new thread
I am wondering why the people running this board are still using this awkward, impractical type of board. I am tired of not being able to freely browse older posts. Almost everything about this board style to post or read messages doesn't make since or is impractical. Anybody can post under any name without joining. Threads with recent posts don't get bumped to the top. We have to click on each message to read it. Quotes are not clearly defined (just small dots). There are much better alternatives for this long hair message board community. There are better, more logical, FREE alternatives such as: http://www.bestfreeforums.com/
I would hope those running this board would seriously consider switching to a more user-friendly board style. I think it would attract a lot more people and it would be great to be able to read old posts by browsing.
Well, I went ahead and set up my own men's long hair message board. I am not trying to steal any members away from this board, but I think there is room on the internet for more than one long hair forum for men. I hope some of you drop in and register. Of course it can't compete with this forum (and not really trying to). Has a pretty good layout, though. Not much is happening there now because it's a brand new forum. Give it some time. Here's the link:
http://www.bestfreeforums.com/forums/menslonghair.html
I do have to agree. Old charm or not this style is annoying to keep up and read, not that it means I hate the place cause I certainly do NOT.
Well there was a sorta break away one last year and that went a bit quiet so why invent the wheel again when there's no need to! mind you for free will and democracy it can't hurt!
John.B
I think it has its own antiquated charm. I'd hate to see it change!
I've been browsing this board for quite a few years and am quite comfortable with it's usability and it works for me. I know of the other board format and that's tolerable.
I'm sure one of the designers/moderators of the board will be happy to comment further for you.
John.B
Hi Sakura,
As a member of both the LHC and the MLHH(and a mod of the MLHH), I would like to say that there are pros and cons to what you are saying. The LHC (Longhair Community) has a system very much like what you speak of. However, one of the things that I really like about the MLHH is the spontaneity of everything which you do not find in a more structured environment like the LHC. Frankly, I like the hyperboard just the way it is.
Another issue with more structured boards is the necessity to register to post, on the MLHH, NO registration is necessary, a big plus in many people's eyes.
It is possible to search for older posts by topic. Bill has set up an archive of the older posts which can be searched using up to two phrases, and it works very well to find topics of interest you may be interested in.
Hope this helps,
David
Agreed.
Hi David. I always enjoyed reading your posts. You're a nice guy. Always friendly But I don't think this board style is for me. Reminds me of an extinct dinosaur (no offense intended). I find it funny how some of the other moderators here are trashing me and my new board (not you). The Aragorn comments were kind of funny, but a little immature. Kind of surprises me the level of immaturity a few of the other moderator's posts I have seen in this thread and others in the past. And I'm not sure why if this is such an 'open' board that each post is screened by a moderator before being allowed to post. Sounds like communist style censorship to me. Anyways, take care. You're a great guy. I really wish you all the best.
If your board takes off, MLHH ain't proud. We'll gladly link it. The only successful "new style" board to come along is linked there now. It gets little traffic. Pardon the guys who have run an active board for years for trying to not laugh while yawning. This sort of thing happens regularly, something you may not know. That crew knows how much work goes into running a community that gets thousands of visitors and over a hundred posts a day.
Sometimes guys have started foreign language boards - now there's a real reason beyond aesthetics to create one - and they still falter. People want to be where everybody else is, and the longhairs are here. There's a gay board, and it, too, limps along. Most of the gay longhairs are also here. You will be welcome if you choose to stay here.
Actually, it's not. The screening rate here is about 3%. 97% of what you see got posted without moderation. Over the years we've tweaked the software to be appropriately choosy, and as a result you will almost never see any spam on here.
Yeah, we have a Politburo. A very large Politburo that is quite representative of all the users who frequent the place. When politics are discussed among the "crew" all views are generally represented because the crew is big enough. Oh, and you can see all our names, and our faces too. We don't have a "king", and one at that who shows neither his face nor his name. Now THAT sounds like communism. Our crew is chosen from among active users, and its officers are all elected.
Bill
MLHH Constitution
Hey Bill;
I just wanted to add that I think this board is one of the best places to be. period. The format is easy to use and posting is easy as well. Some other boards are wrapped up in too much garbage popping up and way too difficult to navigate.
