“Every time you respond to someone here, more people see the helpfulness, and they are encouraged to contribute. First with questions, but then with advice and support. It is a wonderful thing to see, and be part of. The diversity of views is very special, and I feel that this is only achievable through continuing natural growth”
This is the kind of spirit unique only to GoutPal Interactive!
Don't like being critical of a guy providing a great service, but this site is a mess. There are menues on the left, menues on the right, menues at the top, forums, references to blogs, references to newsletters and embedded links to newsletters that go nowhere. Ads inserted everywhere including some that misleadingly look like forum content. Man you need an office assistant.
Still, i appreciate your information service, disorganized as it may be. When I went to see my Dr. for gout, I knew more than he did. Unfortunately live in a small town with no specialists.
I'm not sure if you're offering to help, or just criticizing.
If it's the former, please send me a list of the things you believe you can improve, and I'll set you up with the access codes to make the changes.
If it's the latter, then at least I can spell menus.
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
8:06 pm January 19, 2009
Martin
Guest
3
Well, I was hoping it would be received as constructive criticism. Feedback is usually (I guess not always) welcomed. As far as helping, I'm not sure what I could do. I'm not experienced at web-building. I can tell you I have problems navigating thru your site. I'll make two specific suggestions. I couldn't locate the forum from your main page. Perhaps a link could be added below the 'blog' link. Secondly, there are occasional references to specific articles of your newsletters. But following the links takes you to the subscription page, not to the article nor an archive. One would think a link to an article should take you to the article. But perhaps you have a reason to prevent access to the newsletter archives without subscribing. Your site, your call.
If you're happy with the way your site presents, that's good enough. I just wanted to provide user feedback that it appears somewhat confusing to some of us. And thanx for the spelling lesson…I'll try to do better.
Don't get me wrong – all feedback is welcome, it's just that it is impossible to react in a positive way sometimes.
I guess we all judge things by our own standards and reference points. My experience tells me, that if I'm going to report a broken link, I should specifically state the page where the problem is (copied and pasted from the address bar), then describe where the offending link is. I was frustrated by your first post because I simply could not find the “links that go nowhere.”
I totally accept that the amount of information on the sidebars has grown beyond the point of usefullness. I shall be cutting the clutter very soon, and I would certainly appreciate any and all feedback about what links are important and what links are unimportant.
On the gout newsletter front, it is true that all mentions of the newsletter link to the subscription page (or should do!). The additional content that I write for the newsletter, when I have time to do it, is specifically for subscribers – my way of saying thank you to regular visitors. All subscribers have instant access to back issues. Subscription only takes a moment, and you can easily cancel your subscription if you do not like what you see. I never pass email addresses on to anyone else, and only use them for sending out the newsletter.
My policy on advertising (as with all content) is to immediately remove it if it causes offence. Of course, to do this, I do need to know where it is.
Finally, I don't understand what you mean by “I couldn't locate the forum from your main page. Perhaps a link could be added below the 'blog' link.” I know this is probably me being thick, but when you say main page is this http://www.gout-pal.com ? On that page there is a link to Gout Forum in the top page menu, a link to Gout Forum on the top left sidebar, and links to the latest forum posts before the latest blog entries.
I'm really frustrated because I want to improve the site, and I do value your feedback, but, apart from what I can now see as the clutter from two sidebars, I don't know what the other problems are.
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
6:24 pm January 21, 2009
Martin
Guest
5
Ah, I've made a discovery. From memory, I typed in goutpal.com and got a completely different page than gout-pal.com. It was the former that I found so confusing. With a hyphen, is much better. That resolves many of my problems.
Well one things for sure – they could both do with a good makeover, and perhaps a llittle better integration.
All suggestions for improvements greatly received.
The only thing I'm left wondering is: if you are Bill, who is Martin?
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
10:52 am March 12, 2009
mings
Gouty Twinges
posts 2
7
Post edited 5:17 am – May 14, 2009 by GoutPal
GoutPal said:
Don't get me wrong – all feedback is welcome, it's just that it is impossible to react in a positive way sometimes.
