Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software

[JA]

On JA Said:

 

It would be nice if someone in authority would publish a list of comments/suggestions made, their status and closure. Surely such a list exists.

JA

There are several lists going into 100s of items and hundreads of emails

I expressed my view that someone from Mortons should be “front of house” on Thursday morning and again repeated it Monday eveing. I  had on sevearl earlier occasions commented about having people available to deal with going live. Admin came back on the Thursday and said they would come on and answer questions but still no sign of any paid member of staff posting anything.

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

On Michael Gilligan Said:

I’ve only just noticed this ‘undocumented feature’

There is an empty “Reply To” pane at the bottom of every page of Posts

… is that intentional ?

[ I am posting this at the bottom of page 13 of 15 ]

MichaelG.

Hi MichaelG, I sure there was an empty reply box at the bottom of every last post on the old forum, but this one has “Reply To:” > the name of the topic or thread, or whatever it is called now, that we are on.

Regards Nick.

Every last post, yes Nick

But not, so far as I recall, the last post on every page of posts

… I haven’t got time to do it now, but I will have a look on the archive copy of the forum later, and will retract my comment if appropriate.

MichaelG.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

`still splitting up the text when image inserted to a post, still clunky

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Definitely not a fan of this new format, it appears to me to be very user unfriendly and I can’t seem to find things, my profile seems to have disappeared and I am not qualified to edit it, also according to the site I am no longer a subscriber, I will persevere but don’t know for how long, to me the site is a right lemon, I would definitely vote to return to the old site.  Dave W

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

Does anyone else find the banner at the top of the page takes up too much screen? By the time I have the banner, FF toolbar, FF search bar, FF tab bar and the main tools right at the top, viewing the <Latest Activities> is a bit like looking through a letterbox.

(The effect was much less noticeable with the latest post layout on the old site – why was that dumped?. The one-line-under-another layout of the activity listings here exacerbates the problem).

I’ve just spent a good half-hour fiddling around with Firefox’s settings and add-ons and I may yet try changing some basic windows settings (which is more risky). It hasn’t helped significantly. Repeatedly zooming/unzooming the page is a nuisance.

It seems to me that revamping the banner could help a bit: If the <Subscribe> <Latest Issue> FB and Twitter icons were moved up to the top of the banner (or even to the top of the light blue section), I think it could be made little more than half the current width.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

… but I will have a look on the archive copy of the forum later, and will retract my comment if appropriate.

MichaelG.

< Drat > … foiled again !

I looked at an old multi-page forum thread, on the wayback machine

But the option to reply only exists if one is logged-in … and I couldn’t do that on an archived version.

MichaelG.

.

Ref. __ https://web.archive.org/web/20230713103351/https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/

[ thanks to Journeyman ]

[File Handle]

On File Handle Said:

I am concerned that the main content of the site is now discussion of the new site…

Yes, it’s a problem.  Marshal McLuhan famously complained ‘the media is the message’, definitely not what’s wanted here.

Plenty of interest in finding and reporting glitches whilst the forum is flashing her grubby underwear!  And user comments are helping focus attention too, so I hope people will keep complaining until all the wrinkles are sorted.

Unfortunately the missing ‘latest posts’ facility is making it extra hard to find proper Model Engineering posts.  Sad, because quite a few have been made since launch.  As Latest activity only displays a short list of recent posts, doesn’t take long for contributions to disappear into the long grass.

Dave

[Samsaranda]

On Samsaranda Said:

Definitely not a fan of this new format, it appears to me to be very user unfriendly and I can’t seem to find things, my profile seems to have disappeared and I am not qualified to edit it, also according to the site I am no longer a subscriber, I will persevere but don’t know for how long, to me the site is a right lemon, I would definitely vote to return to the old site.  Dave W

I can’t comment on your subscription, other than either of the Subscribe links on the blue bar should take you to a subscription page, which in turn provides buttons to take you to the Classic Magazines log-in page. since that is separate to this forum.

https://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/site/loginform.

