Obsolete The ZooBeat Forum Structure Experiment

Simon Hampel

Simon Hampel

Administrator
Staff member
20+ year member
I've been working towards building ZooBeat into a useful information and reference site about zoos worldwide, with three main types of information:
  • Discussion (forums)
  • Photos
  • Geographical information (satellite maps)

My goal is to have the three parts of the site integrated such that for any particular zoo, you can easy find the discussion threads, the photos and the geographic information - and navigate between the three types of information easily.

We have a large number of different photo galleries (one per zoo) to cater for all the photos being uploaded, and I've been busily creating the geo information with links to the zoo websites, information on Wikipedia and the Google satellite maps of the zoos (where I can find them!).

The other part of the equation is of course the forum areas. With the huge growth in membership and post volume - and more and more discussion about zoos all over the world, it can be difficult for people to track down information about the zoos they are interested in.

I want to separate out the discussion about different zoos into different areas of the forum (with the logical grouping being by region / country) - so I've been creating a new discussion forum for each individual zoo - to go with the one photo gallery per zoo.

However, as already noted by some members, this makes the forum area a bit cumbersome to navigate. I was aware that this might become an issue - and have spent quite a bit of time thinking about it. I decided to keep going with that plan initially to see how bad it got.

... but I've been thinking about alternatives for structuring the discussion another way - using fewer forum topics.

The latest version of the forum software that we are now running has introduced a new feature called "thread prefixes", which allows us to assign a special identifier to a thread when it is created. Using this facility as a base, I've modified that functionality to introduce the ability to designate which zoo a thread belongs to.

This then allows us to have a single discussion forum for each country (doing it by region would simply see too many zoos to deal with), with a pre-defined list of zoos in that country being made available to assign to threads that are created.

I've started by using New Zealand as an experiment to see how effective this new structure would be. I've moved all of the threads into a single forum "New Zealand", and assigned each thread to a zoo as applicable (some threads are general in nature and not about a specific zoo).

When a new thread is created, you can select the zoo it relates to:


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... note how you only see a list of zoos for New Zealand. If you go to the Australia forum and create a new thread, the list of zoos will be Australian zoos only (once I've set them up).

The zoo name then shows in the thread title:


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... and in the list of threads for that country:


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You can restrict the thread display to show only threads about a particular zoo by clicking on the zoo name in the list, or using the filter options at the bottom of the thread list:


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... which gives you this:


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The zoo name shows up in search results too:


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I'd be interested in people's thoughts about this new way of organising the threads and forums. If you can go and have a bit of a play in the New Zealand forum (New Zealand » ZooBeat Forums) - create some test threads if you like (I'll clean them up later if necessary) ... and let me know what you think.

In summary, I would create one forum per country (grouped into regions like they are now) and will create a list of zoos which threads can be assigned to.

Note that for some countries (eg UK / US / Australia / Germany, etc), the list of zoos will get quite long ... but it's only something you have to deal with when you actually create a new thread.

Feedback?



.
 
It looks like a really great idea, but I think you should wait to see if the current system works or not. I will still try it though.
 
That's quite a slick new system. A couple of questions:

What happens if you forget to assign a zoo name to your topic? Can it be assigned via an edit to the original post?

What happens to topics which aren't about individual zoos, but which may be about all the zoos in a region, or individuals of species across a region?
 
Hi Sim,

The new proposed features look great!

The current site is now more and more on a continental basis. Some postings are obviously still in wrong continents and threads, f.i. the "overseas tuataras" in the Africa??? continent. That is still worth checking.

Another feature that is not yet fully hands-on and user-friendly is the fact that we seem to have lost the newest postings in fat bold on top of the re-arranged continent basis (the larger the continent and the no. countries and no. of zoos ... the less prominent the fat bold is). You thus really have to dig deep to find a new posting or a thread you would like to comment upon. We are then at a danger of not fully using the forum to its full capacity.

I hope you can look into that ...!

By the way, is that you in front of Upsala glacier in Argentina .... just mighty magnificent ... is it not???

Cheers,

Jelle
 
Chris79 said:
What happens if you forget to assign a zoo name to your topic? Can it be assigned via an edit to the original post?
Click to expand...

Yes, the person who started the thread can go back and add the zoo name at any time. If you don't initially choose a zoo, it will be classified as "no zoo" (which you can also search on - showing all posts which aren't assigned to a zoo).

Chris79 said:
What happens to topics which aren't about individual zoos, but which may be about all the zoos in a region, or individuals of species across a region?
Click to expand...

The idea is that you would not assign it to a zoo - it would then be considered to be a "general" thread. If you look at the example in the NZ forum, there are several threads which don't have a zoo assigned - they are the ones which are not about a specific zoo or are about something other than zoos (eg bio-security).

There would be one forum per country - but if needed, I could also make a "Europe - General" forum and "Asia - General" etc, for those discussions which are not country-specific too.
 
jelle said:
The current site is now more and more on a continental basis. Some postings are obviously still in wrong continents and threads, f.i. the "overseas tuataras" in the Africa??? continent. That is still worth checking.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's probably because the "Africa" forum was originally the "Other Zoos" forum ... I haven't got that far in my re-organisation yet.

jelle said:
Another feature that is not yet fully hands-on and user-friendly is the fact that we seem to have lost the newest postings in fat bold on top of the re-arranged continent basis (the larger the continent and the no. countries and no. of zoos ... the less prominent the fat bold is). You thus really have to dig deep to find a new posting or a thread you would like to comment upon. We are then at a danger of not fully using the forum to its full capacity.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I fully follow what you are describing here.

