About the new forum setup...

I would like to know why all the bitching please be civil and explain why you dont like it. Also i will put a poll to see how people react.

it's too confusing - people post threads with title "i got approved" or "When will we go STV?" and that leaves NO ONE with ANY idea what website they're talking about. also, it was easier to see if there was any news concerning the website you were currently working on. if the thread was red, you knew something in it was new.

Just like everybody else has been saying, too chaotic

If it ain't broke, DONT FIX IT!

Too confusing. There are too many threads for different sites, and let's say you want to find something for freedigitalcameras - unless it's in the topic, you [b53082b60e9]have[/b53082b60e9] to use the search option. Too confusing, difficult to navigate, and just chaotic.

We also have to look through way too many topics to find the one we are looking for.

from my post in the gratis section about the new setup

This forum was superb because when you were looking for information on one of the offers, you would go to that forum and see all the posts related to that offer. Typically a quick scan would result in finding a topic matching your question or one that you thought interesting.

I completed freeipods and many of the other sites a long time ago - posts regarding those sites don't interest me anymore and I don't have current information to assist anyone struggling through that process. I want to be able to focus on those sites that I'm actively pursuing and communicate with other members who are at similar stages as I am. Having to wade through multiple pages deciphering which offer a thread is about is a time-suck.

I know it'll get libetterli as folks put the offer in their title - but the site you're looking for might be referenced in one thread out of every 10...

No one just looking over the site doesnt go to EACH little freesite forum to see if someone needs help on something..its a good idea to group each thing into one, so people can help others better by not doing much work. People just need to label their posts better. This way, the forums generate more traffic.

How many posts do you need to be able to vote in the poll?

I like it - and I've now arranged my forum in a similar fashion. There are too many sites out there which leaves a bunch of inactive forums. Sure it has it's downfalls - but I'm going to be honest - 90% of the time I only look at the Off-Topic forum. The other forums are just too much of the same to hold my interest.

30 i think.

[quote6ce1614d07="FreeOffersNow"]I like it - and I've now arranged my forum in a similar fashion. There are too many sites out there which leaves a bunch of inactive forums. Sure it has it's downfalls - but I'm going to be honest - 90% of the time I only look at the Off-Topic forum. The other forums are just too much of the same to hold my interest.[/quote6ce1614d07]

This is probably due to the fact that you have completed the majority of the freebie sites. I think mapStuart said it best. When you're working on a particular Gratis site, you're only concerned about that site, not the 9 other Gratis sites. Now you have to filter through everything to find what you're looking for.

People need to better label their topics

Personally I think SOME of the forums could have been combined. The forums that get SEVERELY heavy traffic like freeipods,freepsps should still have their own forum. New forums should be added as traffic increases for say FreeDigitalCameras was kinda slow but was picking up.

Why am I not a mod LoL

And even if they do (which will take a lot of time), we will still have to scroll-down like crazy to find a particular thread about the site we're interested in.
Take freehandbags for example - in every say 20 threads, there will be one for freehandbags, 10ish for freeipods, and so on.
Like mapStuart said - what if we have completed the site long time ago, and can't help the new guys?

you dont have to have a certain vote count i just wanted to see a general idea of the thoughts of people...this poll doesnt mean things are gonna change

/me brings attention to the forum's search[=http//forum.freeipodguide.com/search.php]search function

im not going to vote, i am kind of nuetral at it, its true that Gratis is not the only major free site thing but its the most popular so i liked those forums, its not bad, since they werent used that much but its not a whole lot better either.

[quote6d7c0e911f="Stroid"]you dont have to have a certain vote count i just wanted to see a general idea of the thoughts of people...this poll doesnt mean things are gonna change[/quote6d7c0e911f]
Yo stroid. I like the new layout... good job. However for those too slow to understand the concept of it, perhaps you should put the individual forums as sub forums. IE

Forum Index
-General thing
-->Off Topic
-->Other general boards here
-Trading
-->Trading forums here
-Free Sites
-->Gratis
---->FreeIpods
---->Freeflatscreens
---->Other Gratis sites listed
-->Offer Centric
---->mp3players4free
---->All the other OC sites

ETC

Basically the only ones we view on the index are thsoe categories and the ones that are --> not ---->

Make sense kinda?

actually Admin made the changes not me ;)

Well tell the admin to do that P

I don't like it.

I never use the search feature.

[quoted94f995010="Stroid"]actually Admin made the changes not me ;)[/quoted94f995010]


if stroid did it, you would all be drooling, not that the admin is bad, its just that stroid is too good to do something like that!

[quotef561171b35="Vector"][quotef561171b35="Stroid"]actually Admin made the changes not me ;)[/quotef561171b35]


if stroid did it, you would all be drooling, not that the admin is bad, its just that stroid is too good to do something like that![/quotef561171b35]

Thanks for the complement but actually admin is very good with the design of this forum its all his work overall

[quotebda3b2609a="Vector"][quotebda3b2609a="Stroid"]actually Admin made the changes not me ;)[/quotebda3b2609a]


if stroid did it, you would all be drooling, not that the admin is bad, its just that stroid is too good to do something like that![/quotebda3b2609a]

Y-you got a little brown thing on your nose.

