Hi everyone I was just thinking that now we have a new look to the forum, that perhaps we should have a topic that talks about the forum.

I like the new layout, but it is very bright.
I enjoy most of the topics, but there are some I think should be removed after a time(See Kate needs our help with Homebake).
I would like to see more people posting more regularly.
I would like to see more people doing chats about things Kate and also other topics etc(Yes I realise that there was a time where the forun got out of line and posts were sometimes nothing more than a word or two...)

I am sure there are other things that I will add in time, but I thought that this would be a good way to start the topic, I also think that this would be a good place to discuss other forums and what they have to offer.

Yes... Congrates on the new skin for the forum.
I see the forum structure has not changed at all though (still Invision)
But I like that it looks fresh and up to date and reflects the current Album etc.
Plus seeing Kate’s face when you first load the page just makes you smile

Great suggestions Steve
I'm with you, how can we make it a more productive place?
Seems there is a very friendly and helpful group of people here, would be nice if the forum let us share those assets a little better.
Although I am very happy with the place. But agree, it could be brought to a more current and functional forum structure.

http://www.vbadvanced.com/
This forum engine gives a lot of possibilities and expansion. And also gives Mods a lot of tools to monitor poor behaviour and IP address etc.

http://www.vbulletin.com/
Same thing with vBulletin.

You can have a live shoutbox running at the top or each page that lets currently logged in members chat to each other. Other forums I am a member of have this and it is a brilliant way to make friends with other members and share links etc.
You often find that 5 or 6 members having a couple of drinks after work and enjoying the conversation etc… it’s just like a meeting

There are many many other ideas…. A front page with KMH related item on it?

Anyway, it all makes more work for the poor old Mods and Admin.

I’d just like to thank them for keeping the place running and for the new look skin 
I got a shock when I loaded the page…. I thought I had gone somewhere else


I have noticed the EDIT button does not work for me on this new look site?
Not sure if it just me of the site itself?

But suggestion wise I would like to see:

A Shoutbox
More specific thread sections (or Main Sections with Sub-Sections visible on the one page)

Can't think of much more at the moment.... But would like to mention that I have never seen a Spam bot on here nor a person being destructive or advertising... I am very impressed with that.

But as you say Steve, it could be a very productive, friendly and resourceful place with current news and a great community.

Which it more or less is now

For those that didn't know, you can change the current skin at the bottom of the page in the drop down window.

There are 3 skins to choose from

Standard Invision
KMH Red (Little Eve theme)
Curiouser (Curiouser theme)

So you can go back to the old skin if you prefered that

P.S. The skin will remain on which ever you last left it on for future visits.

Thanks for letting us know Grapeape, I like the new skin

Thanks for that Grape, great input, as a non technohead, and as someone who is only on a couple of forums, I have limited exposure to what is and not available.

I like the idea of a shoutbox, there have been a couple of issues in regards to posts in the past however I have found that our mods do a great job and take care of any issues if anyone has a problem.

To be honest, I find this forum pretty good for what it here to do.
It's a great central location to share information, meet others and be informed about the latest goings on with KMH.

You have contact with the her manager (which I think is fantastic for a busy person like that to make herself available to fans) and it's great to hear things from someone that knows

You can contact Kate herself, which is just such a nice thing. Speaks volumes for her feet on the ground Aussie attitude. It is actually half the reason I find her such a great artist.

You have a neat little support group of people in each location around Australia that all meet up at concerts etc

And you have plenty of eyes open about the place that report back with the latest news and places you can see Kate.

What could be better really?

The Shoutbox has its Pros and Cons.

It can be useful in stopping needless little posts when all someone wants to do is ask a question or speak to another member.
It also lets you get a much more personal understanding of other members. A lot easy to make friends etc.

It also can be abused. People can start writing rubbish. But in my opinion, this type of site doesn't really hold those types of people.
As we are all here for a common interest.

Another nice service is a Pager Message. It's like a Private Message, but its a little bubble window that opens up the minute you send the message to that person. It's instant and a nice way to have private conversation without messing up the board with unnecessary posts.
The messages are not stored anyway, and once you reply, that message you were sent is gone. Thus saving space on servers….

You could go on and on I guess……. You have some great members here, and lucky we get some fantastic pictures of KMH posted by a few of the members that are great at photography.

Anyway…. Spicks and Specks is on….. See ya

This new skin is very crisp looking - clean and bright. Quite nice!

I was wondering when we'd get a new skin! Good work, maybe a little too much white but who am i to blow against the wind?

