All,

We have a ton of great things in store for LQ in 2004, but I'd like to know what everyone else would like to see us do this year. Do you have a suggestion for a new section or feature? Let us know what you think by posting in this thread. Thanks.

--jeremy

Personally I don't think much should change, but I do hope more focus on the existing goodies LQ.org already has. I myself am trying to focus more on the sections we already have, like Reviews, HCL and Answers. I think by focusing more on those is only going to make this site better.

That's what I want to see in 2004..

I've already installed two distros to add two reviews already..

I have to agree with trickykid. You folks are doing a great job. But, it would be great if a lot more ppl contribue to Reviews and Answers. I am working on a LA and shall post it soon.

I'd like to see a section for linux use with every day things, such as the talked about home theatre system that runs on linux with like 5 sound cards, or some sort of home control system... something on the lines of that. It would be interesting to incorporate a linux box to do something useful in a house or car or something of the sort.

hey how about a linuxquestion irc chat? if there is already one how about a java applet for those people dont have irc clients or anything like this turning to direct communication?
if theres none chat i would be glad to set one up .... just mail me or post it

Personally feel that on average many questions get answered to some degree of success pretty quickly on our site - also helps to keep answers in a searchable databse format - on an admin side, there's always a potential for problems/arguments particularly with fudders coming to the site and persuading/arguing against Linux use in real-time - possibly associated legal problems for Jeremy if things got out of hand in IRC.

Unfortunately, this has been asked many many times and we have denied this for many reasons.

The main reason is we don't want to take the focus away from members posting their questions in the forums. Its setup to record and store in the database, for future references, searching, etc.

If we had an IRC channel (and no way would ever use Java based as some don't even have it installed and its resource intensive, etc), it would be probably strictly for gathering and socializing, but that wouldn't stop others from asking questions though.

Plus its added responsibility to have appointed mods or Jeremy to moderate what is going on, etc.

Its just something with the size of LQ is at currently, sort of out of the question.

Also, now with the changes to General - you can have something approaching "chat" there without worry - personally feel General's working well now and has a nice level of supervisable "chat" - good move Jer - actually, seeing how General's working today, it does seem to be a sufficient substitue for "chat" , but with the added bonus of being "moderatable" - nice.

hmm yes but theres nothing about a "real" chat isnt it ? and what i meant is not a chat where questions are answeared but more a chat to get to know some of the forum users and to chat about normal topics not only linux i mean the forums great for questions and so on but theres nothing about some small talk using a chat isnt it ?

And I mentioned this already in my first reply. Some will still ask questions and with the amount of members here daily and most likely joining IRC, it would be too much to handle.

This is something that is never going to happen, really, never going to happen. I promise.

That is one reason we did create the members Intro forum, to get to know others who introduce themselves, etc. Also General can be used to mingle with off topic discussions.

Regards.

What I would want most is an overhaul of the search facility. Suggestions:

Logical operators (and, or, not -- and brackets?) for the search words.

Search for signs other than letters and numbers (or is that possible?).

Quick way(s) to find threads oneself started (reason: in some cases I found a solution to an unanswered earlier problem, but I can't find my thread anymore ).

Combination of handle and subject in searches (e.g. handle = Tinkster and subject = "what ever")

Some improvement in the ranking of the results other than newest first.

I'm pretty sure that other visitors to this *excellent* site can augment and amend my proposals .

My thanks and carry on Jeremy.

Click Search and type your username into the "Search by User Name" box. When you see your user name, click it, in the page which comes up at the top right it says "Search for all threads started by this user", click it and all your threads will appear.

No just kidding. I second having logical operators in the search. That would make searching extremely helpful. Wildcards and NOT would be fantastic.

Oh I got another one! How 'bout each post has a button that starts you reading from where you last posted?

Logical operators are (to a large extent) already built into the search, as is the ability to use wildcards. You can also enter a search term and a username at the same time.

--jeremy