What would you like to see here?
 

Hello

Soliciting ideas and feedbacks here. What are the top items you wish to see here on Canreef but are not available or not done quite as good as how you think can be.

It's an open discussion I want to have. As long as it's related to the hobby, not criminal in nature, and can help or enhance your experience or make your time more enjoyable, I'd like to hear it.


Ideas captured and my responses are logged here.

Titus

There go all my ideas! :)

I would like to see more write ups on different types of systems weather Berlin, zeo, prodi. Cryptic.

Canreef is by far my go.to place to get info and would like to.have discussion and info here rather than being redirected to RC R2R OR ZEO forums. I know we are a small community but believe it can grow if information is localized

First, would like to say thank you to you, Titus, for making such a great forum available to us. I have participated (and even mod some) on quite a few forums, incl other hobbies, and have to say, this is one of the best, if not the best, in terms of functionality, great people, and overall value to me as a reef hobbyist. I think a lot of credit has to go to the mods as well, esp Brad, for keeping us all in line. Hope you look after them, too.

Not much more that I could ask for. But a couple things that I might be interested in involve subscriptions. Would be nice to be able to subscribe (and get emails) to a thread without having to first post on it. Also would be nice to be able to subscribe to a member, so I can follow their posts. Of course, it is entirely possible that these capabilities already exist, and I just haven't figured them out yet...

Pretty sure that already exists under Thread Tools.

Yup, it is an option.

Hmmm, and where would I find Thread Tools?

Should be right at the top of the thread, right hand side.

Maybe this is here, but I would like to be able to find threads that certain users start. A compiled list….people are always saying "have you seen _____ tank build thread on Canreef?" Then I take forever trying to track it down.

Also, how to post photos…I have looked around and can't seem to find that….

And maybe both are here, but I just haven't found them yet. :)

Search allows you to find all posts by username or threads started by username.

We did a thread on posting photos, but it's quite old and probably inaccurate now.
I think most people prefer using outside hosting sites then linking, but we can work on a how to

Ahhh, there it is...., learn something every day. Thanks.

Would also be nice to subscribe to a member. Maybe provide that option when you click on the name?

I think it would be nice to see where the person is from before having to click the link, just to find out the seller is in ontario or alberta. Would probably save a lot of hassle.

You're from Abbotsford, right there in your post.

+1, maybe show Location right beside the name under the thread name.

Yea and the only way to see that is to click on my name or my post. And that to me seems silly. There is no separation between local and distant posts.

Not really an option for that unless the poster suffixes their title with location. We can't enforce that, so it's up to the poster. Some do, some don't.

Also, if I'm willing to ship an item, I wouldn't put location as it's not important to me, and I want the whole country to see it.

But really, clicking a link and then clicking the back button doesn't constitute a hassle in my mind.

Overall, I think it's best left to the poster of the item to decide how they want to advertise. The buyers can then decide (after clicking) whether they want to engage in shipping. I do agree that if you don't want to ship, add location to title, and more people are doing that these days. But from a manual intervention/enforcement view, I'm not checking each post for this.

You can't just make a bc for sale, an alberta for sale etc? Doesn't seem like it would be to hard. People would still have the option,and it would save time going through the posts.

Contest for junior members

Featured items of the month like zoanthid of the month or fish of the month

Would like to see the library updated

Search function rarely narrows things down to a specific

How about a I'd category just for identifying things people may not know about

I would like to see more important things sticky so they don't get lost in threads

For free category that equipment or livestock can go in



Lot's of things we can do and easily applied to both make the site fun and more user friendly

That's something I suppose we could look at, although for me, and a lot of people, I hit new posts and it isn't sorted like that. I guess it would work for people that use the board more for buying/selling, but that's never been a priority concern for us. I'll give that some thought though.

I always use the New Posts button on top where it lists all the newest threads. Couldn't Location be added right beside the Member name, underneath the Thread name?

It's not a big deal with me, but if it is a simple change, might be helpful to some.

My location is places lol :p

Thanks brad that would be cool. I also use the new post button a lot of the time, and totally agree with reef pilot. Just a lil location tag beside there name or something.

I don't think that's an option. There are also a lot of people that sign up with province or country instead of city.

Another capability that might be helpful is the ability to change the original thread title (not posts) for a number of reasons.

1. On a FS thread, could add Sold to the end of the thread name, and people wouldn't have to open it, just to find out that the item(s) are sold.

