Branded Boards To Become Niche Zones

[Dallas]

As mentioned in the call for support topic, I am going to be converting the camera brand specific boards into Special Interest Zones so that viewing posts made in those Zones will be "opt-in". I have purchased the necessary plugin and installed it so you may notice that there are a few new icons in my post mini-profile (look left) that show some of the SI Zones I already belong to. I will try and get better icons for these once I am done with the whole migration as well as reconfigure a few things using the new tools I have. Important to note is that I am going to be setting up these brand zones in a way that requires you to join the zone before you can post in it. It's a bit of a pain, but I think the community benefits will be worth it in the long run. 

 

I don't expect that I will need to close the site while this is happening, but I will see what happens once I begin the migration of those boards. I will start with the smaller ones first and then tackle the 101k post Nikongear board last.  

 

Thank you once again to all those who supported Fotozones with donations and new subscriptions over the past day or two. This is the beginning of an improved user experience as a result of your support. 

 

UPDATE: the branded boards have been converted to Zones, but I will be making a slight change for now regarding visibility. All posts will be visible, but if a member wants to participate they will have to join that zone. The reason for this is because of a technical issue that I am trying to circumvent. Please bear with me. 

[Dallas]

Please expect some experimentation with the Niche Zones as I try to find the best balance given the technical issue I am attempting to work around. Apologies for any inconvenience at this time if you are unable to post in certain gear boards. I hope to get this sorted out today. 

[Dallas]

It took me a while to figure out how to accomplish the setup I wanted to implement given the complexity of the feature, but I believe that it is now working as I always intended. Here's how it has been set up:

 

The camera brand boards that were previously part of the General Forum are now included in the Niche Zones area. These are Nikon, Micro Four Thirds and Fujifilm. All members of Fotozones have been added as members of these niches, so everyone should be able to see all the old posts, any new posts and of course make new posts without having to do anything. All new members joining Fotozones are automatically added as members of all the niche zones and will also be able to see inside these niche areas without having to join them. However, the main benefit of this set up now is that should any member decide that they don't want to see posts relating to a certain camera brand in their feeds, they can leave that zone with a single click and use Fotozones to stay focused on the areas that they are interested in. 

 

Other niche interest zones will follow the same setup during the course of the day (Analog, YouTube, etc). 

[Dallas]

Please note that certain error messages shown to members who are not logged in and trying to view the niche zones are not correct. You do not have to purchase a subscription to view these zones. 

 

Unfortunately I can't change these messages as it's a bug with the plugin. The developer is apparently Italian so getting support for this is going to be a slow process. I have asked for Invision to intervene but they are also under pressure at the moment to respond to queries.