My users are complaining: SMF too complicated to use...anyone else have this?

[digiwench]

Well, if your going to charge people through the site current your gonna have some major snags. Even if you made slight changes charging members would kill you from gaining any future members. You can't just make a site and have people flock to it. Its takes a lot of time, patience, research and most of all money.

   Research that your looking for can't be found here. Why? because in order to do what your trying to do will not ever happen through SMF no matter how you slice it. The person a few threads ago was correct, you can get the price lower but that's just for the coding alone. You need to research what the main base of traders want and then implement that. Problem being is, it is also very risky. I am sure those other 2 sites did their research and there is a lo of sweat put in behind both. If you have dreams of making this a "Get Rich" business it won't happen.
 
  There is so many things that go into making a forum that appeals to the overall group and if you said it took this site you made now a year, then I am sorry you have a much much longer road ahead of you. I will tell you though, after researching this a bit and trying to help it seems that what your looking to do and actually have it appeal to a big member base (where you can start charging) can't be done with SMF and work it effectively. I am truly sorry but that is the truth as you can see by reading this forum. They are 2 totally different groups.

If you would like to make it your mission then by all means go right on ahead but think before you do it. Why put time into it if it is causing you all this stress? It gets even harder later on down the road.

You're right, I don't think SMF can do what I need it to do, I'm pretty much resigned to that fact. However, I will try the fixes suggested by Charles Hill before I give up on the format entirely.

I will also set up a Word Press test site, just to see if that might work.

Good luck to you too.

[Deprecated]

That WordPress really intrigues me. What the heck is a blog? I've even got one (two actually) and I don't know what it is.

To me blogs look like one dimensional forums with everything going in one linear topic, "most recent," newest at top. Then you can use tags if you want, and select to see messages with only those tags.

To me blogs looks like a dysfunctional forums. They're perfect for the OP!


By the way digiwench, if you want to set up your blog for multiple people you want WordPress MU.

[Gidget Claire]

You could have a faq or something, you know, or some tutorial about how your board functions., something like 'how do I make a post?' .Maybe you should get a test board so people who aren't confident can give your board a try and 'practice'.. Also, encourage people to lurk around. That way they'll get to understand your forum.

Ah, that it were that easy..lol. We have tried all of that, was the first thing we did, and was part of my original welcome message (along with images with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining the complex process..lol).

My moderator tells me she spent over 15-20 minutes with several, walking them through, step by step, how to read a topic, but they did not quite grasp it, and after 2 months, still are not comfortable with it (to put it mildly, one said that he hates even looking at my board, and dreads using it - and that is not because of the theme, type size or other superficial feature). One, a nicer older man who is a good trader and quite comfortable with that other cluttered site, refuses to return, because it makes him feel dumb and irritated. He wrote us to say "tell me when its changed". The other site, for him, is intuitive. AC vs DC thinking.

Hum, I see. Too bad we can't have different versions of our forums to comply with people's tastes. People would choose smf or phpbb or whatever kind of board they like! That would be like choosing a design from a dropdown menu. I understand why a board format can be an issue. There are boards I rarely post at because I find it uneasy to find the most recent posts or other basic info. SMF boards are pretty user friendly, imo, but I can understand some people can feel lost with something they aren't familiar with.
However, we've got to find a way so that you can impose your tastes in this very situation and get people to become familiar with your board and confident about posting there.

A few questions I can think of are:
- Are you sure you're clear about your sections? If people aren't sure about where to post, they won't post. Ensure your sections are 'obvious'.
- If you haven't already enabled it, get a list of the 5 or 10 more recent updated threads show in your info center ; that way people will recognize something they see at this other kind of board. This feature is showing links to certain threads in the info center. Only the most recent replies appear. If your board is very active, chances are that you'l have links to 5, 10, whatever, different threads. I use this feature at my board (check on my profile to get the link).
- Tell people it is okay to lurk around. I know i already stated something about it,  but if people think posting is an obligation and get distressed over it because they think they can't do it,  they won't come back.
- Send updates whenever you're having a great discussion. Mass email guys whenever you have a few  hot topics at your board. Also provide a link to the threads where people are very active. You have to create interest. First, you want people to check on your board, next, you want to ensure they check on the great stuff ;  third, you want to give them a chance to post. If you send only a couple links, people will check on them, they won't have to check on the whole board, unless they want to. Ensure you send the right topics to someone and see what happens. The guy said he wants to wait till you've converted to another board, so what? He has an account so he can receive notifications,  . If you kind of know him, send links to topix he'll certainly want to read. Just remember, a few topics at a time, so he reads them. Hitting the reply or quote button is just a step away. 

