[Isthmus]

Now that the new SCWF has been online a few weeks and most of you had had some opportunity to play with the new software, we wanted to get a rough idea of what kind of vision you guys have for the new forum. By knowing what you guys find important, it will help us guide future projects and content development.

Let me start with what our general vision of the forum is, and perhaps you can chime in with what you think and with your own ideas.

As mentioned in the forums Mission statement, our vision is to create a forum created by collectors for the benefit of collectors (as opposed to commercial sponsors). Our idea was to continue that long standing SCWf tradition of promoting curiosity, mutual collaboration and exploration of all things technical and historical of the brands we know and love. To do this we've created this discussion forum to be the centerpiece of the new SCWF, much like the old forum was (except for the layout of course), and created a bunch of archive sections designed to store valuable old and new posts for future reference. the idea is for all discussion and new posts to go through the main discussion section, just like we always have, while we copy or move reviews and substantive topics into the different archives. To expand on that we also plan on doing the same with the many years of wonderful archived posts in the mirror of the old site. We hope that the end result will give collectors the information and tools they need to educate themselves and expand the level of discussion beyond what we are wearing today or what we just bought, to include more technical and historical discussions.

We would love to encourage all members to take on the occasional research project or actively participate in the forum beyond just regular posting. If you see an ongoing project that you can contribute to, please go ahead and contribute. The idea is for the forum to reflect the best of what you all have to offer, and hopefully offer you a side of your chosen hobby you hadn't considered before.

Anyhow, that's our POV. So what is your vision for the new forum?

 

[mrteatime]

i think its great that its by collecters for collecters.......and not brand driven....i can t go on WUS or some of the other forums because theres so much advertising on there......i find it off putting and more then a little annoying....

i think that the balance is just about right, and i can see that the traffic will get busier and busier in the coming months ahead.

personally, i love the new look forum, and find the software easy to use, although i haven't really had to mess around with the settings to much as im fairly familiar with this sort of layout. I think that the scwf shop will be a great idea too!

 

[TakesALickin]

i can t go on WUS or some of the other forums because theres so much advertising on there.....

I'll second that. I've been a participant in a number of threads that have been locked or removed on other forums. I can't follow the reasoning - most times the discussion is no more controversial than what goes on here every day. Thank god for freedom of speech (here at least).

As for vision, I'm not coming up with anything now, but this is a good thread idea. Hopefully I'll think of something visionary in the next few days. :-[ I'm sure other guys will chime in.

 

[GarageBoy]

Open discussion
More reference material, more learning, more cool vintage stuff

 

[Mike]

What everyone else has said. But I would also like to add "peace in the valley" and of course fun.

Mike

 

[mrteatime]

I'll second that. I've been a participant in a number of threads that have been locked or removed on other forums. I can't follow the reasoning - most times the discussion is no more controversial than what goes on here every day. Thank god for freedom of speech (here at least).

As for vision, I'm not coming up with anything now, but this is a good thread idea. Hopefully I'll think of something visionary in the next few days. :-[ I'm sure other guys will chime in.

yeah WUS mods are a little heavy handed.....in the short while ive been on here, ive had 6 pm's from the mods.....and even when i put a couple of posts in the wrong place they were just moved AND a note to say that they were moved!....and all the pms have been very polite........

so more of the light moderation guys ;D

 

[Axel66]

I like the new format much more than the old.
There's just one thing: it's a pity that we divide Japanese from non-Japanese watches.
Well, I understand it - otherwise the forum will get flooded by....?
I'd just like to see a non-diver discussion forum. Even, I feel more attracted to divers, than I used to be, at the moment it's hard to find a non-diver post in the Japanese forum. There might be some, but it's easy to miss them.

Cheers,

Axel

 

[sdoocms]

I know this project has to be expensive, but I do hope you will be able to keep the commercial side of it to a minimum. By the way, All of you have done a fantastic job!

 

[dotwatchworks]

It's definitely more in keeping with the times. 8)

My only beef would be, as you might guess, Gabe..regarding the sales forums. In most cases, according to people who I've surveyed, people do not check out commercial areas of sales sites. Having the sales forums separate has knocked down my sales by a whopping %50-65 everyday since the forum change.