I guess we all judge things by our own standards and reference points. My experience tells me, that if I'm going to report a broken link, I should specifically state the page where the problem is (copied and pasted from the address bar), then describe where the offending link is. I was frustrated by your first post because I simply could not find the “links that go nowhere.”
I totally accept that the amount of information on the sidebars has grown beyond the point of usefullness. I shall be cutting the clutter very soon, and I would certainly appreciate any and all feedback about what links are important and what links are unimportant.
On the gout newsletter front, it is true that all mentions of the newsletter link to the subscription page (or should do!). The additional content that I write for the newsletter, when I have time to do it, is specifically for subscribers – my way of saying thank you to regular visitors. All subscribers have instant access to back issues. Subscription only takes a moment, and you can easily cancel your subscription if you do not like what you see. I never pass email addresses on to anyone else, and only use them for sending out the newsletter.
My policy on advertising (as with all content) is to immediately remove it if it causes offence. Of course, to do this, I do need to know where it is.
Finally, I don't understand what you mean by “I couldn't locate the forum from your main page. Perhaps a link could be added below the 'blog' link.” I know this is probably me being thick, but when you say main page is this http://www.gout-pal.com ? On that page there is a link to Gout Forum in the top page menu, a link to Gout Forum on the top left sidebar, and links to the latest forum posts before the latest blog entries.
I'm really frustrated because I want to improve the site, and I do value your feedback, but, apart from what I can now see as the clutter from two sidebars, I don't know what the other problems are.
I am assuming this is the place to put my reply about the above quote. I think you are doing a wonderful thing in setting this site up and you can be sure that many are grateful to find it, I just registered as mings and asked for a search for a drug name-both times my Apple Safari Browser said it couldn't find the site-however I did get registered and received a password. I think the Apple Safari Browser is at fault, my Bank can't use it either, so if Safari is the problem I can use Firefox. In any case i hope you can use this information to help others who may use Mac computers by checking it out and placing a warning that Safari may cause problems. Thank you again for this great site!!! Now, where is the send button?
There is a forum search button, between the forum login, and forum navigation boxes. This does not seem to work very well.
There is a (google) gout search box near the top of each forum page, and at the foot of every page. This is a much better option. There is a slight delay before items are included in the Google search engine, but it is much more inclusive. It includes all pages on this site, and my GoutPal.com site.
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
First, thanks for the site. It has been very helpful and hopefully I can contribute as I work through my current flare-up.
Concerning organization, may I offer a couple of suggestions. It looks like you are using a largely static html format for http://www.goutpal.com/, perhaps built with Site Build It!? With nearly 1000 pages online with both the domains, it must be burdensome to maintain at times. The Wordpress blog and forum is a good choice in my opinion.
Might I suggest that you look into a CMS such as Drupal to move forward. ( http://www.drupal.org ) It is a very popular content management system often used by non-profits and other organizations needing an inexpensive but powerful platform. I've installed and configured several of these including a US senate re-election site and state and county party websites. As a free, open-source CMS, you can't beat it, IMO. Depending on your current host, you could install one of these and migrate your content over time without any interruption to your current service. I'd be happy to help if you want to call.
Secondly, your traffic is not trivial (http://www.quantcast.com/gout-pal.com) and you could probably be monetizing your content a bit more effectively. Your adsense placement and color choices are probably not working as well as they could. (each site is different but there are some general guidelines that apply to all).
Please take this as constructive, I appreciate all that you have done and the time that you have put into this, it is significant and a help to many. Please consider this as a down-payment for the helpful information that I've received.
If I can help, please feel free to contact me.
8:29 am May 12, 2009
zip2play
Member
posts 1278
10
Gee,
Now WHY did Aviator's post come accross as 9 feet long requiring scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to the right to read the whole thing???
Anyhoo, I might disagree as to the number of people who amble by but if Steve can find a free or cheap bulletin board format that works better, all the better.
This current board system is, to be kind, a CHORE to use.
