[mwot]

Originally Posted by decryption

Content focused towards activities older people would use their Macs for. (Graham)

similar to this, but a forum for user tutorials on how to use certain applications (ie. iMovie/iDVD, etc.). this would be like a featured articles section, except exclusively for application tutorials - How To's for Apps.

[bartron]

An official Decryption and Currawong appreciation day.

Honestly, the crap that goes on after either of you give up time to do maintenance, upgrades, format shift etc it's a wonder you stay around.

In regards to the 'learn the basics' articles, while I think they can be handy Apple already have hours of tutorials already (e.g. Apple - iLife - Tutorials) which are pretty good. Anything here I think should concentrate on extended functionality not covered already by Apple (e.g. the top of an article could mention a link to the Apple tutorial for those not already familiar with the product). There is being helpful and there is duplication.

[BLINDER]

A simple article on teaching people how to search on MacTalk.
So much valuable stuff on here!

[LarryH]

How about a Tumblelog of MacTalk articles?

[Vaempyr]

Two small forum-related things, please:

1) A "Find my posts" button that's viewable on all forum pages; much easier than going into one's profile and clicking the link. Or is that just being lazy?

2) A "View first unread post" button for each thread. Again, makes life much simpler, especially in long threads.

One large forum-related thing:

A "Wanted to Buy" forum. I'd anticipate that it would be monitored and moderated closely, and perhaps in much the same way as the existing "For Sale" forum.

Thanks!

[thatfilthyspringbok]

This was a response to Galumay's comment about the news page in the Ingenius Idea Thread:

Originally Posted by Galumay

mmm...picking up on andrew's comments as well....i was forgetting about the redesign thing too.

the dilemma you may face is that a lot of the new users have been attracted by the iPhone hype and spin so they want to see the rumours/news stuff when they open the site - but in terms of your vision for the site and its broad appeal to a community who just happen to share an interest in things mac - its the things like the interviews, podcasts, articles and weekly round of interesting threads that seems to me to be more consistent with that vision.

the interviews and articles are 2 really differentiating things about MTAU.

How about 2 front pages then?

The Mactalk news blog which acts as MacTalk Australia, and then the forums new page which is the first page you see when you hit forums.mactalk.com.au. The redesigned front page could go at www and contain all the rumor stuff as well as the content of the forums news page, and the current new pages (which looks like it's part of the forums anyway) could got at forums and just contain community news like interviews, popular threads, forums contests (like the photo contests) etc.

That way you've got a news page to satisfy those who want the rumors and the news (still with links to the forum to discuss of course) and you've then got a community news page which will hopefully foster a bit more community

Decryption, I know there's added overhead in doing it this way. But some of that could be avoided by having the news blog incorporate the rss feed from the community blog so you're not double posting. There are a bunch of wordpress plug ins that can do this.

Anyway, just a thought

[thatfilthyspringbok]

Originally Posted by Vaempyr

A "Wanted to Buy" forum. I'd anticipate that it would be monitored and moderated closely, and perhaps in much the same way as the existing "For Sale" forum.

This already exists.

[andrew.wilson]

Originally Posted by Kzach

I would like to see some articles on the basics.

I'm sure Pages is a very easy app to use but when you have no idea how a layout program works, it can be very confusing. I don't care if there are a thousand people here who claim it's easy to learn, for some people, this shit is hard.

So, articles on the basics of Pages, Numbers, GarageBand, Mail, iTunes, Preview, Safari, iChat, iCal, or hidden functions in MacOS X, etc. are what I'd really like to see.

Not sure it's exactly what you want, but a switchers guide from Office to iWork is in my pipeline and coming very soon

[Vaempyr]

Originally Posted by Vaempyr

A "Wanted to Buy" forum. I'd anticipate that it would be monitored and moderated closely, and perhaps in much the same way as the existing "For Sale" forum.

Originally Posted by thatfilthyspringbok

This already exists.

Clearly I need to move uyp in the MacTalk world before I can see it

Ta.

