Competition forum & visibility of recipes

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
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I've been hesitating replying to this. I'm always willing to put in time but I'm unsure what we would be doing and whether it would be possible to organise it in any meaningful way. I have real problems with the format of the forum (not the fault of the moderators at all!, )partly because threads just 'disappear' from view. It means that people can post almost anything as a new thread and other threads then disappear off the (visible) radar. Recipes are new threads but so are any questions or even random thoughts that people choose to post as a thread - so it all gets jumbled together with no sense of order. I think if we were to feature a country's recipes we would need a visible part of the website which people would always see when they logged in. I think the recipe challenge suffers from the same issue. I know the featured post 'banner' caused problems and had to be removed, so I don't know what the solution might be. :scratchhead:
 
morning glory said:
partly because threads just 'disappear' from view. It means that people can post almost anything as a new thread and other threads then disappear off the (visible) radar
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I'm assuming that you mean once they are off page 1 of the view you forget about them because they are no longer on that first page and visible. This was one of the reasons for introducing tags and how searching using the tags, assuming that tags have been added (and one of the reasons for the system automatically scanning the title and adding any preexisting tags it finds) can be exceptionally useful.

There is a chance, a small one that we may be getting the featured threads add-on back. It's a case of watch this space so to speak.

Oh and the sharing feature of Pinterest and pinning things now works, so you could always pin recipes that you want to keep track of now, should you use PInterest that is. I'm considering creating an account to keep track of one's I like, but for now I'm sticking with my age old solution of printing them off and sticking them into my cookbook!
 
Its not to do with me wanting to keep things. I can use the tags or whatever as you say. I spend a of of time on the site and so I know what has been posted. I'm thinking of how a regular feature appears to other members who probably don't have the amount of time that I have. At the moment, unless they already know about the recipe challenge, for example, there is no reference to it on the first page so they would be unlikely to find it. Obviously the tags help - if people click on my recipe or yours they might well notice the tag and then click on that. But its not direct, if you see what I mean. I think on most other sites, if there is a regular competition or feature it has its own section which is always visible on Page 1 for people to click on.
 
morning glory said:
Its not to do with me wanting to keep things. I can use the tags or whatever as you say. I spend a of of time on the site and so I know what has been posted. I'm thinking of how a regular feature appears to other members who probably don't have the amount of time that I have. At the moment, unless they already know about the recipe challenge, for example, there is no reference to it on the first page so they would be unlikely to find it. Obviously the tags help - if people click on my recipe or yours they might well notice the tag and then click on that. But its not direct, if you see what I mean. I think on most other sites, if there is a regular competition or feature it has its own section which is always visible on Page 1 for people to click on.
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I hear you and understand what you are saying. I could create a competition section in its own right, perhaps as a sub forum of the lounge (?) or higher up the tree (?) but this forum software sadly doesn't allow for any other format (that I know of) and I can only work with what we have. Changing forum software isn't an option. Do you think we are busy enough or that there are enough competitions to warrant a sub forum solely for them?
 
morning glory said:
Recipes are new threads but so are any questions or even random thoughts that people choose to post as a thread - so it all gets jumbled together with no sense of order.
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We ditched the idea of recipes and ingredient discussions being separated early on in the sites life because members were mixing and pushing both anywhere. That was the reason we introduced the recipe tag. That drop down bit prior to the title where you select recipe. It you want to see all the recipes in an area of the site, just click on the word recipe and it will filter out all non recipe discussions and show you only recipes. (I'm not just telling you this, this is for the benefit of everyone who reads this because I suspect you already know this).

As per here: www.cookingbites.com/threads/marking-recipes-as-recipes.5139/

I could easily do the same for the lounge with the competitions and add that prefix in to filter out the quizzes and competitions. Do you think that might help? I can't post them on the front page, but I can change the order of the forum and move things up, so that perhaps the lounge was higher in the order?
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I hear you and understand what you are saying. I could create a competition section in its own right, perhaps as a sub forum of the lounge (?) or higher up the tree (?) but this forum software sadly doesn't allow for any other format (that I know of) and I can only work with what we have. Changing forum software isn't an option. Do you think we are busy enough or that there are enough competitions to warrant a sub forum solely for them?
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I think that possibly a forum for 'Features' and 'Competitions' might be a good idea... but I hear what you are saying about interest. However, perhaps if 'Competitions' was top of the tree (not a sub forum of Lounge) we might get more interest and entries.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
We ditched the idea of recipes and ingredient discussions being separated early on in the sites life because members were mixing and pushing both anywhere. That was the reason we introduced the recipe tag. That drop down bit prior to the title where you select recipe. It you want to see all the recipes in an area of the site, just click on the word recipe and it will filter out all non recipe discussions and show you only recipes. (I'm not just telling you this, this is for the benefit of everyone who reads this because I suspect you already know this).

As per here: www.cookingbites.com/threads/marking-recipes-as-recipes.5139/

I could easily do the same for the lounge with the competitions and add that prefix in to filter out the quizzes and competitions. Do you think that might help? I can't post them on the front page, but I can change the order of the forum and move things up, so that perhaps the lounge was higher in the order?
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I'm thinking about this.... give me time overnight! I'd be interested to know what other forum members think.
 
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The thing with competitions is they are always being replaced.
What was a competition two weeks ago, might not be now. Unless the tags are removed by the system then it falls to the poster to remove the tag. Moderators(are there more than one one on a daily basis?) would then have to check that only current entries competition are tagged.

You can choose how what you see is displayed within each section. Just click on the top bar. You can see oldest replies first, by response number, title in alphabetical order.

As for random facts, you get used to them, and where to find them.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
There is Shaun, site owner and myself, a staff member. Nothing more on this site (chowdownbob is a staff member but is not very often around to the point of not being counted which he acknowledges himself) .
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So it'd be yourself having to do it?
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
We ditched the idea of recipes and ingredient discussions being separated early on in the sites life because members were mixing and pushing both anywhere. That was the reason we introduced the recipe tag. That drop down bit prior to the title where you select recipe. It you want to see all the recipes in an area of the site, just click on the word recipe and it will filter out all non recipe discussions and show you only recipes. (I'm not just telling you this, this is for the benefit of everyone who reads this because I suspect you already know this).

As per here: www.cookingbites.com/threads/marking-recipes-as-recipes.5139/

I could easily do the same for the lounge with the competitions and add that prefix in to filter out the quizzes and competitions. Do you think that might help? I can't post them on the front page, but I can change the order of the forum and move things up, so that perhaps the lounge was higher in the order?
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Not sure I'm quite understanding this. Are you suggesting a prefix of Quizzes and Competitions or a section for Quizzes and Competitions?

To put it simply. I just think we need a visible presence in some form on Page 1 for the Recipe Challenge so a section of its own high in the tree would solve that. Or it could be a section called Quizzes and Competitions. I don't think this is an issue that can be sorted out with tabs or prefixes.
 
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