But I am not one to recommend a lot of work or expense to anyone. Managing a forum site is very time intensive and I am grateful
>> Now WHY did Aviator's post come accross as 9 feet long requiring scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to the right to read the whole thing???
I don't understand, I checked this page in both IE7, Firefox 3, Chrome and Opera and it looks ok. You had to scroll to the right?
>> Anyhoo, I might disagree as to the number of people who amble by but if Steve can find a free or cheap bulletin board format that works better, all the better.
Is it Steve? I'm sorry, the who-is record lists a 'Keith'. I was just trying to be friendly but if I got the name wrong, I apologize. gout-pal.com has a Quantcast tag which means that this traffic is real, measured page views by actual human viewers. I didn't look all over the site to see if the tag was on every page, but for the pages that it is installed on, these are pretty accurate stats.
>>But I am not one to recommend a lot of work or expense to anyone. Managing a forum site is very time intensive and I am grateful to anyone who does the work for me.
Me too. I just wanted to offer the suggestion because I've used that CMS before and it works well, it's free and well maintained.
Are 'zip2play' and 'goutpal' and 'admin' the same person? I really like your posts, coming from an engineering background myself, I tend to think similarly. Although you appear to have more of a background in chemistry.
GoutPal and Admin are the same – i.e. me, but I very rarely post anything as admin. I run this site as an informal partner to GoutPal.com, and reorganisation is way past due. You can find out slightly more about me via my Facebook profile which is at the bottom of each page, though I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook (Bloody hell, I've just checked that link, and see that I have 10 fans – perhaps I should Facebook a little more)
Zip2play is a prolific poster who adds fantastic insight and experience to this forum, not to mention humor. With a few more like zip2play, we might finally get our doctors to do as they are told.
I thought most of the forum problems had faded with the move to a new server. However, I normally use a good broadband connection. I recently saw something quite appalling on this (and other sites), when I was using a setup with a poor connection. The page content loaded, but the formatting rules seemed to get left behind, and the whole thing, though readable, looked terrible. Not sure yet if this is the issue, and even less sure how to cure it. (the temporary cure was to press F5, or the refresh button on the browser).
If anyone has readability issues, I really would appreciate a heads-up here. Like Aviator, I cannot see the problem, which is quite frustrating as I can't see what to fix.
Thanks guys – I'll come back on some of the other stuff later.
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
>> I recently saw something quite appalling on this (and other sites),when I was using a setup with a poor connection. The page content loaded, but the formatting rules seemed to get left behind
That explains it. A web page's format is often defined by cascading style scripts (.css) files that are loaded simultaneously with the page content. You are using a number of add-ons to Wordpress (Simple Press Forum, TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor, etc). Each of these scripts make external calls to various .css and .js scripts while loading the page. Quickly looking through this page, there are 10 style script calls and17 javascript calls that must be completed before the page is fully loaded. While fairly small when loaded separately, they do add up quickly. If a user has a poor connection (for whatever reason) a style script may not get loaded. Some browsers (ie. Firefox) try to get as much up on the screen as quickly as possible and might forgo a style script that it's waiting for. This is why content may appear to 'jump' into position after the page loads, and the browser finally loads the .css file, finishing the formatting based on the new instructions it just received. If all the scripts cannot be loaded before the browser times out, it just displays the page as is.
Hope that makes sense. The bottom line is that some people are seeing the site poorly formatted due to limited connection speeds. Perhaps another reason to consider an update.
9:48 am May 13, 2009
zip2play
Member
posts 1278
14
Firstly,
I got tongue tied when I referred to “Steve” for no good reason…it is, of course KEITH. I don't know WHERE Steve came from but I might have said the same thing in an earlier post.
Yep, this thread and only this thread remains about 5 windows wide. Most annoying because the REPLY button is at the end of a long scroll. It has never happened on any other threads on the board and appeared only after Aviator's post.
Virtually unreadable,
Aviator, did you use any special coding for your first post? That's the post that expanded the thread.
My connection speed is not great but always a rock solid 1.5 Mbps.
I use I.E. 7.0.