Oooo facelift... Very nice!

Just for Steve and those wondering what a Shoutbox looks like. It's something like this. You will also see common site sats up for easy access, like the last 4 posts etc... It makes the site very useful, but perhaps takes away from the artiness of this place.... Thought i'd post a pic just so you got the idea



I think something that is a nice addition to a forum, is a "Thanks" button.

So instead of having to post a Thank You, you can just click the Thanks button and your name is left with others in the Thank You section under the originals posters post.

Although the white was a little too white for my sensitive eyes.. I have grown to it. And considering its kates new album design , it makes sense for it to be the new skin.


The only thing that really stands out to me is the banner.. as lovely as that picture is .. its a little too big.

And Steve RE: the removal of posts.. with such like the homebake thread it can be unpinned.. but as far as removing posts (removing history).. as long as the thread isn't a waste of space I think it shouldn't be removed.

It's always good for newbies to come along and enjoy the old posts and geta feel from whats been going on.




ohh and one thing spell check.. what happened to it?

Hmmm...

I too like the new skin, but since I only joined yesterday it's the only skin I've known here.

There IS a lot of white though. Like the reply box... you can barely see it as the outline is a very faint grey & blends in with all the white.

I'm finding the whole forum layout kinda bizarre actually. I'm only a couple of other forums, so I'm hardly a professional on the subject, but I've never seen a forum where you have to pysically go & click on each & every reply. Perhaps there's a way to change that in my own private settings or something? I'd much rather have all the replies on the one page, s that when I open a topic I can just scroll down to where I last left it.

Also, I haven't seen any icon that lets me know what's new since my last login. I'm sure it's there somewhere, I just haven't had a good enough look around.

Yep, it's there alright

I was only thinking the other day, that apart from the huge photo, the new skin is very similar in style(perhaps not colour) as the original forum.

Can there be an easier way to get into the forum. I hate it opening a new webpage, especially when i'm supposed to be working

it doesn't open to a new page for me as I have the forum saved under this link:
http://www.katemillerheidke.com/forum/home.do
not sure if that's useful.

Also The whiteness is quite crisp and new, but I do like colourful forums(not so much that they distract or make it tricky of course)
But I think we are forgetting.. if people don't like the new one the option of reverting back to the old one is only a mouse click away!

forums.katemh.com will bring you directly to here. At least, it always has for me.

Thanks for that guys! i've sent it to work! DEVIOUSNESS!

That its not that active,,

im a new kate fann, and im heaps excited hearing all her stuff for the first time, be nice to talk to some other fans every now and then

other than that
awesome forum!

Hey Dave, yeah we're still a pretty small forum. But in the last couple of weeks we've had a bit of an influx of new members, so hopefully it will pick up soon. We also had a bit of a lull after the last tour, and Curiouser? being released. Things should get more active again now

awesome
cant wait to get the albums, i love kate =P

Just noticed that curiouser is #5 on the iTunes chart already
cant wait to see where it debuts on sunday!

I should drag people here...

I am unable to edit my posts.

Well, i just joined about 20 mins ago, you guys have done such a great job so far i don't need to give any criticism, it'll always be brilliant! If you're gonna change it around, only change it if it's necessary, it's good the way you have it now!



i wanted to edit this post because i forgot i had more to say, but it didn't let me!
that's the only thing i have wrong with it now!

anyway, what i was going to add is now that Kate's new album has been released, we may get more members flooding in sometime soon if more of us get our friends involved, heck! my friend joined here before i could because i didn't know about this place until half an hour ago! I've laready got a friend here, just need more! I'll get my whole school involved!!!!

Well done Marcus keep up the good work, and we hope to see lots of your friends posting on here regularly.

awesome.!
well, im getting curiouser no matter what.
ive got the ltd edition on the way but im going to buy the normal ed. tommorow anyway.

keep the collection going! it feels good to support Kate, eh?

yep

got curiouser today

and got little eve on order.!!


i love kate =D

Since this forum has been open for awhile now its a good idea to ask you guys for any suggestions or ideas to make the forum better? What do you like about this forum? What don't you like? What things do you want to see added or taken out? Are the moderators doing a good job? Any ideas/feedback/suggestions would be most welcome! You can also PM me with ideas too if you like.

1. Can we get the edit button working again
2. Moderators need to be more hands on, if not replace them with new mods.
3. Information needs to be up to date. The forthcoming events does not show the US tour dates.
4. Information regarding CD releases etc is pretty ordinary, it comes mainly from Myspace blogs from Kate
5. Same for Tour dates

I will see if I can think of any more.


