What's the deal with edcforums?

[Andreas]

I found the site through google yesterday, but when I first try to enter the site was down. Later it was up, but required registration to see an image. I registered, but then there was a moderation system in place for new members, and 6 hours later I was still not accepted. Then now when I go to visit, the site is down AGAIN. When I actually was able to see the forum (though not what I wanted, i have to say it's one of the worst forum designs I've ever seen with extremely limited readability, even worse off than knifeforums. What the fudge is the deal with that site, that acts so amateurish about permissions, registering, has such a bad layout and seem to have serious stability issues?

[Grant Lamontagne]

I can't really comment on EDCForums as I'm not a member there, but lets remember that each forum has their own way of doing things, and their own reasons for doing things that way.  Cross forum bashing is generally considered to be in bad taste, and while I don't mind a healthy, constructive discussion on things, I think I'd be pretty unhappy to find folks crapping on another forum here.

We share a lot of members with EDCForums, and perhaps one of them could help you sort things out over there.

Def

[Andreas]

Well it wasn't really meant as straight out bashing, just wondering what is going on over there. Bashing is what was going on with bladeforums in a thread a while back  At this point though I won't become an active member there anyways - I consider it a principle that a forum should be easy to join and not make you jump through random hoopla, otherwise I take it they don't really want new members.

On a sidenote I do wish EDC related sites would invest in (user sponsored)  vbullitin, as these free forum software solutions are sub par at best. On here the design is at least good, but the basic features like searching etc still lack horribly. I consider edcforums and knifeforums to be outright unreadable due to the bad design.

[cerbera147]

This place will always be home but I do frequent EDCF occassionally.

There is a lot of great information, reviews and pics. More so for EDC type gear and bags 

I think the site may have become a victim of its own success  They have such a large membership which creates all kinds of confrontation and differing of opinion. Some people can put this across intelligently others can't 

Earlier this year they had total forum upgrade / facelift. I think it in universally regarded as a disaster  The site was down for ages, many members were locked out or completely deleted. They lost a lot of people during the Upgrade of 2010. Ever since it occassionally goes down.
One of my largest annoyances with the 'upgrade' was the way they changed how pics were shown. Here we can just post the Photobucket link, any pics on EDCF prior to the change it just shows the code not the pic  Also old links linking elsewhere in the forum no longer work.

I would persevere but don't expect a Multitoolesque type forum. As I said there is an abundance of information on a variety of things, just not the same atmosphere we have here

One other thing worth noting if you want to see their Buy/Sell section you need to have 15 posts minimum.

Mercury was / is a member over there, he may be able to assist further 

Gadgetguy may be able to help as well 

[Andreas]

Thanks for the info, sounds like a place it's just as well I stay out of then. I've come across such upgrade failures before and it's a nightmare to browse  - especially older posts.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Well it wasn't really meant as straight out bashing, just wondering what is going on over there. Bashing is what was going on with bladeforums in a thread a while back  At this point though I won't become an active member there anyways - I consider it a principle that a forum should be easy to join and not make you jump through random hoopla, otherwise I take it they don't really want new members.

On a sidenote I do wish EDC related sites would invest in (user sponsored)  vbullitin, as these free forum software solutions are sub par at best. On here the design is at least good, but the basic features like searching etc still lack horribly. I consider edcforums and knifeforums to be outright unreadable due to the bad design.

For the record, I do not care for vBulletin, and I think that SMF is a far superior platform.  To each his or her own though, and as each forum is different, as is it's needs for software.  We chose the option that was best for us after testing several different pieces of software.  If folks don't like it, there are enough other forums out there that I'm sure they'd be able to find one they do like.  I made my choice, now they can make theirs.

Additionally, I didn't feel there was any significant bashing in the BF thread- if you feel differently about it, we have a whole team of moderators that you can alert to such things in the future.  That's what they are there for.

Def

[Neil]

I must say I don't have any issues with the search on the forum.  Compared with the one over on KF its a breath of fresh air

I think the only thing I would like is the ability to search through my sent items rather than just the incoming PMs. 

This is the point someone shows me how easy it is to do that and I do this

[Grant Lamontagne]

I must say I don't have any issues with the search on the forum.  Compared with the one over on KF its a breath of fresh air

I think the only thing I would like is the ability to search through my sent items rather than just the incoming PMs. 

This is the point someone shows me how easy it is to do that and I do this

I'm pretty certain you can save outgoing messages, which would make it a lot easier to search them.

Def

[John]

I save my sent PM's and they're stored in my out box  

[Neil]

I do save them but how do you search them?

[Grant Lamontagne]

Once they are saved they should be as searchable as the sent messages?  I never tried myself, but it should be possible.

