Rachel, when I first came to WildCam Africa, there was a marvelous resource for newcomers, called NG Wild Cards Flora & Fauna, which had pictures and information about many of the animals, birds, reptiles and plants to be seen at Pete's Pond.  It was a tremendous help to me, so I bookmarked that page, and often gave the link to others seeking that kind of information.

I tried to do so again today, and discovered that my bookmarked links now only go to the new main page.  There is plenty of information on the new main page, but unfortunately the web designer left off this excellent and educational resource.  Is there anything you can do to get this restored for us?  Thanks.

 I only have one real concern really, when you post using the "quote" button, there are so many hard returns in the post.  I think that eliminating the extra hard returns would cut down the size of a quoted post.  I always delete them out when I use quote and reduce the spacing when I hit enter to make it single spaced instead of double spaced.
Thank you for listening.

 Don't suppose this is possible, but wouldn't it be great if we could go back to a certain date?  Then when we have been away we could get right back where we left off. I have just been away for almost three weeks and although it grieves me to say it, I simply can't trawl through about 300 pages!  (Although I am sure there are those who would) I just don't have that much time.  I would read them, I just can't look that far back. Does that make sense?

I have a suggestion, but I'm not sure if it's possible here and I'm not sure how to explain it.

On another forum I use, when you use the quote button, it only posts the last quote instead of all the quotes in the post.

LAP:

 At the top of the thread list there is a box that says "Write A New Post". I think it should say "Start a New Thread". Too many people do not realize what they are doing when they hit that ... Thanks.

Inside the threads where the box says "Reply", maybe it would be helpful to say "Write a New Post" instead and then have the options to "Quote" etc like it has now....

Just give me time, I can think of a lot of things - - - lol

 At the top of the thread list there is a box that says "Write A New Post". I think it should say "Start a New Thread". Too many people do not realize what they are doing when they hit that ... Thanks.

As you can see in my previous message, some words are in color and underlined. I use the spell control of the Google toolbar. Misspelled words are marked and by clicking on them you get suggestions to correct. But on THIS forum those marked words remain marked, and the only way to get rid of it, is to use the HTML editor.
So this is another flaw in the software. It never happens on any other forum or Blog, so it must be something in the root of this forum.

Yesterday and again today I received e-mails and PM notifications that are VERY old! I send those mails and got those PM's more than TWO months ago . . .

The PM's are already removed from my postbox here on the forum. I did that weeks ago. I don't understand how these messages can be sent again, without the original senders knowledge.

It seems that whenever some flaw of the forum gets fixed, another one arises. Yesterday I couldn't get back in the forum at all, after a quick look in the S&S topic.Pages simply didn't load and no error message or whatever appeared.

 Rita made this comment  " i think a nice feature would be to upload pictures directly to the forum instead of having to go to photobucket or tinypics" I totally agree. On another forum I'm on we can also use something called attachements that you get out of your own files of scapes that you save. Also on a falcon forum we had a new thread for each week & then moth as there were less sightings. Pages loaded a lot quicker that way. The bird & animal ID threads should be stickies on page 1 since I'm sure a lot of people use them. My humble output

Rachael NGS:

Please put all of your suggestions for our new forums here.  Thank you!

 

 Dear Rachael:

Thanks so much for all the hard work of everyone associated with the NGS wildcams!

Would you please have the forum link on each Wildcam open in a new window instead of going to the forum from the camera window?  I'd like to be able to keep watching the animal or bird in one window while I switch to the forum to find out its name or how long since it was last seen.  My computer gets slow and cranky when I have to open a second duplicate Wildcam feed in order to access the forum. 

I also agree that it's good to have the date and time of a post right on it.  If memory is an issue with keeping all the older posts, perhaps they could be transferred to an achives link on another server after six months or so, to be available for people to read later if they wish.

For some of the people having problems logging in with Firefox or accessing the feeds in Windows, one thing to try is to make sure you have updated to the latest version of the browser you use and its supporting operating system software, as well as Real Player's.   For example, in the last two weeks I downloaded Firefox 3 and Windows Service Pack 3 for XP.

 Welcome Rachael...I agree with what everybody else suggested.

My own request is for the numbering system to be used again - and the viewing numbers, too. 

Thanks for keeping the forums going - I enjoy it lots!

 hi i would really like a new way to upload pics

 Is it possible to incorporate a translator program on the new spiffy forum..coming soon..

 The username and/or password cannot be validated, or your account is locked out or has not been approved yet.  I get thisd message when I try to go to the forum  in firefox. The strange thing is that I can get om the forum when I use IE

what do I have to do to get my password back in Firefox?? I hope you can help me NG people

 There used to be a time placed at the top of each post and we could see how long ago it had been submitted  That helped us to know when a member had asked a question or made a comment.  It would be very nice if that could be returned.  As it is right now we have to just guess how old a post is when we answer it. 

A time clock would also be nice.  A bit of information on the page to tell us what time it is on each of the NG forum chat pages ie: Petes Pond, Kakadu, Bears etc. That would save us from trying to keep up with the various time zones or having to go back to the main check. It is one more item that will allow for the free flow of conversation.