[hawker]

Get more creative people into the mix and get something I suggested in the form of creative mac off the ground...

[hawker]

Originally Posted by BLINDER

A simple article on teaching people how to search on MacTalk.
So much valuable stuff on here!

I recommend a massive FAQ ages ago, they said that a 'wiki' was in the works.... Still waiting, and still seeing lots of 'you should have searched' replies to threads!

The iPhone one was a step in the right direction...

[Currawong]

Just an FYI, the Wanted to Buy forum is hidden because people were scamming people in the WTB forum, bypassing the restrictions on the For Sale forum that are supposed to prevent that happening in the first place.

[silverdreamer]

I would like to see some really comprehensive "How to articles" on "Comic Life", by members who are using it to it's full potential.

A very forgotten application I feel, much under used.

This could also lead to a very entertaining,... "Members Comics" thread.

( I thought the recent "Mactalk meets" would have made perfect fodder for some very funny comic creations.)

Also, more stuff in the store.

[decryption]

Originally Posted by Thunderstruck

How about an article on the differences between an AAR and APR, whether those titles matter in the eye of consumers and whether it makes a difference taking your apple gear directly to an ASP or to an agent, like streetwise used to be?

Cool, handy article
Would you be interested in writing it? I don't even understand what all those mean and the differences between them, hah

Originally Posted by msilsby

I would love to see Mactalk get a meraki network going in this country - be the lead evangelist for this baby.

I would also love to see these in the mactalk store.

Meraki is awesome, and I love the idea, but I personally don't have the energy (nor expertise) to head it up. There are many wireless groups around fighting the fight for public mesh wi-fi.

However, getting Meraki's onto the MacTalk Store (as a possible bulk buy), can't be that hard and certainly worth investigating. Want to add me onto iChat and give me a rundown on Meraki and let me bounce some ideas off you?

Originally Posted by sendai

This one is a really teeny suggestion/request. Subscript and superscript, we want them (or specifically, I want them!) The HTML for them is ridiculously simple, so even if there isn't a plugin to enable it, it'd be really easy to code (though I doubt it'd be necessary.)

P.S. I like to reference my posts/comments with links. I prefer to ₁ and link the reference after my post/comment rather than link them inline.

Edit: Uh, what. The HTML for subscript worked. Never did before! Ah well, teach me not to preview ;p

Glad I can help!

Originally Posted by mechcon

Article Suggestion: another kind of "Meet the Mactalkers" but a bit more detail.. also interviewing people who use macs for creative stuff, be it a podcast, or music, or film, or photography.. kind of Mactalk's own "Pro" section on Apple's site. Because not all of us can ever get our profiles on there

If you want to write up a bunch of questions and members we should aim it at, we can get going pretty quickly

Originally Posted by Galumay

a couple of points, decryption you missed the suggestion for a member's profile as discussed in the other thread - Whoever suggested the docking station wasn't far off

I still don't understand how it would work - would there be a sort of 20 questions thing, placed into one's user profile? (e.g: http://forums.mactalk.com.au/members/decryption/). Perhaps a thread everyone can respond to in their own time with pro-forma questions?

Originally Posted by froggy

I like this idea of one place to put suggestions etc, but if you're going to continually have to update your original post(s) to keep a summary, that could get a lot of work, and mean a very unwieldy post.

I don't think it will be unwieldy - it will be sorted neatly with all the suggestions I think we can implement.

Originally Posted by froggy

I wonder if in the RSS that is being implemented, it could be for specific forums. I don't have an iPod/iPhone and don't think that I plan on getting one, so I'm not really interested in having 'my' feed filled with talk about those topics. The recent topics these days is filled with iPhone stuff. I would like 'my' RSS feed to ignore those topics (and The Orange Sofa).

I don't know if a feed can be made with tick the box for the forum areas you want - I highly doubt that - but at least different feeds for the different forum area.[/QUOTE]

I think we can easily make something to do that - a part of your UserCP that lets you tick which forums you would like to see in an RSS feed made for you. How do you think it should work? Do you want an RSS feed of new posts made into that thread, or an RSS feed just of new threads?

