I've been working on building out the new template for the forum changeover when I upgrade the software. I've been messing with the coding for a few weeks now and the customization is finally coming along well, with a pretty nice layout compared to the current version.
Needless to say, I wanted to start a thread for people to drop some suggestions/requests in the hopes that I can try and get everything (or at least as much as possible) included when it's completed. So any thoughts, suggestions, etc. feel free to add them and I'll definitely see what I can do to make it happen
More technical comments:
Move the "
Show ignored content" HTML element (i.e. '.pageNavLinkGroup .linkGroup a.DisplayIgnoredContent' ) from the bottom of the template to the top. So you see it and are reminded of it immediately without having to traverse the whole page and then go back up again.
Yes, there are shortcuts to move top and down more efficiently but it is a little design change with a big impact. Similarly, on board level this means that you are more likely to click it and see all threads that are being hidden which might reduce the number of times people don't see threads appearing because they have been created by someone on their ignore list.
Since we are already on that topic -- and this will most probably be beyond your scope -- see if there is a way to customise the IgnoreThreads plugin to allow for Threads to still show up with only messages of posters (even if they are the creator) hidden.
Non technical comments:
I'd love if you could institute a policy where the typical weekly threads (e.g. Pre Game, GDT, Post Game, Other games) are created by an admin so that everyone can see them. The chance someone has an admin on ignore must be substantially lower than any other random user. Hell, those threads could be created almost automatically by a script working off a scheduled job directly on the DB.
In more experimental suggestions I'd love to see an additional "serious" post game thread (or general discussion threads) in addition to the usual hot takey mess we get to encourage actual conversations instead of it being 70% fluff consisting of memes and people baiting each other. There are some very insightful people on this board and good conversations to be had. But many times those get derailed by low effort posts.
I am not saying emotional venting has no place here. Far from it. I am simply wondering if we could create environments for both types of posts and ease the tension that occurs when everything is pushed into the same thread.
And then there is also the elephant in the room which is how to handle all the Brady/Bucs related stuff once the season gets going. Given the interest many have it would almost make sense to have a separate game thread for Bucs games outside the "other games" maybe ? Otherwise I have a feeling that any talk about non Bucs games would become almost suffocated in there.
Just some things off the top of my head..