Another thing that I like is the community itself. Long Hair. Period. (or getting there right?) Gay, Straight, Married, Single, College, Mid-life, Old, we all are the "community" and we all accept one another for who they are..
Okay, I'll climb off my soap box now... just liked your comments...
Be Blessed...
Tristan
Thanks, Tristan. Yeah, our philosophy is that the users come here to see the text and photos of the other users, not the software interface. We keep the software overhead to a bare minimum, and we have put the site on a very fast web host. If you are waiting for something to load here, it is some user's photograph (something you want), and not the damned interface.
And I'd add, many different races, nationalities, religions, and native languages. We put that all aside here to just be longhairs among other longhairs. We have to use SOME software package and SOME language to talk to each other with, but we don't want to get hung up on either. They are just tools that happen to be available for us use to reach out to each other, nothing more.
Proud (aren't we all!) to fly the freak flag,
Bill
Who the &*%^ are you?
Why, it's King Aragorn, of course!
Here at MLHH, after you've posted a few times, you are regarded the same as everybody else, and titles are only foisted on the poor suckers who are actually doing work.
Other hair boards have come and gone with that format. Its biggest flaw is that it won't let users upload photos from their computers right into their posts like ours does. That is one of our most popular features!
Bill
Lol makes you King then Bill whats it feel like now ( Grins ) I dont see Joker for myself so I dont appear to have a catagure !
Axel
Some do, they have some plugin with ImageShack or something. Or I think *most* forums let users upload their pictures now.
That one doesn't. It's in his FAQ.
Bill
How does a squire come after an archer and craftsman? :P
My original post wasn't meant to offend anyone here. You guys are great. I just don't like the board style. That's all. Please don't take it personally.
Fine if you don't like it you do not have to use it, indeed I am not sure you have... It has worked well for years and its flexibility - no registration and ease of posting photos remain as valid as ever.
Enjoy your private board.
I think this format works well. Other formats may have thier plus, but Bill and the whole tech team have made this site bullitt proof against spam and hacker attacks while at the same time allowing free flow of ideas and comments. As an alternative there is the 2 or 3 pane view.
Don't take me wrong, I wish you luck on you longhair site, but for most of us this works pretty well.
Keep on growin'
Bruce
....it's nice to have the hair topics and non hair topics all rolled into one forum. That way even though you're thinking hair, if an off topic pops up that catches your interest you can just jump in. You don't have to go looking somewhere else.
This thread is a perfect example!
Keep on growin'
Bruce
Best of luck to you in your very own new Long Hair site where you can do your own thing and be happiest of all. No sense staying on a site that so upsets you with the way in which this one runs and how we do things here.
Ouch! I think you hurt some members' pride in this board by posting this, Sakura. Although I agree with you that the modern phpBB/Invison boards are easier in use, I have no problem with using this one. And I don't think people would gladly abandon the board they have put so much effort in for a new forum run by "some schmuck" (No offence mate!) ;)
I might join your forum, this doesn't mean I'm leaving here :)
Sakura!
I think this board is perfect the way it is. True, You don't need to register to post but why do you think we have moderators?????? Moderators keep things in check! Plus, This website is very easy to maneuver and allows you to post multiple pictures using HTML TAGS. I haven't seen many boards that allow you to do this. Another BIG plus, This board does not have any malicious adware/spyware nor pesky pop-ups. This board is excellent Sakura.
I agree. This board is really fun ... and kind of addicting!
Peace.
Tristan
I think this board style has to do with conserving bandwidth more than anything. Am I wrong? It works and that's what counts. The only problem I have with it is navigating down and trying to find a thread that I need to go back to. Sometimes it can be a little hard to find in the heap.
As has already been said this board is great the way it is that's why I'm here. It's not only the board but the people who participate. I wish you well on YOUR OWN board and maybe I'll visit out of curiosity but thank you I'll remain here.
Kevin
Hi Sakura,
Just a suggestion, it's your message board so feel free to ignore, but I read in your forum rules "this is not a gay forum". Perhaps if you take those six words out and just leave the next sentence you wrote "sex discussions (gay or straight) will not be tolerated", I might consider joining. Whether intentional or not it appears you are singling out gays as not wanted on your forum. I think you may be alienating a large percentage of users of the MLHH who otherwise might/might not join your board if you leave it the way it is.
