Thread: Help us Build a Better BHUZ!

Your suggestions are requested to help build a better Bhuz

What can we enhance on Bhuz that would make Bhuz a more valuable resource for you?

Are there ways we could improve SHOPPING, EVENTS, GALLERY, BLOGS and the FORUM? We are looking for specific ideas.

For example, we will soon be adding a function where you can sign up to have notifications sent to you when an event in your selected areas is added to our event calendar.

Are there other functions that would make BHUZ more useful to you, and the belly dance community?

Please give it some thought and respond in this thread. We aren't going to redo the entire format of the site, what we are looking for are ways to enhance areas of the site.

I would like to see a searchable archive of old posts that aren't on the boards anymore.

Originally Posted by EzmaSiddiqah

I would like to see a searchable archive of old posts that aren't on the boards anymore.

Raising hand..I second this..:)

When embedding youtube clips, is there a way we can get the video to start at a specific time in the clip?

Start an embedded YouTube video at a certain timestamp

At the moment what I do is make it a clickable link instead of an embedded clip.

Since the upgrade, the "New Posts" search feature has been offline twice, and the patch was to search with exclusion via a cryptic string of numbers pertaining to particular boards. It might be nice to have friendlier search control over the forum--in other words, a more convenient and flexible way to find the new posts on only the boards you want.

I miss the way that the old directories for events, performers, and teachers were arranged as databases, instead of threads on discussion boards.

In a perfect world, we'd have a system where people couldn't "Like" posts insulting or belittling other members when threads go south, but that's a job for a human moderator, not a computer program, and I don't think anyone wants to go back to the slow, bottleneck-y method that the old MEDlist used.

All these are great suggestions which we will act on. More details to come in a few days.

Keep 'em coming!

I think it would be nice if the shopping section was more database-oriented rather than text-thread oriented. For example, it would be nice to go to a search form and indicate that I want to see only DVD's and VHS's tapes being offered for sale rather than digging through lots of listings for costumes.

That might be hard to implement, but I'm thinking search fields could be:

1. Whether the item has sold yet or not
2. Type of item (music CD, DVD, VHS tape, dress, bra/belt set, full costume, dance style item is associated with (folkloric, tribal, Oriental)
3. For costumes, size info as a sub-field. Ie, if you say you're selling a costume this comes up. Field to contain bra size, waist measurement, upper hip, largest size of the hip. for dresses length from the armpit to floor or for skirts length from top edge to floor, etc.
4. Price
5. Where the seller is (UK, US, Canada, etc.)

I'd like Bhuz to be more mobile phone friendly, if possible. At the moment it's quite difficult to navigate on a phone. Also, embedded youtube clips never show up on my phone (could be cos I have iphone so no flash?), so I can't watch the videos, and people seem to embed clips rather than posting links, so a way round that would be great.

Oh, and thanks for asking us all for suggestions, and for all your hard work Rosey!

My two cents...

Similar to eBay - I would like to see a rating feature or some sort of comment board for the Swap Meet and Retail Shopping so that Buyers can post a comment and/or rate the Sellers and have this appear on their profile. I have seen a few comments lately in the Swap Meet where people have been scammed or taken advantage of - Which is very sad to say the least, especially in the dance community. By having these ratings, it would help Buyers to have the foreknowledge of what kind of Seller they are dealing with and decide whether or not they want to make a purchase from this person.

It sould also be considered in the reverse as well - Where Buyers can post comments for Sellers. I say this only because I have seen on other sites where the Buyers scam the Sellers by reversing the PayPal charges after they receive the item(s) they purchased, leaving the seller out of the item they sent them in addition to the money paid.

It used to be that the belly dance community was very trustworthy and honest, but I know first hand there are many new people coming into this art who are less than honest. It's a sad truth, but as a vendor myself, I have seen my "shrinkage" rates (i.e. Item Theft) more than triple in the past 2 years.

Bottom line~ I just don't like to see honest people getting taken advantage of, especially in the economy we're living in right now.

(Note: Maybe this is something that has been brought up before? My apologies if this is a repeated suggestion/topic.)

Namaste,
-Nadia-

Originally Posted by *Shira*

[*]For costumes, size info as a sub-field. Ie, if you say you're selling a costume this comes up. Field to contain bra size, waist measurement, upper hip, largest size of the hip. for dresses length from the armpit to floor or for skirts length from top edge to floor, etc.

