New Layout of Forum - Good or Bad

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

Just brilliant security upgrade

Spam isn't a security breach. When we talk about security we refer to the security of data we hold, as well as the security of the software in itself being far less open to manipulation by dodgy third parties.

Too fricken funny that they auto disable your sig and prevent you from having URLs in your sig.

BUT

There's the Korean spammers right on cue.

Form over function sucks.

Sigs should not be auto disabled. I'll look at amending that now.

Having URLs in your sig has been disabled for now so that while we sort the spammer issue, we don't get accounts made which then forever have a malicious link in their sig.

You know, there's a thread in this subforum where people have been constructively letting us know of any broken/missing features and having them fixed by us rather swiftly. Apparently, being constructive is the way to go.

I get the personal response, but keep in mind people who contribute significantly to a forum like this - from a psychological POV - come to feel like the place is a form of a home. Virtual, head space home, but an abode none the less.

Arriving home one day to find you have been move to a new residence that is missing the ktichen, toilet and any windows, without any warning or notification (ok there was a Vogon styled notification, but you get my meaning - ask me to clarify if my meaning is not clear here) is going to illicit this sort of response.

Not excusing the emotion with which the messages from me and others have been posted, and the effect that may be felt by the developers who by default receive the flack, but the opposite, if noone gave a toss, would be silence more likely than not.

You can say - dayam these guys hate us - or - dayam these guys love this forum and when we pull the rug out form under them they react understandably.

Like I said - and mentioned elsewhere, I feel sorry for you guys coz at a guess the decision was out of your hands? More than happy to afford you significant kudos if you did any sort of regression testing from a functional POV and did post-migration updates to reinstate missing functionality but at this juncture it looks like that was not done.

As for the thread - yes I saw that, after the fact, am reading it now, but at the time it was not highlighted nor stickied, and from memory I was creating a thread above spam threads so it would stand out. The thread you mention was probably lost somewhere below them.

Perhaps stickying that thread and making it really stand out would help keep it all located in one place?

Mind you, i read constant "please reinstate multi-reply function" posts, so I am not sure one thread with the same request multiple times is as good an idea as a thread per problem but happy to comply with your wishes in this regard.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Having URLs in your sig has been disabled for now so that while we sort the spammer issue, we don't get accounts made which then forever have a malicious link in their sig.

Couldn't you just totally hide accounts and their posts that get perma-banned or spammer-banned? Seems a simpler solution than turning off URLs for the entire forum and causing a commotion?

 

[python]

Re: Re:

...
You know, there's a thread in this subforum where people have been constructively letting us know of any broken/missing features and having them fixed by us rather swiftly. Apparently, being constructive is the way to go.

you gotta be kiddin me.
were users informed or consulted beforehand?
they weren't and it showed.
a transition characterized by ignorance of the users' needs and lack of constructive thinking.

while i understand the sentiment, why do you feel entitled to being personally consulted
i am a regular user like you, and my expectations somehow are different...

did we pay for the services ? did we (in any way) were involved in the forum administration, business or support ?

look, there clearly was a drastic change of the forum platform. i don't know enough about the IT business, but it appears the previous forum software does not render itself to AUTOMATIC merging with the new one, like your bookmarks when replacing browsers. clearly, the changeover took place with huge holes, missing normal features etc. all, of course, was(and still is) tremendously irritating.

in essence, the new owner developers, as far as i understand this issue, had only 2 choices:
a) keep the forum off-line while they were attempting to work through the 'issues' in blind
b) or, opening up themselves and letting the very raw, feature-poor version being properly shaped by the user feedback.

as a logical consequence, i counted no less than 3 IT guys of the new owner taking our angry questions and POLITELY and constructively addressing them. also, note, that many features have already been restored. please remind me, WHEN did the previous owner allow such openness ? all i recall is one IT guy occasionally popping in without much effect.

i am not saying your irritation is misplaced, but i am saying pls show some perspective. and when you demand ENTITLEMENT, you, not the devs you insulted, show ignorance. it is improper and arrogant.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

look, there clearly was a drastic change of the forum platform. i don't know enough about the IT business, but it appears the previous forum software does not render itself to AUTOMATIC merging with the new one, like your bookmarks when replacing browsers. clearly, the changeover took place with huge holes, missing normal features etc. all, of course, was(and still is) tremendously irritating.

in essence, the new owner developers, as far as i understand this issue, had only 2 choices:
a) keep the forum off-line while they were attempting to work through the 'issues' in blind
b) or, opening up themselves and letting the very raw, feature-poor version being properly shaped by the user feedback.

As content generators, we do contribute a significant amount to the forum. I think this is being downplayed too much.

4M hits in one thread alone is a lot of impressions on those ads they love to serve. Clinic is damn popular in terms of page views.

I have not done a forum migration, but have developed forum software from scratch, and do IT for a living. I believe the best option is C) have a test server where you can do all your migration and testing, including regression and UAT, and then once you're comfortable it's up and running, shut the current forum down and migrate it to the new, now bedded down and working forum app.

It does not have to be a complete copy of the existing DB, a subset with the last 3 months or month's posts is enough to prove the bulk of the functions work.

