All Forum Posts by: Nate Slappey III

@Nate Slappey III

I come check back on BP and now its only showing me a handful of new posts, say 5'ish, and the rest are days/weeks/months old.  You can't tell me in over a weeks time there are only a handlful of posts.  I have it set on new posts.

@Nate Slappey III Thank you for the reply. The issue I'm referring to is when we get an email saying (for example) you have received a vote. When you click on the link it used to take you to the thread in question, and then scroll quickly down to the particular post. It doesn't do that any longer (at least for me).

Nate:

For about three days the forums were nice and super compact when on compact setting.  I don't know what happened but around 3pm Eastern today they went back to ugly.  I just don't like reading all that non-value added information.

Doesn't seem like a lot of thought was put into layout or functionality.  I only use desktop so can't comment on any mobile optimizations.

You can only see 2-3 different discussions at a time on the screen even with a large monitor.  This causes you to need to do an awful lot of scrolling to find a post that interests you.  I would recommend significantly scaling back on how much of a post you can preview without clicking on it so that you can see more posts on the screen at once to more readily identify posts that you actually want to click on and read.

The fact that you can only see 2-3 different posts at a time is compounded by the fact that advertisements are included in the same general space.  Ads could easily be moved to a sidebar area where they could remain static and always visible while you scrolled posts in the main section.

Hovering over the forums tab at the top doesn't provide any sort of breakdown of sub categories like the education and network tabs do.

Clicking on the actual forum categories button pulls up a list of categories that involves significant scrolling to see what options you have available.  Real estate isn't rocket science, I should be able to see all of the forum categories on one screen without needing multiple full scrolls of the mouse wheel to scroll through all of the different categories....

Which leads to my next point, there are WAY too many forum categories, many of which are HIGHLY redundant.  

You have a "general real estate investing" which is separate from your "general info" subcategory.  

There is an "investor deal diaries", as well as a "completed deal diaries", and a "rehab diaries", and a "success stories" and a "not so success stories"

"Rookie investing" as well as a "first time home buyer", and a "starting out".  

"Real estate events and happenings", and a "BPCon attendees", and a "BP real estate investing summit"

"Housing news and real estate market discussions", and a "real estate news and current events"

I could probably find other many examples of redundant categories, but you get the point, many of these categories are redundant and would be better off merging them together to create a more unified experience.  Additionally having links to the various podcasts inside of the forum categories further clogs up the searching since forums and podcasts are two completely separate products.

Some categories like BP con 21 are completely irrelevant since the entire event is over, other categories like the investing summit category only have 4 total posts.  Other categories like Real Estate Quizes sounds like it should be something in the education tab and not in the forum tab, not that it really matters since there isn't even a single post inside the real estate quizes category.

Podcasts are a big enough part of what this site offers that it deserve its own tab at the top just like forums, education, and network have instead of burying it in the education tab.  

I could probably go on with other things I dislike, but in general someone needs to put some serious thought and effort into the layout and functionality of the desktop version of this site.  As it stands it looks like a product that was created by paying some guy on Fiverr $20 bucks and he used a generic wordpress template.

FYI, if you have to educate your users about the forums, you've already failed. The most successful forums are the ones an idiot could use. 

I know many of these have been mentioned before, but I'll mention them again:

• Featured and Sticky pics don't need to be on their own line. I'd put them on the right side of the subject line.
  
