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Tapatalk And File Attachments: Opinions Needed?

OakleyBoss

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Ok, so as the forum grows bigger and bigger, having control is becoming more and more necessary. Something that has been discussed in the past, and we are looking at currently is bringing the mobile site in-house. What this would mean is disabling of Tapatalk.

Now before everyone gets angry, there would be a major overall to our mobile site. We are looking to implement an easy to read, user friendly responsive design. The new mobile site, would allow members to have all the same features as the main forum. The disconnect between Tapatalk and our site, is only increasing which is why we are looking to make this move.

Over to Part 2:

Now I know a large feature members love about Tapatalk is mobile uploads, so this is where file attachments come in. I plan on looking into what kind of server upgrades it would take to host our own images. Not sure yet if there would be some kind of limit on normal members vs. premium members, since it is still early. But as the forum gets older photos hosted on other sites disappear making some threads useless. I just have to see the server side ramifications. We've always avoided hosting photos because of the massive bandwidth and requirements it takes.

So now for opinions? Are you willing to give up Tapatalk for an overall better experience?

Premium Members, How would you feel if everyone was able to upload attachments?

As usual, nothing is set in stone, just looking at moving forward.
 
Also if you care to get an idea of what the responsive site would look like, try navigating to the mobile site, should show up. Would love opinions.
 
I'll give the mobile beta a try in a bit.

I'd give up Tapatalk, I'm not in love with it, it's just convenient.

I honestly don't much care about mobile uploads or site hosting. It's nice, sure, but it's not that much work to open my photobucket app, upload and grab the IMG tags, jump over to the forum, post my image. And if I'm doing anything with more than a single selfie I'm going to do it from a desktop. I've used the tapatalk hosting a few times, but mostly I revert to photobucket.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on Premium membership, as that's brought up as well. I'm not one. Not that I don't want to support the site, I just haven't really gotten around to it. The PM/post cap of no more than one a minute snags me every so often, but for the most part I'm putting enough content and thought into my replies or topics there's more than a minute gap as I type, edit, re-type, proofread, etc. Do you see it as an insult or something negative from me not going Premium?
 
Mobile site is looking ok so far. Using my iPhone to type right now and the window I'm typing in is set to the right of the screen and not across the whole bottom and isn't auto scrolling if I type too much. It can be tweaked but I've gotten very used to using the computer since the last big update removed the mobile version of the website.
 
I'll give the mobile beta a try in a bit.

I'd give up Tapatalk, I'm not in love with it, it's just convenient.

I honestly don't much care about mobile uploads or site hosting. It's nice, sure, but it's not that much work to open my photobucket app, upload and grab the IMG tags, jump over to the forum, post my image. And if I'm doing anything with more than a single selfie I'm going to do it from a desktop. I've used the tapatalk hosting a few times, but mostly I revert to photobucket.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on Premium membership, as that's brought up as well. I'm not one. Not that I don't want to support the site, I just haven't really gotten around to it. The PM/post cap of no more than one a minute snags me every so often, but for the most part I'm putting enough content and thought into my replies or topics there's more than a minute gap as I type, edit, re-type, proofread, etc. Do you see it as an insult or something negative from me not going Premium?

Nice to hear your not dead set on Tapatalk.

Premium Memberships really came about after a member(can't remember who, sorry) dropped me a PM about paying to not see ads. He offered $50/year, I told him sure. After doing it, I realized it could be a good way to support the site and others might be interested. So I added a bunch of features(hosting, album storage, Unlimited Inboxes etc.) and lowered the price to $35.

I can distinctly remember someone calling it out as "just another way for this forum to profit". Thankfully the member who requested it described how he offered it, I added features, lowered the price and refunded the difference. I don't believe in asking for donations on the forum, I prefer to offer something in return, hence Premium Memberships.

