I want to thank everybody who participates in the forum and comment threads on this website. We're still working out the kinks and today I got an e-mail from a really good forum member that was fed up with posts continually being caught in the spam filter. Trust me, no one is more frustrated about this then me, and I sincerely apologize.
I created a new user level today called "Stella Trusted" that will allow trusted forum members the ability to post to the forum without being checked by the spam filter. This will lead to easier posting, with your message getting through each and every time.
As of now, I still have to manually add users to the "Stella Trusted" data base but I hope to somewhat automate this process in the future. I've already taken the liberty to add the names of people to this account level that have recently posted on the site that are obviously here for the right reasons (i.e. not spammers).
I'm also getting ready to fund another round of website fixes and upgrades with our programmer. If you have any ideas on how we can make this site easier to navigate and more user friendly, please don't hesitate to let me know by replying in the comment section of this thread.
These are the users that have been added to Stella Trusted. If I've forgotten you or you think you belong on this list, please shoot me an e-mail or private message:
- Amado Plaza
- BrianShaw
- Egarcia
- JoeB
- labradors
- Mastayoou
- MDRedwood
- Megan Smith
- mike T
- msiviour
- Oto
- Pete
- The Yancey
- Wisconsin Limey
- Zalbar
Issues that I already have on my list of website to-do's:
- Allow user to link and login with FaceBook account (or you can keep your accounts separate, whatever you prefer).
- Having a login field at the very top of the page.
- Instead of getting an "Access Denied" error when trying to comment but not logged in, it will tell you that you need to log-in and then redirect you back to the page that you were trying to comment on.
- Navigation menu is hard to read. Different font and style to make the navigation bar easier to read, especially on tablets and mobile devices.
- Comment notification sent by e-mail needs to link directly to the comment and also contain the comment text in the e-mail.
- Newsletter form needs to load last in the side bar. Right now It loads before the main content section which slows down page loads.
- Social icons at the bottom of the page are all jumbled and not easy to use. Also need to add the ability to share on stumble-upon and reddit which are both convenient ways to keep track of information you want to access again later.
- Fix bullet points in side bar so that text with more then one line is aligned top left relative to the bullet point.
I think that's about it for now. Other then that, I would love to hear your thoughts, especially concerning usability and ease of navigation.
Thanks!
Jacob