If You could Change one thing on this forum what would it be.

I have CP so my spelling changes all the time.

So a spell checker for me please.

someone did tell me there used to be one.

Forum Preview posts on the main screen - drives more traffic to the forum, makes it easier to use and to dip in and out, makes it better for blatant ads to actually work.

Also bring back the logos at the bottom of the page of people online - good way of improving profile and so on.

Good points Katie.

Not sure on the browser you're using but I'd expect there to be a spell checker plugin available? Have a look around and see what you can find.

The forum preview was useful I'm sure for driving traffic, i.e. how long can you keep your ad on the homepage of 4N !  In terms of usability I expect most people are happily conditioned to hitting today's posts now.  

For me, yes I can happily put together a query string in Google, but improved on site search functionality would be great.  Whether that hasn't happened because this is an off the shelf solution I have no idea.  This platform certainly isn't alone though, even the traditionals like phpBB suffer from similar weaknesses.

If that is too hard to implement, then a "find a" would be quite good fun.  That is, catagorise the businesses.  So you could choose from a drop down or whatever structure was deemed sensible to see a list of "Web designers" - and then read their testimonials.  It could well encourage people to be more active on here as well as stimulating lead generation sitewide.

I will check out the spell check thing.

Check Spell checker with a 4 word post very slow and took a good few minutes to do 4 words.

more pie

this.

And a new design, this one burns my soul.

Regarding people being conditioned to click "today's posts" I'd guess that the percentage of people doing that is very low as it's not an obvious feature, and from a usability point of view people react better to the obvious - they don't like to have to think or dig around for stuff.

The latest posts bit was obvious, and importantly pulled people in who were on the homepage and might not have otherwise ventured into the forum (or even know what a forum is).

Replacing this bit with links to latest articles was ill-conceived and - judging by the actual articles section, and the apparent average number of views, is a failed experiment.

The golden bullet of 4N has always been the forum in my view; it plays an absolutely crucial role to developing and maintaining the community.  Articles don't do this, therefore giving them priority on the homepage and relegating your biggest weapon to the background is nuts.

Though if they are brought back, it should be without the "Oooo" bit that preceeded the title of that section - it was "Oooo latest banter" or something equally troglodytic.

Agreed. And that's before you're looking at some of these mobile devices that get messy with drop downs.  I phrased it badly, if I start typing 4netw...  I get http://www.4networking.biz/Forum/TodaysPosts appearing as the first in the history...

The two things I would like to see is an easy business type / location (by county / city) finder and a further split into sub forums so that finding SEO, legal, health related posts easier. That or tagging.

Gary

notifications to keep track when someone replies to a thread you posted in

and maybe if each section was better defined 

 MB

Thankyou for pointing out the usability issues :)

I want a like button on the posts! x

Is the thread ok? or have to be the specific post?