Your profile hasn’t disappeared, but there is a known and reported issue, where neither you, nor anyone else can currently see it when clicking on “Profile”
Unfortunately the word Profile appears on more than one link/tab, which can be confusing.
To edit your profile, ready for when it becomes visible again try this; you will almost certainly need to edit it, as some of the punctation marks are likely to have changed when it was carried over from the old forum.
(I’ll no go into why)

Profile (white writing on green bar) > “Settings” tab, (not profile tab again, with blue writing on white tab) > “Profile Viisibility” > scroll down to About Yourself Biographical Info.
Check and edit your profile information, and don’t forget to save.

On this page, you can also change your display name, currently “samsaranda” , but not your user/account name “at symbol” samsaranda; that bit is visible, but greyed out.
Like you, my old displayed name and user/account name were the same on the old forum.

Bill

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

On JA Said:

 

It would be nice if someone in authority would publish a list of comments/suggestions made, their status and closure. Surely such a list exists.

JA

There are several lists going into 100s of items and hundreads of emails

…

Well I’m dead against going because it would show Jason works much harder than me!!!

Seriously though, it’s good PR to reveal what the state of play is when IT is being mended.  However, the information belongs to Mortons and I doubt they have the capacity to publish it.  Unfortunately the formal reporting system only supports a small number of logins and I don’t think it has a ‘publish’ facility.

Of course what members have been saying is openly on the forum, just not well organised.  Mortons intend to analyse it.

Dave

 

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

< Drat > … foiled again !

I looked at an old multi-page forum thread, on the wayback machine

But the option to reply only exists if one is logged-in … and I couldn’t do that on an archived version.

MichaelG.

I’d tried that too – with the same result. Only to be expected, I guess. The site (Wayback Machine) claims to have snapshots going back to 2007 which I thought could be interesting – but anything before 2020 is a single commercial ad-page (with the ad links no longer working)

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The moderators get a longer version of the active topics and I would say the ME ones active are probably 50/50 with the ones about the site and they are dropping all the time.

If you look at number of users then there are a few posting a lot in the software posts so the overall number of members posting in ME is higher

I don’t get things like Google Analytics but it would be interesting to see traffic numbers in a few weeks when things settle down compared with the old site before it closed.

I have not seen any new members in the last few days and I would say traffic seems a bit less at the moment.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi MichaelG, I think I miss-read or miss understood what you were saying, and having review every thing, I believe you were correct in the first place. On the old forum, when the pages were nearly full, and made a reply, it opened up at the top of a new page, with a new empty reply box underneath. Looking at the previous pages now, I can see there is a reply box at the bottom of every page. Funny when something you’ve been using for years, and then having no use for a few weeks, and comes back with small changes, clouds ones memory. Now I know I really am an old git.

Regards Nick.

 

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

something seems to have changed – I need to login to see latest activity but even then clicking on the latest activity button just takes you round in circles

 

Actually I’m coming to conclusion that this site is becoming unusable and losing much of the attraction of the old site – too heavy in the adverts and much too awkward, especially now the latest activity has been effectively junked

 

 

 

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

The moderators get a longer version of the active topics and I would say the ME ones active are probably 50/50 with the ones about the site and they are dropping all the time.

If you look at number of users then there are a few posting a lot in the software posts so the overall number of members posting in ME is higher

I don’t get things like Google Analytics but it would be interesting to see traffic numbers in a few weeks when things settle down compared with the old site before it closed.

I have not seen any new members in the last few days and I would say traffic seems a bit less at the moment.

Jason
Re your first para, is the 50-50 comparing ME against MEW posts, or is it ME and MEW against posts about the software? (and in either event, which is the ‘they’ that are dropping off?)

I presume you then say that there are fewer members posting at the moment but the ones that do are posting more frequently, so the total number of posts is relatively high.

