I noticed three things:

1. The quote function is MIA. Are there plans to continue the old quoting system?

2. At the risk of creating too many categories, should there be one for Volunteer/Field School opportunities? This would keep them from being posted in discussions or jobs, in to which it fits neither.

3. Will the mods get to move posts from one topic to another more appropriate topics (from discussion to jobs, say)? I noticed a field school announcement in the discussion topic; should be in jobs or #2 above.

Cheers,
Richard

Hi Richard.  There are plans to eventually add some of the features that were present in the old forums.  I'm not sure yet if the quotes are going to make it back.  To be determined... I guess in the interim, we can make do with the "old-fashioned way" or italicizing the text.

For now, and maybe long-term, the volunteer and field school opportunities will be lumped together into the discussion area.  Of course, there are other categories of messages from the old forums that wouldn't be considered discussion items per se, like conference announcements, fellowships, scholarships, etc.  Perhaps labeling this catch-all "discussion" wasn't the most appropriate term for the "everything but jobs and resumes" area that it ended up being.  Over time maybe we'll think of something better.  What I would like to see, eventually, is a clearer way of indicating where folks can find these type of announcements from the home page.  There are a few of these tags representing old forum categories on the left side of the home page, and this little box may just get scrapped and replaced by a clearer list of such announcements of information-only messages.

Eventually we will also end up with more robust moderation tools in general.  Under our current scheme, it's ok that a field school is under the discussion area, but it does bug me that someone may accidentally post in the wrong area and it's not easy to remedy (it's worth noting that since my husband has written this from scratch and has intimate knowledge of how this all works, thus far he's been able to figure out just about anything I've asked of him, though some tasks aren't the easiest or quickest to muck through).  It is worth noting, too, that the importation of 10,000+ messages from the old database has caused some messages to acquire tags that aren't representative of their real subject matter (this was done automatically, and we ended up with items like a message about Massachusetts flagging "MA").  Over time I hope to fine tune the tagging of the imported messages and keep an eye on the new ones being posted so that they are a reasonably accurate representation of the message content.  The mods can also add or delete existing tags of messages as they see fit within each forum.

Over time, I'm sure we'll get over all the bumps.  In the meantime, I'm just very happy (and relieved) that we were able to save all the data from the old forums.  Folks who have been hanging around this website for years know that this hasn't always been the case when we changed platforms, and it was always a tremendous loss of user accounts and information.  Hopefully this is something that won't happen again and we can count on some of this information being available online for quite awhile to come.

Jennifer

One last thing to mention. We are still in the midst of permanently transferring domains, so you may see some odd links to individual messages in the URL box above as there is a lot of redirection and rerouting going on in the short term to get you here.  If you see "archaeologyfieldwork.net/whatever" it will likely turn into "archaeologyfieldwork.com/whatever" in the near future.  I would refrain from referencing any of these posts outside the site by their URL for a few days.  My archaeologyfieldwork.com e-mail account is also in limbo, and for now, if anyone wants to send me a message, they can e-mail me at archaeologyfieldwork@hotmail.com.

Another note: folks who are using Internet Explorer 7 or something earlier will likely have issues viewing this website.  We've had success testing it with Internet Explorer 8 and Mozilla Firefox.  If anyone notices funky display issues on another browser, please let me know what you're using.

So far, it seems to work fine with Google Chrome, too.

i am finding it hard to navigate without the  plethora  of discussion topics :-S   Just got to get used to the new look but one thing that is weird, and I think its a browser issue, is that nothing seems centered on my screen.  All the text is on the left side and the discussion box goes outside of the screen when I type.  I am using Safari.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll need to pick up a Safari browser to see, although I believe they use a different engine that breaks a few rules.  We also checked it out on a Droid and an iPhone, and other than squishing the home page date fields, it rendered pretty well.

In the interim, I would recommend picking up Firefox for the Mac

Thanks
-Bob

It will be easier to navigate amongst the messages once I've gone through all of them to check the tags and add/delete as necessary.  I've already run into many messages of interest that were somehow lost in the shuffle in the sheer number of forums we had on the old site.  I think that once everything is properly categorized and everyone gets used to the tags, it's going to be both a fun and useful way of going through the site.

I've been going through the forums and re-tagging messages as needed.  All current employment listings from the past 60 days (28 pages of messages..whew) now have more appropriate tags.  If you are browsing adverts in the jobs section and see a job with a tag of "field-tech", you can click on that tag and it will display all current positions that were flagged at that level.  It's actually a little more accurate than just doing a keyword search for "Field Technician" as some of the positions at the field tech level are called something else (field archaeologist, field crew member, etc).

I'm still working my way through the thousands of messages grouped under the discussion heading, and also editing subject lines or deleting expired posts along the way.  It's been a lot of work, but the end result will be worth the effort.  In certain cases, using the "Search" tab for targeted keyword searches is the way to go. I like also having the option to search for similar messages by tag.  As you can see in the example of the employment listings above, sometimes a keyword search alone doesn't cut it, as we don't always use the same terminology consistently from message to message.