I think this could be very problematic, since most costumes have a range of sizes, and especially bra cups are not standard (for example, I wear a 32G right now- which isn't often listed! but I can get away with a generous DD with a large band size, which can be adjusted- so I am often searching for DD, E, F, G- even a D depending on how the original seller decided to name the bra)

My request, since I take lessons and catch an occasional show when I travel- I'd like the instructor and performer listings to be organized by region. I could probably find regions by searching by state/province, but right now there isn't a way to search *only* in the teacher listings or *only* in the performer listings.

I sometimes find that I can't read all the new posts. Say that there are 60 posts spread over three pages, I can only read the first page and when I click on 2 I get a message saying that there are no further posts. It's a small thing, but it means that when I mark posts as read I've only seen some of them.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

I think it would be nice if the shopping section was more database-oriented rather than text-thread oriented. For example, it would be nice to go to a search form and indicate that I want to see only DVD's and VHS's tapes being offered for sale rather than digging through lots of listings for costumes.

That might be hard to implement, but I'm thinking search fields could be:

1. Whether the item has sold yet or not
2. Type of item (music CD, DVD, VHS tape, dress, bra/belt set, full costume, dance style item is associated with (folkloric, tribal, Oriental)
3. For costumes, size info as a sub-field. Ie, if you say you're selling a costume this comes up. Field to contain bra size, waist measurement, upper hip, largest size of the hip. for dresses length from the armpit to floor or for skirts length from top edge to floor, etc.
4. Price
5. Where the seller is (UK, US, Canada, etc.)

This is a great idea and we will do it; tho some of the fields will be more limited, such as the size selection may be limited to regular and plus

Originally Posted by EzmaSiddiqah

I would like to see a searchable archive of old posts that aren't on the boards anymore.

An Easy Way to search Old and New BHUZ
Old BHUZ can be searched with Google. Here's how --
If you want to search for mermaid costumes go to Google and put this in the search box:

mermaid costumes site:bhuz.com

When you get your list of results, click on the Cached link to see the post.

Originally Posted by jahbie

I sometimes find that I can't read all the new posts. Say that there are 60 posts spread over three pages, I can only read the first page and when I click on 2 I get a message saying that there are no further posts. It's a small thing, but it means that when I mark posts as read I've only seen some of them.

I am not sure what the problem is here, anyone out there have any ideas?

Originally Posted by NadiaRaks

My two cents...

Similar to eBay - I would like to see a rating feature or some sort of comment board for the Swap Meet and Retail Shopping so that Buyers can post a comment and/or rate the Sellers and have this appear on their profile. I have seen a few comments lately in the Swap Meet where people have been scammed or taken advantage of - Which is very sad to say the least, especially in the dance community. By having these ratings, it would help Buyers to have the foreknowledge of what kind of Seller they are dealing with and decide whether or not they want to make a purchase from this person.

It sould also be considered in the reverse as well - Where Buyers can post comments for Sellers. I say this only because I have seen on other sites where the Buyers scam the Sellers by reversing the PayPal charges after they receive the item(s) they purchased, leaving the seller out of the item they sent them in addition to the money paid.

It used to be that the belly dance community was very trustworthy and honest, but I know first hand there are many new people coming into this art who are less than honest. It's a sad truth, but as a vendor myself, I have seen my "shrinkage" rates (i.e. Item Theft) more than triple in the past 2 years.

Bottom line~ I just don't like to see honest people getting taken advantage of, especially in the economy we're living in right now.

(Note: Maybe this is something that has been brought up before? My apologies if this is a repeated suggestion/topic.)

Namaste,
-Nadia-

Thank you for your observations! This is a problem for which we have not yet found a good solution. We do recommend that members look at the Buyer/Vendor Concerns forum before they make purchases. We will keep poking at this issue.

Originally Posted by Rosey

This is a great idea and we will do it; tho some of the fields will be more limited, such as the size selection may be limited to regular and plus

I do think that a limited selection on sizing such as "regular" vs "plus" would still offer significant value. Thanks for listening!

