Give me ONE suggestion

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed May 19, 2004 9:51 pm

How would you make this forum or website better?

You won't hurt my feelings...I feel like getting something started and I need opinions.

KCDowntown · Post by **KCDowntown** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:17 pm

This might have been mentioned before, but I'm tired of seeing big pictures in the footers.

KCDowntown

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:31 pm

big or any?

KCDowntown · Post by **KCDowntown** » Wed May 19, 2004 11:08 pm

Just the large ones. It is a lot of scrolling sometimes. Some threads look like we're discussing Angel Berroa's silver car.

Just my opinion, not trying to insult.

KCDowntown

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Wed May 19, 2004 11:10 pm

no that's fine....guidelines should be put on there...I pulled up the Angel pic just to thwart STL_Dan's cardinal picture.....would you suggest just a shorter one or just say nothing down there, only on the left hand "avatar" picture?

KCDowntown · Post by **KCDowntown** » Wed May 19, 2004 11:25 pm

I would say make them a little smaller height wise. Wider really doesn't matter as long as it doesn't push the table outside the boundaries of the page.

The OneKC banner up above is 29 pixels high.
Your Angel pic is 217
And the Silver Car is 282 pixels high.

On a 800 by 600 res screen, which would probably be the lowest (vertically). More common is the 1024 by 768 screen so there it is more than third of the screen. Personally, I think that is excessive and boring to see over and over and over again.

Just to quantify what I think is a reasonable size I would say 115 pixels high and 400 wide.

Anything with the STL Cardinals on it should be restricted even further.

KCDowntown

kcteen · Post by **kcteen** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:08 am

I agree that the pics in the signatures are annoying. I personally think they should be eliminated all together. They get especially terrible when the person posts more than one response in a thread and the picture comes up again, and again and again. And of course nothing ticks me off more than KFB's posts and the pictures just add on to that.

But, pictures in signatures aside, i think my one suggestion would be getting a really good downtown development map online or perhaps a downtown phototour.

For the map, I would do something where there is an overhead aerial of downtown and the user could select to show either 1)projects proposed 2)projects under construction 3)projects recently completed ... etc. The map could be in reality a programmed macromedia embedded flash movie. Then, those projects would show up as footprints with perhaps a short description nearby. The user could click on those projects and see the details.

Interfacing some sort of map like this with the downtown directory would be great too for existing businesses.

The downtown phototour idea would tie in with the downtown map. While looking at the projects on the development map, it would be awesome if you could click almost anywhere on the map and see a street-level picture of the current area. So, you could click say on the intersection of 10th and Broadway and see what a pedestrian would see at 10th and broadway. This would allow people to click on where proposed projects are located adn see what it is replacing or renovating, etc. Would probably be hard, but that I guess is my "one thing"--get the map up and running.

kcteen

kcteen · Post by **kcteen** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:10 am

one more thing.

I think it is hard for new users to get going with the site, especially if they are only curious about and don't know much of downtown development.

An essay or page with pictures, etc of the current state of downtown, what's been going on, and what is planned and a summary of current downtown-related debates and issues would be great. Maybe 3 typed pages, max. Sortof a Kansas City Downtown 101. Think a brief introduction to downtown for somebody that maybe is familiar with only KC in general but not downtown too well, per se. It would include the definition of downtown, the description of neighborhoods, community issues, events, cool projects, trends, etc.

kcteen

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:05 am

I know that some boards have some sort of chests for financial reasons. I think having people make voluntary contributions to the chest could help insure the board's future as well as reduce the burden off of you [KC(P)]. I know I'd chip in if we could do it through PayPal or something like that.

nota · Post by **nota** » Thu May 20, 2004 6:19 am

Limit the size of pictures posted in the messages too.

I hate scrolling horizontally. And I have a big monitor.

I have cable, but I pity the dial up folks who have to wait while all that loads.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu May 20, 2004 7:59 am

great suggestions.....of course KCTeen's suggestions are work

KCLofts · Post by **KCLofts** » Thu May 20, 2004 9:02 am

Put in a spelling/grammar/capitalization/excessive comma use checker.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu May 20, 2004 9:04 am

I'd love to find a spelling checker....I blow at spelling....only idiots can spell

Post by **staubio** » Thu May 20, 2004 10:12 am

Great ideas regarding a sort of primer for the forum, which would quickly bring people up to speed, make them feel comfortable, etc.

