Forum Face-Lift

I once was in a fourm similar to this and i had brought up a chat room. That just makes getting a responce take 3 minuts othor than a series of days.

Just a thought

Thanks

-Films inc

Hey Derek, I almost had a sense of deja vu - wasn't something like posted just a few months ago. I mean, I know it was only last year, but what other changes are you guys planning?

FYI: I visit www.wedvidpro.com (all but stagnant and defunct, but still there...); www.videouniversity.com (fairly active, but a LOT of self-congratulatory back-patting among the good ol' boys/girls club members); www.dvprofessionals.com (good, solid forum, but not highly active except for a few who try hard to keep it current and interesting.) I hit on others from time-to-time, a few blog sites, but the above are where I generally visit at least once a day. I will occasionally check out the various "user group" forums like LAFCPUG, and some of the PVA groups around. A few of the PVA actually post live-to-web during their monthly meetings.

I wish there were a way to convince new folks here to do a search before asking the daily "what camera" question; and am I the ONLY ONE knocking down all the astroturf? Gosh, the minute I turn my back seems there's two or three, even more, popping up. :-) I don't mind.

Chat (as FILMS Inc. notes) could/would be good, I suppose. There are times here when a good number of members are on-board and it might make for interesting live discussions, especially if administrative staff participated occasionally.

Perhaps even a weekly, or if that is too much, a monthly topic on lights; cameras; DSLR; audio, etc.?

It'd be kinda fun to have an online video collaboration system for exchanging content and editing videos. May not be the most ideal with possible bandwidth issues, but it would be very useful to have a destined feature for sharing content and requesting edits by pros and video enthusiasts with software capable.

Videomaker could also broaden their scope up for types of software to review, consumer editing, NLE, sound/music composition, graphics composition, etc.

I'm in other forums that are very active, and questions often get answered in minutes....

http://www.pentaxuser.co.uk/forum/

for example... so chat rooms aren't really needed.

But a few things that I'd like to see are for example:

make vanish those stupid "A' " things that crop up everytime you edit a post....

color change threads after a period of inactivity or time so dummys like me, or new members don't answer three year old posts...

have a "Happy" button where a poster can tag any answers they felt were helpful to thier questions and give members a rank based on how many "Happy tags" they've accumulated... to kinda give new members a fast heads up on who regularly gives good answers.

Limit the length of response posts. Short straight answers would be easier to keep up with...

Don't limit response lengths - those who don't like to read don't HAVE to. For some posts the information given might actually take a bit of time to write and read - it isn't always appropriate to attempt to say what needs to be said in short, pithy prose. Long doesn't always mean the response, or post, isn't to the point and specific.

There is a problem inserting image, they are gigantic. I try putting different dimensions, vertical and horizontal space, but the image stills comes out gigantic in the post. I also try viewing the post in Firefox and Safari, but is the same and I have seen a few post with mega size image. How are we suppose to upload the image? Do we need to change the dimensions in our image editor before uploading them?

Here are a few post with this problem:

http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/advise-on-buying-storyboard-software

http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/how-to-shoot-projected-screen-actor-and-its-silhouette-at-the-same-time

Here is a picture I uploaded to my DVProfessional page. The original picture dimensions are 2816 X 2112. In the Insert/Edit Image I put dimensions 500 X 500.

Wow, that's a big image.

I'm with Earl on the 'don't limit the response size of posts.' Yeah, on occasion the odd 'epic' response gets written, but like Earl said, "You don't have to read it." Chat could be interesting, but there are way too many yahoo's floating through at times and keeping them on a leash would be a pain. Now maybe some live interactive webinars would be cool.

What I would like to see is sections where members of different skill levels could ask their specific questions. Though the primary demo for VM is beginners, I see there are many intermediate, advanced and pros actively participating in the forums too. Maybe with a 'questions for beginners' section those hordes of 'what camera should I buy?' inquiries might flock together in one place and give Earl and the rest of us some peace. In fact, at the top of the beginner's section you could put a permanent post 'What Camera Should I Buy?'

I would like to see some kind of chat "how-to" on a weekly or monthly schedule. Something like an interactive Tips and Tricks type event. I know it could get a little messy with 12 people entering 18 different questions and answering 20 of them at the same time but if it were moderated/filtered to keep things on topic it would be an interesting experiment? Maybe even opening a recent T&T to a Q&A session. or some such.

Then have the context posted after the event so that those who could not attend could maybe read through it.

It would also be nice if Videomaker would not only allow the importation of pictures into posts, but also house them. At least one time I can remember directing a Videomaker user with text, but also by posting a picture coming directly off of the "C:\" drive and not showing up during viewing/post preview.