Welcome to New Forum Administrators

[haselhurst]

Hi All,

Knotty, Aireal, Rob, Northjetty, Nigel are now Administrators.

I set this 3 days ago but found out that I had to specify this in 2 different locations in Administration Panel.
So now you should find that you have an "Administration Panel" link near bottom of forum pages that allows you to do everything I can do here regards changing forum layout.

Please feel free to explore - but try not to change anything till we have discussed things more.

I am currently looking at latest forum updates - it gets complicated as i have used mods (from able2know.com) to make forum more SEO friendly (search engine optimisation for Google etc. - mods make dynamic urls static, removes SIDs)
(http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html)

However, i do not think mods work that well - in fact i do not think Google treats any forum very well - assumes that they are full of chatter rather than important knowledge.

So then I wonder should I just download and use latest version of phpBB 2.0.21 (currently I use 2.0.15, about a year old) - or should I wait as there is a new release coming soon of version 3 (up from version 2 of past few years).
http://www.phpbb.com/development/

Then there is also software i can buy for $100 that claims to make phpBB more Google friendly. Seems to make sense when I read about what it does - but I am no expert in php code!

Currently i am reading phpbb website as they also offer a free SEO mod for their forum software.

Anyway, sorry to confuse things - its just that if we are going to re-design forum, we should do it from the best software foundations.

I will keep working on this over next few days and see what i can come up with.
Will be in touch.
Geoff

[Steve Anthony]

Hi Geoff,

No more 'knotty' for me!

This is my first glimpse from 'behind the scenes', so i'm not remotely tempted to change anything (other than my own creation, 'knotty' name). However, I do notice facilities for things like 'group emailing', which would be beneficial for admin purposes, I think.

Maybe it would be prudent to concentrate our collective time to getting this forum 'organised', and as 'professional' (but also 'user-friendly') as we can agree to make it, before sending more links this way? - As ever, I bow to anyone else's greater previous experience with such things.


~steve~ (Sorry Rob, pilfered your wave idea - hope you don't mind! )

[haselhurst]

Hey Steve,
Like the new name and image - good on you!

I am making some major changes to forum software - have been at it for 16 hours now - first stage of updating to latest 2.0.21 version of phpBB seems to have worked OK - now to add SEO mods!

Hopefully it will work and you will see this post.
Cheers,
Geoff

[Rob Peritz]

Hi Steve Anthony~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hey I own these~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~lol~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~a good name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~by the way
-rob

[Steve Anthony]

Hiya chaps,

Glad you like the new/old me.

Just a flying visit, as I came home to a family crisis this evening, so may not be able to post for a few days.

Keep up the fantasic work everyone!

~steve~

[northjetty]

Cool waves rob, I like them. I also liked your idea about havng the forum catagoried to match the topics of the site. Then the conversations will be in accord with the subject matter at hand, good idea.

Steve, I like the new you, I couldn't remeber how to spell your other screen name.

Any ways, thanks for having me on as an administrator Geoff and hopefully we can all do the site some justice. I enjoy the website and would certainly be happy to be an administrator.

northjetty/the cosmos