 

[Pete]

It wasn't that simple, unfortunately. The old forum was actively causing a number of issues that needed to be addressed, and the migration was a necessary one (rather than an out-of-the-blue "let's change it"). We'd have liked more time to test and develop prior to migration, but prioritising security and stability meant that we weren't able to visit every feature before we needed to move away from the old platform (bearing in mind that they're very different platforms, and some features from the old platform simply do not exist on this one).

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

It wasn't that simple, unfortunately. The old forum was actively causing a number of issues that needed to be addressed, and the migration was a necessary one (rather than an out-of-the-blue "let's change it"). We'd have liked more time to test and develop prior to migration, but prioritising security and stability meant that we weren't able to visit every feature before we needed to move away from the old platform (bearing in mind that they're very different platforms, and some features from the old platform simply do not exist on this one).

Appreciate the response and the ongoing dialog - thank you. Do not envy your position.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

while i understand the sentiment, why do you feel entitled to being personally consulted
i am a regular user like you, and my expectations somehow are different...

did we pay for the services ? did we (in any way) were involved in the forum administration, business or support ?

i don't know much about the forum, but is it a charity?
don't think so. it's at least partially business, as you also suggest.

i sure don't think i or other users were entitled to be consulted.
they could've, not should've, consulted us.
considering the way it was done (let's say not very elegantly, without prior notice, and apparently without much knowledge of the key forum features), the development team c/should have expected a cynical reaction.

 

[the sceptic]

the only reason this forum has any traffic is because the alternatives are even worse. What a joke this is.

 

[WillemS]

I think the new lay-out is better than the old one. Sure, users will have to get used to the new advertisement lay-out so they can develop the necessary cognitive schemata to ignore them (the old lay-out had much more intrusive ads, in my opinion, but we just learned to ignore those screen positions).

I get the prioritizing of security, I would have done the same, if I would have found the old software on the server. Sure, it's not an ideal situation, and there might have been an a priori announcement and explanation, but better this than risking user information, including passwords and e-mail addresses. As most people reuse passwords, this would be a serious threat to the users, not only for this forum, but also for all their other accounts.

I can deal with transition difficulties if they are an unavoidable byproduct of maintaining server security.

(Makes me wonder how the previous owners valued security. This hasty transition probably gives us the answer to that. So before judging the new ownership you might want to condemn the old ownership.)

 

[Captain Serious]

I don't like it. It's kinda ugly and drab, with all the grey and matte mauve. Depressing. Tiny font.
It's almost as drab as Weight Weenies and Slow Twitch.
I much preferred the look of the old one; in fact, I use to use it as an example of what a 'nice' forum looks like. Bummer.

I can't see posts in email updates.

The "your post has been successfully submitted" delay (or whatever it says) seems cheap and very 1990s

This style of forum is pretty good.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re:

This style of forum is pretty good.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/

Their font is smaller than here and they still don't utilise the whole screen when displaying content.

And single line posts take up the same space as a 25 line post with the way the sig and avatar is displayed.

I'd say the style is on par with the new CN forum.

 

[Pete]

I think it just highlights how subjective these things can be. Everyone could point to another forum or site they use and say "This is good, do this!", but it's just as likely that someone else will dislike that layout and prefer another.

 

[Carols]

Having just had my login fixed yesterday I've only had a short time on the new board. There seem to be some limitations in this version that weren't in the older one. Avatars, signatures, etc. After I get through this subforum hopefully I'll have some answers or workarounds to what I perceive as issues . Plus I hope to find the Enhancement List so I can see what to expect and when. I do know I've started to redo my Ignore List, my friends are gone also so I'll work on that too.

Meanwhile, change is always difficult but if we don't experience crashes and spamming that is a real plus IMO!

Now I'm off to read any relevant threads that may assist me in acclimating .

Thanks CN for giving us this forum, I enjoy being here!

 

[Captain Serious]

Re: Re:

This style of forum is pretty good.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/

Their font is smaller than here and they still don't utilise the whole screen when displaying content.

And single line posts take up the same space as a 25 line post with the way the sig and avatar is displayed.

I'd say the style is on par with the new CN forum.

Nah, the Big Footy Forum is one of the best I've used. Off the top of my head: it's fast; new posts are flagged when you return to a thread; quotes are minimized (including pictures), but can be quickly expanded (one of the best features, imo); it has unobtrusive 'alert' popups; videos are automatically embedded; it can handle massive traffic, etc

 

[python]

Re:

Having just had my login fixed yesterday I've only had a short time on the new board. There seem to be some limitations in this version that weren't in the older one. Avatars, signatures, etc. After I get through this subforum hopefully I'll have some answers or workarounds to what I perceive as issues . Plus I hope to find the Enhancement List so I can see what to expect and when. I do know I've started to redo my Ignore List, my friends are gone also so I'll work on that too.

Meanwhile, change is always difficult but if we don't experience crashes and spamming that is a real plus IMO!

Now I'm off to read any relevant threads that may assist me in acclimating .

Thanks CN for giving us this forum, I enjoy being here!

i like your attitude !

by the same token, creating a poll on the subject is not cool at all it would be understandable if the cn IT team was ignoring or somehow avoiding the issue. quite opposite, they are bending over backwards to listen and follow up. i just changed my mind, creating the poll is not just uncool, it is creepy.