Check it out!!

Click here for the new GAAPA forum

Looks like someone read the appraisersforum.com.

Nice, looks like GAAPA has spent some serious $$$.

The national forum is not much better, and they have thousands of members.

BooYah!

Yawn...

GAAPA is using a service from WebSiteToolbox.com which is an inexpensive upgrade to the forum we are using now.   The cost of Bravenet (this forum) and WebSiteToolBox are not that much different.

The advantages are that you can password part of the forum for posting and leave the other part open for anyone.   You can also sort your posts into categories such as USPAP, GREAB, How to, etc.   Are these desirable features?

I have looked into WebSiteToolBox and liked it.   I even did a trial run once but didn't think this forum was big enough for a lot of topic sorting.   With about 2,500 posts each month, it may be time to rethink my position.

Is it time to upgrade this forum to a sortable, partially passworded forum?   GAAPA's forum looks good but will that draw traffic? Or is the everything mixed up ok?

John

people still need to know what gaapa is, what they stand for and what they are doing in the appraisal arena for the typical appraiser.

John:

I like both and as far as GAAPA

They are doing more for me then the AI is....

Oh man...that looks about as miserable as the GSCCCA.

Oh good now they will have passwords and cut down the post. Lets see if 6 people post a week now there will be 3 post a week maybe.

Not the best possible move to get people active. I hope things work out but making it harder to get there will not help.

The password is not to limit, but to keep someone from posting as someone who they are not. SEE

Hi Everyone,

The GAAPA forum was modeled with some careful plannning, based on research and discussions among several committee members who graciously took time off their busy work schedule. Granted, it took a long time to put up what you see now, but it is only the start of a long term goal.

The overall design of the forum was driven with the goal of providing the best information that is relevant, in the fastest possible manner, for a wide variety users.

Given the complexity and vast amounts of information available from professionals in the real estate industry, it was our hope that it would make sense to most users to have several different categories and more than one forum where topics are clearly labeled for the users to find what they need.

The GAAPA forum was designed with long range vision, not just to satisfy the current members or former members. As you all know, the internet is a marvelous media. We plan to take full advantage of it in the near future and add new features to the GAAPA website.

Obviously, there is a need to separate GAAPA members' discussions and announcements that are of no interests to the general public.

If you have any questions at all, please contact us through any of the links provided throughout www.gaapa .org website.

Sincerly,
GAAPA Forum Admin

PS. I monitor several appraisal discussion boards and as long as I see constructive criticism, I will implement the changes immediately to the GAAPA forum. So, keep the posts coming, good or bad.

Why is a post good or bad as anything on a forum is nothing more than opinion. And fake appraiser or who knows you could be the real aPPraiser, who cares. You hijacked my name, so. I have yet to say something so important as it needed to be TM or copyrighted. As far as the need to separate discussion well you have to have one. I hope they do well an my observation is that a password will not help that forum. A very strong personality and some real discussion will go further than a new format.

The password restriction was removed.
It was not necessary.

It is useful for a forum to restrict posts based on a password. As John B. pointed out, the websitetoolbox forum software has many other features that we are not currently using. The password is just one of many security features available to us.

GAAPA will not have to deal with anonymous posters disrupting a good thread, for whatever reason they choose to do it. LOL

Have a good day, aPPraiser!
and you too, aPpraiser, apPraiser, whatever.

"GAAPA will not have to deal with anonymous posters disrupting a good thread"

Insight into debate is often not an easy or low key process as many have different opinions and believe their opinion to be the best. A disruption occurs only when someone wants to silence a view. Such things as vulgar language, racist remarks and other childish behavior I can see needing a tool such as an ISP blocker but I for one think GAAPA could use some new views and the GAAPA forum could use some disruption in order to learn more. What it sounds like to me is someone be it a moderator, an officer or someone who thinks they know best is the head of a discussion and other will follow their rules.

Post rules for use and if someone violates them then exercise some power other than some sort of password killer. A disruption is the process for growth and learning. Just like you will not agree with me here it does not make it any less true. If this policy of password works for your forum with 12 members then why not post this under your name? Do not think my tone is mean it is nothing more than a query. Now you have your first thread dealing is a disagreement or a disruption either support your point or concede to mine. You see it will always be someone watching to make sure that we don't do something wrong but then "who is watching the watchmen".

The "watcher of the watchmen" will be a known quantity, not someone hiding behind the cloak of annominity.

Please note that GAAPA has advertised on this forum and explained their position on this forum.   They chose to post anonymously.

In the past, meetings places and times have been posted anonymously.

I don't mind GAAPA promoting their position here but to do so anonymously seems contrary to their own published beliefs.

John

John, I think your site---or any---would only need the posts sorted when there are so many new topics each day that they "sink" out of sight before the end of the day.

I personally like being able to view all of the day's topics on a single page and see how many replies there are on each thread. That is indicative of the overall tenor of the forum for each day.

GAAPA's sorting of the few posts it has each day seems a bit like reserving 10 meeting rooms for a conference---which has an attendance of 20. It's fine to plan for future traffic, but at this point (in my humble opinion, of course) they'd be better off with one---or at the most, two---discrete divisions.

I agree with you Katrina but I mainly like the formatting capabilities not available on this forum.   If I were asked to help design GAAPA's formus, I would have had one and only one comment forum.

I like the ability to automatically create links, lists, indented paragraphs, etc.   I can do it on this forum but it takes a modicum of knowledge of HTML which most appraisers don't need to know.

I may experiment but I am sticking with what I got for now.   If I switch, my format will remain the same.

John

Hey 12 people can not be wrong.

The color of the new gappa forum does not sit well with my eyes.

Here is one forum that I find easy on the eyes. http://www.forum.gon.com/

John,
I like your forum more than any other forum I have visited, I also use your forum to judge other forums.

Well who says people don't read forums. I guess my post about 12 members made them take the number of forums members off so they would not look like they had .0002% of the appraisers in Georgia posting on their forum.

I would have more respect for you guys if you would just quit the silly stuff and put your forum out there and get your board members to post something every day or so. It just is a sign of weakness. Trying to kill free speech and post that don't agree does nothing but limit your membership and your effectiveness.

Steven - Thanks for the compliments but also thanks for putting me on to another forum provider.   The hunting forum is too complex for me.   It requires knowledge of MySQL and PHP which I don't have.   It sure is a nice site and I wish I could duplicate it.

I am going to experiment with another forum for pay just to see what I can do.   The only thing I wish this forum offered was automatic formatting for links, bold print, italics, indented paragraphs, ordered lists, unordered lists, etc.

To do any of the above on this forum, the user must know something about HTML and most appraisers have no need to learn the first HTML command.

I am going to try an alternative forum later on this year and ask everyone to take a look.   It may be that KISS is a good rule of forums.   This one is definitely simple.

John

The only thing I have on my wish list for your forum is an auto spell check - my fingers are slower than my brain at this time of the day.

Michelle - ask and thou shalt receive.   Jack Campbell put me on to IE Spell on this forum a while back.   It's and explorer add-on.

MS Explorer Spell Checker

Foxfire comes with a good built-in spell checker.   I use Firefox for the forum because it spell checks as you type and you right-click to make a correction or add the word to your personal dictionary.   I use Explorer for most everything else.

John

What will it take to break into the evasive double digits.

It apears to have been the dagger in GAAPA's heart...