Originally Posted by *Shira*

I do think that a limited selection on sizing such as "regular" vs "plus" would still offer significant value. Thanks for listening!

yes- I think this would be great- still allowing for the size ranges, but helping narrow down the search.

We have installed several new features; they still need a few tweaks to get in to shape, but you can start using them now.

1) Event Alert system - Click on Settings in the banner at the very top of any page, under the big star. Go to Profile Settings, and there you will see the choice of a city, states, and a country for you to choose. Make sure you scroll down and click Save Changes. You will then get emails from Belly Dance Central alerting you to new events in your chosen areas. Watch out, these alerts could end up in your spam folder, so make sure that bhuzmail at gmail dot com is in your approved contact list.

If you choose USA for country, you will get hundreds of emails, so be careful about that. Maybe you want to be alerted about events in Fiji instead

We may add a field for regions of the USA, give me a day or two to sort that out.

This is a wonderful benefit not just for members looking for events to go to, but for event promoters as well. This is for NEW event listings, starting today, you won't get notified about listings that are already up.

If you have events already listed, and want to get these emails out to bhuzzers, wait for a couple of weeks, so that members have time to fill out their choices. Then revise or edit your listing - add pictures, or more info. Your newly revised listing should then go out in our Event Alert system.

2) We have put in bigger search boxes at the top of the Performers and Teachers forums to simplify searching. The goal here is to get you found by potential students/customers more easily.

3) There is now a way to include details about your Swap Meet listings, and a way to search the Swap Meet more effectively.
This new search box is underneath the sub-forums. This works only in posts that are made starting today. If you want your items to be searchable with this system, you will need to create new listings and fill in the details. Please mark your item SOLD, when you sell it, with this system.
Check it out and please give me feedback here so that we can refine the categories, perhaps add new ones, yet keep it simple.
Thank you Shira for this excellent suggestion.

Please keep your excellent suggestions coming here in this forum. Thank you!

Originally Posted by HubicRuzz

When embedding youtube clips, is there a way we can get the video to start at a specific time in the clip?

Start an embedded YouTube video at a certain timestamp

At the moment what I do is make it a clickable link instead of an embedded clip.

give me a minute while I experiment. Well, it didn't work -- I used the suggestion in the link you gave, and the video below still starts at the beginning, even tho I set it to start at 64 seconds. There may be no way to do this. Using the right click Save URL at a later start time didn't work either.

I love the ignore function, but is there anyway to ignore all written content by a user even when it is quoted by another user?

I rarely deploy ignore but sometimes will if I find a member somewhat inflammatory but don't want to engage them anymore on a topic/thread and don't want to risk being "set off" by something they type while I continue to read the thread.

Originally Posted by ozma

I love the ignore function, but is there anyway to ignore all written content by a user even when it is quoted by another user?

I rarely deploy ignore but sometimes will if I find a member somewhat inflammatory but don't want to engage them anymore on a topic/thread and don't want to risk being "set off" by something they type while I continue to read the thread.

Nope, can't use ignore if it is in a quote. Use Report Post if things are getting bad, I can edit posts if necessary

Originally Posted by Rosey

3) There is now a way to include details about your Swap Meet listings, and a way to search the Swap Meet more effectively. This new search box is underneath the sub-forums.

I like this change and search function a lot, but the font color used on the forum listings is very light and hard to see (pink/rose on yellow). Assuming is is not just my browser, can it be made darker?

Originally Posted by Rosey

...some of the fields will be more limited, such as the size selection may be limited to regular and plus

Not sure I like this particular split/search category. One woman' plus is another woman's average (and vice versa!)--I don't have a better solution, though! I guess it seems a bit arbitrary to me.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

Since the upgrade, the "New Posts" search feature has been offline twice, and the patch was to search with exclusion via a cryptic string of numbers pertaining to particular boards. It might be nice to have friendlier search control over the forum--in other words, a more convenient and flexible way to find the new posts on only the boards you want.

I miss the way that the old directories for events, performers, and teachers were arranged as databases, instead of threads on discussion boards.

In a perfect world, we'd have a system where people couldn't "Like" posts insulting or belittling other members when threads go south, but that's a job for a human moderator, not a computer program, and I don't think anyone wants to go back to the slow, bottleneck-y method that the old MEDlist used.

We appreciate your comments!