Not seeing new members does not surprise me, I suspect Mortons will not see many new advertiser either.

I was going to put an emoji but the button seems to be invisible (although I dont really like them!)

Ian P

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Frances … Latest Activity seems to be working [albeit slowly] for me … I have seen the time of your posting change from 6 to 7 to 8 minutes-ago, on successive visits.

MichaelG.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I fully understand (and appreciate and applaud) that the backroom boys and the moderators are working their socks off trying to sort out the website software but I can see the process getting very protracted. I have no idea how the various fixes and improvements are prioritised but if its by randomly reading postings from users (mostly unhappy ones) then the expression going round in circles probably applies.

Because it is difficult to navigate the current site I (for one) do not know if a something that I think is a problem has already been flagged up so I tend not to mention it as I think it would just add to the clutter.

Why not create a survey with a list of the known problems and user can rate each item (say 1 to 5) so that a consensus of priorities can be generated?

A daily update (in one easily findable place) from the team as to the status of the changes would be appreciated.

I can only imagine what John Stevenson would have said about the present forum!!!!

Ian P

[Frances IoM]

On Frances IoM Said:

something seems to have changed – I need to login to see latest activity but even then clicking on the latest activity button just takes you round in circles

 

Actually I’m coming to conclusion that this site is becoming unusable and losing much of the attraction of the old site – too heavy in the adverts and much too awkward, especially now the latest activity has been effectively junked

 

 

 

As I understand it, Latest Activity, hasn’t been junked; what we have at the moment is a temporary fix, until a better version can be implemented.
There may be more urgent things under the bonnet to mend before the final facility gets provided.
Hang on in there. 🙂

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Another oddity …

I have one Documents Gallery at present … it is visible in this view:

But not if I change the filter to AllGalleries

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Pick a Word …

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[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Is it my setup, but using a MacBookAir running Safari, the pages are very slow to load compared with the old site and other forums etc. – 11 seconds to post this. (edit)

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Just logged in under Google Chrome and the response is much faster -but great confusion as it says I am logged in as Speedy Builder 5, but that I must log in to see Forum items – perhaps my cache needs clearing ??

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

IanP when I say ME I’m talking of out usual post eg not related to the new software. Just had a new member waiting for approval when I turned on this morning.

Frances, as has been mentioned many times in this thread the current “Latest Activity”  which is working I type is a temporary measure, it is likely to be a couple of weeks at least until this can be looked at.  An interesting conclusion that the site is becoming unstable and loosing attraction when there certainly have been improvements since Monday as the comments and reports are dealt with.

I don’t think Admin have got as far as reading through the posts here still catching up with 100s of e-mails and bug reports sent in by the Mods. I have requested that they do so as we can’t report every little and some larger items that are showing up.

The current reporting software being used allows us to put a report into several catagories – major Bug, Minor Bug, Wishlist and feedback. Admin will then deal with as THEY see fit. Rather appropriate that the system is called “Backlog” from Nulab for those that want to look it up.

 

As for JS, probably something about purse.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I see they have found time to put the Warco pop-up on the landscape-format page  now. … The place is looking like the famous Mr Bill Stickers has been at work.

MichaelG.

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[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I am still unimpressed by this new forum. I will have another look in 7 days. If I still don’t like it I will delete my profile, if I can!

A very poor design, and it took several weeks to come up with it. Someone needs to go.

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

Its bound to be a bit ‘Marmite’ for a while, I think the Mods & developers etc are doing what they can and we should support them – it is after all a big project. I personally am not overjoyed so far, but prepared to stick with it for a reasonable time until some of the major issues are ironed out.

Its apparent from the dire lack of current ‘technical engineering’ type questions as opposed to comments etc about the forum itself that many existing users are having difficulty using it or are still tied up trying to navigate.

Perhaps a little patience may be the order of the day.

regards Mike

 

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