Topic

Coming soon: Member Gear Reviews coming back to forums

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
PostedDec 23, 2025 at 3:29 pm

Update 12/28/2025: we have launched a late beta version, members may access it here (member login required).

Currently, this forum is private and not publicly accessible. Once we’re out of beta (in about a week), the forum and all reviews you add will be made public – so please don’t add fake, test, or otherwise “false” reviews.

In the meantime, feel free to post new reviews or add new products there.

In response to user feedback, and to bring community gear reviews back into tighter integration with our community content, we’ll be moving member gear reviews back into the forums. This move will result in more value, less friction, and a much simpler interface for posting and accessing member gear reviews.

The new Member Gear Reviews forum has been built and is undergoing final testing now on one of our development staging sites.

A few screenshots:

Top of thread for a particular product will include product information and aggregate review scores:

Reviews will use the standard forum post form, and will, of course, provide a Member with access to a free-form review in whatever form they’d like, in addition to submitting (optionally) a few structured review criteria:

We have a filter (category and brand) and a search box on titles:

We originally scheduled this update for January 17, but I expect we’ll move it live well before then, as we are now in the final testing phases.

JCH BPL Member
PostedDec 30, 2025 at 6:06 am

This new Gear Review addition/modification looks very good…enjoying the reviews so far.

I realize this is still beta and “private”, but not sure I like posts being included in the “recent topics” thread.  I think I’d rather go to the reviews specifically when looking for that info.

Of course there are probably plenty of members with the opposite opinion :)

JCH BPL Member
PostedJan 2, 2026 at 12:26 pm

To follow up, currently on the first page of Recent Topics 17 of the 25 posts are gear reviews.  To my mind that is a bit much.  Perhaps there is just a flurry of reviews coming in as the new feature gets booted up?

Regardless, I’d like to see gear reviews not overwhelm the recent topics thread.

Dan BPL Member
PostedJan 2, 2026 at 2:25 pm

To follow up, currently on the first page of Recent Topics 17 of the 25 posts are gear reviews.  To my mind that is a bit much.  Perhaps there is just a flurry of reviews coming in as the new feature gets booted up?

Regardless, I’d like to see gear reviews not overwhelm the recent topics thread.

The “member” reviews seem mainly posted by BPL staff.

Terran BPL Member
PostedJan 2, 2026 at 4:02 pm

The “member” reviews seem mainly posted by BPL staff.

You gotta prime the pump to get the water flowing .

Matthew / BPL Moderator
PostedJan 2, 2026 at 5:07 pm

What T said.

I wouldn’t expect the Gear Reviews to overwhelm the Recent Topics page. If does continue to overwhelm the page we can talk about having Gear Reviews not show on Recent Topics like Gear Swap.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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