I hate the new format, it is confusing and will drive site traffic away, confrats.

[quote152df12cd3="theysayjump"]yeah i have to agree with most other people in this thread its not a good idea.....its fair enough to have a rule that everyone has to have the site in the thread title but how many people read the rules as it is? especially newbies........i didnt see any problem with the way it was before. you knew where shit was, if you didnt want to read about freehandbags questions you didnt have to.........if someone does want to read or post a freehandbags question, then they are going to have to go through every other thread (im assuming freehandbags is the least popular so therefor gets less threads, topics whatever) before finding a question about freehandbags.

oh well, thats just my 2 pence[/quote152df12cd3]

thats what i said in the topic in the gratis discussion board.

I used to love having the FreePSP section together as I was able to communicate easily with other people going through the same wait as me. If it doesn't go back to original format, I'm leaving this site as I'm not wiling to spend 30 minutes wading through clutter that doesn't relate to me.

[quoted4a156320c="FreeOffersNow"]liFreeOffersNow brings attention to the forum's search[=http//forum.freeipodguide.com/search.php]search function[/quoted4a156320c]
I don't know - search results are never structured very well. With the old setup, I would frequently just stay on the forum for the offer I was currently pursuing/worried about. It was a big help to know there were others in the same boat as me when XBOX's weren't (and still aren't) shipping. Similarly, when Tiger was launched it was helpful to see at a quick glance what people were discussing regarding it and the recently shipped Mac minis - whether we qualified, what options we had, and later people's experiences as they exchanged, etc.

It's now just so chaotic. Its one page pulling in various directions. Even finding threads I was previously watching and participating in has become a chore. Sure, I can watch the topic for replies, but then everytime I quick reply it unsubscribes me (that's a bug that should be fixed). Even then though - I like to reserve watching topics (and the subsequent email alerts I get) to the select few I'm really wanting to know about replies.

Anyway, the sad thing is, this poll and potential bitching and moaning probably won't really change anything - I'm not sure the admins can revert it easily - it would probably be a fairly large task now that everything has been disassociated and new threads have been started.

I don't like this. Too cluttered.

[quote8a8db3b659="mapStuart"] I'm not sure the admins can revert it easily - it would probably be a fairly large task now that everything has been disassociated and new threads have been started.[/quote8a8db3b659]

yeah im not sure that we can unless we got back to when the forum was last backed up and i dont know how often that is done or if that would do anything

To all the haters that think we dont care about your opinions i have spoken to the Admin and he is making a few changes to the new format of the forum i hope everyone likes it

I think how it is now, it kind of goes in between what the other two were which is good.

Sweet. I see the new forums up. For which will you have them?

just ipods and psp the rest are under gratis

Also another addition is coming to the gratis forum that everyone should like

oooh the suspense.

now how about getting rid of the prizecube forum and maybe adding one for all other unrepresented sites. cool4free, get4friends, freenotebookpc, etc.

K i will do that but is prizecube gone for good for sure

Post Icon system now installed. I'm going to edit them to be meaningful, now.

[quote884f9b1336="RealtorKen"]Personally I think SOME of the forums could have been combined. The forums that get SEVERELY heavy traffic like freeipods,freepsps should still have their own forum. New forums should be added as traffic increases for say FreeDigitalCameras was kinda slow but was picking up.

Why am I not a mod LoL[/quote884f9b1336]


Thanks mods for listening!

[quote2e9e5d8420="RealtorKen"][quote2e9e5d8420="RealtorKen"]Personally I think SOME of the forums could have been combined. The forums that get SEVERELY heavy traffic like freeipods,freepsps should still have their own forum. New forums should be added as traffic increases for say FreeDigitalCameras was kinda slow but was picking up.

Why am I not a mod LoL[/quote2e9e5d8420]


Thanks mods for listening![/quote2e9e5d8420]

It was our pleasure...dont hold back if you feel something needs to be changed.

viva la revolucion!!!

I voted that I disliked it. As a Forum Admin on 3gupload I often came here to get info on the free sites because it was quick and easy to find things pertaining to my questions. I love categorization and the easier a site is to browse the more positive the experience. Hope this helps

yeah i have to agree with the above post.....if you cant find your way around quickly and easily then you wont stay long.

Not that it will do much good, but I thought maybe we could resurrect the discussion here a little bit. I was wondering if the mods/admins can tell if post-count has been adversely affected by this new change? Seems to me like there have been considerably fewer posts in the non-PSP/iPod forums. It certainly is nice to have PSP and iPods separate, but its still hard to keep track of some of the other offers. The icon system is nice, but since there's no way to filter the list just by an icon, it just tends to add to the clutter.

Anyway, no hate here, but it just seems like we tried to fix something that wasn't broke and now are trying to figure out how to reintroduce some of the convenience that used to be inherent in the system...