Jennifer

One thing we've found is that when folks cut and paste entire web pages, sometimes throwing all of that formatting into the text box of a new topic or reply tends to somehow overwhelm the new post and you end up not being able to edit or delete the end result (you may not even be able to see the option to reply to it).  If you run into this situation or find an old post that you aren't able to reply to because of something being odd with the formatting, please let me know.  If it is a new topic, you can try again in a new message and refrain from cutting and pasting the entire web page into the message box.  Photos that are hosted elsewhere on another site really should be entered into the body of the text with the insert pic icon option and URL (usually http://www.whatever.com/thatphoto.jpg).

Feel free to e-mail me at archaeologyfieldwork@hotmail.com with any issues you run into.

Thanks, Jennifer

I agree with dwarmour that it's more of a hassle to navigate the site now. I don't visit as often and my visits are shorter. It's just not worth the effort to dig around. Could be me...I've always preferred survey over excavation.

How does one post a new discussion? I can't seem to locate the 'post message' tab

In any given forum group like "discussions", "jobs", "resumes", etc., just click the big red "New Topic" button.

We just added a feature this morning that should make it easier to see what is new on the website since your last visit.  When you log on with your username and password and enter into one of the message forums, you will now see new messages marked with a different icon to the left of the message subject line that replaces the usual or icons.

indicates a brand new topic
indicates a reply has been posted to a topic

The only time you won't see a message updated as such is for the sticky topics at the top of the forums that are permanently marked with an icon by a moderator or myself.

You may need to log off and then log back in again to enable this function if your login info was previously saved in a browser cookie. Whenever you close your browser session and open it again, you will have the option of logging back on the site upon your next visit.  I hope this helps in website navigation; this is something that has been requested repeatedly both on and off the forums.

Jennifer

I've finished going through the 10,000+ messages imported from the old forums...whew... I gave each at least a cursory glance to quickly assign tags, delete msgs with bad photo links, delete outdated and double posts, etc.  If you do run into anything odd, please let me know so it can be addressed.  It now should be easier to look for similar posts by clicking on tags.

Is there a way to increase the number of threads listed in a single view? Format-wise, there was much that was actually good about the old forum. To me it seemed the worst problem was the bugginess of the site. 

Should not be a problem.  The new layout was set up with the potential option to vary the responses per page.  I'll add it to the request list

Thanks

is there a way to add tags not in the system?  It would be nice if we could make up our own tags and not be limited to those already there.  Ive already had problems coming up with a tag for my discussion, becuase none applied, and that sucks because a tag is required to post.

The system isn't set up for folks to add their own tags, but I am certainly willing to take suggestions for new ones!  We started out with around 300 or so, but I anticipate adding a lot more as new ones come to mind. Please e-mail me any suggestions for tags at archaeologyfieldwork@hotmail.com.

I can't seem to find a place to respond to Classarch's post in my thread "The Tail Wagging the Dog" (in the "Discussions Forum"). Am I overlooking something?

Thanks,

Charlie

Charlie, unfortunately many of the moderators old tools have been lost in the move to the new format, so none of us mods can do anything about it. Something for Jennifer to do....

Charlie, the message in question seems to have gotten corrupted.  We'll see if we can fix it.  Sometimes if content is cut and pasted from another web page into the body of a message post, something seems to come along with the formatting that mucks up the works and this happens.  Please let me know if you run into this anywhere else, as we have been able to fix these few oddball messages in the past.

Yes, lots to do, and eventually I'd love to restore a lot of the features from the old site.  I'm still happy that we were able to get the new website up, even if it's not 100% where I would like it to be. 

Thanks Jenn and Rich.

I just feel bad about not responding to CA.

Thanks for all your hard work, Jenn.

Charlie

Have been away awhile....wow, nice website redo.

Suggestions: clear out the forums.  Discussion groups need more specificity; .eg. physical anthro stuff has
 an abundance of employment, etc. talk.

Need a topic list and a SEARCH function!.
   
otherwise, thanks for hard work.

Thank you. More work here is to come, as time allows.  It's a little tricky now finding the time with a newborn and a 2 1/2 year old in the house. My husband has his hands full with other IT work as far as the coding goes, and right now it's all I can do to keep up with the employment postings each morning!

The decision to do away with the myriad of old message forums and put everything but the jobs and resumes into the discussion forum was intentional.  I realize, though, that sometimes older messages can be overlooked. In the future I will be putting up a page listing the most popular tags which coincide with the old forum headings.

In the interim, we do have a specific search function, which you will find as one of the green tabs on the upper right hand side of this page. Clicking on tabs within messages will also bring up similarly tagged topics.

I hope this helps to clarify the new setup. Thanks to everyone for their patience and support with the new website!

Jennifer