(another wrinkle is that after I post I am returned to a PAGE NOT FOUND…and I must use the backpage arrow to get back to the thread…which now holds my post. This has occurred since Day One.)
Perhaps trafffic at the site is bigger than I'd thought but if the count relects how many POSTS are read in a day, maybe not so many…I read 5 or 6 a day and post maybe 3 or 4…so maybe I'm contributing 10 and Keith is contributing 10 etc.
Perhaps it can become self supporting for our esteemed webmaster.
Oh dear – just had a look using IE7 (I normally use Firefox) and it was bad – due to an earlier post using preformatted text, which I have now changed.
I wonder what will happen when I post this
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
That worked in IE7, though I do remember earlier instances of Page Not Found after posting, which I thought I had fixed by upgrading WordPress. Must have been something else
I'll think about this as I embark on my role as media distribution specialist (paperboy)
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
8:06 am May 14, 2009
zip2play
Member
posts 1278
17
Post edited 2:35 pm – May 14, 2009 by zip2play
WONDEFUL!
Everything is lined up with the monitor's width now now…perfect word-wrapping.
First, thanks for the site. It has been very helpful and hopefully I can contribute as I work through my current flare-up.
Concerning organization, may I offer a couple of suggestions. It looks like you are using a largely static html format for http://www.goutpal.com/, perhaps built with Site Build It!? With nearly 1000 pages online with both the domains, it must be burdensome to maintain at times. The Wordpress blog and forum is a good choice in my opinion.
Might I suggest that you look into a CMS such as Drupal to move forward. ( http://www.drupal.org ) It is a very popular content management system often used by non-profits and other organizations needing an inexpensive but powerful platform. I've installed and configured several of these including a US senate re-election site and state and county party websites. As a free, open-source CMS, you can't beat it, IMO. Depending on your current host, you could install one of these and migrate your content over time without any interruption to your current service. I'd be happy to help if you want to call.
Secondly, your traffic is not trivial (http://www.quantcast.com/gout-pal.com) and you could probably be monetizing your content a bit more effectively. Your adsense placement and color choices are probably not working as well as they could. (each site is different but there are some general guidelines that apply to all).
Please take this as constructive, I appreciate all that you have done and the time that you have put into this, it is significant and a help to many. Please consider this as a down-payment for the helpful information that I've received.
If I can help, please feel free to contact me.
With the distraction of fixing the formatting issue and moving server, I'm sorry, but I never responded to this.
Firstly, thank you, and I am sure i will be in touch, Aviator. Not much point in dragging technical issues out in public, when it has nothing to do with gout, so I'll write privately about CMS and migration issues.
For gout sufferers in general, and GoutPal fans in particular, there is some relevance to this.
Whilst this site (on WordPress with add-ins) is relatively easy to maintain, the GoutPal.com site (which as Aviator suggests is on Site Build It) is becoming a chore. There are some serious issues with that platform, and it is past time to move. I have decided, rather than tweak GoutPal.com further, I will move the pages to a more up-to-date platform, make navigation much easier, then update those pages.
As an aside, I should mention that the Site Build It platform is perfectly suitable for many budding web site developers, especially those who need hand-holding. But if you have a reasonable degree of technical insight and a burning desire for IT efficiency, then it really is not suitable. Especially given the inexcusable marketing distractions.
Anyway, back to the gout issues. My interpretation of most visitors needs is that top priority is “Please Help My Gout”, so I plan a kind of “Gout Emergency Room”, linked to from every page. This will feature “gout triage” functionality where readers can quickly navigate through to information that is relevant to them (or through to the gout forum if they cannot quickly see the right answers).
Next priority is clear, simple sections that cover the main categories of gout diet, Gout Cure and gout diagnosis. I believe a simple “Other” section can easily mop up all those pages that do not fall neatly into the main sections (Gout Song indeed! What was I thinking?).
Any suggestions, perhaps including presentation examples that work for you, are all gratefully received.
What are your burning questions that you simply cannot find an answer to on GoutPal.com?
Unless replying to specific points in this topic, please start a new topic. See new topic link above, or gout forum guidelines. Current gout status in my profile.
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