1) we shouldn't have any more problems with the New Posts drop down
2) we have added better, bigger search functions to events, swap meet, performers, teachers, and classes (as of today search classes is still a work in progress, should be better tomorrow).
3) If you see a glaring lack of civility on the boards, please use the Report Post button.

Originally Posted by Rosey

Nope, can't use ignore if it is in a quote. Use Report Post if things are getting bad, I can edit posts if necessary

I think that there should be a moderator for the different areas of bhuz, example, shopping, events, off-topic so that it doesn't all end on you, Rosey, with A) the ability to move posts (when they are in the wrong forum) B) the ability to delete posts when they violate the terms of use C) the ability to edit posts for profanity D) to lock the threads when they have gone off topic, or been derailed or taken over.

While this community is pretty civil, i think that there tends to be some of all of the above that is making bhuz a more difficult place to have conversations about the kinds of things that matter to bhuzzers, especially when you get someone who has a bee up her/his butt about something in particular and needs to be re-directed.

Originally Posted by Rosey

Thank you for your observations! This is a problem for which we have not yet found a good solution. We do recommend that members look at the Buyer/Vendor Concerns forum before they make purchases. We will keep poking at this issue.

as there is a section in the profiles that indicate how many likes received, could there be a tweak somewhere that adds in "seller ratings"? also "buyer ratings"?

Originally Posted by Monica

I like this change and search function a lot, but the font color used on the forum listings is very light and hard to see (pink/rose on yellow). Assuming is is not just my browser, can it be made darker?

Wanted to second this. Love the idea of formal subcategories, excellent. They do need to be visible though.

Originally Posted by Rosey

3) There is now a way to include details about your Swap Meet listings, and a way to search the Swap Meet more effectively.
This new search box is underneath the sub-forums. This works only in posts that are made starting today. If you want your items to be searchable with this system, you will need to create new listings and fill in the details. Please mark your item SOLD, when you sell it, with this system.
Check it out and please give me feedback here so that we can refine the categories, perhaps add new ones, yet keep it simple.
Thank you Shira for this excellent suggestion.

Rosey, wow, that was FAST!

I've had a chance to play with the new search options in Swap Meet. I agree with Monica that using a higher-contrast font color would help a lot. For the size search, perhaps you could use "Petite and Small", "Medium", "Large", "Extra-Large and Larger" as categories? You could use the size chart from one of the online catalog companies as a guideline for what the sizes mean, for example: Lands' End | Swimwear, Outerwear, Casual Clothing and more

Something like this:

• "Extra Small" would be bust 31-34 inches, waist 24-28 inches, hips 34-37 inches.
• "Small" would be bust 35-36, waist 28-30 inches, hips 38-39 inches.
• "Medium" would be bust 37-39, waist 30-32 1/2 inches, hips 40-42 inches.
• "Large" would be bust 40-42, waist 33-36 inches, hips 43-45
• "Extra Large and larger" would be bust 43 or larger, waist 37 inches or larger, hips 46 inches or larger.
• "Children" would be just that.
• "Men" would be just that.

Originally Posted by Rosey

I have made the size categories according to Shira' suggestion. But see post above, I need more clarity about what you are not seeing well.

I have IE and the new categories are with light pink text on light yellow background so it is very hard to see. This is only before you click on a thread (in the list of threads). When you open a thread it is very visible.

Originally Posted by Rosey

1) we shouldn't have any more problems with the New Posts drop down

But will we ever be able to control our own selective list of "New Posts" without the number system or some intermediate step of marking a board read--for example, if I want everything in the current "New Posts Exclude Shopping" minus "ISO"?

Also, once you click on a "New Posts" pulldown, the menu loses the arrow and submenu. For example, if I click on "New Posts" by accident when I meant "Exclude Shopping," I have to go to another page before I can rerun the search.

Originally Posted by Rosey

Can you be much more specific about exactly what feature you can't see well? I checked the Chrome and IE browsers, and all the new stuff is very visible to me on both those browsers, so it could be your computer. Also tell me what browser you are using.

Hi Rosey,
Within the post the new categories are dark purple, and easy to read. On the swap board where you see all of the threads listed the categories are a pale pink of the same lightness value as the light yellow background, and are really tough to see. I'm on Safari, haven't checked Firefox yet.