What has happened to the forum????

[Susan Westemeyer]

mew, Craig is still listed as a member of the forum. Just search his user name, and you can re-add him as a friend.

 

[Jspear]

Hey mods,
Are you in contact at all with anyone from the development team? I've messaged two of them requesting some assistance and they haven't even read the pm's yet. I guess if their pm box's where full then they wouldn't have received them. I dunno. Anyways...I'm trying to help a friend get back onto the forums. He hasn't been able to log on since the forum change and he has tried e-mailing, using the feedback options, ect.

 

[King Boonen]

There's something messed up. The "Last Post" in the PRR line on the home page actually refers to a thread that isn't visible.


Edit: Actually, no it doesn't. But the Re: does not actually refer to the thread title and is incredibly confusing!

 

[Microchip]

Okay, this isn't on the "important code" list...I really liked the background photograph of cycling. It must be messing up something, as it got removed. It added a really good touch though.

 

[ferryman]

Re:

Hey mods,
Are you in contact at all with anyone from the development team? I've messaged two of them requesting some assistance and they haven't even read the pm's yet. I guess if their pm box's where full then they wouldn't have received them. I dunno. Anyways...I'm trying to help a friend get back onto the forums. He hasn't been able to log on since the forum change and he has tried e-mailing, using the feedback options, ect.

Hi, PM or Email me with what you are trying to achieve and I'll see what I can do...

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Re:

Hi all and to any and all who are running the tech show ...
can you please restore my FRIENDS that I had here before?? Each and every one of them was important..we had a sense of community.
It seems most of the messages and all transferred so can you bring back the Friends list. There are some special ones that can't be re-contacted.

Can you please put Craig1985 back on this forum as he was a vital and loved member..his memory should be respected here in the new format.
THANKS.

1+

Asked the same. Got no reply...

But the good news is: The spam bots are still standing well... Sarcasm is all that´s left for the mess we got.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Any news on Single post view?

Plus can we have more URLs than 5 please. Dont know why its got anything to do with spam bots as they harly ever use them at maximum they have one .

 

[Flamin]

What about the polls? When will they work again?

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re:

What about the polls? When will they work again?

Perhaps you should start a poll about that so we can all give our opinion.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Re: Re:

Hi all and to any and all who are running the tech show ...
can you please restore my FRIENDS that I had here before?? Each and every one of them was important..we had a sense of community.
It seems most of the messages and all transferred so can you bring back the Friends list. There are some special ones that can't be re-contacted.

Can you please put Craig1985 back on this forum as he was a vital and loved member..his memory should be respected here in the new format.
THANKS.

1+

Asked the same. Got no reply...

But the good news is: The spam bots are still standing well... Sarcasm is all that´s left for the mess we got.

yep
bots are safe.
meanwhile treasured community of friends has been nuked.
no response on whether this is fixable or if things are ruined.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Any news on Single post view?

Plus can we have more URLs than 5 please. Dont know why its got anything to do with spam bots as they harly ever use them at maximum they have one .

Only 5 URLs is the real killer I think in the context I need it.

Mew, I don't know about on the new system but I thought on the old forums you had to acknowledge a friend request for it to show; obviously Craig isn't going to be logging in to acknowledge people's friend requests and with the change of forum software the old login details will have been lost. As a result I feel like those of us who had him on our friends list aren't going to be able to restore that. Unless somebody set up a temporary login on that account and went around acknowledging people's friend requests, and I think most of us would feel pretty uncomfortable if placed in such a situation.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

It makes sense to bemoan what the new facility cannot do, or regret what it might have introduced but did not. What I have little time for is users moaning that they have to do something for themselves to be able to use this free facility in the way they would like.

If your friends list was important to you, you presumably know the names of those who were on it. Add them as friends again.
If you can't remember their names precisely (which rather calls into question the definition of friends), use the search members facility to find them: it has wild card searches. What is the problem?

Click their name on a post by them, or on a message from them, or by tracing them on the search facility (via Friends and Foes tab on the User Profile page), then click 'Add Friend'. QED.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Any news on Single post view?

Plus can we have more URLs than 5 please. Dont know why its got anything to do with spam bots as they harly ever use them at maximum they have one .

Only 5 URLs is the real killer I think in the context I need it.

Mew, I don't know about on the new system but I thought on the old forums you had to acknowledge a friend request for it to show; obviously Craig isn't going to be logging in to acknowledge people's friend requests and with the change of forum software the old login details will have been lost. As a result I feel like those of us who had him on our friends list aren't going to be able to restore that. Unless somebody set up a temporary login on that account and went around acknowledging people's friend requests, and I think most of us would feel pretty uncomfortable if placed in such a situation.

Yes thanks for the reply Libertine...I am afraid this is what happened. I was hoping that if the messages and pics for the most part switched over intact then maybe somehow the friends list /forum members would swing over the same....
I have not figured out if I now add someone back where to make a 'request' to reciprocate .. what seems to show up on my profile is weird and looks unverified. Who the hell knows.....