With vBulletin 3.7, all new threads need to be tagged, so we could even have a forum wide RSS feed based on tags that you set

Originally Posted by Edd

Someone suggested in the other thread to hide post counts. I was just going to say that I haven't seen it as a problem yet, usually someone who spams to increase his post count ends up being banned/disrespected for posting crap anyway. I just like them there for curiosity - but if you do hide them, could we at least see our own? As I said though, is it really a problem?

If we do hide post counts, you will be able to see your own.

Originally Posted by watters

Seeriously though, I think that iPods should get some subforums, so it could be hardware related, software related etc.

The iPod has it's own forum and it's not busy enough to warrant splitting it up.

Originally Posted by Tom125

That was me. Maybe have it in the member's profile so you could click through to see it, but not have it as an indicator of importance under their name in posts. Anyway, just a thought.

We're still thinking about it - it would be rash to do something like this on a whim.

Originally Posted by mwot

similar to this, but a forum for user tutorials on how to use certain applications (ie. iMovie/iDVD, etc.). this would be like a featured articles section, except exclusively for application tutorials - How To's for Apps.

There's already a fair bit of doco on these apps - I think making a big FAQ with up to date resources would be better. However, if people want to create their own for us on MT, I ain't gonna stop them! (I just won't be writing it myself)

Originally Posted by bartron

In regards to the 'learn the basics' articles, while I think they can be handy Apple already have hours of tutorials already (e.g. Apple - iLife - Tutorials) which are pretty good. Anything here I think should concentrate on extended functionality not covered already by Apple (e.g. the top of an article could mention a link to the Apple tutorial for those not already familiar with the product). There is being helpful and there is duplication.

I tend to agree.

Originally Posted by BLINDER

A simple article on teaching people how to search on MacTalk. So much valuable stuff on here!

Yep - with vBulletin 3.7, searching is heavily improved and can be powered by Google, so we will be moving to that. if you know how to search Google, you will know how to search MacTalk

Originally Posted by LarryH

How about a Tumblelog of MacTalk articles?

Subscribing to an RSS feed would be easy - but I'm sure I can pipe the RSS feed into Tumblr just for you

Originally Posted by Vaempyr

Two small forum-related things, please:

1) A "Find my posts" button that's viewable on all forum pages; much easier than going into one's profile and clicking the link. Or is that just being lazy?

Adding such a button in now would be out of place, but I'll see what we can do for our forum re-design (it will be the best forum you've ever seen!)

Originally Posted by Vaempyr

2) A "View first unread post" button for each thread. Again, makes life much simpler, especially in long threads.

Yeah, this broke with some upgrade or something - we will be moving to the latest version of vBulletin soon, so it will be back!

Originally Posted by Vaempyr

One large forum-related thing:

A "Wanted to Buy" forum. I'd anticipate that it would be monitored and moderated closely, and perhaps in much the same way as the existing "For Sale" forum.

Thanks!

Currawong answered this already

Originally Posted by thatfilthyspringbok

The Mactalk news blog which acts as MacTalk Australia, and then the forums new page which is the first page you see when you hit forums.mactalk.com.au. The redesigned front page could go at www and contain all the rumor stuff as well as the content of the forums news page, and the current new pages (which looks like it's part of the forums anyway) could got at forums and just contain community news like interviews, popular threads, forums contests (like the photo contests) etc.

That way you've got a news page to satisfy those who want the rumors and the news (still with links to the forum to discuss of course) and you've then got a community news page which will hopefully foster a bit more community

So when someone hits http://forums.mactalk.com.au - what do you imagine they see? (skitch is great for this)

Originally Posted by hawker

Get more creative people into the mix and get something I suggested in the form of creative mac off the ground...

I would really like this - how do we get more creative people on in the first place? How do we attract them? What sort of stuff brings them here compared to hanging out elsewhere?

