considering that I have only asked one question for every one hundred threads I've answered, I don't worry too much about the forum being slightly slower.

Just my perspective as a USED n00b.
D



EDIT ─ Whoa, dude! I've just returned tonight to the forum after a long hiatus, posted a handful of replies, and I'm lovin' it! That link "My Threads" is just pure genius!! Thanks a million, Mike. Also, I was able to answer a bunch of zero-reply threads WITHOUT HAVING TO LOOK FOR THEM!! (Sorry, got excited, had to shout...) So, that's great, no?
No?
Well, I think so, anyway.

D


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## mkellogg

shreck2 said:


> I must say that answers for a question is slower than ever.


Yes, it is Christmas-time. The forums are going to be especially slow over the next couple of weeks.

Overall, this change seems to be having modest success so far (statistically, at least).  We will only know if it works after another month or so.  If not, then we will have to try something else...  Thank you all for your patience and your ideas.


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