New Forum Features - Explanation of the new things you are seeing.

New Forum Features


I have received a few questions over the past few months regarding the new icons and features that have been showing up on the forums. I have explained them vaguely, as most of this has been in the development stages and constantly changing. In addition, extensive testing has been taking place among many other forums during this developmental process. The software used for these features is now in the final pre-release stages and should become a “gold” or “stable” release any day now. I will do my best to explain these features here for those that are interested.

Linkbacks – The best way to explain this is to simply provide you with the link to the explanation given via the software developers. Click Here for an explanation.

The New Icons – By now, everyone has probably seen the 4 new icons within the posts in the forum. These are links to submit a post or thread to Digg, Del.ici.ous, Technorati, and Furl. These are sites that people submit articles, blog posts, and now forum posts/threads to if they like the content. It provides a new avenue for someone to view the content. If people like the content, they will often vote for it. The more votes an article receives, the higher is moves up rankings at these individual sites. Digg is the most popular of these. Getting enough votes or “diggs” to move you to the front page of digg.com can virtually guarantee you that thousands will view the content in a short period of time. Tehnorati works a little different, as Technorati searches for content on its own, must like a search engine does. Clicking on the Technorati link will simply take you to where technorati has the post published, providing it has been indexed.

What does this mean for this you and this website?
On many occasions, a member will put much thought and time into a post, providing the other members of the forum with some very valuable content, and/or an avenue for the beginning of a very informative and active thread. For the author of the content, it provides and avenue for potentially thousands of people to view your work. For the website, it provides and avenue for potentially thousands of new viewers to see the content available at this website.

What is the ultimate goal?
Getting your content viewed by an increased amount of people makes your efforts that much more valuable. Having them see your work at this site brings quality traffic to this forum, and will ultimately increase the amount of quality visitors and members who view this site on a daily basis. More people discussing the actual topics you come here to participate in results in a better experience for all of us within this forum.

Feel free to ask any questions, and I will do my best to answer them. All of this is fairly new for me as well, but if I don’t have the answer, I can most likely get it for you.

Well Mike, if it makes you feel any better, I just read this whole post and I'm still clueless.
Not really a big suprise though. I'm a computer moron. (I don't even know how to check my email except for at work.)

This is part of what the internet world refers to as "web 2.0". Many changes going on, with more gearing toward social networking.

Right now, it is something that is very new and confusing to most. For some of you, all of this may be something that you have no interest in. And that is fine, there is not pressure to learn it. For those that are interested, I will provide as much information as possible.

social what? LOL

social networking.....being able to find others that have the same interests as yourself and bringing people to the site that have interests in ATV's that might be on other sites.

Thanks for dumbing it down enough for me MT. LOL

No problem MC....didn't dumb it down though...just simply giving a pictoral representation explaining that Social Networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's social contacts by making connections through individuals. While social networking has gone on almost as long as societies themselves have existed, the unparalleled potential of the Internet to promote such connections is only now being fully recognized and exploited, through Web-based groups established for that purpose. .................LOL

MC...you're gonna have a serious headache in the morning.

You're tellin me.
I need to invest in a hard hat. LOL