Originally Posted by hawker

I recommend a massive FAQ ages ago, they said that a 'wiki' was in the works.... Still waiting, and still seeing lots of 'you should have searched' replies to threads!

The iPhone one was a step in the right direction...

A wiki is in the works, as is a general forum intro for those not too cluey on forum use. The iPhone FAQ was written because, well I love the iPhone, so writing about it is easy - but have you ever tried to write a forum FAQ or documentation on something you don't give really a shit about (forum searching, zzzz)? It ain't easy!

Originally Posted by silverdreamer

I would like to see some really comprehensive "How to articles" on "Comic Life", by members who are using it to it's full potential.

Helps all the Plasq staff read MacTalk
Again, I don't really use Comic Life, so if anyone is up for writing articles about it, be my guest!

Originally Posted by silverdreamer

Also, more stuff in the store.

What sort of stuff? it's a real risk for MacTalk to spend what little money we have when we have little idea what will actually sell. We aren't retail geniuses, so there has to be *really* strong demand for something. We got lucky with those Zip Zip flash drives

[silverdreamer]

Quote: from Decryption

{Originally Posted by silverdreamer
Also, more stuff in the store.
What sort of stuff? it's a real risk for MacTalk to spend what little money we have when we have little idea what will actually sell. We aren't retail geniuses, so there has to be *really* strong demand for something. We got lucky with those Zip Zip flash drives }

Small items you can purchase reasonably cheaply that members would be happy to pay a small mark up on. Drink bottles / Pens / lanyards / Zune phones, etc...........

Things that are easy to handle. I have already e-mailed a couple of suggestions, and there is an existing thread with some good ideas from members, pick a couple of those and run an expressions of interest thread.

PS: What's happening with the "Hoodies" you where talking about?

[Thunderstruck]

@decryption I actually wrote one for an Indonesian Mac forum, but I have very little insight into how Australian resellers operate. I can do a general thing on Authorised Resellers vs Premium Resellers but without the Australian slant to it and how they compare over there it would be difficult to be of interest to the Aussie audience.

[decryption]

Originally Posted by silverdreamer

small items you can purchase reasonably cheaply that members would be happy to pay a small mark up on.

Things that are easy to handle. I have already e-mailed a couple of suggestions, and there is an existing thread with some good ideas from members, pick a couple of those and run an expressions of interest thread.

PS: What's happening with the "Hoodies" you where talking about?

The things you emailed me, I don't particularly like
Tacky things aren't cool and MacTalkers will see through it as a cheap grab for cash.
When the right item comes along, we will snap it up.

Hoodies ended up being too complex - no-one wanted to make a design.
Mouse mats are certainly next on the list though. Once the Zip Zip drives are all shipped, work on the mouse mats will begin!

I am also not keen on bombarding people with MacTalk paraphernalia - as it would look like I'm taking advantage of them. An item a month *max*.

[hawker]

I said I was happy to work on a general FAQ - at least a mini one till the WIKI is set up, but no one ever said they'd support it, so I didn't follow through. I thought the wiki wasn't that far off anyway!

As for creative people, get more creative people in the staff, people that use FCP, or After Effects, or Photoshop? You have GoodBye who is good for photography. Why stop it there? Why not a video competition? Get together in a group and shoot something? Who knows where it could lead?

You've started it, now's the time to follow through!

[thatfilthyspringbok]

Originally Posted by decryption

So when someone hits http://forums.mactalk.com.au - what do you imagine they see? (skitch is great for this)

Exactly the way MacTalk Australia looks now, but without the news and rumor posts.

[tezz27000]

3 things:
Firstly a list in the sidebar of either your (the mactalk member that is logged in) threads that have been posted on since you last looked at them and/or the threads that you have posted in.
Also a live mactalk podcast or video mactalk podcast this time if possible without the headphones and longer than a minute.
finally it would be cool if the red yellow and green buttons in the top left did something.