2. Some FS threads might change over time. Eg., the thread name might originally incl several items, some of which might be sold or not available later. Would then not be necessary to start a new thread, or have multiple FS threads to start, which just clutter up the forum.

3. Some topics change with time, and a name change could better reflect the current postings, again, without having to start a new thread. It is still nice to retain the original posts, to see where the thread has gone.

Again, another thing that I don't think is possible with the software. Editing is an all or nothing option, and All never worked out well. Perhaps Titus can look at available options for granularity in this area.

Hello

Okay assume for buy sell classified whatever you call it will be built from the ground up and we aren't working within the confines of the current software.

As for write ups yes I'm looking into having a series of different types of write ups from a panel of SMEs in house on Canreef. So nominate some names of who you wish to see doing the writings, from hardware reviews, chemistry, breeding, blah.

Shall we subsidize a university biology or chemistry or fisheries dept so they can identify ways to better do things like controlling algae or whatever? I don't know but maybe Canreef donate a tank setup and let them do their research on it? How should we set it up? What experiments we should do? Any universities or official bodies will be interested?

And then there will be reference libraries of corals, fishes, algae with pictures and characteristics. Each time someone post an ad it'd contribute photos to build this library?

I don't know what we will end up doing, how exactly yet but I want to invest in Canreef this year with some projects. I need some help here with ideas, or maybe even someone to help with running or writing or contacting universities, labs, whatever.

The more crazy ideas we throw in here the better we can do. Don't let the confines of vBulletin 3 / 4 / 5 limit what we can do.

Canreef member QR codes on a Canreef app so you get discounts from participating sponsors? I don't know. Sponsors broadcasting coupons to first 5 responding members? Put your brain muscles to work. Ideas.


Titus

What would you like to see here
 

Hello

Also for the location of seller thing, I think there is a way to find out via IP very accurately. Just that I have to pay to subscribe for a service. I'll look into this. It's almost 02:00 here so bed time for me. Go on please.


Titus

Maybe free sponsorship for some non-profit or public organizations might incent them to participate on Canreef. That would be great.

Also would be nice to get Vancouver Aquarium and Ripley's (in Toronto) to participate. I am sure they have a few little secrets about reef keeping that we would all like to read about.

I guess you guys don't have access to the source code, or the ability to add macros, hooks, etc? Of course, I realize that is often not a good idea, with upgrades, testing, etc,...

I would like to see a new logo. It would give the site a freshened and updated look :-)

1. Quick Reply
2. Cleaner advertising
3. More mobile friendly/App
4. Easier to post photos/have more photos. Not everyone wants a photobucket.
5. Sold button for Buy/Sell
6. Buy/sell based upon province/main cities
7. Less boring colors and layout

this
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http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1389897019

Ability to have replies to subscribed threads *always* be notified to e-mail (instead of just one, and then needing to visit the site to get more).

(might be a limitation on this version of the software)

It's a strange thing but I have noticed this behaviour as well. Sometimes I'll get EACH AND EVERY SINGLE reply to a thread that I've subscribed to emailed to me, but then there are times when I'll get NONE. Or sometimes I'll get one, and then subsequently posted replies I won't get. I suspect it's the algorithm within the software which gets buggered up. Maybe it thinks that it's doing you a favour by trying to avoid spamming you? I dunno. :noidea:

Yes I hit that then it tells me to hit some other quick reply icon. With all this icon hitting it's not that quick. I should just be able to type in the box then hit post quick reply.done.

You're right, the post quick reply box does appear to be broken ! I've nver used it so never noticed but you can't just click into the boxx and start typing, then submit as you suggested. That's how it should work. Titus, fix it! Please and thank you :-)

Although, you're really only saving yourself from 1 additional click. 2 clicks to post a "quick reply" rather than 3 clicks to post a normal reply :lol:

Should have a logo contest. ;)


As for the buy and sell I dont think it should be a bigdeal if you cant see the op location until youread ad. As braf said some/most are willingto.ship and some like myself post city within my headline.

After all its probably accurate that most of us have bought from online vendors anyway

A app other than taptalk would be cool

Also. R2R post alot of cool threads on there fb page this could bring alot more people to the site

I think having a university (or professional public aquarium) on board would be cool. Depending on what sort of time you could get from them, there are a few cool things you can do:

- Reef Mythbusters: there's a lot of BS hocus pocus in the hobby, as well as a lot of truly great stuff that gets passed off as anecdotal and snake oil. Universities are pretty bad for just passing off anything that comes from the hobby as a bunch of bologna (even though there is a lot more daily experience and creative power behind the collective hobby than there is in university settings), so having them prove/disprove some of the myths, methods, additives, etc would both help us as hobbyists and would also help the universities take us more seriously.

