THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AS THE WEBSITE IS BEING WORKED ON

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I’m sure all forum members realise that the change in the forum was essential due to the very out of date software the old one was running on.

Unfortunately, this very issue has meant there have been huge technical issues which have taken far more work and expense to address than was expected.

One consequence was the big delay in getting the forum back up; in the end it was decided to go live even though there were many issues still to be sorted, as the delay was becoming just too great.

The last week or so has seen many improvements, most of which will not be obvious except to those that witnessed the original issue. There remains a long log of outstanding technical issues that is being worked through as a priority.

There are other issues, many of which have been raised by forum members, particularly around the layout, balance of ads and content – essentially issues of design rather than fundamentally getting the forum working smoothly.

Naturally, the staff at Mortons are focusing on making the forum more reliable, faster, stable and free from spam.

Please be assured that issues of design and presentation will be looked at.

If you are currently finding the site too difficult to use, you may wish to visit less frequently for a week or two while further changes are put in place. It could well be longer before all the significant changes are implemented, but be assured your feedback is noted and issues are being addressed.

Until then, the patience of forum members is greatly appreciated and in particular your support for the moderators who have also put in a huge amount of effort trying to assist members with problems using the forum.

Thank you again, I hope you will bear with us. I will be putting an update in the next issue of MEW.

Neil

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

I appreciate Your labors, and You have got rid of most of the tremors from lack of this forum. 🙂

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I think it’s a great improvement and will get better as the bugs are addressed.  Congratulations to everyone on getting the project through.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

This is my reply to neil on a recent email .

“Sorry Neil but it does show just how out of your depth and lacking behind you are. It is not just grumbles on the forum but many small bug, Quite a few I have added a reply and comment such as “one for Admin” so they may have been able to find them easier but now it would seem they have not even visited the forum so that too seems to be another waste of Modertors time.

With the Backlog reporting system only showing what Dave, Colin and Myself have been reporting there it will not cover all these other bugs and they won’t get dealt with and members will just walk away.

I also don’t feel that the forum is anywhere near as active on subjects other than the new site. There are new topics being started but the number of replies seems down and I think I have only seen one new member all week which is also considerably down. Take it from one who spends a lot more time there than you do.”

An example I recently said in the other thread there WILL NOT be much happening for at least a week as the Main Admin man is off on holiday and the developers are not going to have anymore input.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I’m sure a lot of the guys like myself are just biding their time

There’s always plenty to do for a model engineer

My workshop is looking tidier than it has for a couple of years

What I will say is that a lot of lurkers will miss this post unless they get lucky because you have to be logged in to see where the “latest activity” is at

Good luck guys

This forum is a bit like a model engineering project, we’ll get there in the end

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

An ideal opportunity, I would suggest, for a bright ‘office junior’ to be given some generously-paid overtime.

They could trawl through the entire contents of the ‘new forum’ and list everything that they consider to be a bug-report  … no comeback on them if they get it wrong … ‘ownership’ should remain with the developers … the project just needs somebody to do the graft.

When the developers return, they would then review/ratify that list and manage it thereafter.

I have no idea how this project is structured, but [from afar] I sense that there must be a lot of ‘fire-fighting’ going on … whereas these things usually go better when handled methodically.

MichaelG.

[Pete WhiteParticipant @petewhite15172]

 

I left the computer with several tabs open, mrs relpfully closed all tabs but this one, hence I brough myself up to speed ?

I did not mean to be negative, …. but

I used to browse the old forum several times a day and enjoyed it. As I mentioned up post, I will now spend my time more wisely for a week, but if the problem solver has gone away for a week I will be back on 10 th December. I will ask Alexa to remind me!

Pete

 

[Jim NicParticipant @jimnic]

There must be many others like me who have not made a great deal of comment but who appreciate that the task is greater than anticipated and so are waiting and hoping that the folks doing the work keep at it and we get what we are expecting.

Well done so far, thank for your efforts.

Jim

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

Same as Jim here I think the current format is woeful with a seemingly random scattering of different colours, button sizes and font size variations. Rather than adding to the criticisms I’m just waiting quietly to see how it pans out.