Def

[Neil]

It only seems to search your inbox 

[John]

Yep 

[Grant Lamontagne]

You can create folders within you PM inbox- only they are called "labels" and they don't actually move things.  But, you can create as many labels as you like, and search through them.  So you could have one for trades, one for addresses, one for items of interest etc.  The messages stay in your inbox, but if you are looking for someone's address or a particular trade, you can select that "label" and just skim through appropriate PM's.

Your labels appear as different options in the search feature, but I see the outbox still isn't listed.  I never used these features until now so I'm experimenting and sharing my findings. 

Of course, this is why I almost always quote previous messages.  Oftentimes I find I get a message with an answer and I can't remember the question!

Def

[Neil]

I tend to quote as well; as my short term memory has been shot by two small Bees     I'll send Micah a grovelling PM

[Andreas]

Well it wasn't really meant as straight out bashing, just wondering what is going on over there. Bashing is what was going on with bladeforums in a thread a while back   At this point though I won't become an active member there anyways - I consider it a principle that a forum should be easy to join and not make you jump through random hoopla, otherwise I take it they don't really want new members.

On a sidenote I do wish EDC related sites would invest in (user sponsored)  vbullitin, as these free forum software solutions are sub par at best. On here the design is at least good, but the basic features like searching etc still lack horribly. I consider edcforums and knifeforums to be outright unreadable due to the bad design.

For the record, I do not care for vBulletin, and I think that SMF is a far superior platform.  To each his or her own though, and as each forum is different, as is it's needs for software.  We chose the option that was best for us after testing several different pieces of software.  If folks don't like it, there are enough other forums out there that I'm sure they'd be able to find one they do like.  I made my choice, now they can make theirs.

Additionally, I didn't feel there was any significant bashing in the BF thread- if you feel differently about it, we have a whole team of moderators that you can alert to such things in the future.  That's what they are there for.

Def

Well I didn't say I minded the "bashing" in that thread, just that I found that to be more of a bashing than what was intended as the point of this thread.

Moving to another forum is also out of the question for such a minor detail, especially since this is where all the awesome people are

I do think the search is quite inferior to what I'm used to from vBullitin thought, let me take an example:

Some days ago I was bored and was browsing through Neil's EDCS listings. I know the picture he uses as his main picture on there is a custom made 58mm SAK, and I remembered reading baout it somewhere and wanted to find that post.
I went to the advanced search and figured it was somewhere in the mod section, so I told it to search for post be "Neil" in "the mod squad". What happened? It returned an error saying "Did you forget to put something to search for?". I had no idea what he'd written in the post and just wanted it to list all his posts in that subforum, but that isn't possible with simple machines - it is with vbullitin. (i did find the post eventually - the hard way)

Another "issue" (For me) is that when you do an advanced search in topic titles only, it displays the first post of that thread, some percentage showing "relevance", date/time and original poster. I find this rather overwhelming when I frankly just want to view a list of all the thread titles that fit the search. Vbullitin both has options for "search post/thread" and "show results as threads/messages". That way you can get it to show a list of only the topic titles, and that also makes room for showing what subforum it's in, number of views and number of replies.

I could list other examples too but I think this will do 

I've spent countless hours searching through the forum to find all the awesome mods people have posted so this is something that has annoying me quite a bit. To illustrate, here's the difference between our advanced search and that of a vbullitin forum:





As you can see the number of options differ a lot.

I don't know, maybe I'm the only one who have an issue with the search feature, in that case I guess I'll just have to live with it  

[Fisting_Chili]

I must say I don't have any issues with the search on the forum.  Compared with the one over on KF its a breath of fresh air

I think the only thing I would like is the ability to search through my sent items rather than just the incoming PMs. 

This is the point someone shows me how easy it is to do that and I do this

I would like to add an email alert based upon key words....like "give away", so I don't respond to a give away thread that is already over, like I've done a couple times now....

[Grant Lamontagne]

The nice thing about SMF is that people all over the world are building add ons and components for it, so it's virtually unlimited in it's scope.  No other forum software (vBulletin included) has that kind of support, and I don't think that $300/year is worth having a better search feature. 

That having been said, there are very likely some better search components available, and I'll be happy to look into them as add ons to this forum.  In fact, we have a thread going on about features people would like to see on the forum:

http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,14544.0.html

I can't guarantee that things will be done, but we do listen to member requests and try to keep this place easy and fun for everyone.

Def

[Andreas]

The nice thing about SMF is that people all over the world are building add ons and components for it, so it's virtually unlimited in it's scope.  No other forum software (vBulletin included) has that kind of support, and I don't think that $300/year is worth having a better search feature. 

That having been said, there are very likely some better search components available, and I'll be happy to look into them as add ons to this forum.  In fact, we have a thread going on about features people would like to see on the forum:

http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,14544.0.html

I can't guarantee that things will be done, but we do listen to member requests and try to keep this place easy and fun for everyone.

Def

I won't hold you to anything, but if it's possible to get some add ons for the search feature that would be awesome