It has been 6.5 years and 200k posts since EuroGA was started and there has been time to reflect on what features might be worth adding.
My view, based on talking to countless EuroGA users, is that the site is “about right”.
A really key determining factor in site architecture / user interface is whether the site runs to make money. If you want to make money then you have to follow a different formula, and FB (which obviously exists purely to make money) does it well by creating an addictive interaction, based on most people being really keen to see who likes them. And while there, they click on adverts… Well, unless they are smart enough to run the Facebook Purity plug-in, which strips out the ads. But if you aren’t running adverts (perhaps because you think they would spoil the site / create ethical issues with having to host ads from known-dodgy firms / having to run a no-bashing-of-companies policy / the traffic is too small to warrant it / whatever) then I don’t see a pressing reason to structure the user interface in that way.
I think the biggest issue with these features is intimidation of actual and prospective new posters. This is rife on every site I have been on, usually very obviously so. And every such site is dominated by a sub-community which seems to thrive on it. It is one of the reasons why so many people have a love/hate relationship with forums, often leaving them, then returning, then leaving again. On EuroGA, we don’t have this issue. There are no post counts, for example, so each contribution stands by itself. We have often been reminded that we are too technical, too much IFR, and such like, and it would be great to change this, but for various reasons it is not easy.
The main thing which some people (probably 2% or so, of participants) do dislike is that EuroGA is moderated but that’s a different issue.
Personally I sometimes think a thanks/like button is practical (we have them on the ILS forum) but at the same time, they harbour the risk you can see on facebook and elsewhere, some folks forming up in a small mob and starting to give bad reviews to people they don’t agree with. In retrospect looking at the forums I frequent, this one here does not need those social media functions as we are a small enough yet active enough group as we can talk together like people, not “Like” addicts. This is not about “measuring” popularity, which can be addictive as FB e.t.c. have shown, it is about exchanging information and helping each other.
I think the main advantage is such buttons is not the social perspective but to rank posts according to relevance. E.g. if somebody posts spam, then after X reports or “dislikes” it can be hidden until further moderation. Another case is if someone get many “likes” within X days then the post must be relevant and can be highlighted on the main page. A bit like how the voting system on StackOverflow works.
Those are indeed good points, but I think – as David addresses further above – StackOverflow is a different user interface designed for a different purpose – basically to generate specific answers for specific issues, with a general sort of discussion being strongly discouraged.
Reddit is another case where this is done but it is an absolutely awful site IMHO. Newbies get exterminated really fast and much of it is dominated by characters who really ought to spend less time on the internet. It is a site optimised for addiction – like all commercial social media nowadays.
Hopefully, spam on EuroGA gets removed by the long suffering mod fairly effectively, except when he is sitting on a chair lift and doesn’t want to drop the phone 
We also now have a far more robust system for keeping spammers out; it is called a “manual check” It became necessary with some 10+% of signups being fairly smart human spammers (in India and similar) who know how to play the standard forum signup safeguards.
I would suggest that the forum is pretty fine “as-is”. We get to know the posters and each of us builds our own opinion about some that we have some reason to like/dislike/respect/disrespect more than others and so on. But if we are all polite and restrained in our comments, at least most of the time, then that doesn’t need to surface too much to the top. Some threads are more interesting than others and some vary quite a bit over time, but that is the real benefit of this forum. We can each focus on what interests us most. My favourite is the “active threads” because it allows me to see what is currently being discussed and take a look at what is of specific personal interest or just pique’s my curiosity. One can always reactivate an old thread just by adding a new comment. Sometimes a thread starts out interesting and then goes off a bit in a direction that I don’t find interesting. But that is no problem. I just don’t follow it anymore. Can always come back and take a look again later…
I find the forum most helpful for technical questions/discussions and searches on trips and destination information. There is a group of members that travel a lot, and the travel tips are really invaluable, just like the trip reports which are not only enjoying but also provide a huge amount of useful info.
So the bottom line is for me … generally, don’t touch a running system. A few more icons would be nice, beyond smile and wink…. especially thank-you, light-bulb. Another suggest would be to go to the last page when clicking on a thread under “active threads”. That would often eliminate a click, especially old threads that are reactivated.
chflyer wrote:
A few more icons would be nice, beyond smile and wink
I don’t see why we couldn’t get a whole bunch, and “gifs” etc. It would give some more “color” to the place, and soften it up a bit. Like buttons etc is just a nuisance IMO.
What kinds of emoticons would people like to see?
This one 
