Earlier this month, we launched a simple Q&A forum. Thus far there’s been little (no) interest. That’s okay – it’s what we sort of expected as we’re not exactly promoting it well, nor are we fans of the software.
At the end of this month, we will likely shut down the Q&A board unless there’s an indication that you guys are interested in it. If this happens, you can still interact with each other via post comments and can always contact us directly.
Alternatively, we’re considering replacing the Q&A board with a tool-centric social media platform. This would allow you to create your own profiles, join groups, and start discussions. Here’s an example of what it would look like.
Perhaps we’ll revisit this idea again at a later time. For now, we’re still eager to hear feedback from you. Many of you check in daily, and we’re glad (thrilled) to have you with us. How can we make your ToolGuyd.com experience even better?
It is always nice to have some place to to keep ongoing discusions going without out having to remember which post was commented on. It is also hard to get a critical mass of posters involved with a forum to make it a worthwile place to visit.
RSS feeds are a nice addition to any forum as are email updates for those without feed readers.
I like standard forums (like phpBB) with subforums rather than the style of the example you posted from Buddy Press, but then again, I’m more old school than most.
Thanks for the input!
I did consider implementing a forum-based comment system, but that requires all commenters to register and sign in. Thus far I know that Buddy Press and vBulletin integrate with our blogging software, with the first offering better integration and the later a better forum environment.
We do have a full RSS feed and daily email updates for our daily blog posts. Our software also outputs an RSS feed for each posts’ comments section, with each feed updated whenever a new comment is entered. If this is something you want easier access to, I can hard-code a link to the feed at the bottom of each post.
I’ll take a look into phpBB and similar standard forum options, but that’s not really something that will be seriously explored at this time.
Thanks again for your input!
I gotta be honest Stuart. I never even noticed the addition of the Q&A forum to ToolGuyd and I visit everyday. I absolutely like the idea of being able to ask questions and getting different answers and opinions from other readers. Who knows, maybe I could even help someone else out with an answer of my own?
Maybe you could move the link over to the side of the page, so that it is more prominent and noticeable?
Love the site!
Introduction of the Q&A forum was mentioned here, but it was buried, and as mentioned we haven’t been promoting it at all.
The thing is, I don’t wish to host a full-fledged forum, hence the somewhat no-frills software we’re using. As mentioned, if there’s an interest, I’ll work on prettying it up. If not, it will eventually be shut down.
Thanks again for the input, and I’ll look into creating a more prominent link for this testing phase.
I’m happy posting comments and answering questions as we have been. Personally I don’t think we need another forum. Geez, there’s so many forums out there already.
Q&A forum has been shut down due to underusage and a huge spam problem that cropped up recently.