Improvements to the Website

Hi Bullish Bear,

I've never tried using it, but I'll certainly take a look!
 
Hi Sharky,

As a very regular user of the site (I'm always on it) can I suggest the following;
Within the "Thread Results" page (where u get a listing of all threads with new post since last visit), would it be possible to include an extra column for "go to first unread post" for that thread. At the moment I have to open the thread at it's very first post, then go to the "first unread post". As the website has become a lot more busy with a lot more posts then even at the beginning -of the year, this does tend to take a lot longer, and for a lot more posts.

Hope it can be done - I'm sure most would find it useful.

Cheers.
 
Hi Dsmondi,

Thanks for your suggestion. In fact you already have the ability to do this. Simply click the down arrow on the left of each thread's name - and not only will it take you to the thread in question but it will take you to the first unread post!

Actually I keep forgetting it does this - I could add a key to the page to remind people, or I could simply change the main thread link to always go to the first unread post? What do you think?

Paul

ps. Please do keep adding your suggestions for improvements, as every good one will get added to my list and will be implemented at some point in the future!
 
Hi Sharky,

aha - so that's how it's done!

Yes, I think just clicking on the thread title to take to first unread post would be good. Bearing in mind the number of posts these days, I can't think why anyone would want to go to the top of the thread anyway....after all, they'll go to it automatically if they haven't been already...

Great stuff sharky,

Regards,
Dsmondi ;)
 
It's been a while since we received any suggestions for improving the site - but I very much doubt we've hit perfection.. yet!

So tell us what you think, good and bad. And let's see if we can do something about it!
 
Hi Sharky, the Dow Contest results for this week (Monday 1st Dec start of contest date ) As you can see I placed my entry (9859) for Friday 5th Dec close, within the parameter of your figures for your SAME entry. The Dow closed last night, Friday 5th Dec, at 9862.68 As this is only 3.68 from my entry placed on Monday before the Dow opened I think I am due 10 points and not 5 .
The only other entry that is closer is Mr-Bud with 9860 with his UP entry. and he has not been given any points at all, dispite being the best best entry of the week, only 2.68 points from the close, you have 9775 as the current value when in fact it is 9862.68
Help please ?
Regards Twiggytwo
 
Sharky ,

I have few idea's..

1) The chat room is dead now .. Any chance we could have paltalk Style Chatroom where we could show charts and discuss trading ideas

2) have you seen http://www.trade-ideas.com/

Perhaps T2W can accomodate such a sytem for FEE on UK stocks, on all time frames .. You might get few big boys interested.

3) Team up with few well known world class analysts to contrinute to T2W for free.. Example Daily market analysis.. if not why not Chartman or Skim to have a column of their own ..

4) A column for members to add articles..

5) daily screening of stocks both UK and US for free.. Example all Uk, US stocks with highest beta, Highest relative strength, those above 50 day MA.. and stuff like that .


Some of the above are too radical such as no 2 but I am sure will lift the T2W from a Forum only platform ..
 
Sharky - see my "links" posts too -
site must constantly change and develop or will start to fall back-congestion period just now?
probably needs to be more than a forum - adding a shop maybe not enough - elite trader type sponsorship - form some strategic partnerships - good range of links etc - mix of present and some recent ideas - a place where members can get everything they need without having to rely on a few posters for pointers - need not compromise independence and discussion - encourage promotion of members real knowledge bases - articles- publish (and be damned)-:) - involve some "names"
 
Trade_ideas ,

It would be also great help if you added some intra day signals on sectors as well as stocks..
 
Thanks, now let's build the community

Good suggestion for our site, but it doesn't help this site (thanks again though).

My previous post was meant to be helpful but may have come across as too self-promoting. Still am happy to provide any tools that could promote the community here - giving people something to talk about: real-time activity and technicals.

TI
 
Great, lots of good suggestions.

Apologises for the delay in replying, I've been away for a few
Grey1 : Good suggestions, let me respond to each in turn.

(1) The chat room has unfortunately become increasingly less used which is a shame because I think there are significant advantages to having a realtime chatroom - conducting realtime interviews and lectures, something we used to do, but stopped organising a long time ago. Certainly an alternative voice and image based solution like paltalk might help to kick start the room again, I'll need to look at the technical implications but I certainly aim to redevelop the chatroom section of the site in the new year, hopefully coinciding with the new version of the website.

(2) Something like trade ideas would make an excellent addition to the site. My only concern would be whether generating signals for UK stocks would constitute advice under the FSA, and therefore being an unregulated site we would run into difficulties. This is something I intend to investigate both from a procedural and technical viewpoint.

(3) and (4) An article section of the site has been one of the few additions to the site that hasn't yet been implemented, but I do intend to add this at some point in the future. This would be available for both well known personalities and members alike. It's certainly on the top of my to-do list for the beginning of next year.

(5) Again data mining has been another addition that hasn't yet been implemented but has for some time been on the to-do list. days, and spent the last couple trying to catch up.

twiggytwo : I'm going to fix the dow competition later this afternoon, and fix all the scoring too. So the comp should be back to normal by the end of the day. Thanks for reporting this.
The problem has been recently that a lot of my time is taken up with managing and maintaining the site, the forums have unfortunately been a drain of my time too, particularly having to deal with disputes between members, and then there's running the store, maintaining new parts of the site like email etc and the day to day stuff like keeping accounts and replying to email etc, its all time consuming. I appreciate that this is inevitable as the site grows, so obviously we need to look at taking on more resource at some point - but there are obvious common sense considerations that need to be resolved before doing so (not least financial ones).

I certainly only see the site currently fulfilling about 25% of it's potential, there are a lot of improvements on the way I can assure you.

Rognvald : Once again plenty of good suggestions. Let me take them one at a time..

