Quickly Finding Needed Info On Bigger Pockets Forums

[Thomas Swartz]

Hi All!

I've been away from BP for a few years, having been a paid member in the past, but now I'm considering jumping back in.  I am a carpentry contractor & project manager with 4 decades experience in residential construction, and have done 3 RE deals in my career.  It is my extensive construction experience that gives me the confidence of success in pursuing those past properties, as well as future ones.

I'm the type of person who reads to educate myself, as opposed to jumping in and getting caught off guard.  I've often said I'll play any game with anyone, as long as I know the rules, and we all play by the same.  I feel the same way about business activities, although having been in business the majority of my career, I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that my simply "playing by the rules" is enough to be competitive.  But if we're playing Monopoly, I want to know, before we start, whether we're using Free Parking as a "lottery", or not.  I'm conservative like that.  I don't want to find out after I've hung the drywall, that the county passed a new law last year requiring sprinklers.  I think most people would agree, at least with that example.

So last night I decided to read one of the many articles I still receive in my email, then started looking around the site again, as I'm ready to re-start my REI education. And what I found, just on the surface, is kinda disappointing. First, the forums:

When I click on "Forums" at the top of the page, I'm taken to a general page that appears to show everything in the forums, starting with recent activity.  On many other sites, this would take me to the Main Page, showing all the Main Forum Headings, and also show their sub-group forums.  Nope, that's not what this page is.

So instead I try hovering over "Forums", and look at the drop-down list.  Aside from the usual suspects (Trending, Recent Activity, Followed, that sort of thing), there are only 4 categories shown, then a "See All" link.  Now usually, for this type of link on most web pages, the "All" means, all the rest of whatever categories are available, that need to be viewed in their own page.  Nope.  Again, I'm taken to this general page that simply has what appears to be every single discussion on every forum.  Alright, so I figured out I need to go to "General Info" to locate the forum categories, which I think is confusing.

And when I hover over "General Info", I get a drop-down list, that, after scrolling down a bit, when I hover over one of the categories, I can't SEE the sub-groups at all.  Is this the best BP can do in terms of organizing the forums?

Dates:  Why are there no dates showing when a post was first introduced?  I like to click on the "# of Replies" to find topics with a lot of responses, since those probably contain important info.  But I want to find recent discussions, because out-of-date info isn't necessarily relevant.  I think the dates the replies were made is also important, but when reading a discussion, all I see is "replied 3 months ago."  Why no actual dates?  They're important.

During the reading of a very interesting and much-replied-to topic last night, I discovered a member who I could tell really knew what he was talking about.  So I tried to find other replies from this member, to other topics.  All I could get was single pages, showing topic headings, but found no way to go directly to his actual posts.  This is another aspect of forums I've been able to do on other sites, of which I find to be quite valuable.

Seems to me, if I decide to use BP to educate myself, navigating the forums in what I consider to be a logical manner, is going to be difficult.  If there are easier ways to deal with these issues, someone please enlighten me.  I have another concern, but I'll make another topic.  Thanks for any help, as I feel this info could be of use to others, especially new members, as well.

Tom