It's up to you as I said it's YOUR forum..
BTW I like the MLHH the way it is! But your group looks to have potential too with a little open mindedness given. Now that's what I would call "user friendly", regardless of the user interface.
MattT
This board uses the same style as did boards in the early 1990's did. That means anybody in the world no matter how bad their connection speed is can access this site.
Plus when members post they make quality posts, not to inflate their post count to move up to the next ranking.
Plus in this board everyone knows each other. While other hair boards may find it necessary to use other forum formats this is just fine.
I love how this board is. I usually don't say much on this board, but I can say things when I want to (like now) and I don't have to worry about logging in constantly or creating an account. This board is so simple and easy.
I'm coming over tomorrow to re-decorate your home. Never mind the fact that I don't know you, don't know who else lives with you in your house, how big or small a place it is, or your personal preferences that you already have become accustomed to... I'm coming over to re-arrange your furniture, throw out your ugly curtains and bedspread, and will be bringing into your home a far better "designer's eye" for you to have to live with. Trust me, I have a superior ability to use far better color schemes than you have, and I will also make a lot of professional organizational changes to your filing system and general record-keeping and home office set-up. Based on my formal interior design training, as well as the fact that my tastes in general are far superior to yours, I'm sure you won't mind that I'll be doing all this to "improve" your life.
There now. Feels great, doesn't it?
- Ken in San Francisco
LOL! ;)
--Rick
I've wondered the same thing over the years, but most will defend it until the very end. This a real question: Is there ANY other forum on the Net still using an out-dated hyperboard format? I haven't run any in recent years, although the least useful format IMHO is the townhall on Edmunds.com.
There are a lot of forums using the format we use. They are generally hosted on the owner's own web site, such as ours is. The so-called "new" formats offer pretty much the same features, but they are reworked so the pages can hold updateable advertising, so they are favored by companies that will give you a free site and then pester your users with advertising. Some of those forums can be obtained to run on your own web site, but the difference in features from this forum's format is minimal - they are mainly cosmetic.
The reason you've lately seen a lot of those forum formats is simply that many people go the easy route and submit to the commercial advertising gods. We certainly aren't going to go down that road. We don't want some corporation telling us what we can or cannot do. We longhairs own "mlhh.org", and we can take it wherever we want, and without changing its web address. Having our site with someone else's name in the URL is a leash we will not slip around our necks.
Could we obtain a different software package for mlhh.org? Sure, we could. But the BASIC features of all packages are mostly the same. We've added a lot of features to this package, and if we got a different one, we'd have to add a lot of features to it. We'd also have to strip some features that we don't like out of a new package. We've already done that with the package we now have, and the work has been done spread out over many years. Why would we want to re-do all that work just for changes that are mostly cosmetic?
Earlier this year our site celebrated its tenth anniversary. We have extensive archives, and they are all in the present format. The desire to maintain consistency throughout the site also must be considered if a change in format is to be undertaken.
Our users are also accustomed to the present format.
The tech guys here always look at other forum formats when they are suggested. Besides looking at them as possible replacements, we also look at them to see if they have features we'd like to add to our existing format. Truthfully, we've never seen a forum with a feature we wanted to add to our own format, except those we happened to have added on our own to the original package already.
Available alternatives to the present forum format vary, but the following can be said about most of them:
A few of the features of these other packages that you may think you want will not work with all users, and that is why we've never implemented them here. If we obtained one of those packages, we'd just have to strip those features out, so what you'd end up with would be something that was just cosmetically different from what you have now. It takes time to apply cosmetics, and truthfully, we think our site visitors would rather be spending that terminal time looking at HAIR.
Bill
Tech Crew Chief
How about this for a plan? Make a link to what you just wrote on the "Links" page. That way when someone suggests the format be changed (something that seems to happen with some regularity) we can just refer him there. :-)
Mouse
Good idea, Mouse! Maybe it would make sense as an item in the General FAQ. I'd put it on a separate page if so, so the FAQ itself does not get much longer.
Bill
n/t
The R.A.Q.