suggestion to ebay : please upgrade your forums

[karanmalik]

Hello,
I have found the ebay forums to be copletely stale and technically speaking, in the stone age.
The internet is abuzz with such powerful forums which allow members to do so many things such as create polls etc etc etc and above all, look appealing. I bet its the antique looks of the forums thats keeping away all the members from using it!
some suggestions, maybe ebay could pay up the relatively small fee and get installed the best board there is, vBulletin. phpBB, invision are some other good alternatives.
Maybe ebay could send a scouting team to find out whats best suited to them!
Surely a makeover is necessary for the boards.
What do u say guys?

[snrama]

Good suggestion,

There are many good forums and eBay can also implement by phpBB. This will certainly improve no. of visitors. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[emailswarup]

Hi,
I hope eBay will consider this. Best Regards 🙂
Swarup Dutta
Kolkata

[karanmalik]

would be nice to know what ebay think of this?

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi All,

This is a very interesting thread, and we will like to learn more from you on the kind of changes that you will like to have on the discussion boards. I checked up the providers you mentioned, and they seems to have powerful tools with lot of features.

We will like to understand:
-Which are the features that you have seen on other forums that you will like to have on eBay?
-What are the features that you like on eBay forum?
-What are the features that you do not like in eBay forum?

For benefit of all members, here are few other forums. Please feel free to give in your feedback, be it related to features, look and feel, fonts, color or anything else.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=5
http://forum.mamboserver.com/
http://forums.ikonboard.com/

Warm Regards,
Sapana

[snrama]

Hi Sapna,

I liked http://forum.mamboserver.com/. Its really good and have not seen many with this cool look.

I suggest eBay to implement this. Hope others also likes it. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[emailswarup]

Hi,

Can we expect some more variation in fonts and some animated "emotions".

In eBay logo we have Red, Blue, Yellow & Green alongwith Black & White (Background). But any individual pages are mostly composed of around a single color tone. e.g., The Community and Auctions pages are mainly of Yellow tone and the My eBay pages on bluish tones. I think if you use atleast dual tone of colors (included in the logo) for each page then it may be more attractive for many of the members.

A new look can increase bidding also !!

.
. Best Regards 😄
Swarup Dutta
Kolkata

[karanmalik]

Yes I think looks are very important...a changeover to a much more attractive colour theme is urgently required...
coming back to what sapna asked, what more features are required?, well here are some of them :
1.like i mentioned before, a poll. This lets users get opinion on subjects. I think polls are vital for any forum.
2.Heirarchial users : If a pro forum or a CMS is installed, then all users are categorised in heirarchies, and certain ranks to given each and everyone. such as all ebay guys can be in a category called the moderator. And each moderator can be given a certain forum under his 'jurisdiction' as such. Members like all of us can then be categorized as Senior Members, Members, Juniors, Freshers etc etc depending on the number of posts they make. This is all done automatically by the CMS. The functions available to a Snr Member or a Fresher all remain the same, but surely members who post more need to be told that they are important.
Also then, depending upon contributions to the forum, some members can be 'rewarded' with a promotion to the moderator group for say 2 weeks or 4 weeks. And during this time they over see the that everything is done properly in that subforum. Its a great way of increasing participaion.
3. then off the top of my head, I can think that a CMS would give a more pro feel to a board. Really, ebay should do some beta testing with some of the forums. There are like a million features in every CMS service which can be activated or deactivated as per their wish. So you can actually program ur CMS to look something like the current board (which is pathetic) or turn it into some really attractive looking and feature flowing board, all in a few minutes.
Lastly, I would like to suggest Joomla. Its one of the best CMS available. Have a look at it at http://forum.joomla.org/

Mambo is good, but uts functionality is less, and it gets stuck and clumsy at certain stages of operation.
I will surely post more if I get any fresh ideas.

[sastaitshop]

What ever the cahnges 2 things are important

Simplicity for every one to understand

and

The speed or responsivness of the forum. We dont want that to be affected.

Regards !!sAsTaITsHop!!

:) Sunny 🙂