The Bar is open!

@Todd -thanks for your dedication to always making this site better. And especially for listening to the users as you implement changes.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but my landing page has always been the BA homepage (typically on a laptop or PC). And I usually just look at the "Join the Discussion" discussions there and click through to whatever I want. If I want to go deeper or find an older thread, I click on the forums tab and go from there but I'm usually going to discussions from the homepage. Is there a way to put a few of the "The Bar" discussions on the homepage, maybe in their own section, similar to the discussions that are currently listed? If not, no biggie, I can train myself to do an extra click or two or reset my landing page. It's just a thought since I would imagine other folks do the same thing as me...or maybe I'm the only one haha. Thanks again for all you do!

 

Thanks, Todd! One suggestion in terms of faster cellphone navigation,,, maybe put The Bar in the homepage top navigation bar next to About, Blog and Help?

(Or replace Trending Beers with The Bar … depending on your page click data. Visually, I like the Trending Beers, but as a regular user, will use The Bar a lot more than those.)

 

What Dave said. PS — love the name The Bar.

 

I didn’t have a dog in this hunt when the topic of leaving, changing the folders was discussed a few weeks ago.

That said, now seeing what you have done, I have one suggested change for you and the community to consider since you asked for suggestions, and one item of praise.

Change Request

I believe we should discuss, consider, perhaps add a poll to determine whether “The Bar” should have equal footing under the “Beer Talk” folder.

A request to consider moving “The Bar” as one of six main folders under the “Main” folder, vs. a sub-folder under Beer Talk, one of five primary folders under the “Main” Folder. This would make participants including those new to the site aware that there is a large community sharing discussions regarding beer and another large community sharing our live beer experiences at “The Bar”.

Praise

Also, I like that you / the Mod team have included (in fact pinned) the Online Tasting Thread Planning in The Bar.

I believe many if not the majority of BA’s who regularly or periodically participated in “The Bar” type threads (New Beer Weekend/Sunday, WBAYDN, Tasting Threads, etc.) did not know if its existence stashed in the BA Talk Folder. This should lead to increased discussion, planning, and participation in future tastings and other events hosted at “The Bar”.

Thanks for considering.

ChicagoJ

 

Not a fan of essentially removing WBAYDN from the homepage . . . at the very least, "The Bar" should be in the top nav bar.

 

Was just going to suggest that.

 

I feel the same. WBAYDN is sacred.

 

The downfall of this is that new users may not even know these threads exists. I for one know that I really had no idea the extend of threads on this site for a long time. I lived in the regional and only discovered the wide use and interaction of this site because I saw one of the "official tasting" threads pop up on the home page, the rest was history.

So unless someone goes out of their way to explore the huge amounts of sub forums, they may not even know they exist, I know I wouldn't have. But hey it was based on feedback and what's done is done.

 

I think the concerns with this option are two-fold: (1) New users might miss WBAYDN (and related The Bar content), and (2) for regular users, watching The Bar gets us back to where we started … threads we want to see on the homepage flooded with appreciation threads.

 

I like the change. My homepage is now full of interesting, topical threads that I otherwise would not have seen due to the frequent updates to appreciation-type threads. I agree with the suggestions above, though, that having another quick way into The Bar from the home/landing page would be great so that we aren't inundated with notifications by watching the entire forum.

Maybe I'm just not good at using my phone, but from experience if I post in WBAYDN and NBW and then step away for a couple of hours, I can easily have 30-40+ notifications. On mobile this is really hard to move through and I've often missed a new post notification in the midst of all the likes. Having even more notifications from forum watching will overwhelm this pseudo-luddite.

EDIT: You responded to this suggestion as I was typing this up, Todd, but I'm hitting post anyway!

 

Personally would rather have wbaydn on the homepage

 

I understand the desire to group all drinking threads together, but it seems like the solution would be to go back to the “old” way of the world and keep WBAYDN and NBS in the main forum, and move all other beer threads to “the bar”. Solves every problem everyone has and all the complaints in this thread all at once. And keeps BA what I think everyone here thinks is the essence of BA, and preserves it for what it always has been.

 

I love it! Except I think you should pull WBAYDN out of The Bar and put it back in Beer Talk. I'm actually not interested in Watching The Bar because I don't like all the extra appreciation threads and others "cluttering" the main page. I'm happy to click to find them. But I feel WBAYDN is a huge part of the culture here and should always be up front.

Thanks for your work on this, Todd. When we're done with this, let's all agree on a pizza topping and order for everyone!

 

I would love to see this... @KP7 as someone who discovered our NBW over the past year or so would you have ever known of its existence had you not seen it on the homepage? I know I wouldn't have when I found it.

 

For people new to the site, this buries some of the most popular threads behind a few extra clicks.

I wonder if there aren't already too many forums, I mean it's all beer talk isn't it? There isn't a way to curate a perfect homepage. I'm sick to death of Budweiser threads and not interested in clickbait lists so I just ignore them.

BA remains the only social media site I use and I appreciate all you do Todd.

 

Yes there is- algorithms. And it just so happens the social media company with the best ones may be for sale if Todd is willing to entertain a merger and acquisition of TikTok.