• I'd love the ability to unstick the Featured & Sticky posts. Right now I see 3 posts and an ad on my screen and two of those posts are stickied. 
• Why is the subject line a link to the post? Click on it and it brings you right where you are.
• Original post on each page is very annoying. I can see how some people would like this, but I can't stand it. This should be a feature to turn on/off.
• Notify me when I reply is defaulted to on. This should be a feature to turn on/off. 
• Why is Name / What You Are / Location inside the post body. This info should be under the users picture. It'd allow for a lot more posts to fit on the screen. 
• You're a "PRO". I don't care. I also don't need it inside the post body. BTW, the BP logo that appears over a users pic, which I assume is meant to show PRO status, just says "Biggerpockets Logo" when you hover over it. Not exactly useful info especially if you're trying to sell me a Pro Membership.
• Clicking on the thread should automatically bring you to the last unread post. This is super basic.
• Clicking on Forums brings you to every post for all forums? I think most everyone would expect to get a list of forums when clicking this.
• The All Categories and Any Location drop down buttons bring up a pop-up box. Very odd. Usually buttons that indicate a drop down menu produce a drop down menu and not a pop-up box.
• Pricing button is odd. Pricing for what? Why not have it say something like Upgrade Your Membership or something to indicate what it really is.
• Top Contributors - get rid of it. No one knows what criteria is used. However, I'll admit this is better than the prior version which scored people so randomly.
• It'd be nice to have a feature showing if you've posted in a topic. I use other forums where there is a * next to the topic if it is one you have posted to.
• Font size - why is this not a customizable option? Font size and theme are common user settings on forums.
• How about having a warning for a person before they reply to an old thread? I've seen way too many people reply to a post that is 8 years old.
• Location tags are great, but they need to be next to the subject line, not their own line. 
• Voting - Why can I vote on a post before I read it? I can up vote every post made from the front page without reading any of them.
• Wouldn't mind a "Best Answer" feature. Lots of posts get upvoted, but a best answer button would help a post standout. There is also the possibility of highlighting (shade the post yellow?) a post that has a significant number of upvotes. 
• When viewing the original post, at the bottom there is a button that says # Replies. Click on it and it brings you right where you are.
• Having to double click on the reply box to type is annoying. 
• When trying to paste text into the reply box, it never places it where you are, it inserts a couple blank lines and then your text. Super annoying. 
• A spellcheck feature would be nice.
• Replies to long quoted posts show the entire quote. On some posts my entire screen is filled with the quoted post. This should be reduced with a "click open" or the amount of quoted text should be limited. 
• When I try to make a list (like this one) you don't see the bullets/numbers. It's a little hard to tell if it is working. Either show the bullets or have a preview post feature so we can make sure it is correct before posting. 
• The App - right now when I get a notification or email that someone messaged me, if I click on it, it opens a browser and not the BP app. This is a coding issue and needs to be resolved in the next version of the app.

I agree with the others, I preferred the old style by a lot.  Everything just seems too "busy" now.  Like every page is a giant wall of text and there's no separation.

I do understand having to make the change because the old forum or theme was no longer supported.  That is a bummer.  This has been a pain point in every forum I've ever run or been a part of.  We all miss the old look, but eventually get used to the new one.

Personally though my biggest gripe is the move to kind of make the whole forum like one giant facebook feed, rather than an actual forum separated by sub-categories.  I've noticed the last few days an overwhelming number of people in sub-categories giving answers not relevant to that sub-category, because they came to the thread via some giant jumbled feed and don't realize they're in that sub-category.

For instance I spend most of my time in the STR forum. Typically most people posting there were specifically in the STR forum, answering threads specific to STRs. IE if someone asked about property managers or markets everyone knew they were asking about STR property managers or STR markets.

That is no longer the case. Now if someone posts in the STR forums about property managers or markets 90% of the responses are people that have no knowledge of STRs giving info on buy and hold PMs or the best market for flipping homes. They don't realize they're in the STR forum, so they're giving info not relevant to STRs.

I didn't realize why it was happening until I saw this thread and someone mentioned the dropdown. Hovering over "forums" no longer brings down the subforums. Even clicking on "forums" just brings up a feed of recent posts rather than a list of forum categories, which is different than any other forum site. If I didn't already have the STR forum bookmarked I wouldn't even know how to get there.

It has made the experience significantly worse, to be honest.  It defeats the entire purpose of a forum IMO.  The baseline of a forum is to drill-down by sub-category into a specific subforum, and browse there.  Viewing a feed of new threads or popular threads should be a separate, intentional button click.  Not the baseline.