If you’re going to fix anything though, make it the latest activity page. At least that would make it comfortable to read what’s been recently posted and might bring some interest back towards the mainstream topics. Right now it looks like a holding page for a domain name.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

If ‘we’d’ all like something to read and look at whilst we’re ‘camping-out’ next to our forum’s reconstruction, would it be possible to;

either stick ‘Workshop Progress’ somewhere near the top of the thread lists (so it won’t drop off)..

..or create a new temp one to stick there, so that we can upload our news and pics of workshop progress, items of tooling, and other engineering stuff that we all used to, and still want, to look at.

Dunno about anyone else, but after the ‘latest-post’ list, the next place I always went next was to the ‘latest gallery uploads’ ‘cos it was a good place to see what everyone had been doing – some of the most accomplished and productive workers here don’t make a song & dance about it, they just used to quietly upload a few good pics into an album somewhere..

If we could make that easy to find & get it up and running, more members might come back to have a look, and in turn make use of it themselves in order to encourage others to do the same –

I know that I’m not alone in just wanting ‘workshop stuff’ to read / look at, it’d just mean that we’d all have to make a bit of an effort to post something..

 

[Ches Green UKParticipant @chesgreenuk]

A comparison.

‘Latest Posts’, from the WayBack machine on 24 July.

‘Latest activity’ from today.

 

I don’t know if the WayBack machine slightly zooms in or out (or crops) the Web-grab it stores.

And I have slightly zoomed out the ‘from today’ to get a bit more in.

But it seems to me that there is a lot less relevant content viewable on-screen in the latest version of the website.

The two images above are from my 24″ 1920×1200 W10 desktop display.

It would be good if the Webmaster found a way to get more information on to each page of the new version of the website. Perhaps it can be zoomed out a bit in the HTML settings to show more info on screen?

I do appreciate ALL the efforts our Moderators are going to – it’s a thankless task… and those of the Web Team at Mortons. But I worry that we will end up with a bug-free, fast website that contains little relevant information per screen.

Regards,

Ches

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

More colour is required for sure, not sure whether we will end up with a fast website though as it’s dependent on the system that runs it and it’s already been pointed out that WordPress has limitations

 

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

I found the Wayback Machine rather underwhelming after a while. Only the July 23 image has any significant content and even that is mainly only one level deep.

Earlier images (if you can dig them out: the site doesn’t work very well) contain little information at all. The whole thing is a bit amateurish and smacks of something that seemed (and probably was) a great idea at the time but needed far more time and effort than the creator realised.

[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

My IT knowledge is woeful but I enjoyed the way the varied postings on very different subjects just presented themselves for me to read on the old forum layout. I am hopeful that the new forum will have that simple, “just open it up and all the latest stuff is there to read” layout that I have become familiar with will be carried forward into the new presentation.

If I have to go looking for input on different subjects on different pages I think I will get lost or bored or both, and maybe just lose interest altogether. I am not sure I like all the colour and adverts, It’s the useful content and the banter I log in for, most of the members of the old forum are not teenagers to be impressed by marketing hype and other dross.  I will give it time to improve but so far I am quite worried about things, it’s a bit like the (hopefully temporary  ) loss of an old friend.

Rod

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

From its title, this section is supposed to be –

Website Announcements Announcements from Mortons and the Editors of Model Engineers’ Workshop.

Surely the developers should have been able to restrict who can reply to this section as we seem to have several that are really (perfectly valid) general comments that belong under the ‘new website’s  comments….’ section.

I was looking for more formal announcements rather than general stuff / opinions etc. It all seems a bit of a dogs’ breakfast at the moment. I think I’ll take the recent advice of one of the mods and stop viewing for a few weeks until some of the miriad issues get sorted

Mike

[Mike Hurley]

On Mike Hurley Said:

From its title, this section is supposed to be –

Website Announcements Announcements from Mortons and the Editors of Model Engineers’ Workshop.

