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Upcoming Changes To Fpn


wimg

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Dearest Friends and Visitors of our Little Fountain Pen Nuthouse on the Digital Prairie,

 

It is time again for some changes to the structure of FPN, and for a few additions too, in order to keep up with the times. We have received many suggestions over the past few years about creating possibly a different way of approaching the forum structure, adding a Chat room, being able to give feedback on traders/sellers, adding possibly a few more regional forums, being able to email other members straight from the board, especially with regard to Classifieds listings, etc.

 

Despite seeming a bit reluctant, for good reasons (a.o., the work involved ;)), we do listen, and over the last few weeks the entire Moderator and Admin Team has been looking at a more logical segmentation and grouping of forums, adding a few forums, and making it easier to navigate FPN. BTW, something we started doing a few months ago already, but are finalizing right now in a more frenzied fashion ;).

 

There is still some work to be done on this, but we are getting very close to implementing this new structure. You will find some will stay the same, and other parts will change in more dramatic fashion.

 

1. First Stage, Chat Room

The first stage of implementation will be the Chat Room, as that has undergone plenty, and enough, testing, to implement it here on our live board. It does mean we will be off-line for a while however, as the set-up and configuration interferes with normal operation. An announcement will be made here, prior to us going live. The Chat Room has been skinned for the Library skin as well, so if you prefer the sophisticated, easy-on-the-eyes look of the Library skin, you will have the opportunity to use the chat room in the same style :).

 

Access to the Chat Room will be through the tabs at the top of window, underneath the header area with our logo, IOW, where you can now access e.g. Classifieds, Blogs, etc., there will be a chat room option (tab) as well.

 

2. Stage 2 or 3, Trader Feedback

We haven't decided yet whether a Trader Feedback system will arrive before the new forum structure, as that depends a bit on the speed with which the skin is updated to reflect this feature as well.

Access to Trader Feedback will be through the profiles.

 

3. Stage 3 or 2, Forum Structure

The forum structure we may update bit by bit, as this also involves a lot of moving of topics by the entire team here.

 

The biggest changes will be to Community Centre and News categories (forum groups), and the General forums. The Community Centre and News forums will be merged and be at the top of the Forum list.

Next category will be the Market Place, a name we will restore. I guess it will be obvious which forums you might find there.

The change to the General forums will be that we will now make a more consistent division between the three main parts of concern to fountain pen lovers, namely fountain, dip and other pens, inks, and of course paper and pen paraphernalia. Review forums will be moved into their specific areas, where they really belong. We will also change the name of the First Stop forum, it will be a fountain pen forum, and we will add a forum for all writing instruments which aren't fountain or dip pens. The latter as per one of the requests we have had many times over the past years.

And as mentioned, the regional forums will be extended. First of all, as Conway Stuart no longer exists as a company, we decided to change the forum into a Great Britain brands forum, together, obviously, with all other British pen brands. We will add a few other regional forums as well, lightening the load on some of the other forums :).

 

Past the pen forums, you will be able to find all Ink related forums, with another addition ;), and below that again the Paper and Pen Paraphernalia ones.

Finally, Creative Expressions of course, minus Ink mixes, which will now be part of the Inks category.

 

In short, categories and category order will be:

1. FPN related news, and Welcome, plus the Community Centre in a single category (essentially putting all FPN Community related forums together)

2. The Market Place

3. Writing Instruments

4. Brand focus

5. Regional Focus

6. Inks

7. Paper and Pen Paraphernalia

8. Creative Expressions

 

4. Stage 4, Email

We are busy testing this particular option, it will likely be implemented last.

 

5. Stage 5, Preparations for the new board software in development

In addition, the new version of the board software, which is currently in Beta, requires some changes to the database. This will require a conversion of our current database to a different database language group. We will start testing this on our test board once we are happy with the testing of the changes of stage 1 to 4, and will implement the database changes only thereafter.

 

Before the year is out, we hope to have implemented all of the above features, except no. 5. We will keep you posted of our progress, and will keep posting announcements in this regard as well.

 

To Be Continued ....

