Sorry, but in the e-mail I received it stated that I must create a new user name and password and I for one do not like multiple user names and passwords. It is just to confusing so I just won’t bother making the transition. Best of Luck. Chuck
Hi me art12,
We’re transitioning from the old BBS in phases. The link directly from cartalk.com should be active by tomorrow.
Thanks,
Keith
Hi Tree Hugger,
This was an oversight on our part. The “remember me” feature was left off of the normal login. We should be able to fix this.
In the interim, here is a workaround: put in a blank username and try to log in. It will take you to a login screen that has the ‘remember me’ feature on it. Until and unless you logout, checking this box will keep you logged in between browser sessions.
Thanks for your suggestion,
Keith
Does the link to chat on the car talk site send you to the old forum?
From your email:
<<You’ll need to set up a new account, with a new username and password. You can do this by visiting this address:
http://action.publicbroadcasting.net/cartalk
Your Register page will not work for me. I tried reentering my info 10 times.
Perhaps you could do it for me!
UserName: vmars956
password: ********
Thanks for your help (I HOPE).
I must agree with Anonymous. The new interface is too different, too awkward, and much less informative than any forum software I’ve ever used.
With no way to determine new posts since last visit, no way to see how “credentialed” (join date or # of posts) a poster is, no way to see posts we’re replying to, no way to easily go from topic to topic and no way to see who last replied to a thread, I’m afraid it will be the end of my meager participation. Spending 30 minutes rereading old posts from yesterday just to find a few new ones is beyond aggravating.
Why re-invent the wheel? There are plenty of great forum programs out there. Some,like phpBB are free.
I agree with the feedback that says this new forum is cumbersome and awkward to use. I hope that I and many other users quickly find it easy, else usage will drop off quickly.
I’m also very surprised that you will be allowing anonymous posts (which I’m testing now as we speak).
With anonymous posts it can quickly become yet another forum technical forum with a very low signal to noise ratio.
Joe Mario
TOO MUCH SPACE!!
There’s a lot of space between headlines. Would be better if more lines were visible, intead of so much space around each individual topic or search result.
That way more search results would fit per page, and the list of recent topics would be longer.
Hi All,
Here’s a quick response, plus a little background for everyone else…
We know it’s not perfect, but we’ve seen the tool come a long way. The environment isn’t designed to be a new BBS in the classic sense, but to be something new to help us build a more responsive online community, so the features will indeed be a little different than what we’re all used to seeing. We also now have the ability to respond to user suggestions like yours to help shape the tool, and for these we are grateful.
Here are some reasons why we decided to use Public Action:
- The existing BBS was a broken, limping, slow thing that was impossible to administer. I won’t bore you with the details, but on the back end it was a real, old, clunking pain…
- The BBS interface looked different and detached from our site and could be intimidating for new users, from the dizzying number of choices to the techie language of “threads and forums.” Had a lots of steady mail from Car Talk visitors who gave up on trying to register and use the old system.
- All comments had to be moderated, which was a pain for everyone. Community moderation should be a much more enjoyable experience.
- We now support community building features like comment rating, robust profiles, discussion tagging, and RSS
- The community can now moderate the discussion itself using the “flagging” feature
- The new system blocks automated registration and simplifies the sign up process
- The environment is now more stable, performs better, and can scale for the future. Media files are stored at an actual media storage and streaming facility
- We can now integrate listener comments and media back into the website and not have the BBS as a separate site (coming soon!)
- New system supports media uploads, like audio, video, and images
- Car Talk can now respond to user requests and help direct the development of the environment over time, something we could never do with the old BBS, with which we were very limited.
As for PI, we were definitely not forced to use them. We’re honestly really excited about the possibilities this tool presents to build the community here on the Car Talk site, and respect all the hard work the PI gang has done on this tool.
We’re all getting used ot the new format, which admittedly is quite a change. And, everyone at PI has been really responsive. It’ll take patience, but a lot of you have had good suggestions that we hope to implement in the coming weeks and months. Hang in there, take some time to get used to the new system, and keep sending along suggestions and ideas!
Best from Car Talk Plaza,
Doug Mayer
Senior Web Lackey
AMEN!!
Looks like the old board is gone…My bookmark forwarded me here…
Yup. The old board pops up for a few seconds, then redirects to this mess.
It’s been a fun couple of years and 5000+ posts, but I don’t think I’ll be back. The new setup is too much of a PITA. I don’t even have a visible cursor, for crying out loud.
Okay, a cursor appears in IE, but not Firefox. No way to edit a post, and there are STILL no navigation buttons! This is NOT ready for prime time. Shame on you for eliminating the old system before this one was anywhere near ready.
I use lots of other forums for various purposes and gonna say this one is uniquely odd in a bad form. Has anybody looked at toyotanation or kia-forums? There are plenty other examples out there.
I am B_K (Boltzman’s Konstant) and I am out of here. The old board was fun, but this is too cumbersome to use. Good-bye you all, I hope we meet again on the Internet.
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I like being anonymous; thank you for letting me post.
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Emoticons are clutter; I don’t need them.
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Where is the cursor?
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The right arrow in the circle can be done without.
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The layout is good but a little empty space between topics would not hurt.
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Using return does not SUBMIT; that’s good.
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I agree to Terms of Service checkbox is not aproblem.
Oh, and editing my reply after posting would be nice.
How about an “edit” button? Also, on the title page, it would be nice to know who made the last post, like the old board.
In the “reply” field, sometimes there is a cursor and sometimes not. A real pain when you are trying to write…
After I posted, my comments looked fine (returns/paragraph separations, quotes working fine, etc.)
When I next reloaded the same thread, my entire post has become one long unreadable paragraph, and the quoting separations are gone.
There’s no edit feature, to allow me to try and fix the formatting problems. grr!
I have to admit, I’m losing interest, fast.
Ten topics per page and no way to change that.
Big long pages of topics that don’t say when their last post was, who it was started by, who was the last poster, and this is the biggest loss:
Not HIGHLIGHTED if they’re NEW
It’s too cumbersome, not fully featured enough, and largely uninteresting.
Would the web lackies care to have a chatroom setup maybe sometime soon so we can all talk?
Anyone share my feelings?
-Matt