 

[mewmewmew13]

Re:

It makes sense to bemoan what the new facility cannot do, or regret what it might have introduced but did not. What I have little time for is users moaning that they have to do something for themselves to be able to use this free facility in the way they would like.

If your friends list was important to you, you presumably know the names of those who were on it. Add them as friends again.
If you can't remember their names precisely (which rather calls into question the definition of friends), use the search members facility to find them: it has wild card searches. What is the problem?

Click their name on a post by them, or on a message from them, or by tracing them on the search facility (via Friends and Foes tab on the User Profile page), then click 'Add Friend'. QED.

With 90.000 members it is somewhat difficult..I had over 60 friends and it will take a while...especially as some of them might not have been a person I conversed with often but in many cases there was a very worthwhile exchange and I made lots of interesting 'friends' in this manner.
So..maybe no prob for you...thanks.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

at Armchair, but everybody else too ofc

Friends list or not... bemoan or not...
Most of us are no computer experts about urls & stuff. All I know is the old forum was working... working well to be precise.

I had saved many thread links (like the great one about blood doping with loads of Dr Maserati well-thought and founded infos). Will I get them back? Hell no, "404" is my friend now. Will I find it if I search? Most likely not. I mean who actually remembers the precise name of a thread?
Friends? Sure they can be recovered. 13 (as I had) maybe makeable. 60 like mew? Most likely not.
We are here to have fun, not to work. It´s our free time!
Hell, the whole GGTG threads are spoiled. Will take loads of time to get them back in shape. Again: I am not getting paid for this. Thus it shall be fun to be here...
And then the url mish-mash, the quotes mish-mash... Sorry, I don´t see the positives yet.
And it seems many others also not. May you realized that traffic is way down. So those of us (still posting) are not the only ones bemoaning.

 

[LaFlorecita]

I also had many friends and many of them don't post on here anymore. Do you think I remember every individual, Armchair? Hell no! Maybe if I go through all 90.000 members I can find them all again...It's just sad that these things are lost and apparently cannot be recovered.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Re:

at Armchair, but everybody else too ofc

Friends list or not... bemoan or not...
Most of us are no computer experts about urls & stuff. All I know is the old forum was working... working well to be precise.

I had saved many thread links (like the great one about blood doping with loads of Dr Maserati well-thought and founded infos). Will I get them back? Hell no, "404" is my friend now. Will I find it if I search? Most likely not. I mean who actually remembers the precise name of a thread?
Friends? Sure they can be recovered. 13 (as I had) maybe makeable. 60 like mew? Most likely not.
We are here to have fun, not to work. It´s our free time!
Hell, the whole GGTG threads are spoiled. Will take loads of time to get them back in shape. Again: I am not getting paid for this. Thus it shall be fun to be here...
And then the url mish-mash, the quotes mish-mash... Sorry, I don´t see the positives yet.
And it seems many others also not. May you realized that traffic is way down. So those of us (still posting) are not the only ones bemoaning.

i have to agree with the bit in bold. Some people will have to get them back to their former glory. Fortunately I am not one of these, but the few people that will have to do it wont enjoy it, as the process will be long and pretty boring.

On the plus side, this forum is genarally easier to use now (apart from some niggles that have been mentioned in this thread by others and me) its had time to grow on me.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Re:

at Armchair, but everybody else too ofc

Friends list or not... bemoan or not...
Most of us are no computer experts about urls & stuff. All I know is the old forum was working... working well to be precise.
... Sorry, I don´t see the positives yet.

I have by no means found the change problem free: I hope I have made some constructive criticisms here, because I certainly have made criticisms.

I am no computer expert: my lifetime history of computer education consists of one term of lessons in using BASIC in 1979. What I proposed requires no knowledge of 'urls and stuff', but merely following tools on the page.

The old forum was indeed working, but we are told that there could not be confidence that it would continue working reliably and safely indefinitely. I choose to believe that explanation: I cannot believe that the publishers went to the expense and difficulty of changing it unnecessarily, and I am glad that they apparently changed it before the obsolete software became problematic. This doesn't mean that I think it has been brilliantly handled: I believe there should have been some testing, and some communication with users before the change, and some features are not available that we will have valued in the past.

There are variables that it is reasonable to request be changed, there are options that we can reasonably ask to have turned on if they exist. The developers have been, spasmodically, responsive, whether to alter or to explain why they can't. We collectively will not have helped them by having divergent preferences.

But once we have been told that features are not supported by the software, then it is, I'm afraid, sour grapes. I wish we had a csv table feature: I frequently post CQ game updates and would like them to be much neater.