And by the way, while I have your ear, very nice job to the folks who designed the new main page. It's well done, great choice of colors and easy to find what you are looking for.

Thank you for your time and effort.  I know that it's not easy to please everyone.

Bonnie

ps. Sorry, I almost forgot.  Welcome Rachael.  I hope that you enjoy your time with us.  We can be a fun group.

How about a section of the forum where we can go for updates on connecting problems - If others are having problems and post them, then we know it is not an individual problem.  Notices from NGM about camera up/down/issure - whatever.

Right now, the wildcam Africa does not load for us (2 of us, either at work nor at our individual home computers.  I sent you the exact real player response through the connect option...

It would be helpful.

Thanks,

Jeanne5442

Don't worry!  The old forums will not be deleted.  We've made sure of it (we agree with you, they are valuable).

Rita:

 So I have to wonder, with this New From Scratch forum, do we lose everything that we have here? That would be More than just ashame, there is much we search back here to remind us of events

I can't imagine that with switching to a completely new forum, this one would be deleted! Closed and kept for (re)search is the thing to do!
Maybe with the help of volunteers things like links to pictures, video's and bird- and animal identification can be copied and transferred to the new forum.
That would make it much easier to find something back. It IS important to keep all the data of sightings and special happenings safe and accessible.

BUT DO NOT DELETE THIS FORUM, IF OR WHEN A COMPLETELY NEW ONE IS CREATED ! PLEASE !

Would this mean that NG is changing to completely new software for a forum? I hope it is phpBB version 3.

That will give you a great set of tools to organize ALL the forums within one index. It also will make it easier for the members to use. And the possibility to upload pictures directly from the computer in a message is also possible in phpBB.

One of the main ideas we are working with is providing a place for viewers to upload photos (screen shots, that is) and videos from WildCam within our own National Geographic web community.

You might want to take a look at the Media gallery attached to the Hancock forum
http://discuss.hancockwildlifechannel.org/index.php ---> Media Gallery
http://www.hancockwildlifechannel.org/mediagallery/index.php

The members can create their own album and sub-albums, for pictures ánd video's. What is missing in this gallery is the easy way of generating links for pictures and/or video's and thumbnails. Photobucket, Imageshack, Tinypics are sites that have this feature which make it very easy to post from an album into a forum-message.

So if that could be added to a gallery such as Hancock's, that would be great.

Am I correct in assuming all the webcam forums will be new? Then you could make a category for each one of them and sub-forums  in those categories. Within the sub forums you can create topics.

Maybe it is possible to create a special channel at Youtube? Storing video's will require a LOT of server space.

A Pete's Pond Youtube channel where everyone who is making recordings would have to have access to. For that the username and password for uploading to that channel would have to be send to each person by e-mail. For each NG webcam a separate channel could be made.

I'm sort of "thinking out loud" here of course. Maybe you people have already thought of these things and options.

 So I have to wonder, with this New From Scratch forum, do we lose everytning that we have here? That would be More than just ashame, there is much we search back here to remind us of events

I do hope you can keep the forum posts the way they are. It has been mentioned many times how other forums are hard to read ( and older eyes have an even harder time). I know these new ning sites are popular but are less personal than this setup...which in my thinking is the best.

I also like that we can add threads. Most threads are thought out before being added. Yes, there are new members that don't understand how to post and add a thread instead of Reply. It has been suggested many times to have simple guidelines on how and what to post. please consider something to help the new members on the first page.

We can help them with their avatar and picture taking..Thanks for listening

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for all of your suggestions so far.  Some of my colleages have suggested that I clarify a couple of things about the suggestions for the new forums:

In the past, we have asked for feedback on our forum performance and features.  Over the past several months, we have researched ways to implement those suggestions and have discovered that we don't have the capability with our current software to accomplish them.  Since we now have the opportunity to start from scratch to create a new and improved forum for you, we wanted to ask for any ideas you had , which we will consider in conjunction with the suggestions you have given us in the past.  One of the main ideas we are working with is providing a place for viewers to upload photos (screen shots, that is) and videos from WildCam within our own National Geographic web community.  The new forums will be up as soon as we work out how to have all the features we want, though I can't give an exact time frame at the moment.  Please feel free to contribute any thoughts and ideas you have about the new forum.  We look forward to seeing them!

 This is a thought not a suggestion. Many folks here don't realize this forum supports all the wildcams...grizzles, polars, cranes, seals and Kakadu. This is a forum with a lot of content. This being the largest of them all, yet all cam forums have the same issues

The grizzles start hopefully next week..fingers crossed ...and a lot more people will be posting many many posts to that forum...I didn't notice a Heads-up about new forum suggestions there???

Just noticed that this topic is on the SECOND page! Now, if there was ever a topic that needs to be on the main (index) page and is made a sticky, it's this one for sure.

On the first page there are a few topics that don't need to be a sticky at all. I would suggest that only the "New S&S", "Daily highlights" and "Video's and Screenshots" get a sticky.

The rest of the topics can than "travel" back and forth, depending on how much posts are made.

Also you could consider a new category, especially for the topics about id-ing animals and birds and put the video's and screenshot topic in that category too.