- I'm too lazy to check on the whole thread and see if you posted a link to your board. Just pm me a linkie. 

[Gargoyle]

You read this yet ??

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=255510.0;topicseen

To me it looks like an answer to your question... Could be wrong though...

[MrPhil]

Just a thought... do people dislike SMF because, being non-threaded, it doesn't permit the serendipity of seeing an abstract of the most recent postings in other threads (topics)? Perhaps a modification of the SMF "view latest posts" feature (mod?) to show the first line of the latest 20 or 30 posts would do the trick? A flag in the user database could turn this display off for the few that don't like it.

I posted some musings on this subject in the Threaded View topic that Gargoyle pointed to above.

[青山 素子]

The OP doesn't appear to be looking for a threaded mode. If you look at the sites referenced in the actual topic starter, you'll see they are even more flat than SMF is.

[maranate]

I'm not going to pretend I read through all of the replies, but I'll tell you that when we launched SMF 2 years ago to our Moms Club, we had A LOT of push back because so many of them thought it was too complicated.  They were also used to Yahoo! Groups.  One of the biggest complaints was that the messages weren't coming to their email box and they had to go to the website to read the posts.  Well, one of the biggest reasons we switched was because of people posting mean things to Yahoo! and it going to everyone's mailbox.  At least on SMF, we can delete it and only a few people may have seen it.

SO what we did was have a demonstration at one of our real life meetings.  We showed how they can subscribe to topics they're interested in and how they can receive notifications by email to new topics and replies.  We went over lots of other things too based on Q&A.  Our usage went up after that, and now any new subscribers are telling us how easy and intuitive it is to use.  We've also been told that people join our club because of the message boards.


Good luck!
You may not be able to have a meeting, but maybe you can have a webcast or create a video tutorial?

[Fustrate]

or you could link them to the ?action=help page Though it might have to be changed a bit to show specific stuff for your needs

[Mr.Linc]

I just read the whole topic, a very interesting conversation. And a curious subject.

digiwench,
I don't know anything about the stock market, and I don't know anything about coding, but from reading the whole topic I can say I understand what you say and how do you feel about it; somewhat I've been through the same problem, although on an entirely different subject. So I feel I can contribute just my two cents.

The most interesting part (and the actual point of the whole thing) is what you have in mind, what you're trying to achieve, and what your members want and how their minds work. It happened to me some time ago on a board I ran with a couple friends, when I came up with improvements on different levels, mainly on the contents quality, and found out most of the members didn't care, then I saw the way their minds work.

I think that you have to make a choice on this subject; if your former members can't stand an actual board like the one you created, and you do some good writing on your field and you've got so many years of expertise, and you put a lot of effort into finding good articles and information; instead of trying to attract people like your former members, why don't you go for people who are above that level, people who are actually interested in reading and discussing the articles you read and the articles you write, people who look for that kind of information and not the usual chaos of the other boards where your posts get quickly drowned among tons of other stuff? With "above that level" I mean people who are probably on a higher professional level, but that's just a guess of mine; maybe different or bigger kind of investors and stock traders would be more appropriate terms. Or "sophisticated people", as you said in your first post.

Of course, you'll have to charge a fee, as they'd think it's not professional or not serious if it's free. But then again, you've got quality content which looks interesting to them.
You can organize and modify your board with two very different sections: one for the threaded content, like the articles (threaded topics are just the way to go for such kind of content), and other wich is more "free for all" (I'm using a gaming term) where all the other stuff should be posted, so if they just want a quick glance on what's going on, they'll look there.

