Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Well at least they are being consistent as none of the other options under forums will display beyond page 1 either

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi JasonB, yes I did notice that replies created is also stuck on page 1.

Regards Nick.

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi, So why can’t I access my old posts past page 1, when using engagements in my profile, does anyone else have this problem? I’ve mentioned this two or three times before.

Regards Nick.

Just a guess, the old forum didn’t have “engagements”, so they start from the new forum epoch.    Posts extracted from the old forum’s database were copied directly into the new forum’s database, and bypassed the human activity function that records new posts as ‘engagements’.

If so, adding old posts to ‘engagements’ would need a bespoke program, and I doubt Morton’s have the capacity to write and test one at the moment.   Naturally enough we’re keen to have the forum’s public facing problems fixed.  One reason progress is on them is slow is that the developers have significant backstage problems – performance, malfunctioning logins, unreliability etc.   There have to be given priority, because they upset everyone and can take the forum down entirely – the engine is firing on 3-cylinders, and making lots of smoke…

Dave

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Wrong guess as I have made more than 25 posts on this new forum and can’t get beyond the 1st page. I’d say Nick has made a fair number too as have you Dave.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Sorry Dave, good try, but not this time.
It’s a similar problem to the one which used to affect Galleries.
Also it used to work.

See my post on the same subject HERE on a different topic

I’d explored it a couple of times previously as well

 

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

My guess would be that the Developers have truncated the available list, in an attempt to speed-up other manipulations of the database.

This bloke, for example [whoever he might be] seems to have burdened the system with a lot of Engagements !

.

.

MichaelG.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

My guess would be that the Developers have truncated the available list, in an attempt to speed-up other manipulations of the database.

This bloke, for example [whoever he might be] seems to have burdened the system with a lot of Engagements …………

MichaelG.

If you have a look at the number of replies created, they forum seems to know I’m close to 2.5K, but will only show the first page; it used to work fine until recently, and as you suggest, I wonder if it’s due to trying to speed things up.

In this case I clicked Replies Created and then Page 98, which showed in the address line URL, but still only Page 1 posts 1-25 showed.
I then edited the URL to P47, but still only Page 1 displayed after a screen refresh.

Bill

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Getting beyond the first page of some parts of the forum has not worked since we were testing, some even had just squares with no numbers in.

Those that have worked at some time have either been switched off to try and boost the still slow site of the fiddling about with code to try and sort one problem has a knock on effect that mucks up something else.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Perhaps Mortons could get Fujitsu in to sort it all out. P’raps not

[duncan webster 1]

On duncan webster 1 Said:

Perhaps Mortons could get Fujitsu in to sort it all out. P’raps not

‘could get Fujitsu’ recon is this lot that taught Fujitsu all they know 🙂

H

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Dave, the Engagements were available more or less when the new forum was available to us, and I have referred to them a few times during writing replies on this new forum, and I’ve also looked at the replies created as well, but it was a week or two back, that looked for something in the Engagements, and I couldn’t get passed page 1, I just thought it may have been a temporary glitch, but it seems to become permanent.

Regards Nick.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I was wondering if any of Mortons software team actually look at this thread so I did a little investigating using the rather sub-excellent forum search features.

I note that this thread itself was started over four months ago by Jason which presumably within hours or days of the relaunch. In normal circumstances I would have expected the team to have posted to ask forum members for their comments but as we now know the days before and after the launch were total overload, so any plan (if they had one) went out of the window.

One month ago Darren replied to this thread saying,

Morning, we think we may have a solution to the speed issues. The site will go offline at 10.15 whilst we run an update. Fingers crossed, see you on the other side!

and then later (but still one month ago) Darren proudly announced,

I think we are really getting somewhere now!

(BTW, these high precision time values are what the forum software shows)

As a now less frequent forum visitor I get the impression that in the last month or so, there has been little positive change to the way the forum works, I cannot say I have seen any speed increase and while login might be more stable there are still scores of (what I hope are) items on the list to be fixed. Next Christmas does not seem to be so far away now.

Subjectively the number of posts per day, and the number of posters seems to be a fraction of pre-update days, this presumably is what has frightened off the advertisers (just now I can only spot four ‘real’ adverts). If the forum’s existence is dependent on revenue from advertisers(?) and the number of advertisers does not increase, maybe Mortons will have to pull the plug, I hope not though.

I have a long list of items that I think need attending to, many of them have already been reported, some almost done to death, but I see no point in me mentioning my items as I doubt anyone at Mortons will be in the least bit interested.

What does concern me though is the thought that the look and feel of the forum as it is now, is what was envisaged and written into its ‘good’ specification.

Ian P

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

This thread was created before we went live.

I do have an option to look at members and it does list them in order of activity so can see a bit more than members. However this is one of the features where I don’t even get page numbers in the boxes let alone being able to see more than the first page.

Activity is certainly down. If you take out posts about the forum and the large number of Tea Room content then what was once the busiest ME forum is lagging behind ones that hardly showed up on some of the analytics software in the past.

[Ian P]

On Ian P Said:

…

What does concern me though is the thought that the look and feel of the forum as it is now, is what was envisaged and written into its ‘good’ specification.

I agree wholeheartedly with your closing expression of concern, Ian

… I have been reading and contributing-to this forum in the [apparently vain] hope that it will get better sometime soon, and we should somehow encourage it … but it does start to look like the monster has been ‘successfully’ created in the form required, and is now on life-support.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Oh, that’s interesting … Someone appears to have changed the font used for quotations.

MichaelG.

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Oh, that’s interesting … Someone appears to have changed the font used for quotations.

MichaelG.

 

Oh no they haven’t

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Is it worth me trying to post a screen-shot ?

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Here’s a teeny-tiny jpeg version, just in case the system still can’t handle the file-types it claims:

.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This delightful [spoof] Trailer seems somehow appropriate:

https://youtu.be/XCinJpHABAM?feature=shared

MichaelG.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Michael, I could see the different font in your original post. And all your images are showing today

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Activity is certainly down.

But it seems to be down and often not machining related on HSM and MadModder is very quiet. Possibly everyone is so busy with their Whatsapp bombarding them they are fed up electronic media and messing with phones instead of a computer. Also lots of people/small groups are using Whatsapp and Facebook to pose questions that are much better answered on here. FB groups especially attract the youngsters (ie<60) with the brainpower of a gnat who can’t be bothered to do any research at all. I occasionally post on one FB group to try to let them know about lathe.co.uk and this site for the basic information. No good nowadays suggesting they read and actual book.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Michael, I could see the different font in your original post. And all your images are showing today

 

.

Thanks for confirming that, Jason

Software works in mysterious ways … especially when it is being tinkered-with

 

MichaelG.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

This is an example of text in the compose/edit pane;

Here we go, I’ve copied and pasted several examples into word, retaining source formatting.
Someone seems to have added Georgia 15 point, as a quote font that I’ve not seen on here before.
(but only sometimes, or maybe it was part of a test and now reverted to previous)

Note that it seems to be in quoted text, but it’s not italicised, which is an improvement
Not sure about the font or size though; three different fonts in the same topic seems a bit OTT

Here’s a screenshot from the word doc showing the actual fonts, as opposed to Michael’s one showing the screen display on his monitor/iPad

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Michael, I could see the different font in your original post. And all your images are showing today

Looks like the workshop gremlins have moved down the road and started stealing mine instead 

Bill

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