 

Warm regards, Wim

On behalf of the entire Moderator and Admin Team.

 

 

the Mad Dutchman
laugh a little, love a little, live a lot; laugh a lot, love a lot, live forever

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Yeah, it's looking good, if I may say so........

 

 

 

D.ick

~

KEEP SAFE, WEAR A MASK, KEEP A DISTANCE.

Freedom exists by virtue of self limitation.

~

 

 

 

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Wim,

 

Thanks for the heads up and good luck with all you're doing for us :thumbup:

 

Brian

Grace and Peace are already yours because God is the Creator of all of life and Jesus Christ the Redeemer of each and every life.

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Sounds exciting! As always, your work is appreciated. :)

Pelikan 140 EF | Pelikan 140 OBB | Pelikan M205 0.4mm stub | Pilot Custom Heritage 912 PO | Pilot Metropolitan M | TWSBI 580 EF | Waterman 52 1/2v

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Thanks for keeping us informed, and many thanks to all the moderators and admin staff who spend so much time to keep this place running!

"To read without also writing is to sleep." - St. Jerome

 

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Thank you all for the kind words, it is much appreciated, by the entire team!

 

Warmest regards, Wim

the Mad Dutchman
laugh a little, love a little, live a lot; laugh a lot, love a lot, live forever

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Thanks for the advance notice to prepare Us. Change is difficult for some to process, but is also necessary.. FPN is a high volume forum in constant growth.

 

Those of us who've been around for awhile understand such changes have been ongoing behind the scenes, laborious, and are necessary to continue.

 

Thanks for including many requests for improvements. I for one knew you were listening, but understand you all have real lives beyond FPN too. So the complex changes don't occur with a quick snap of the fingers, with a "Make It So" decree. ;) It's been quite amazing to see FPN flow and grow to aid the new influx of global pen enthusiasts, while keeping it family friendly introducing young ones, as well as rich with general adult pen world interest.

 

So I patiently wait with excitement! Let me know if there's anything I can do otherwise to be helpful

All the best,

p2p

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This sounds wonderful, Wim; best of luck and thanks for yours and the mod team's hard work. Chat implementation really sounds interesting and challenging, but I know your team is up for it.

Best regards,
Steve Surfaro
Fountain Pen Fun
Cities of the world (please visit my Facebook page for more albums)
Paris | Venezia

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Thank you all!

 

It is always true that changes will bring some good stuff, while other aspects may be less good. It always is an act of finding a balance, where the improvements outweigh the possibly less good aspects.

 

We are also busy cleaning up the board while we are at it, so that any changes will be a lot easier later on.

 

Do note that some of the work done will bring an automatic post recount with it, which means that in many cases the post count of members may go down a little, due to removed double posts and similar things.

 

Warm regards, Wim

the Mad Dutchman
laugh a little, love a little, live a lot; laugh a lot, love a lot, live forever

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Great changes...

 

Not to throw a spanner on the works...was thinking, how's about a dedicated Pay It Forward sub-forum? I've navigated the 2014 PIF thread a handful of times, then leave as it's totally overwhelming with everyone posting PIF's, drawing, winning, all over each other. It'd be so much easier to track ones own PIF thread within a PIF sub-forum.

 

Hopefully there's place for one more change :)

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A Great Britain brands forum....sounds interesting

 

I also think a Pay it Forward forum is a good idea as the thread is too unwieldy to find anything

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Let me just say we are thinking of a solution for PIF, Loaner Pens, and similar things as well, We just need to establish something that works, first, however :).

 

IOW, no promises just yet, but we do realize that these are subjects which require a different solution than a very long topic.

 

Warm regards, Wim

the Mad Dutchman
laugh a little, love a little, live a lot; laugh a lot, love a lot, live forever

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And merging the Cross and Wahl- Eversharp forums into the Miscellaneous (Other) Brands forum?

Why would you want to do that?

 

 

D.ick

~

KEEP SAFE, WEAR A MASK, KEEP A DISTANCE.

Freedom exists by virtue of self limitation.

~

 

 

 

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