This is where I say you'll probably have to make a decision: what do you want to do, which path do you want to follow, as you see for yourself that you are in an AC/DC situation that just won't work. Do you want to attract people like your former members? Then go for a board the way they like, with the kind of information they are looking for. Do you want to go for something that's up to your level of expertise? Then you'll have to point your radar to the proper people, put some effort into getting their attention. From what you said in this whole topic, I feel this is the way to go, at least before going back to cleaning out stables.
You said it yourself, "My goal was not to duplicate that site, but create a forum for intelligent traders of big board stocks". The logical answer is that you're looking for it in the wrong place, as Mr.Spock would say.

BTW, if your former members were guided step by step through the process of reading a topic, posting a reply and all that, and after a month (a MONTH!) still didn't figure out how to read posts... they deserve to pay money for getting scammed and abused as you say they do at the other board. I see now why the whole system collapsed.

I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue.

ROFLMAO!

[Muldoon]

Here's a few options:

http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php/board,114.0.html

http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php/board,106.0.html

http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php/board,77.0.html

Just go here to see the full list of some of Bloc's Themes:

http://www.tinyportal.net/index.php/board,156.0.html

Of course there are a lot more over there as well...

Hope this helps ya!
Muldoon

[digiwench]

Hello,

I'm revisiting this issue, after running into more complaints from new members. I checked out the themes you mentioned, and while the simplicity of them is attractive, only the original first post is displayed In order to read the other posts, one must click into the topic, which is the issues the readers have with the format in general.

They are daytraders, and want to be able to quickly glance at a list of posts, and see quickly what people are talking about.

Is there anyone here who could help me create such a theme? I have a budget for this project.

Thanks!

[MrPhil]

There's a feature (or maybe a mod) to show the N latest posting titles. If that's not enough, I'm sure the feature/mod could be modified to show a line or two from each post. Wouldn't that do to show what people are talking about?

[Caosul]

Unlike many forum scripts that I have found, Simple Machines is mature and robust. What I've seen as samples sites can be duplicated - it is all in the template, powerful functionality in the backend, a friendly simple template design as the facade. The array of modules for SMF (packages) allows the admin to have plenty of options. A template can hide all sorts of stuff and make your site more comfortable. I would have to say that many of the templates may be cluttering thus distracting. This is the function of the template, to layout the user environment and not the task of forum script. On one site, I use SMF to publish content.

C.

[cflforum]

Hello,

I'm revisiting this issue, after running into more complaints from new members. I checked out the themes you mentioned, and while the simplicity of them is attractive, only the original first post is displayed In order to read the other posts, one must click into the topic, which is the issues the readers have with the format in general.

They are daytraders, and want to be able to quickly glance at a list of posts, and see quickly what people are talking about.

Is there anyone here who could help me create such a theme? I have a budget for this project.

Thanks!

This is a fascinating topic and  I read it through twice!
This is like a roadmap of how NOT to design a website or any software.

I'm just frankly stunned at the responses that derided the intelligence (or lack of) of your user base/members or insist that you try to force a methodology on them with more 'training'.

If I am driving a car (or better) being driven, I dont want to know (or hear) jack squat about piston engines or mechanics. Trying to impose structure will fail.

I think your problem is is that you are using the wrong metaphor to encapsulate your activity.
You are creating a leisurely library environment when what you should be re-creating is the chaos on the stock floor (which is not really chaos at all, its just dynamic)

SIDEBAR:
You ever see a large flock of birds wheeling to the left and the right seemingly in coordinated unison?
but the moves are not choreagraphed, each bird is reacting fluidly and instantly to the moves of its neighbor. This is swarm theory http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/swarms/swarms-photography (which in this context is also related to flock theory)
Basically, the individual trader isnt intelligent but the collective is

so what we need to do is capture the  stock floor, allowing quick autonomous responses, but with the benefits of a computerised  unobtrusive assistant - follow up and preservation (the hallmark of a forum) is less relevant because there is less value to older posts in your context -
With the fcus on the most recent posts comes the potential for more 'noise' (shouting) so the ability to rate the shouts is important (think Digg)

In the SMF context I suppose you would describe it as the most recent posts colored by some kind of user content rating - a feature which would incorporate personal rating (that Karma thing) and object rating (the post itself)

see this http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=votetopromote for more ideas.

We've developed much of what you've described already and are just looking to finalize with a forum (hopefully) for the textual database portion. The ability to post quickly without structure is essential for brianstorming or in your case, stocktrading conversations