Hey guys,

Im setting up a tech support forum at www.techtoast.com and need some views on how to improve the site.

What can we give? Free help, with some VERY knowledgeable people who are experts in every field of the computing and technology industry.

I made this banner:

[IMG]www.techtoast.com/banner.jpg[/IMG]

What do you think to it?

Thankyou for any comments

regards

tom

[etaf]

Hi, and welcome to the TSG forum

you need the experts to contribute and have a a history on the notes forum of problems being fixed professionally.

Have a good look through this forum, this is your first post - don't know how much you have read through here .

then look at some other forums and I think you will notice the difference here - thats certainly why i contribute,and having contributed to 5/6 other forums and also posted problems and seen the quality of answers here - this is the best of the best, in my opinion.

whats your motivation for setting up a tech forum????

good luck in the endeavor

My motivation:

Myself and 5 or 6 other people from computer/beta software support forums www.winbeta.org got tired of the spam and users posting nothing for the hell of it.

This motivated us to make our own forum, where we would enforce all the ideas we wanted to do to winbeta but were not allowed. The only reason i am admin is because 1) I payed for the domain and 2) my friend owns a hosting company so we can get free web hosting for it.

"you need the experts to contribute and have a a history on the notes forum of problems being fixed professionally"

I dont get what your trying to say there? Im not saying there are any actual problems with the site im just wondering if anyone can see any improvements that could be made.

Regards

Tom

[southernlady]

Tom, that's NOT what he's saying but if you stay around here long enough, you WILL learn that this is a different breed and just coming in and ANNOUNCING in your very first post that you are setting up a Tech Support web site somewhere else isn't the cool thing to do. You wouldn't exactly appreciate it if someone did it on your board, now would you?

Btw, I did go over and look at your site and I like the layout but I have a suggestion. I think you need an entrance to the forum before you actually get to the boards. Someplace that makes a person actually read the rules before they can get to the forum to read the boards.

I hope you stay in business because GOOD forums are overwhelmed. Liz

1) If someone came into TechToast to advertise their site, good on them, i like promoting other websites

Well a front page is in development atm using the IPB portal, but you cant post until you register, and when you register you have the read the rules. so thats covered

[etaf]

if you have 5-6 gurus who can help people solve computer related problems, or provide advice, have you considered helping out here.
Have a look at the secruity forum, there is not enough expertise overthere who are prepared or skilled to help out and decode and solve hjackthis logs and remove problems from others.
i have bookedmarked your site and wish you well.

[southernlady]

Tom, my husband and I are going to have a section on our business web site for security forums and we already have this one listed. Would you like yours listed as well?

The link to my web site is below, it isn't complete yet because the paperwork from the state hasn't come back so no product is listed. But we are online listing the forums You're welcome to join the two I already have. Liz

Yeah thanx alot wed love to be listed. When our portal gets finished Ill link back to you


regards

tom

[etaf]

i'm sure as its still in development you know this problem.
I could not open the rules - from the registration page
you may want to consider a section as described here
http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?t=280575

I also like the fact that you can PM and email here without the info being displayed - which you have

On the search - I often use the number of post - then look at posts with 0 post and see if i can assist people who have not had an answer.

You may want to split out the operating systems so
win95/98 seperate from win2000 and XP

are you going to address any web development support ? you may want a forum for that.

I liked the way http://tek-tips.com/ forum had seperated its forums for word/excel/sql etc and your subscried forums are available on the lefthandside - This was the forum I used the most before finding this one.

and the way http://www.annoyances.org/ has like top tips available. (i dont like how the forum displays post btw)

I like the learn section in http://www.photo.net

There has also been suggestions for just a hijackthis logs forum - have a look in this forum for the feedback on that idea

Wow thankyou very much, I will review every section of your post and they should be effective within an hour or two.

You guys rule!

regards

tom

[etaf]

after registration it does not auto log you in - but in fact gives you a warning.
i think a note acknowledging that you have registered and that your name has been accepted, and then some sort of auto logging page

[etaf]

the profile does not provide a grade for skill - i quite like the self-assessment skill being displayed - you can then use this to also make decision on the advice..... ( i know it can be rubbish toooo.) also are you putting in the contribution - in terms of junior member - senior member and distinguished member - with number of post. This is also a useful guide.

I have not tested - but the spell check here is brilliant.

The test of your site will be how successful and with what speed you provide the CORRECT and simple answers.

I have disabled post count, it is an un-necessary evil in my opinion, and the opinion of the other users who have helped set TechToast up.

I will consider putting a skill in but im not sure about it

I dont think that IPB has a built in spell check but its easy enough to implent with the use of the bad word filter so i will definately look into that!

Regards

TOm

[southernlady]

Actually I think a post count is helpful. It lets a person know, esp if it's a senior/distinguished member...know if someone is a newcomer to the forum and can word their responses accordingly. Sometimes that DOES make a difference, kwim?

And the spellcheck has been a blessing! Liz

THe spellcheck i impleneted was just through the banned words filter on IPB2 and added commonly mis-spelled words and relatively unknown acronyms with appropriate replacements.

We have a decision to not have a post count, at the forum most of use have come from (winbeta) the post count attracted people to post for the sake of getting a higher post count which isnt what its about, its about helping people out and that wasnt getting done.

We are considering implementing an experience field as you have here but its still in consideration

Regards

Tom