Woulden't it be usefull to make some more gRoups? The Mayaforum, is so "slow" u can find a Messega even after days. But the Poserforum is much "faster" there are so many posts, it gets kind of loaded! So, partition it in: Poser-WIP Poser-Hair Poser-Cloth Poser-Material Poser-Animation Poser-Pose Poser Misc or something.(suggestions welcome) this would be gReat for finding Posts. I think the Poser comunity is big enough to affort such a split. The posts would be much more professional 2 handle. Some Posts are very interesting and conversations that haven't endet yet, are cutten of, by getting flushed by others.. It'ss only my opinion, i hope u don't kill me now ;] I thought asking the others coulden't hurt somebody. Are u whith me, or not? 3DgRobi

Actually, I think that would make things worse. What they need to do -- and no offense R'Osity -- is get a REAL message board.

This system is archaic. A system like most modern message boards would solve this problem completely. One that brings threads to the top of the page when the thread is posted on. This way, topics that have not been hit for a while can be seen when there are new comments or interest in the topic, rather than getting buried.

They also allow editing (very key!) AFTER post, emoticons (not so key), advanced message creation tools, and very important ... ADVANCED SEARCH features.

I'm sure people know what I'm talking about, but sites like: forum.canopus.com,, www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/, etc.

I love R'Osity, it is invaluable to me, but the message system is the VERY BOTTOM of the technology barrel.

Here's to hoping things change in the very near future.

-Tim

i would like to be able to mark individual threads as read, instead of all messages. that and editing posts, would vastly imporive the forums

The editing was removed because we had problems with trolls posting very inflamatory posts then going back and editing them and claiming they were attacked for no reason when people flamed them back. (I know, the sins of a few ruin it for the many.) As for new replies for a message, do you mean the most recently replied to thread shows up at the top, then the next most recently replied to message is next, etc.? Personally, that would drive me nuts, but I can ask about it.

I agree with Tim; more subgroups wouldn't help because (1) People who are new enough to ask a question, are also new enough that they don't know what category the question goes in. The subgroups would become wildly confused. (2) Serendipity is one of the nicest things about a forum; too much division makes it less likely that you'll learn something new. But some kind of "folding" would be helpful. I'd like a system where each thread normally takes up one line in the main list, and you can see the remaining msgs in the thread by clicking on it. That would require much less hitting of the Next button to see all of today's threads.

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Whatever changes you may decide to add, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't add the ability to use signatures! This place is crazy enough without having to dig your way through piles of poetry and personal quotes to find the meat of the message. ;) Haha, just my opinion as always though. Take care. SnowS

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I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.

I agree with Snow, signatures and pic-icons of the user are a waste of bandwitdth. Can be nice, but still a waste of bandwidth and screenr real-estate. Crescent: Please take a look at the boards I linked to in my original post. These are as close to IDEAL as they come, IMHO, and you can see all of the things we're talking about. And yes, that's exactly what I mean by the threads. It won't drive you nuts, because new threads will still be at (or near the top) most of the time. It really helps with an active forum, especially one like the Poser forum where posts get buried faster than a informant's body in New Jersey. Also, as far as the editing thing ... that's really not a good reason. You can set it up so that the message indicates that it was edited, os everyone will know or at least have a strong suspicion the person is lying. In any case, this should not spoil it for the rest of us. I think most people could cope with it. 4 cents deposited. :) -Tim

timoteo1 - just to check, you do use the Mark All Read option in the forums, correct? It hides everything that hasn't been replied to since the last time you marked the forum. It really cuts down on thread overload. I like having the older threads farther down. If I'm in a hurry, I can easily see the newest threads. If I have a thread I want to keep track of, I just bookmark it. (Create a post with "bookmark" or "." so I get ebotted on it.) It's a personal preference thing. Once the color issue is resolved (to me, that's a biggest issue right now) I can ask about moving threads with the most recent posts to the top and see if there's interest in doing that. Cheers!

Personally, I like the threads in chronological order as is. Having them jump around based on reply date, I don't see an advantage. Collapsing threads would be nice. Keeping an audit trail of edited messages would eliminate the flame problem but might take up a lot of space, though I don't know that people would be editing all that much. AT any rate, I agree that setting features based on what the worst of the user population might do isn't necessarily the best way to go. Searching is my biggest complaint. I keep hearing that MySQL is a real database but see little evidence of it in the way most of these sites implement searching. Just some simple options to search multiple words with and/or would be a great help. There is simply too much material here in the forums and freestuff not to have a decent search facility.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Ah, if I could have edited my post, I would have added that I like the catch-all format in the Poser forum. I like just going through and finding whatever is there. It would be fine to have a keywords field for hair, Firefly, whatever and let people filter based on that if they like. It would be a pain to have to check the hair group and the rendering group etc. just to see if anything interested you. As for the burying problem, first it was images getting buried, now posts. Putting things into too many different boxes would make it more likely that something won't get seen, not less IMO.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