Thanks,

Jake B

 

[Pei Der Han]

If we had a small 'thread pain' window like WUS does, there would be no need to view everything with the most recent posts. This would take care of missing the stuff in between the thread opener and the latest addition. The current options do not address this.
Other than that, any beefs I might have don't amount to a hill of beans.

 

[SeikoPsycho2]

Although I somewhat miss the old forum format I think the new forum has a lot more to offer and my watch is off to all those who put forth the hard work that has brought this all together!

I would like to see the Japanese watch discussion forum broken down into Vintage and Non Vintage sub forums. I am drawn more to vintage watches probably because I'm approaching "Vintage" myself.........lol.

 

[ghostzapper]

Although I somewhat miss the old forum format I think the new forum has a lot more to offer and my watch is off to all those who put forth the hard work that has brought this all together!

I would like to see the Japanese watch discussion forum broken down into Vintage and Non Vintage sub forums. I am drawn more to vintage watches probably because I'm approaching "Vintage" myself.........lol.

I'd like to second this emotion. I trailed off posting at the old forum mostly because the main topics were new Seikos (Sumo, MM, Sarb, etc.) and a heavy emphasis on modded watches. I have no beef with that stuff, but my own interest is strictly vintage. Maybe a vintage Seiko sub-forum?

 

[sailorH240]

Great question to offer up. Thanks Mods for reaching out.

I like many have learned to enjoy the new site more and more and overall it has many more positive features then challanges.

I concur with Jake's comment as that I would prefer to have the Sales forum all grouped into a single one. I enjoy seeing all the offering together in a single place and it makes it eaiser to see all this is offered, both by personal, professional, and those interested in trades and buying. I tend not to to as often to all the subforums.

In line with combining the the Sales forums, I would like the combining of all the components of the general forum into one, as it was on the old site. By that I mean the vintage with the new, and the mods with the classics. Again, that way I tend to read and appreciate all these features of watches while othewise I am not a likely to go into the different subforums. It makes sense to me to seperate Japanese watches from non-Japanese and its nice to have the addition of the non-Japanese forum but I admit I don't go there much.

Finally, all the techical forums and teaching forums are nice. Its a great place to learn more and more about watches. I am strongly considering doing the basic watch insturction course soon to be offerd by Ken, but it may still be beyond my time commitment at this time. I would greatly like a beginers course on changing batteries on many/all quartz watches. I have mostly quartz watches and it gets expensive to have the batteries changed all the time. I just fret about opening the back of my watches as I have never done this before.

Thanks again for asking and thanks for making this a great site.
Daniel

 

[Bartleby]

Well, if youre asking...

1 Well Done. It may not be perfect but it took a lot of effort to get to this stage, well done.

2 Attitude was what made the old board great, its the most important thing to maintain, so far so good.

3 I do think the old boards appeal was partly because it was so cosy, veering towards cramped, which was why it became time to move. The new options maybe have opened it up too much, all the sales stuff really should go in one forum as the volume was limited, and in my view it should be second in the list after the WDF which itself currently is fifth in line... Cant it be first? Maybe its overexpanded to fill so much new space and a little contraction to find the right density would help match the site to its collegiate appeal. With itty bitty sub-fora on every speciality it becomes uneconomical to bother checking out yet another forum, and you miss the occaisional pearl from outside your own little patch of turf.

4 I share a purely personal desire for more non-diver non-modded content, but I think thats a reflection of the interests of the users, and opening up specialist forums probably wont help. Maybe if you feel your niche is underrepresented you should take it as an indication that its time to post something yourself? I have a 7a28 post to come in the next while but so far Im as quilty as the next man...

Summing up: please contract a little, and adjust the hierarchy to reflect the flow, but in the main: Good Job.

 

[stumpbass]

Summing up: please contract a little, and adjust the hierarchy to reflect the flow, but in the main: Good Job.

I concur!

I also would prefer a single sales forum. Or perhaps two sales fora: one for private & commercial sales posts, another for WTB/WTT posts.