I do like coming here as I love to discuss all things Kate with people who also share a passion for her singing and live shows.

re number 3) I have already added the Aussie dates. Didn't see a need to add the dates overseas considering the majority of fans on here are from Australia at the moment.

Bit more of a relaxed attitude is needed on the forum, me thinks.

lol.
Nice picture!

Ayyyyyyy!

I'm relaxed like Frankie Goes To Hollywood.



We've had this issue ever since we moved to the Curiouser layout. There's a way around it - right click over the edit button and open a new window/tab.



Nah there's no one else to replace us, Kate doesn't pay enough

Can we make "active in the past 15 minutes" live? So, active users at that point in time, not in the last 15 minutes.

I like to know who is online at the same time as me. Not in the same ballpark time as me.

I am not having a "go"at Johnny or Seven.

I am happy to know both of them and have shared many KMH moments with both of them.

We have at least 2 other Mods who have not made a post since at least May for one and I think it is February for the other.

Sev, thanks for putting the dates on, however we have seen an increase in the number of overseas posters and as Kate is now an "International Artist" then her US dates should be included.

It is not just so that the Americans can see what she is doing, but it is also nice for us to know where she will be playing.

I'd like more direct interaction with management... Leanne was great for that... The new management team introduced themselves and it seems like they just vanished... Are they even still in charge now?

Um, yeah... stop deleting my posts?

1. You can just choose any of the other skins and the edit buttons works fine (personally, i used Curiouser skin for 2 days and jumped back to the Little Eve skin)

2. Agreed, although Mods can get power happy and start to run the place like Germany, but something needs to happen.

3 to 5. Agreed, it seems as though this is not the place anymore and that time and effort has gone into more mainstream portals such as MySpace / Twitter / YouTube.

I think this forum has served its purpose in years gone by to support the artist and keep fans informed... Today it is more a place for older and some newer fans to hang out and chat and share KMH moments, concerts, TV etc etc.

This place is still pretty high up on a KMH Google search, but is no longer the ONLY OFFICIAL KMH site.

I see only a handful of members really post here....
But for me, it is still the best place to find out info.

I don't want to name names, in case I am wrong. But I am pretty sure that we have several bots on this forum.

I have also been working under this assumption

.....

Literally just laughed so hard. XD

Can you mods please stop deleting posts? Lisa
Mitchell thread was great then one day POOF! its gone.

And can you please turn off flood control. It's obvious who it is targeted at and I don't like being targeted and discriminated against on a public forum where people are meant to express their ideas and opinions.

I haven't been on the forum for a while and am finding it frustrating to find useful information because people are continuing to use the forum as a chat room!

I am glad that it is active and for the most part people on this forum are very helpful and friendly.

Please keep on topic or ask the mods to change the topic name if you can't.

MOST IMPORTANTLY - DON'T USE THE "ASK KATE" SECTION TO CHAT!
We must respect her time, she makes the time to answer our questions, it is important that we make that easy for her. If I was in her shoes I would not be impressed having to go through pages of crap to find and answer the real questions.

It must also turn off new members to the forum. This is a great forum which loads of very useful information for fans, lets make it easy for all of us to use. There are plenty of GENERAL threads to use if you want to talk crap. Otherwise, stay on topic and don't waste everyone's time!

I have to agree with Fiona, most threads are now populated with posts of emoticons, dots question marks, pictures etc.

Perhaps if there were a chat room then those posters would post there, but I doubt that, that would be the case as it is just an attempt by some to get their post count up.(great coming from the person with the most posts) most of mine however are as a regular poster over 3 years.

Flood control is in place no doubt to curtail, pointless posting, as long as pointless posting is in happening then I can see no choice for the mods or administrators.

On other forums, there are different restrictions, where if posts are made to a special thread then there is no post logged against the user. I can see the case where if a post is less than say 20 words then the post would not register(*and previous posts that did not meet the criteria would not be counted. so post counts could go backwards).

I don't know why anyone cares about post counts...

I thought most of the garbage was kept in the general chat area which most people wouldnt see unless they specifically looked there.

I guess it's easy for something to go off topic though
Like I the"Curioser Photo" thread... But it didn't really start out too serious anyway...

It only goes off topic if the posters and the Mods let it.

It only continues if a 2nd poster takes part.

Flood control etc, is a way of controlling the off topic posts.