(1) "site must constantly change and develop or will start to fall back-congestion period just now?" - I totally agree. We've managed to achieve a lot in the past 12 months not least establishing ourselves as one of the leading community website in the uk for active traders. This is no small feat, as anyone who starts up a community site (forum based) will tell you. Getting bums on seats is the single most difficult feat to achieve, it took us years! - when you consider the first year we were active back in 2001, the site was largely static. For example in a typical week in 2001 we'd be lucky to attract more than 10 new members, last week we attracted well over a 100. The same goes for posts, we'd be lucky to get over a 100 in a week, last week we got nearer 2000. It's only through constant evolution that the site has got where it is today - we went through 3 versions of the site in less than a year, and since the existing version was launched back in Feb of last year there's been a whole host of new features bolted on: store, email, reviews, gallery, interviews, member choice awards etc. I have no intention of letting the store end there, by this time next year I fully expect every element of the site to have changed and whole new sections added.

(2) "elite trader type sponsorship" - I take it you're referring to the sponsorship of the forums (those great big banners above threads) - to an extent we already do this. We sponsor the forums through the forum home page, but in terms of offering added value to a sponsor, yes we should probably extend this further to the forums themselves. However unlike elite trader, we carry banner advertising in the header of every page - so to put additional advertising on the forums might make commercial sense, but I'm acutely aware of the risks of over-advertising and like most people when I visit a site I don't want to be bamboozled by a ton of advertising, that's the same reason we ban pop-up ads from the site.

(3) "form some strategic partnerships" - We've always been interested in working with new companies and people - and no doubt this will continue more than ever next year as the site becomes increasingly established.

(4) "good range of links etc" - I admit the existing links directory leaves a lot to be desired, and I've already drawn up plans for a much better system of cataloging all the excellent sites that traders would be interested. And at all times I'm thinking of ways that members can participate in this process.

(5) "a place where members can get everything they need without having to rely on a few posters for pointers - need not compromise independence and discussion - encourage promotion of members real knowledge bases" - The forum as it stands today is a goldmine of information, but although we've done our best in the past to create all the forums needed to cover the major topics of trading - I think we need to go further. I believe that this has been mentioned in another thread, but there is a need to draw out of the forums all the best it offers and present it in a concise and manageable way. One idea that we'll be working on next year, is a knowledge base as you suggested that will attempt to draw together from within the site and externally all the information on a given topic, this is no small undertaking, but having laid the framework, it could prove to be one of the most valuable resources on the net.

(6) "articles- publish (and be damned)" - see (3) and (4) above in response to Grey1.

(7) involve some "names" - yes definitely, we already have some interviews with leading names, further involvement on the site would be very welcomed. There are a number of ways this could be achieved and I'll need to give this some more thought.

Please keep those suggestions for improvements coming in -they're never ignored and although you might not see them straight away I keep a record of them all and work through them as best I can.

Thanks.
 
Can we have the ability to "Un vote" at present you only get the ability to vote or change your vote.


Paul
 
Done! Just choose "No Rating" from the dropdown menu to remove your rating altogether.
 
I must disagree that the chat room is dead now. It certainly is much much quieter but the problem seems to be the perception of what the room is for.

As a daily user of the room (along with Sir Lostalot, Ford and Otho) we quite often see people come into the room, sit there and say nothing for 5 or 10 minutes and then leave...I think people are under the perception that its some sort of goldmine of information rather than a chatroom.

Just lately, CM's weekly Dow thread has been used for people like Mombasa, Tradesmart etc to put their intra-day comments on the thread...why not use the chatroom? (ok, some people may have firewall/software restrictions, I appreciate). Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that since CM no longer comes in the room due to work commitments, etc, it has died a bit but other people regard (quite rightly) CM as some sort of guru without whom the place is a tomb : its not so - Ford, Sir Lostalot and myself frequently "chat" about the market during the day, but it cant be 24/7 : people who come in need to make a bit of an effort themselves and then they'll be chatted back to and things will pick up!! I often say "hi" to people who dont even respond! Why come into a chatroom if you dont want to chat!!! :cheesy:

So maybe it just needs promoting again, thats all I'm saying. Not sure how to do this to be honest, but I think the format is basically sound. Paltalk is probably a bit of a step forward but I'm not sure it would be worth the investment at this stage.

RR
 
there is something I have mumbled about before.

yellow text on a red background is not my favourite choice for drop down menus.

but what to choose in its place ?

Dark blue on pale blue stands out very well but given that red
seems the predominant colour everywhere on the site, I guess it
must be your choice.

But red text on a pale background looks good on the threads
and other pages ?
 
Rosso, I'll see if I can get into the chatroom a bit more. Maybe I can spark things off and do a bit of commentary real time. My workload is still a pain, and I only finished about a half hour ago.(
 
Bonsai, you're not the first person who dislikes the yellow text on red background. We're dropping in the new design for the site, but in the meantime I'll experiment with different colours like the red on grey you mentioned. Will let you know how I get on.
 
Hi Sharky

There is a way for peeps to make a small donation via BT.

I dont know all the details but I used it on friends reunited and it has worked a treat.

I feel it is good to support a site and all the hard work that goes into it so if that is a poss. then let us know

Andi
 
Thanks novice101 for your suggestion. In the past we've asked for donations but now the site has increased in popularity we get funding from our advertisers and that keeps us going. So we no longer ask for hand outs.

We did create a page with a list of suggestions for supporting the site (which is still linked from the about us page):

http://www.trade2win.co.uk/info/support.php

It really needs updating now and there's still a link on their that allows you to donate through PayPal an amount of your choosing. But like I said as long as members continue to tolerate a level of advertising on the site, we shall hopefully continue to prosper as a site. And there's going to be lots to look forward to in 2004 I can tell you.
 
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