After we implemented restrictions on the Exchange sections, it also became a way for members to get instant access, since I was receiving tons of emails about getting access. The limit on the exchange sections is to deter people looking to scam members. The logic is, most scammers are looking to make a quick buck with no risk. If they sign up, they either have to wait 14 days(hence not a quick buck), or spend $35 to get access(hence not risk free). Most scammers aren't willing to spend $35 with no guarantee of profit. So far this has worked out well. Plus when a member signs up for a Premium Membership, they are more likely to stick around.

That was just some backstory/info on them. On to your question. Truthfully, it doesn't bother me either way if someone is a Premium Member. They don't get any preferential treatment aside from added features. I would say the content you have added to the site is worth far more than $35. I would make that trade any day. This site lives and dies from content. We have an amazing community with amazing content, and that is something I wouldn't change for anything.
 
Mobile site is looking ok so far. Using my iPhone to type right now and the window I'm typing in is set to the right of the screen and not across the whole bottom and isn't auto scrolling if I type too much. It can be tweaked but I've gotten very used to using the computer since the last big update removed the mobile version of the website.

I'll take a look at the editor. Can definitely improve it. I put it together pretty quick to give an idea. I pretty much use the site on my desktop as well, but I do that for most sites. Though I would like to be able to access the forum on the go a little easier.
 
Otherwise, I feel pretty good with it. I'm sure there are more things but for a quick mobile setup it's pretty good. Could be better? Sure but that requires time. I'm liking it so far.
 
Otherwise, I feel pretty good with it. I'm sure there are more things but for a quick mobile setup it's pretty good. Could be better? Sure but that requires time. I'm liking it so far.

Fixed the editor issue. Yeah everything can be better, but it will be with time. I appreciate the feeback. If you have any other ideas/issues post them!
 
We are looking to implement an easy to read, user friendly responsive design. The new mobile site, would allow members to have all the same features as the main forum. The disconnect between Tapatalk and our site, is only increasing which is why we are looking to make this move.

Now I know a large feature members love about Tapatalk is mobile uploads, so this is where file attachments come in. I plan on looking into what kind of server upgrades it would take to host our own images. Not sure yet if there would be some kind of limit on normal members vs. premium members, since it is still early. But as the forum gets older photos hosted on other sites disappear making some threads useless. I just have to see the server side ramifications. We've always avoided hosting photos because of the massive bandwidth and requirements it takes.

For me personally the appeal of tapatalk is more than just image hosting. The image hosting is nice, but its always been a bit buggy so I can't always rely on it. Something hosted on the forum would be nice so long as the UI to go about uploading and adding pictures to posts was easy and reliable. It's been several years since I did any type of web design and server administration but I'm sure in this day and age there are a number of pre-scripted addons that could be implemented.

The main reason I use tapatalk is because it lets me quickly jump from forum to forum, check on important posts/information, and message members all with a uniform and easy to use interface. I'm not dead set on using that format but no doubt my personal traffic to the site would go down substantially if it involved using the web browser vs an app (something you may also want to look into).

One of my absolute favorite features of tapatalk is the "participated" section that will pull all threads I've ever been active in and show me quickly if there has been activity in them. Often times I reply to someone on this or another site, get busy with life, and completely forget the topic existed until a week later when it has been buried by countless other posts. Finding these types of threads aren't impossible with the regular forum UI but it is much easier to do via tapatalk for sure.

EDIT: A thought just occurred in regards to site hosted images. I just went premium today so I haven't even tried the current setup, but maybe in the future to keep the perks of being a paid member vs a standard member you could have a "pool" of image upload slots per day/week/whatever. Premiums still upload what they want when they want, but to save server storage space and bandwidth maybe the forum hosted uploades are limited to 500 images per week, or 200Mb, whatever comes first, or something similar. That way the average user would get the chance to host their pictures here before turning to another host, but they'd still have the option to go premium to avoid the potential lack of upload slots left for that day/week.

If the uploading system was easy enough it may even drive more people to go premium just to avoid having to chance if they'd be able to upload or not. Just an idea.
 
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