 

[ghostzapper]

One more thing from me: while I am voting for a vintage sub-forum, I would also go along with the guys who want to merge the two sales forums. I take a look about once a day, and the one-stop-shopping aspect of the old forum was nice.

 

[Isthmus]

Hi guys.

First off, thanks for the input. It seems there was a little misconception. we were asking more about a vision (content wise) of the forum, and not so much about how the forum could or should be reorganized. That said, thanks for the suggestions, they have not gone unnoticed and we will discuss them amongst ourselves.

I noticed a few comments that lead me to believe that there is a single major misconception going on. Several of you seem to think that the forum is splintered into a bunch of discussion forums. THAT IS NOT THE CASE. There are only 2 discussion forums on SCWF. One is the Japanese watch discussion forum and the other is the non-japanese watches discussion forum. That's it. Just like the old site, all discussions should be going on here. EVERYTHING ELSE that you are seeing is archival material. In other words, all the sections you guys are confusing for discussion forums are places where we are storing informative posts posted to the discussion forums, so that they can be easily found and used going forward. We have left the archives open to posting so that you guys can supplement them by either posting additional materials or asking questions that might enhance any one topic. The trick here is that the archives (as well as the site) will grow through your input and interaction, not through the work of a single individual. However those sections are archives first and foremost. This Japanese watch discussion forum IS the principal section of SCWF and the one through which all content for the archives flows. So if you have a cool article, or a review, or some technical posts, put them up HERE. We can then save a copy for future reference in the archive that applies.

Of course this doesn't cover the watch school and the SCTP which are stand alone sections.

I hope that clears things up.

 

[Isthmus]

I like the new format much more than the old.
There's just one thing: it's a pity that we divide Japanese from non-Japanese watches.
Well, I understand it - otherwise the forum will get flooded by....?
I'd just like to see a non-diver discussion forum. Even, I feel more attracted to divers, than I used to be, at the moment it's hard to find a non-diver post in the Japanese forum. There might be some, but it's easy to miss them.

Cheers,

Axel

Thanks Axel. At this point we will not be fragmenting the discussion forums beyond just japanese and non-japanese watches. Our thoughts on this are that by keeping all discussions in one place input from different people will reinforce each other, as opposed to having people stick to only individual sections and rarely explore others.

I know this project has to be expensive, but I do hope you will be able to keep the commercial side of it to a minimum. By the way, All of you have done a fantastic job!

Thanks, Other than the SCTP there is currently no commercial side to SCWF. At some point we hope to get a store going, but that is mainly to make horological supplies (tools, lubricants, etc.) available to members (especially those using the watch school). The idea is not to run some giant commercial enterprise, but to make things easier on members. if any profit is made (which I doubt will be much, if any), it will go entirely toward the maintenance costs of the site. We are very serious about keeping the site being by collectors and for the benefit of collectors.

It's definitely more in keeping with the times.

My only beef would be, as you might guess, Gabe..regarding the sales forums. In most cases, according to people who I've surveyed, people do not check out commercial areas of sales sites. Having the sales forums separate has knocked down my sales by a whopping %50-65 everyday since the forum change.

Thanks,

Jake B

In response to this and all the other comments suggesting a contraction of the SCTP, we will look into it. The idea behind separating it was to make it primarily about the members. Since posting to it is free, the old forum had a problem in which commercial sellers would use the SCTP to run their business from, but contribute little or nothing to the discussion. This was not every one and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. We just felt that since we want to focus the place on collectors, that it would be preferable to have commercial sellers in their own section with more relaxed posting rules, where members can easily find them should they want to find the kinds of products they sell. At the same times, members can easily navigate the offerings of other members without having to go through a bunch of commercial posts to find them. Is this not something that members find useful?

If we had a small 'thread pain' window like WUS does, there would be no need to view everything with the most recent posts. This would take care of missing the stuff in between the thread opener and the latest addition. The current options do not address this.
Other than that, any beefs I might have don't amount to a hill of beans.

