We’d love your feedback on this discussion tool, including issues, typos, confusing features and behaviors, and general suggestions. We get our best suggestions from users. That’s you.
If you agree with someone’s comment, why not give it a good rating by clicking on the stars?
Dear Beta Testers,
Thanks so much for your dozens of insightful comments during the first round of Beta Testing! As promised, we’re clearing the comments from the early discussions in preparation for “Phase II” of Beta, where we will open the environment up to a wider audience.
Due to your awesome feedback, we have identified and fixed several bugs. We have improved the login interface in several places and added better cross-browser support. Formatting differences in numerous places have also been addressed. And most importantly, we have used your feedback to help us decide on the specific improvements to include in our product launch.
Here are just a few of the things you have mentioned that we will be addressing leading up to launch and beyond:
[list]Reworking the “Post your Reply” box, including not losing the view of other posts, the curious purposes of the formatting buttons, and that darn missing cursor.[/list]
[list]Editing a post (yes, we know you want to do this)[/list]
[list]Better handling anonymous posting and the spam risk[/list]
[list]Navigation cues[/list]
[list]Watch this thread feature[/list]
Thanks again for all of your help so far, and don’t stop providing us with fantastic feedback.
Keith
Product Manager Lackey
Spell checker functionality would be a terrific addition.
I’d also love to change (or have options for) my “affiliation badge”
RSS Public Action feeds?
Also – I’d suggest that a “rules of the road” be presented prominently on the main page of any PA site to deter flamers and spammers.
Cannot logon. I get a message about a java error even before I try to type my userid,
myronwms
Received the email about the change of site but get an error on the page the link took me to to login…
Oops! There was a bad URL in the email that appears to be causing the problem. We addressed it. Let us know if anyone continues to have the problem (…then I’ll post it to the Second Opinion Topic. Yeesh).
Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
-Keith
Product Manager Lackey
I too had issues with going to the link in the email when I tried using Mozilla Firefox. I used IE (old version) and it worked just fine.
30 minutes later and now it’s working fine so far in Mozilla Firefox.
On firefox, I can always see the log in place, but no logout function visible. Not sure what I should see.
I can’t logon to the old BB now? Wierd.
I’d like to be able to see the original post so I could refer to it while posting a reply. People who pass reading tests are always going back and checking what they have just read. It’s the one time that all parties involved benefit by cheating.
One major thing I’m noticing is that there is no site map or navigation menu. The UBB forms had a site map in the top left corner that showed what level of the forum structure you were in and allowed you to click on any higher level to return to it. Also, at the bottom of the page there is/was a “where do you want to go” dropdown menu. You’d pull it down and click where you wanted to go, and automatically be navigated there. I have been on these new forums for 24 hours and already desperately miss that functionality. The forums require navigating back to the index and then going into a discussion area. Lame! 
Also, in the reply dialogue a menu of smiles, code, etc would be amazing to have. Just like the old forums.
Maybe I’m just being nostalgic?
-Matt
Oops!
Methinks I hit a button!
blushes
-Matt (again)
Okay whoa! BIG KAHUNA HERE! This is an uber bug. Someone call the Men In Black for this one.
I’ve just had this happen to me twice while writing replies. I’ll finish typing my reply and hit the “PREVIEW REPLY” button like the prudent, spell checking, ADHD/OCD person that I am. BAM! Ihe dialogue dissapears and I’m left staring at the topic the same as I was before I pressed the reply button. My reply is gone. I didn’t even get to see the preview. The box just dissapears.
One of those replies was fairly sizable! :-0
So I’d request that THIS be put at the top of the list of bugs to exterminate.
In the meantime, I won’t forget to CTRL+A CTRL+C all of my posts before hitting the preview button. I suggest that all who read this message do the same.
You have been warned!
[This message will self destruct in five seconds… no joking… because I’m about to press the preview reply button… and I bet it will self destruct]
-Matt
Is there a way to view comments/threads that are new since last visit?
There’s a “Recent Discussions” option, but that just shows a link to thread topics that have most recently been posted to across all boards. It doesn’t show me unread topics, nor will the link send me to comments in that thread that are new to me.
(and yes, it would be nice to be able to view the thread that one is replying to while posting the reply… thanks for working on that.)
I’m tired of agreeing to the terms of service every time I post a reply. Can’t you keep a record of my acquiescence to your request?
Dear Anonymous,
If you register for the car talk discussions and then log in, you won’t have to keep clicking on that box (click on the “register” link at the top right of the page to register).
Registration also comes with other exciting features, like the ability to rate and flag other user comments, tag discussions, and build a user profile. An explanation on what these things are and how to use them can be found here:
http://community.cartalk.com/help/index.page
If you are logged in and are still being prompted to click the TOS box, let us know by going to the support link at the top of that help page.
Thanks,
Keith
Product Manager Lackey
I’ve registered, but I still have to log on each time. I don’t on the old board, or any other board I use…
Please fix this. It’s annoying enough that I’ll stop coming here after a while…
The url’s on cars.com won’t bring me to these august pages. The cartalk home page won’t bring me here. the url http://action.publicbroadcasting.net/cartalk is the only way I could get to the NEW AND IMPROVED cartalk bulletin boards. Is there a fix on the way?
I think you had a really great BB before you switched. Its a shame you are either being forced into using public interractive, or think that its a good idea.
i won’t say who i am, but i’ve worked in radio web deptments and had management telling me i “need” to use public interactive. Most of what they offer is already being done. This new “bb” for example. Why is it needed? Plenty of great BB systems out there with all sorts of great features.
My guess is public interactive has friends high up in the public radio bizz.
Already I can see it’s much worse. The design alone i bet is going to end up with not that many posts. It’s totally different then what people expect to see from a BB.
Again your old one was much better. But i can see you are probably being forced to use public interactive.