Is CarWale Forum friendly enough?

Well, I am not talking about people. Of course, we are friendly people here.

I am talking about the software. How friendly is it? It's high time that we discussed the improvable areas. Let's start it again and I'll make sure that we have a very friendly software. Kindly share any kind of difficulty you face. It may include:

1. Difficulty in terms of posting, replying or starting a discussion?
2. Difficulty in terms of reading the posts, searching for something?
3. Forum categories are not proper? Need to be restructured? Need to have more categories?

What else? Anything! No matter how small or big the problem is, kindly share. I look forward to your replies.

Well first of all congrats to all the Moderators for the forum!

how about  multi quotes? can it be done? would be of help.
regards
binoy

Binoy,

Suggestion noted. I'll figure out the possibilities and get it done. Thanks.

What else, guys?

Dear Banwari,

 

Thanks for providing this opportunity.

 

I feel that the Search facility is good but is provided (top-right) at a place which is not immediately apparent. Especially for someone looking to post some info on the forums. Would it be possible to provide this option just above the first thread entry? I know there is a tab provided "Search Forums" what i was thinking of was, could we provide the search box too??

 

Bhushan

Banwari, here comes a lenghty one. I know these may/may not impact the FORUMS @ CarWale. These are just my inputs and if any of these could be of any help in anyway, i would be really happy.

 

• CarWale already has a forum (Travelogue) which is great for everyone. I mean though there are only 2 posts i was just plain surprised when i saw that 1 post has been read 4133 times & the other one 377 times!!! That's quite a lot. What i was thinking was when we have people post car-reviews, we could give them an option to mention details of some long travel which they have done in the recent past. That way we would have more posts and more interaction regarding 'Travel experiences'. I am sure anyone writing a car review would be more than happy to share details of a long travel which they have done in their favourite car!!

 

• Could we have some way by which we could help people plan their holiday or  travel? I see that CarWale has some advertisements which do the same. Maybe a more concious way, say another tab option next to 'Accessories, Community, My CarWale, Blog' could be a good idea. Maybe we could throw in a "India Map" facility which could help people find their way and plan their travel. We could also provide customized link (based on participant location) of travel options close to their place of stay, as these could be the place where they could travel in their cars. Well, I am just speaking aloud here. It may or may not make sense.

 

• I also feel somehow that people who participate in CarWale Blogs are generally who are not active on forums. Also there are many people who just write car-reviews and then either vanish or are just mute spectator (again my feeling, i could be wrong). I feel that if in some way we could have them know about each other (say for a blogger looking for SPARK details, we could have a message displayed "Would you like to know how other SPARK owners feel?" and then give them link to car-reviews & forums) then we could have greater participation. Same for the car-review providers too.

 

• I was very happy to see that we have a section called "Detailed Comparison Road-Tests" with some great contents @ http://www.carwale.com/research/roadtests/. Could we also have comparisons for some more cars which are pitted against each other in the market and preferably those cars which are under 'HOT SCRUTINY' more often in the discussion forums?

 

• This one is not any suggestion. But a request. Recently (well not quite recently) i read somewhere in the Blog that CarWale moved in to a new & bigger office set up in Mumbai!!! While i felt very happy that CarWale moved, i was kind of feeling odd that this was not mentioned anywhere in the discussion forums!! I agree i could have posted the same news too. But there was lot more participation from other CarWale officials on the Blog than the discussion forums. Could we do something about this?

 

• Another request. How about a duscussion forum (or any other option) meant to introduce CarWale officials / messages from CarWale officials / brief interviews from Auto industry experts? To start with how about interview with CarWale CEO? Some pics?

 

• Another request. Could there be anyway CarWale can encourage Car-deisgn freaks (i mean experts) to use CarWale as a platform for getting their designs rolling into the industry? That way CarWale can help young designers. Similary maybe CarWale can conduct car-races for eco-friendly designs on a smaller scale to attract real talent?

 

Phew!! Finally i am done. Hopefully these ideas could be of some help.

 

Bhushan

Yes, Bhushan. The search box will be provided right there, soon. Thanks for suggesting.

I also think there is a need of signatures? I will get it done soon as well.

Banwari, my old request - "Spell Check", please

Bhushan,

I go point-by-point to your long post.

1. Very nice idea. Yes, we have travelogues in our forums. Let's change the name to 'Travel Experiences' so that it's more generic. I will try for the cross-linking you have asked for.

2. I am not sure how relevant this would be. But anyways I will think about it. Maybe we can list of good locations where one can drive down to.

3. Linking thing again. I try my level best. Maybe we can have something of this sort.

4. I am not sure, what would be the role of CarWale in this. Yes, we, as members can always initiate a discussion comparing two or more cars. Yes, we can request CW to test a particular car or compare two cars in the same segment.

5. Very good point. I will make sure that whatever CW related news comes, it goes to forums and blog simultaneously. I will upload new office photographs in photos section tomorrow and then we can discuss them. Thanks.

6. Let me try with this one. I can interview CW CEO. Do you have any specific questions to ask for? As far as introduction of CW people is concerned, we are in the process of uploading short profiles of the top management team on the site. Maybe it can help?

7. Nice idea, once again. Let me think about it. Races etc would be a big task for time being but yes, impossible is nothing.

Banwari,

 

One more request. I have seen in couple of places that a participant can post a new thread without the the topic/header name. I understand that normally no one forgets to give that detail. However some posts do get created in this fashion without proper headers. (There are 2 threads at the  following links http://www.carwale.com/forums/ViewForum-1.html or http://www.carwale.com/forums/ViewForum-1-p2.html. Position of the tread may change as new threads might push this thread below). This thread has been created by Prashanth.

 

When this happens then others do not even get the link to open such threads. (Atleast i could not see how to access such threads). And if it is a new participant then he may not get any inputs too. It would be great if something could be done. Maybe force the participant to give the header.

 

Bhushan

Bhushan,

It's mandatory to write title when you start a thread but maybe it is some kind of bug. Will get it rectified soon. Meanwhile those two dummy posts have been deleted. Thanks.