As to the friends issue, I am probably of an age whereby this Facebook definition of friends means nothing to me, so perhaps others place more value on holding names on a list than I do. But the FAQ tells us, " Members added to your friends list will be listed within your User Control Panel for quick access to see their online status and to send them private messages. Subject to template support, posts from these users may also be highlighted." But you can still send messages to whoever you like, and will still receive messages from anyone who is not on your foes list. If there are people you want to send messages to frequently, add them, and if you re not going to be sending them messages frequently, there is no meaning in listing them as friends. I really don't see the problem.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Re:

I also had many friends and many of them don't post on here anymore. Do you think I remember every individual, Armchair? Hell no! Maybe if I go through all 90.000 members I can find them all again...It's just sad that these things are lost and apparently cannot be recovered.

But the only benefit in having them as 'friends' is that it facilitates PMing them. If they don't use the forum, then what does it matter? And if you can't remember who they are, then you have a very different definition of 'friend' than I have.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

I also had many friends and many of them don't post on here anymore. Do you think I remember every individual, Armchair? Hell no! Maybe if I go through all 90.000 members I can find them all again...It's just sad that these things are lost and apparently cannot be recovered.

But the only benefit in having them as 'friends' is that it facilitates PMing them. If they don't use the forum, then what does it matter? And if you can't remember who they are, then you have a very different definition of 'friend' than I have.

It was fun to go through the list and see those posters and remember how cool they were. Now they will be forgotten. I have no idea what this PMing thing is, I just added members as my friends if they were cool people with similar interests.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Re: Re:

I have no idea what this PMing thing is,

PM = Private message

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

I have no idea what this PMing thing is,

PM = Private message

I meant I have no idea in what way your friends list facilitates PMing.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

I meant I have no idea in what way your friends list facilitates PMing.

As I quoted a couple of posts higher up the thread:

But the FAQ tells us, " Members added to your friends list will be listed within your User Control Panel for quick access to see their online status and to send them private messages. Subject to template support, posts from these users may also be highlighted."

So quick access to sending a PM is the only practical application of the friends status: others are simply notifications.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Re: Re:

The old forum was indeed working, but we are told that there could not be confidence that it would continue working reliably and safely indefinitely

Again I am no computer expert (so I might be wrong with the following):

Wouldn´t it have been better and cheaper if;
The old forum stayed as it was, but got a "face-lift" with the best, most expensive security software attached? I am convinced that would have been cheaper, since now many posters (and thus people who click on ads) left. Let´s say this computer-expert-guy(s) cost 1 Mio $ each week to make perfectly safe security-software compatible with the ("old") forum-software. Who cares? Top guys are expensive, but they are the cheaper choice (business-wise) in the long run.

I saw what happens now, happened to another once great site just one year ago. The same mistake, a complete site-overhaul. Now this site is (almost) dead, comments/traffic broke down greatly. Why o why do businessmen the wrong choices all the time when it comes to computer-stuff? Cheap is expensive!!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Again with the follow up, is there any timeframe to upping the number of links available in a post? The fact that we can obtain a link to a post, even if it isn't single post view, at least gives me something to work with when fixing up the Race Design Thread. But I'm up against a number of obstacles, same as Foxxy is finding with the GGTG. These are long-running megathreads with posts filled with links to other parts of the thread, and are hardly the only such threads on the forum; the software upgrade has rendered the existing threads almost useless. Foxxy has myriad piles of code that no longer works to pick through, and I have literally hundreds of broken links to fix. Worse: that I can't fix. The first post of the Race Design Thread was used as a library of the thread ever since the beginning. It has 35 links in it - 6 to external websites to enable people who want to contribute to do so, and 29 links to separate posts in the thread, each cataloguing a different category of courses designed in the thread. I can replace these links, but it entails trawling through all 3000+ posts to find the relevant posts, then to be told there are too many URLs and I can't save changes. Each of those library posts contains dozens of links of their own, and there are a large number of Giri, Tours and Vueltas that have been designed on the thread which would need to be posted in five separate sections to cover all stages under the current limitations. This would mean each of these required their own individual library post which would have to be linked from a separate post. Many of those race stage posts also have a large number of links showcasing video of races in those locations, pictures and articles.

I would like to think that with over 20 000 posts between us Foxxy and myself are at this point not going to be considered spambots; the spambots have continued to merrily post away anyway. For the purpose we want it, i.e. in order to moderate and manage threads which have become long-standing institutions of the forum, limiting the number of URLs available serves little purpose other than to make our labours of love completely fruitless. Foxxy's point about how much time it will take to get those megathreads back into working order stands. I really don't want to have to abandon the Race Design Thread after four years and 3000 posts, and I know that there are posters other than myself who really would want to continue posting in the thread if it could be made manageable once more and are sitting on future contributions awaiting the go-ahead, but trying to rebuild such expansive libraries and deal with future additions, having to read the thread start to finish to locate and isolate the relevant posts, is going to be laborious, monotonous and with a limitation of 5 URLs per post, pretty much unmanageable to the point of not being worth it.