You are talking about VBulletin's Hybrid View window. This is not a built in feature of this forum software, and is not currently offered as a mod. That said, we have done some work toward creating such a mod, but it caused severe instabilities with the rest of the software package. developing this is in our to do list, but it will be some time before it is done, since we have quite a number of other surprises in store for you guys that must be added in a stable fashion first, before addressing something this major.

Although I somewhat miss the old forum format I think the new forum has a lot more to offer and my watch is off to all those who put forth the hard work that has brought this all together!

I would like to see the Japanese watch discussion forum broken down into Vintage and Non Vintage sub forums. I am drawn more to vintage watches probably because I'm approaching "Vintage" myself.........lol.

Sorry but that's not going to happen. As mentioned above, we want to keep all discussion in a single place, as we used to do in the old forum, so that members can benefit from the experiences of other collectors with different collecting focuses. by splitting the forum into interest sections, we run the real risk of splitting the audience and having some members essentially reside in sections of the forum they like, and not really interact with anyone outside of there. We actually WANT folks to interact. That said, we recognize that there are areas of interest, which is Why we created the Vintage Reviews section, where we can save reviews of vintage pieces posted in the discussion forum, as well as the restoration section where we can save posts detailing how certain watches were restored. The idea is to post to the discussion section and then move copies of the posts to the appropriate archives.

[hr]

Lastly I want to address one last point. Many have expressed a desire to see more topic specific content (something other than divers, more vintage, more chronos, etc). I understand that Divers are popular and so are mods. Their popularity is probably why in most watch forums, divers seem to dominate discussions. What I put to you is that the forum will only give you back what YOU put into it. the content of the forum will reflect the interests and involvement of it's members. If you want to see more topic specific content, then please post it. in my experience developing another Japanese watch forum almost from scratch, it was this kind of behavior that created the standard that other members emulated, and over time became reinforcing. You don't have to be a technical or historical expert. if you have a chrono that you love, just write a detailed review of it and add lots of pictures. Do the same if you have a vintage model and so on. Post it here in the discussion forum and we will save a copy in the archive. You will see that people who know about these watches will, over time, reply to these posts and fill in the gaps in knowledge, or add similar posts of their own. SCWF is a forum by collectors and for collectors, so I invite and challenge you all to create what you want to see in the forum (and if you need a hand, let the staff know and we'll help you.

Thanks everyone for your input.

 

[Bartleby]

+1 that we have to post about what we are interested in and develop the content that makes the forum worth coming to, instead of whining that other people arent posting the content for us to enjoy!

However if there is a misconception about the structure of the site then I think that is coming from the home page layout: no real hierarchy, lots of options all appearing to have the same importance. Put the WDF at the top if its intended to be the main forum for content (and the sales forum second since it throws up as many cool watches as the forum does) and then move and differentiate all the multiple overlapping stickies about the new forum and it rules, ethos, tips etc lower down the food chain. At the moment all the choices look like lots of barriers to identifying and getting to the real content. The fact that the home page cant all fit on a single screen should ring an alarm bell.

 

[Isthmus]

+1 that we have to post about what we are interested in and develop the content that makes the forum worth coming to, instead of whining that other people arent posting the content for us to enjoy!

However if there is a misconception about the structure of the site then I think that is coming from the home page layout: no real hierarchy, lots of options all appearing to have the same importance. Put the WDF at the top if its intended to be the main forum for content (and the sales forum second since it throws up as many cool watches as the forum does) and then move and differentiate all the multiple overlapping stickies about the new forum and it rules, ethos, tips etc lower down the food chain. At the moment they look like lots of barriers to getting to the real content.

Can you suggest a possible reorganized format? I'd be interested in seeing what you can come up with.

That said I guess this is as good a time as any to disclose on of the little things we are working on. We are working on adding a bunch of quick-link buttons underneath the banner inside the main discussion forum. The idea is to allow members to navigate the more popular resources and sections of the site right out of the discussion forum. In this way, from a user perspective, it should retain some familiarity to the old site layout and remove the need to navigate through the main forum page if you don't want to. This is the look we're going for on the banner inside the main discussion forum:

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