TMC 2

For the announcement stuff that used to go in the feedback forum

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Postby Gadders » Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:00 pm

1 suggestion, reviews... I'm always attracted to a site if it has some in depth, colourful, informative reviews about up-to-date products - might be an effort though.
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Postby scook94 » Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:59 pm

Good of you to volunteer your services, Gadders...
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Postby phil » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:48 pm

Reviews are on the list of first phase new functionality, under the heading of "member-supplied content".

Essentially members will be able to come along to the site and write articles, using WYSIWYG editing facilities and following a pre-defined template, straight into the site. Those articles will then go into a queue for editorial review and will get published when they're ready. To get over the possibility of members wasting a lot of time and effort writing something we feel we don't want to publish, we'll probably make it a condition that if someone wants to write content they have to be given access to that facility first. Easy enough to do.

And I agree, reviews are important. We had a handful to begin with, but they hit the same problem all of the new content did back then: unless I entered it into the system myself, it didn't happen. Eventually that got to be too much.

So we will be looking for content editors soon too. Don't all shout at once, but think about it. When the time comes we'll be happy to receive the help of folks who can genuinely commit the required amount of time.
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Postby monkey66 » Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:56 pm

Chrome and red may be a good look?

:o
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Postby CakeBoy » Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:17 pm

monkey66 wrote:Chrome and red may be a good look?

:o
:lol:
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Postby phil » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:22 pm

This posting is prompted by Gadders comment above.

Does anyone ever visit the TMC front page? TMC 1 that is?

There are reviews and all sorts of articles (none recent, regrettably) linked off the top menu.

My quite serious concern is that I can put all sorts of content in TMC 2 but if no looks beyond the pages of the forum, no-one will know it's there. I believe that many people just go straight to the forum pages and ignore the home page. At least one of the mods has admitted he never goes there.

That sort of behaviour becomes habitual.

In TMC, there is a separate articles portal linked off the main (left) menu to avoid people not knowing it's there.

Still, I worry ....
La Spaziale Spazio 2 group semi-auto

La Spaziale Lusso grinder (espresso),
Macap MC4 shop grinder (brewed coffee)
Three Thor tampers
Two Hottops, first since Feb 2003
No partridge, no pear tree either
Conas, Zassenhaus hand grinder....
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Postby phil » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:27 pm

Anyway, despite the rather depressed tone of the above posting, please be aware that TMC 2 in its initial form will come on line in the next 24 hours - possibly even this afternoon.

The old content has been migrated so that links from Google can continue to work. We don't want to lose our page ranking. However, since the migration tool only migrates the articles and not the menu structure I will place the content into a much simpler structure to save time and effort.

When the migration takes place, TMC will go off the air for a short period. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
La Spaziale Spazio 2 group semi-auto

La Spaziale Lusso grinder (espresso),
Macap MC4 shop grinder (brewed coffee)
Three Thor tampers
Two Hottops, first since Feb 2003
No partridge, no pear tree either
Conas, Zassenhaus hand grinder....
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Postby Fatboy_007 » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:36 pm

Rather bizarrely between this and Coffeegeek(shhh) I tend to use CG for the reviews and here for 'sensible' stuff like forums.

I think as Phil says this site has become purely a forum, which for most of the time is what I want, and I probably visit this site 20 times more often than CG.

Whilst we are appreciative that CG will always provide more exposure for someone like Jim to write his articles (and for all I know may pay him for them (though I suspect not)) it would be great to see his articles appear first as Europeans!

I have time though I suspect not the expertise to help, but if we could all work on the Slivers=of-Time principle we should be able to distribute the load more evenly.
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Postby phil » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:46 pm

I think several facets of the above reply encapsulate quite well what has come to depress me so much about the way TMC has (d)evolved ....
La Spaziale Spazio 2 group semi-auto

La Spaziale Lusso grinder (espresso),
Macap MC4 shop grinder (brewed coffee)
Three Thor tampers
Two Hottops, first since Feb 2003
No partridge, no pear tree either
Conas, Zassenhaus hand grinder....
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Postby eivindt » Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:32 pm

I must confess that I seldom go to the front page myself. I only used the front page frequently when I was new to the site.

For long-time users, the forum will always have the most up-to-date content and the most changes, so it's only natural that people will want to check what's new on the forum first. Rather than fighting this, I think it would make more sense to try to make the rest of the site content as accessible as possible from within the forum. I.e. make new site-content very visible as banners or in the left menu.

On the other hand, I think there are a lot of potential for creating usable site-content outside of the forum, and I think the wiki should become especially useful. Most of the sticky threads would be more useful as wiki pages, and some of the really long threads would be much more useful as wiki-pages (e.g. the aeropress-threads).


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Postby Teme » Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:36 pm

I actually always enter via the homepage. It'll be interesting to see the new and imprved TMC...

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Postby GeorgeW » Sat Mar 31, 2007 2:24 pm

I always enter via the front page and have read all of the articles. I think that Eivind's suggestions make a lot of sense.
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Postby lukas » Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:39 pm

When I first discovered TMC, I stumbeld upon the frontpage and somehow found the forum. After a while, I realized what was available on the frontpage and nearly read it all. I like the way home-barista is organized: a clearly visible forum, and every now-and-then a new article or section on the front page that evolved out of forum discussions. I agree with eivind that the most of sticky-threads should become superseded by articles or wiki-pages on tmc2 :)

Keep on the good work Phil, I think it will bear fruits! I know how much work this involves ...
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Postby BazBean » Sat Mar 31, 2007 5:54 pm

I Enter via front page but unless anything catches my eye I continue onto forum.
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Postby CakeBoy » Sat Mar 31, 2007 8:36 pm

Hopefully as the now rather dated article database is refreshed more people will notice and want to stop off in the main site for a read, or maybe even to contribute there. Let's all make TMC2 the world class coffee information resource that we all deserve :D
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