To find new posts, the quickest way is to use the "New Posts" feature (or "Today's Posts" to find threads updated in the past 24 hours).

The current structure has all of the posts down at the zoo level (Region > Country > Zoo), while previously there were some posts at the country level. However, you can get the quick "overview" of which forums have new threads in them by clicking on each of the continents (to see zoos from all countries), or each individual country (to see zoos just for that country) which have new posts in them. I could have made this display at the top level - but I didn't want to have an incredibly long home page for the forum - was getting too cumbersome I feel.

The new system will go back to being closer to the old system, in that I will have a list of countries (grouped by region) at the top level and you will be able to see from the home page which countries have updated threads in them (since all zoo threads for a country will be in the one forum - not spread into one forum for each zoo). Like you can currently see on the forum home page for New Zealand.

Does that make sense?

jelle said:
By the way, is that you in front of Upsala glacier in Argentina .... just mighty magnificent ... is it not???
Click to expand...

Actually the photo is me in front of Glacier Spegazzini, which is just around the corner from Upsala.

Where Upsala is the large and long glacier, Spegazzini is the very tall one, with a face well over 100m high. I have some photos which make the glacier seem impressive, until you see the other photos (like below) which show a large triple-deck boat closer to the glacier to give you a sense of scale - then the glacier seems incredible! The boat below is still several hundred metres away from the foot of the glacier.

[photo=8725;509;2008-02-15_-_40D_4585.jpg]Glacier Spegazzini, Glaciers National Park - El Calafate, Argentina[/photo]


... here's Upsala - the other boat is at least half a kilometre away from the glacier - they wouldn't let us get much closer due to it calving massive icebergs:


[photo=8726;509;2008-02-15_-_40D_4512.jpg]Upsala Glacier, The Glaciers National Park - El Calafate, Argentina[/photo]
 
After having used the new structure I have to say I prefer this one, but I think that we should wait before more people comment before anything should be changed.
 
I like the update, I really don't understand the structure, but I will get it sooner of later. Maybe put a different picture, cause the lions getting old. You could possible have a contest and people vote for the picture to go up there and maybe change it ever month or so, if it's possible.
 
It's interesting to see that when I reply to a thread and then click on "new posts" I can no longer see the thread. It mysterious disappears, as before I could still view the thread under "new posts". I see that I can scroll down and click on "today's posts" to find all of the postings...voila!

Overall the changes are excellent, and since the photo gallery has really gained steam lately then perhaps it was due to have a major section for itself.
 
snowleopard said:
It's interesting to see that when I reply to a thread and then click on "new posts" I can no longer see the thread. It mysterious disappears, as before I could still view the thread under "new posts". I see that I can scroll down and click on "today's posts" to find all of the postings...voila!
Click to expand...

Actually that's always been the case - "New Posts" only show threads you haven't read yet (or haven't read since there was a new post in them). As soon as you view a thread (or reply - which also implies viewing), that thread disappears from the "New Posts" search - until there is a new post in it from someone else.

"Todays Posts" shows threads that have been updated in the past 24 hours.

I've now added a link to the Todays Post search from the "Search" menu in addition to the existing one in the "Tools" menu.

Note that if you are not logged in, you only see the "Todays Posts" search option, not the "New Posts", since new posts needs to know who you are to be able to work out which threads you haven't read yet.
 
I really don't like this new method, it isn't clear enough for me.

I really like the way that the European forums are organised at the moment, I find it easier to navigate...
 
Sun Wukong said:
How to add a new zoo to an already existing category?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you need?

The changes that are gradually being implemented see forums organised by country.

Within each country there is a list of zoos defined for that country, and when creating a new thread, you can choose which zoo it relates to.

If the zoo you want to write about isn't listed, just choose "no zoo" initially and then let me know so I can define a new zoo for that country.

Of course, if your thread is general in nature and not about a specific zoo, you just post in the relevant country (or region) forum and select "no zoo".
 
Writhedhornbill said:
I really don't like this new method, it isn't clear enough for me.
Click to expand...

What is it you are not finding clear enough?

The new system just sees all discussion threads grouped by country.

If a thread is related to a particular zoo it is also assigned a label for that zoo (chosen by you when you create a new thread).

If you are looking at a list of threads for a country and want to focus on a particular zoo, you can filter the list to show only threads labelled with that zoo - which gives you exactly the same effect that you have previously seen where zoos have their own forum.

Note that none of the European zoos have been set up this way yet - I'm still working on the US zoos.
 
I just really like the way that the forum is currently set up, especially for the European zoos where there are more zoos per country.

I suppose I'll get used to it in time.......
 
Writhedhornbill said:
I just really like the way that the forum is currently set up, especially for the European zoos where there are more zoos per country.
Click to expand...

It was an experiment to set it up that way - but once I actually started creating all of the zoo forums, it was becoming a nightmare to manage - especially since we now have discussion about over 300 zoos worldwide!

Just give it a bit of time - once I've finished migrating all of the existing forums to the new structure, hopefully things will start to become more clear for you. If necessary, I'll revisit the way things are labelled to make things more obvious.
 
I liked the new system, but when I made a test post I couldn't find out how to delete it.
 
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