How about the search engine ... could they PLEASE make it more robust. Simple OPERANDS would really be a GREAT help. -Tim

I'd still like to be able to mark threads with generic* titles as "Not of interest to me" so that I don't keep clicking on them - something that would flag 'em, but could be rescinded if they seemed to be getting interestingly OT by the headers. * or rather any titles, but it's only a problem when the topic could be anything.

lol- I liked it the way it was before- new product post- freebe post- help questions- all mixed together in one place- was also better for business. It gave us much more direct access to our specific software customers and customers to merchants. Plus it was just plain fun- an adventure everyday :) but other then that- I read the forum untill I find where I left off from the previous day- everyday this isn't so bad :) artist are not that techniclly organized-LOL :) KISS- "keep it simple stupid" LOL

I say if it works, leave it alone....the forums work just fine now

Let's deal with one fiasco first, ok? LEAVE the threads alone. Chronological order is best. If people want to go to a Forum where the threads pop around all the time, they can go to PFO or PoserPros where finding anything non-popular can be an exercise in frustration. If something is chronological, it stays put. Dividing up this Forum is a disasterous idea. The number of posts would multiply geometrically as people cross-post, trying to get the attention of the right expert or of the audience as a whole, thus making what we already wade through MUCH WORSE. Besides, as has been pointed out, part of the charm and interest of a community is a variety of unified topics. Opening up a skin texture forum and reading 27 posts on "how do I fix this texture" would be boring, boring, boring! A better search engine would be nice, though. Carolly

What I'd like is more options added to the Sales section of the Marketplace. If they could be sorted by 'Sales that are ending soon' I could actually FIND things before it's too late.

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I really think something should be changed, bookmarking posts can't be the best way to find things... If only posts, still talking in woulden't get flushed..... and a double yes for the searchidea!

Please! Oh Please! Restrain these urges to "fix" this place. Stop dabbling with success. "Nisi defectum, haud refiecendum."

The editing was removed because we had problems with trolls posting very inflamatory posts then going back and editing them and claiming they were attacked for no reason when people flamed them back. Maybe you could give us the edit function back but do the programming so that when you edit a post, it'll put a text "edited on " at the end of the post (or at the beginning of the post) - that way, in the case of trolling, everyone could see that the trolls have gone and edited their original post...? After that no one would care when the trolls claim they were attacked for no reason... but the "good posters" could still have the editing. :)

Yes, that is how it done in another forum I frequent - though that one is actually a 100% troll-free zone. SOMETHING has to be done to stop threads getting buried. At the moment it's hard to keep any discussion going for more than a couple of days. Either collapsible threads or ordering by latest reply date or both.

Oh, and fragmenting forums is a bad thing. You can see this at some other sites where there are separate forums for minutiae of topics, and they are all totally dead. Once you dissipate attention beyond a certain level, people stop visiting the forum because it's too quiet, it becomes even quieter, and so on. That's why people post OT threads to this forum. Because they get read.

{Poser-WIP Poser-Hair Poser-Cloth Poser-Material Poser-Animation Poser-Pose Poser Misc} And, after reading some of the messages in this forum, don't forget to add these to the list: Poser- Unrelated: Website (for questions about HTML, Flash, animated gifs, and other website questions that have nothing to do with using Poser) Poser- Unrelated: Movies (comments about the latest movies and how the CG looks like it was done with Poser) Poser- Unrelated: Viruses and E-Mail Hoaxes (comments about the latest viruses going around) Poser- Semi-related: Operating Systems ("I know this question has probably been discussed 23,432,123 times before, but will Poser run any better if I upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows XP?")

We definitely need better Searching functions. I'd love collapsable threads that are automatically marked 'read' when you open them up to read 'em. A 'Mark as Read' option by each thread would be nice, so I could click a few boxes and presto, all the threads I don't want are gone while the others are still Unread. I would keep the 'Mark all Read' option just in case I'm in a mega hurry. I also think a couple of broad fragments with collapsable threads would be very useful. Example- Poser Poser 5 Only (stuff like Dynamic Clothes & Hair) Poser Textures Poser Modeling That way,if I don't model or have Poser 5, I can always keep those sections collapsed.

Calypso Dreams... My Art- http://www.calypso-dreams.com

Renderosity Gallery

And the answer is: Make the righthand frame customizable. You can put direct links to the forums you frequent there, or links to youe favorite artist's gallery and will display a thumbnail of their latest image. If you see a thread you like, bingo, put a link to it in the frame and it get auto email notification set automatically. Add a link to your IMs that flashes if you have new messages. Yes, I know, it's wonderful. Please send me a free Vicky 3 and worship my genius.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken