Some ideas for improvement

Sunny, this is a followup to your call for ideas to make the forum better.

i have submit 2 areas for further discussion.

1. Interaction is a result of a common bond

the forum is a part of virtual world that is more powerful than printed media these days. unlike the printed media, the forum is live and subjected to inputs and therefore agreement and disagreement. more importantly the forum serves as a point for expression and digestion of information.

now when members get to know one another, they begin to develop a relationship or a bond or friendship. now picture this.....when you are with a group of friends in a cafe, we would not talk like the speaker of the house. the conversation is always free flow and spontaneous and it can get rowdy. some of us may not realised that they are young children around and when one gets carried away and language (or rather bad language) becomes the subject of scrutiny.

i am not propagating that we promote bad language or a war zone but if there is a section that allow active members to interact (within respectable perimeters) but duly fore-warned casual readers to view with caution, you can still add spice, colours and humour without breeching the bond that exist. afterall life is full of drama, lies, deceit or even tragedies and not a bed of roses. if its a bed of roses, its too boring and predictable like a channel 8 drama.

2. objective reviews

every great forum should have great information thats useful for everyone. imagine if we have members who can review clubs, putters, shafts, accessories and other golfing items, that would be useful information for our members.

if we cast our net wider, we can find different reviewers for different category of products. Rocky may not be the best reviewer for say driver but his technical sense makes him a perfect candidate for products such as training aid and accessories. i have seen and read some of the comments of competent golfers in this forum. if we dig deeper we can discover more rocky(ies) and that will really help our members understand more about golf equipment in an objective manner.

i hope you will see my suggestion as being made with making the forum interesting for both the serious geek and the fun-loving golfers.

anyone with ideas should come forward to make this great forum greater.

DGman

i am so tempted to poke fun at alot of sentences above but i do not want to degrade this thread and go OT like how we always go. but i refrain, tahan and loon.

DGMan,

Thank you for the feedback.

Rgds, mUAr_cHEe
Mod: GR.org.

you know gramar is not my strongest point....but feel free to edit and i will kill you with my bare hands.

DGman

PS i am supposed to be on a plane right now but still stuck at T3.

Good points Eric.

I think wrt to the 1st, that will be good. But this platform has its limitations. Trying to implement some other stuff has faced its fair share of difficulties so I trust that the comp wiz of Sunny and Moon will find a way to handle that suggestion.

WRT to the 2nd. Yeah, I hope to read more reviews rather than be one of the few to write them. Come on people, this forum is for sharing. If you found something magical in the golf product u have tested, let everyone know here. It doesn't have to be clubs. It can be the latest and greatest training aid that no one has heard of.

DGman wrote:

you know gramar is not my strongest point....but feel free to edit and i will kill you with my bare hands.

DGman

PS i am supposed to be on a plane right now but still stuck at T3.

Talking about stuck ... i still stuck at work and sorry i can't join you this trip ... have a nice time ....

Point 1:
One of the limitation of this platform is the "latest topic" widget on the right.
There is no customisation for showing the threads from the sub-forums.. Its a matter of whether you have it or you dont.

Point 2:
Reviewers are welcomed. Share if you could, there is sub-forum "Equipment Reviews" for all to post and share. http://www.golfrepublic.org/equipment-reviews-f14/

on point 2, i was thinking more in the direction of getting a fixed panel of reviewers. it should be objective so the person should have no interest in the sales of the items.

for example, not many people know that Jimmychoo is an expert in shaft technology. he can hit a driver and tell me what is the tip and butt makeup hence a person like him makes a good candidate for shaft articulation. then there is SamT who knows apparel more than the salesman at JL. he can talk fashion, fabric and style all day long.

if you watch Crime and Investigation channel, some programmes are tagged at the beginning to contain gross images. the reason is for those who find it objectable, they can choose to switch channel. that's my point.

DGman

DGman wrote:

on point 2, i was thinking more in the direction of getting a fixed panel of reviewers. it should be objective so the person should have no interest in the sales of the items.

for example, not many people know that Jimmychoo is an expert in shaft technology. he can hit a driver and tell me what is the tip and butt makeup hence a person like him makes a good candidate for shaft articulation. then there is SamT who knows apparel more than the salesman at JL. he can talk fashion, fabric and style all day long.

if you watch Crime and Investigation channel, some programmes are tagged at the beginning to contain gross images. the reason is for those who find it objectable, they can choose to switch channel. that's my point.

DGman

so we will have shaft guru, fashion guru, grip guru, balls guru .... and so on

Regarding pt 1, i could always create a separate bar-room chat with the lounge which everyone can speak on any topic. But i would need volinteers to be administrating that group to approve membership so that they admit only discerning adults and not our young members like sebastian or geri.

Pt 2, it is a gd idea. But we need those experts to be forthcoming and let us have their expert reviews and articles. Wecan always make room for them

You can call the bar-room chat area the "Bunker" (since it's filled with crap) but I'm still concerned since someone may take offense. If you do decide to set this one up, let me know and I'll put together a quick disclaimer for GR.

It is a suggestion. Let me know if anyone is willing to take up the group aministration for the bunker.

Yes we would need disclaimer on it. However, there still shouldnt be religion, politics or defamatory stuff inside as those would be potential problems

My suggestion/s:

1. Equipment review: To have a dedicated page for equipment, where for example anyone or any vendor with new equipment and comments can be posted...by this strictly for comments on the equipment. Accompanying this is a decent search function to held interested readers to get to the interested equipment

2. I think we can consider doing better with the What In the Bag.....I will like to suggest having a page that any menbers (willing to opt-in) to publish their WITB...with this, it serves 2 purposes; #1 easy for users of same equipmet to connect, and #2 to get feedbacks.

3. With regards to the post or threads which mite be viewed as offensive or non-suitable, can we also 'empower' the forum members...where if we come across one, we can tag our comment or rate them....the MODs can then filter them so that they can attend to them or at least have a gauge of the view of the masses.

just a tot....fm just me 'D'

hi Duval,

your suggestion would work only if we make the forum like a portal.

Currently we do not have sufficient contents to put up a portal. But we would work towards that in the future as it is in our roadmap.

Duval_S wrote:

1. Equipment review: To have a dedicated page for equipment, where for example anyone or any vendor with new equipment and comments can be posted...by this strictly for comments on the equipment. Accompanying this is a decent search function to held interested readers to get to the interested equipment

Sunny has replied.

Duval_S wrote:

2. I think we can consider doing better with the What In the Bag.....I will like to suggest having a page that any menbers (willing to opt-in) to publish their WITB...with this, it serves 2 purposes; #1 easy for users of same equipmet to connect, and #2 to get feedbacks.

We do have a WITB and we even made it a sticky! See here. Are you suggesting a dedicated page?

Duval_S wrote:

3. With regards to the post or threads which mite be viewed as offensive or non-suitable, can we also 'empower' the forum members...where if we come across one, we can tag our comment or rate them....the MODs can then filter them so that they can attend to them or at least have a gauge of the view of the masses.

We will look into it.

hi Sunny,
comments as per same sequence:

1. noted the portal. Guess it is a chick and egg thingy...I was looking at it fm 2 fronts, reviews/contents are pretty valuable to many golfers and definitely will pull traffic or focus fm equipment vendors

2. As for the WITB..yes i was thinking of the WITB. But thinking aloud we could link the #1 to the WITB...

suggest that I take this offline with you and will fwd you my tots in the form of diagram schema...pm you my email..

If you are thinking something like golfwrx where you see a portal with blogs and reviews and those witb pics and articles we do need a portal. Yes do tell me more. Once we have sufficient articles, we would do it up.

wah. so detailed. i lkey~

why don't we make the WITB as part of the signature, have it as part of the profile setup perhaps? beats having to scroll thru pages of posts to check out all the WITBs!

weaponx wrote:

why don't we make the WITB as part of the signature, have it as part of the profile setup perhaps? beats having to scroll thru pages of posts to check out all the WITBs!

I think that's up to the individual user. Some people prefer to be discreet. Others don't mind sharing WITB. I don't think we should force it

we are looking into it. thanks for the suggestions!

TS, yeah i know.. thats why i didnt say to make it compulsory i should've articulated myself better, for those who are willing to share, they can put it in the sig... so for eg, if i wanna know whats in MC's bag (i know he has a thread on it), i can see when he posts, and not have to scroll thru 20pgs of a WITB sticky to look for it...

idea implemented.

mervyntan wrote:

idea implemented.

u forgot, balls, cigi, lighter, gloves, caps, etc....

try to make a space for search topic for example u put titleist n all topic related to titleist will be shown

cyp, the search function is on top underneath the forum logo.

It will only search the title for keywords