Announcements Forum

[• Jay •]

The idea of a separate account used to post news and updates is certainly a good thing, but it looks a little unprofessional in its current form, because it mixes "impersonal" (IPS News) with "personal" (posts, join date, group, etc).

If the thread view skin was edited to remove the personal information from below the poster's name and widen the post box itself, it would appear more professional and allow more room for the text of the announcements. Instead of looking like a discussion thread, it would appear more like the news posting that it is.

[LeadCrow]

Perhaps switching the avatar to that of a kitten or Bart Simpsons would help make it look more personal?
The current way is fine. Representing a company, there is little to no need for public release announcements to be tied to someone in particular.

[• Jay •]

Perhaps switching the avatar to that of a kitten or Bart Simpsons would help make it look more personal?

The current way is fine. Representing a company, there is little to no need for public release announcements to be tied to someone in particular.

If you read my post, that's pretty much my point.

[Noles]

The idea of a separate account used to post news and updates is certainly a good thing, but it looks a little unprofessional in its current form, because it mixes "impersonal" (IPS News) with "personal" (posts, join date, group, etc).

If the thread view skin was edited to remove the personal information from below the poster's name and widen the post box itself, it would appear more professional and allow more room for the text of the announcements. Instead of looking like a discussion thread, it would appear more like the news posting that it is.

Agreed, but not really a big deal.

[AndyF]

I used to do this as I have an account just for 'news' , and I simply skinned it out for that 'member'

Although I have not bothered with this since upgrading to 3.x and would of restored it to normal on 2.x as it just did not look quite right with no details there.

[Michael]

Would this only work for the forum designated as the news forum? I can understand how that would make sense here on this site, as (typically) only IPS News does the posting and replying, but other sites could allow several members to post news, would all of those look the same way? And other sites allow regular members to reply, would those replies also skin out the personal info? What if the Admin who posted the news then replies later, would you only remove the personal data for the initial post, and then the replies would show the personal data? If you did that, you'd still have the issue where stuff shows up for the IPS News account here. But if you didn't do this, you could have a depersonalized admin post starting the topic, a member replying that shows their personal info, and then the Admin replying again without their personal info showing.

Or would this depersonalization be something that would apply to a selected account or accounts only? And then if that's the case, what if that account posts in other forums?

Sorry for all of the questions, it just seems to me like there'd be a lot that needed figuring out to make this work given the ways different sites treat their news forums.

[AndyF]

If it helps, I just had one account for the 'news' forum, and only that account would post in that forum, so it was easy to skin it out as that account did not post anywhere else anyway, so a quick edit to chop the un-needed data out of that forum.

But as I say, it looked really strange so I did not even think about doing it to 3.x and if I had stayed on 2.x I would of removed that quick 'customisation' anyway...

[Mark]

I assume you mean this as a suggestion for here rather than IPB In general?

I suppose we could write a skin and apply it to the news forum without the post bit. Personally though, I think our time is better spent elsewhere.

[• Jay •]

Yes Mark, I'm referring to the community.

I don't understand your last statement. The suggested change would take about ten minutes to implement with the knowledgeable staff that IPS has on hand.

[Mat B]

As a general rule, I was under the impression that we try to keep this particular installation as close to stock as possible in order to give the most accurate representation to potential customers as to what they get.

Also, though it may take ten minutes to make the skin change, it would then take half an hour to QA, five minutes to apply, and six weeks of explaining to people that no, it's not a feature of the product and that we've just made a skin change.

[Olivier Turbis]

I agree with the OP. Sounds professional

[Fishfish0001]

I really don't see why we would even need to do this? I do't know of many companies that do this anyways. Its not really unprofessional. Its a forum post not a news post on a website.

[• Jay •]

As a general rule, I was under the impression that we try to keep this particular installation as close to stock as possible in order to give the most accurate representation to potential customers as to what they get.

[...] six weeks of explaining to people that no, it's not a feature of the product and that we've just made a skin change.

Understandable. Thanks. =)