After reading/scanning through tons of threads, I feel like we’re getting to the point where stickies might be a good idea to have. Threads like 57 and 237 I think would be great, or even 243 (to see them, simply delete the number of this thread on the url (247) and replace it with one of these numbers). Even when you choose to only look one category of threads, there is so much activity I feel like stickies would be a good addition so as to not leave some of these awesome threads in the dust. What do we think?
Yes, totally agreed. I would actually prefer way to categorize the threads, but I’m not sure how to implement that without splitting the traffic up.
Excellent point guys! Actually, Luke just showed me all the fixes and revisions he’s making to the site. Needless to say, categories will be set on the side of the page so good threads won’t get lost as quickly. (Currently, there are categories on the drop down menu, but it’s not the most visible.) However, even with categories, helpful threads can still get lost, so perhaps recommended threads / popular threads should be another category! 
In the category box (which will be added), official Bachido Articles will be labeled in Bold.
ahhh I see, I’m excited to see how these changes turn out!
Now that we have some discussion about the forums I’ll add some thoughts. First off it seems like we have received a huge font. While I think it looks very nice when reading, it does cover a lot of space. In the thread about tips for songs for the new album there are lots of text with many youtube clips. It takes some time to load.
So here are some things that I would like to see:
- Font settings, size etc.
- Pages with X posts per page, where you can have a setting for the value X.
- The ability to collapse and expand youtube clips and to set whether they should be expanded or collapsed by default.
Speaking of stickies, what happened to the used items section? I haven’t seen it for a while.
First changes made today! In order for easy problem-solving/troubleshooting, Luke is making changes in portions, as opposed to doing all at once.
Updated today:
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Cleaned up Overview page (most of the sidebar links appropriately moved to the Learning Center)
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Split the Community into Global and Local (after all, we try to encourage people meeting up in person)
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Took the first step in making Bachido Smartphone-ready! (check out the Global Community on your mobile device!)
Future updates this/next week:
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Facebook style newsfeed on front page.
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Picture gallery of happy shamisen players on front page (come on everyone! You know I love to nag, but send me some pics already!
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Likes for posts. If the thread has enough likes, it goes into the “Recommended Threads” category (when it’s made), fixing the problem of educational threads getting lost in the heap.
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Official Bachido Articles catagory.
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Page for all the Blogcast episodes.
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Tweaking the Bachido Store, with hopes of making the ordering process similar to ordering an iPhone on Apple.com
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Implementing a setup for hosting more crash course-style instructional videos.
And more!
Karl: Interesting suggestions. I’ll direct Luke here.
Eric: Basically, it turned out Masahiro’s group needed to get a license to sell used instruments (I guess yard sales aren’t very popular there. ). Once he gets that, we’ll bring back that page.
I love the mobile update. The site was working very poorly before on my iPhone. This morning I smiled when reading on the bus. If Luke adds the settings for font etc. I want to have different settings for desktop and mobile browser, because the large font is really good on the iPhone.
Also I noticed that now you show the original poster in the thread overview but removed the owner of the latest post. I would like both to be shown.
I’m loooooving the site revisions! Yay for bachido on my phone!!
Liking threads + recommended thread category = pro idea.
good work and future plans . . . what I would also like . . .
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paged threads with whatever default reasonable number of posts per page . . . guess this would also neutralize or prevent an abundance of to be loaded youtube clip displays on a single page . . .
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embed / upload of pictures option
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considering the bigger font size and definitely in case you allow pictures in the future I would think about dropping the sidebar on the opened thread view I mean it would be easy to add what little text is written there into the main column and I think it would be better to have one wide column for gazing at the posts . . .
Glad people are liking the mobile revisions! I’m using some pretty sick new CSS trickery to serve the two versions in one site… in fact, if you shrink your browser window down enough, you’ll notice that it “pops” into mobile mode at a certain point. “Responsive design” for you web nerds. Anyway…
Some responses to ideas that have been brought up:
Paginated forum threads:
Fo’ shizzle. Super-easy too. Just need to decide on a number: 10, 12, or 15?
Thread “Like”-ing:
Gonna be a little trickier but I like this idea (of mine :-P) so I intend to implement it. I wonder where the “Like” button should be…
Uploading pictures:
Bit of a can of worms that I don’t want to get into right now. I think I’ll opt to have folks use any of the number of free image-hosting services available, like Flickr or Photobucket or Twitpic, and post a link. Perhaps I can automatically embed these photos the way youtube videos are embedded. Little leery of a potential security hole with that, though…
Font size:
Yeah, we’re up to 16px. Big monitors and high-DPI displays are becoming more and more popular so that was part of my reasoning. Plus, I was tired of squinting at 13px. I am not crazy about adjusting the font size, and I don’t really want to add it as a site option if I can avoid it. (Convention over configuration.)
Removing the sidebar on the forum thread view:
Certainly possible, there’s hardly anything there. However, the text is actually at the optimum width for readability, pretty much. Usability studies show that people read faster with narrower columns.
Collapsing/expanding YouTube clips:
Interesting idea and I see a potential need.
Finally, Karl your suggestion about the last-post user has been implemented.
Phew! Back to work!
Like a boss, Luke.
Nice work Luke! However since you don’t want to change the font, what about making the text area wider? Maybe that doesn’t roll along with your responsive design but basically on my 24" screen I’d say the text width covers 1/3,5 of the width. In a thread with many posts it becomes tiring to scroll.
Let me spoil the party
New forum categories filters don’t seem to work for me.
Also please put the search back.
KH: Son of a…
Categories are working again and search is back (it’s in the sidebar now).
Karl: Good idea. I’ll look into it.
I’ve got an idea to make use of this forum-thread sidebar too… stay tuned.
Glad to hear you were making changes and updating…
I thought I broke the internet again…
What a relief… : )
That’s my brother!
Updates to my last post:
Paginated forum threads: Instead, Kyle and I decided to have older posts “collapsed” like on Gmail, expandable with a click. You’ll like it.
Thread “Like”-ing: It’s in the queue somewhere.
Uploading pictures: Simple instructions now included in the Formatting Cheat Sheet (when you make a post or reply).
Font size: I tried reducing it to 88% it’s former size. Let me know what you think.
Make sure y’all sign up for the [Local Network]http://bachido.com/community/local) if you haven’t already! You can get an optional weekly community update that way, too, if you want.
Your humble webmaestro,
Luke
That’s my brother!