Surely the developers should have been able to restrict who can reply to this section …

Good point, well made

… The significant word is probably “should”

MichaelG.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

This forum kept me sane during covid and a subsequent period of ill health, it was like an old friend ! Sadly my friend has lost the plot and gone into care, I just pray he will recover ! Noel.

[Ches Green UKParticipant @chesgreenuk]

Mike ,

I was looking for more formal announcements rather than general stuff / opinions etc. It all seems a bit of a dogs’ breakfast at the moment.

Guilty, as charged.

I had been moving back and forth between the threads related to the new website and thought I was still on ‘Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software’.

By the time I realised my post on Old -v- New was on the wrong Forum thread it was too late to shift it. Apologies for that.

Ches

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

That is the problem when Editors/Moderators are playing catch up as they have hardly spent any time testing or on the live site and can’t even topics in the right place.

There is also a problem that locking a topic gives it a pink background much like the sticky headings are yellow except the pink makes it almost impossible to read due to wishy-washy font colour.

Though Members are just as bad, look at the Please use the other thread topic one that then got used and after asking there not to post you get more people posting in the thread.

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

Figured out the problems, took me five minutes, probably less, when I saw the tag widget. I copied the url and went to whatwpthemeisthat.com

Sure enough, the new website is WordPress, the most hacked page builder on the internet.

Just a matter of time before it is hacked.

A complete backwards step I think.

The good thing is it should be very easy to correct all the faults with the layout as it is just a matter of moving a few widgets about.

Did you get the new developer from Fiverr? You get what you pay for!

 

P.S. One good thing is that I can edit my post.

P.P.S. The site is using the Lawson Theme, this is a free theme. There are lots of good WordPress Themes out there which are probably much more secure and would work better. Oh well, let’s see what improvements they make. Not hard with WordPress to alter anything.

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

Hi Ian. Thank you for your coments. I think they have killed this site completely.

What a shame.

[Ian B.]

On Ian B. Said:

…

I am having to write this response on my mobile phone as I only have access via Android. My Windows 11 computers and workshop Ubuntu Linux system will not even bring up the log in page…

An unfortunate side-effect of going live with wonky software is it gets blamed for everything!

Here Ian incorrectly assumes forum login doesn’t work on Windows11 or Linux.  Just possibly it failed when the poor performance problem caused a temporary glitch, but in general login works now.

If login fails persistently, there’s a problem at Ian’s end and nothing done to the forum will fix it.   That Windows and Linux both fail suggests a common component, I suspect Ian’s router.  Try switching off and leaving it for 5-10 minutes before switching back on.  The long delay forces the router to dump cached data and refresh all the network addresses, some of which may be corrupt.

Another problem with launching wonky software is users assume the bad experience is permanent.  Can’t blame them for that, especially when bugs are fixed painfully slowly, but patience is a virtue and progress is being made.

Another issue is the assumption that fixing software is as straightforward as mending machinery.  Nope, debugging software is more like solving a cryptic crossword: some clues are easy, others very difficult, and they have to mesh correctly.  If fed up with the forum, buy The Times newspaper, turn to the crossword and estimate how long it will take you to solve.   Then do the puzzle and let us know how long it actually took.

Hint, I’ve never completed a Times crossword, and the first time I tried the clues might as well have been written in Japanese…

Dave

 

 

 

 

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Dave you may or may not be correct about Ian’s problem but take my case I struggle to log on with my win 10 and linux laptops and on the occasions I have been able to log on I have been unable to post or reply get error 403 however I can now log in, post & reply with my Samsung table !

H

[Harry Wilkes]

On Harry Wilkes Said:

Dave you may or may not be correct about Ian’s problem but take my case I struggle to log on with my win 10 and linux laptops and on the occasions I have been able to log on I have been unable to post or reply get error 403 however I can now log in, post & reply with my Samsung table !

H

Coincidence or what?  Just taken me 3 attempts to login from Linux.

Hmmm…

Dave

[Clive Brown 1Participant @clivebrown1]

My Win 11 / Firefox combo seems to allow me to log on reliably. The main problem is of couse speed,  (or complete lack of!). This is issue that is killing the forum as a useful and interesting vehicle.

[Author]

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