Best Living - Community Manager's blog

[#1]

Community user interface upgrade

You may have noticed some changes to our Community Forum.  Last night our forum platform was upgraded to a new user interface.  Here are some of the changes:

• New layout for user profiles. Now has the user's recent posts featured conveniently at the top.
• New terms used around the site. For example, topics replace threads and avatar instead of icon.
• Removal of the user dashboard.
• Users now have the option to change their date style to relative. This friendly format is "about an hour ago" which is cleaner than the standard "7/17/2009".
• Kudos is now built into the small user info at the left of a post. You now give post's kudos by clicking the star under the user's avatar. To the immediate left of the star is the posts total kudos.
• With the cleaner post design, more posts are viewable at once. This allows for quicker reading through a topic.
• Search has been completely overhauled. There is now just one search with a drop down for the scope of your search. From the home page your choices are for a community or user search. While looking at a board or topic the search options are for community, category, topic or user.
• The introduction of confirmation and feedback messages for selected actions.
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We hope you find the changes pleasant as having the new interface will allow for more functionality with our community in the future.

We're thinking about a new name for the Community Forums

We think it is time to ignite the community conversation for ideas on a new name.  Currently, our official name is "Best Buy® Community Forums."  We have been itching to come up with a new name for a while now.  We really would like some input from our community.  Have any ideas on a new name?

We're dabbling with the name "Technology Unboxed."  What do you think?  We could have the icons for boards be open boxes.  Thoughts?

We're still learning

We also want to point out that we are still growing and learning.  Although, we're rapidly approaching our one year with the forums, it is still new to us.  We're open to your feedback.  In fact, we encourage it.  This is a community after all. 

[#2]

I personally am not sure I like the new layout of the forums...I'm getting used to it, but...reserving judgement for the time being. I had more constructive things to say about it, but now, I've forgotten!  Wait...why can't I ever find the little option for the smileys? I hope it's just the computer I'm on (not my normal one), but I haven't been able to find the option for the smiley faces for sometime...

[#3]

Hi Miranda, the new look and feel for the Forum is still evolving.  In a new message the smileys are seven options from the left -- I'm using Firefox.  I hope you find the smileys.  Gina

[#4]

On my reply options, I have 3 tabs, Rich Text, HTML and Preview....default pulls the Rich Text.

From the left, I only have 5 options: B (Bold) I(Italics) S(Strikethrough)  and then a grayed out option to add in a link, and a picture of a tree to add in an image. That's it.

I'm on a computer that's got Windows XP (in the Windows 98 theme...I didn't pick it), and I'm on IE at the moment.

[#5]

Hi, I checked in IE.  In a new message I have the option for smileys, but in blog comments there doesn't appear to be smileys in either IE or FireFox.  I will have Matthew investigate.  Thanks, Gina

[#6]

Maybe it is just the blog comments where I don't have the smileys. I've not paid that close attention...I'll let you know!

[#7]

Nope, you're right. It's just in the blog posts that I don't have the smileys, but do in the rest of the forums. Okay...now I don't feel nearly as crazy.