I agree with the sig photos suggestions, but only because I've been tainted by, er, unsophisticated silver cars.

I think the downtown directory is an awesome and underutilized resource that needs to be leveraged. We need to drive more reviews there, or automatically add reviews from the forum, and then we could have a "favorites" list. I think getting pictures in there would encourage more people to try things because they'll better know what to expect, especially if we could get internal photos. I would be more than willing to get some photos and I bet downtown businesses would work with us, maybe even offering a kcdowntowndirectory special or something.

I would also contribute if you had a donations element. I can't really express how much I appreciate how you've contributed your talents to bring us all together.

I'll keep thinking, but that was my first impression.

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Thu May 20, 2004 9:34 pm

ok so far I've heard:

1 - Remove or reduce signature pictures
2 - Downtown Development Map (high quality/shockwave)
3 - Downtown streets phototour
4 - Overview page of city development for new users
5 - Donatation "chest"
6 - Limit size of any pictures in forum
7 - spell check
8 - Forum primer for new users
9 - drive more to the downtown directory

Let me hit each of those so far.

1) Probably will be done as soon as I can announce it and send messages to each that have sig pictures

2) I do have the development map but it's FAR from high tech...very low tech. http://www.kcskyscrapers.com/map.php I know what kind of thing teen is describing....I just don't know how to do it

Especially where I could update it dynamically as projects come on and off line

3) This would be a great group project. We could set all those who wanted to do this to a certain "area" that they could volunteer for. Could tie into #2 later.

4) I will work on this....great idea. I'll probably write something up and have a few read over it.

5) Thanks for the thoughts guys but probably stay away from begging for money (even though I did put ads in

)

6) This would be tough, especially being a city/development type thing...I wish the forum handled it better

7) I'm hoping the new version of this software will do just that

This would be quick and easy to do. Probably work on it after the main page primer type thing

9) Great idea....downtowndirectory.com has been tough just because the downtown council has told me they are putting out their own version that they will have people keeping the entries up to date. Of course we have yet to see it.

Keep them coming guys....great ideas. What more/less would you like to see outside the forum? What are people looking to find when they come here?

cdschofield · Post by **cdschofield** » Thu May 20, 2004 10:02 pm

Here's an idea I'll throw out. I stumbled on to this http://www.vergekc.com/vol2/spot_armour.php?vol=2 and it gave me the idea of a neighborhood directory with sample photos and description of each neighborhood. Something someone unfamiliar with KC could use to get a feel for the metro area neighborhoods or someone like me that sometimes gets lost when thread discussions refer to areas in Olathe, Liberty or some areas of KCK. I know, I should get out more. It doesn't have to be built all at once, set up the frame work for it and maybe start with downtown and the urban core. Set it up where users could contribute for their own neighborhood or ones that interest them.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Fri May 21, 2004 12:43 am

We need a thing like they have for St. Paul. Basically, I think it is a Flash Player where you scroll across a downtown aerial and pictures pop up of the projects completed or going on.

kcteen · Post by **kcteen** » Fri May 21, 2004 1:07 am

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfac ... /index.php

*the link posted did not work. Click on the desired resolutino above the mini-map to see the flash map in action

take a look at this map. Click on the triangle area to "zoom in" to campus. Pretty cool. I realize this would require a lot of time, I just thought it was an interesting implementation of the interactive map idea.

kcteen

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Fri May 21, 2004 7:55 am

Yeah I really like that.....maybe I'll d/l that and see if I can play with it

Post by **staubio** » Fri May 21, 2004 8:07 am

I like the neighborhood map/pictures idea. I can't remember where, but I saw a map of STL with all of its neighborhoods as hovers. You could click on a neighborhood and it would forward you to the webpage for the neighborhood association.

If we could get a liason or volunteer from/for each neighborhood, we could link from a quick map of neighborhoods (based upon the Census neighborhoods in the GIS) to history, synopsis and pictures.

I would be more than happy to start taking pictures for any projects. I think adding pictures to the downtown directory and having neighborhood info stuff would be cool. On my bike, I can get around and take a lot of pictures pretty quickly.