- Have the universities help us pioneer into better husbandry and help lower the bar on breeding programs. I think at least once a week I read or hear someone mention that for the hobby to be sustainable, and for us to start giving back to the oceans we love so much, that we need to up the game on breeding. For me, personally, I see my tank as a sort of Noah's Ark where I can show friends and family this amazing world that they never see and is quickly disappearing. Of all people in the world, we hobbyists should be the champions of preservation - not being accused of being parasites on the ecosystem (cough*** Snorkel Bob *** cough). For many species there is little to no financial incentive for breeding efforts, so free enterprise isn't going to step in to fill that roll. But if universities could teach us hobbyists, who arguably may love the ocean world more than our own children, we would tackle breeding simply as a labour of love. If we can make breeding easier so that it could easily be incorporated into an existing reef tank some how (ie. make it sexier than smelly fish rooms) we could start to make leaps and bounds.

- Public Institutions and education: I think this is where we could pair up with places like the Vancouver Aquarium. I've volunteered with the Aquarium in the past but (because they don't take hobbyists seriously) they weren't overly keen when I kept telling them that I'd happily bring in my own demo tank, teach reef classes and even personally take care of the reef tanks (often their corals make me cringe... They make so many rookie mistakes!). There is a lot they can teach us, a lot we can teach and give them - and together there is a lot we could teach the wider public. If the Vancouver Aquarium let a group of us look after the reef tanks I'm pretty confident they'd have the most pimped-out, sexy, spectacular tanks of almost any aquarium - and they'd have the most enthusiastic (maybe overly-enthusiastic) bunch of volunteers that would probably walk around the complex dragging people to come see said sexy reefs.

Aside from the universities, there are a lot of smart people on this forum. I know a number of them have published works with Advanced Aquarist and the like. We should be encouraging them to broadcast and share that knowledge here rather than sending it off to some place where most of our members won't see it. We need to incentivize them to stay here and be our experts.

I could keep going but need to get back to work (maybe Canreef should have a built in timer so we can only procrastinate for so long each day:razz:), but before I do I have two items I'd love to see change on the forum:

- Search function: it'd be smashing if the search function could take me to the exact text I am looking for rather than just show me the thread it's in and highlight it in red when I actually find it. I had to pour through a 24 page thread the other day to find one sentence I was looking for - should have been a 2 second search but instead was 15 minutes of frustration.

Advertising: I'm totally cool with ads here and I often click the ads to go see what sexy corals people have in stock right now (I honestly think this is the first time I've been aware of advertising actually having an effect of me). I like seeing the sponsors displayed - those guys make this site possible! But we really need something better than that ****ing sponsor thread summary monstrosity that plagues the front page - it really detracts from the site and I now often just use a bookmark that links me right into the forums (because I really just look at the buy/sell these days). The Monstrosity is particually a pain in the ass on a mobile device (where most of us spend our Internet lives these days). I've noticed that because I'm annoyed with the front page and just bypass it, I don't see what discussions are happening and don't participate anymore. I stumbled on this thread today accidentally by click the wrong forum link (like the Internet equivalent of taking the wrong turn at Albuquerque).

- Bring the library for the beginners out from being in the dark and buried annals to the front page and make it more than just stickied topics. People new to forums have no idea how to navigate these things and new reefers are so overwhelmed with jargon and just getting a grasp of what the heck is happening, they they never find or never think to look for the stickied articles. So we get the "how do I ...." posts and then someone makes some dick comment saying "Well, if you had ACTUALLY just used the search function..." (and we know how awesome that search function is:neutral:). Same as the idea above with having contributing writers to Canreef - let's make this site a repository for information. Let's find the best way to teach people interested in the hobby, people new to the hobby, people expanding their reefing skills and even helping experts who are pushing the boundaries of the hobby - buried forums and stickies are not the answer to that.

Thanks for the chance to bounce some ideas!

Totally agree with this Walter, I have asked for this as well and seems to make a lot of sense to streamline the forum more. I like the idea and also would like to see a persons location when a thread is written without having to open it to find out.
I must say that Canreef is very well run/moderated and enjoy it a lot, :thumb: keep up the good work.

YES!! This would be so handy. In the past couple of weeks I've had a half a dozen or so people PM me asking for frags from a for sale thread that I posted months ago that clearly stated that ALL ITEMS WERE SOLD! :twised: