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fun4everyone

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

I'm sorry, that should have said April 2015, not 2012. I've changed it. Panic over :eek:

I joined in May 2015 and I am able to select, and am on the good green version, are you going to force me onto the blue version? Please tell me no. :(:(:(:(:(:(:(

ThePants999

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Hi, have you seen this thread?

Apostrophe Problems

Yes, I have. It's nothing more than a sticking plaster on a gaping wound, so if you think that post answers my complaint, you haven't understood the problem. So let me try to explain it in detail.

(Tech people: I'm going to deliberately oversimplify here so please don't start yelling about UTF-8, ASCII, ISO-8859-1, character sets, encoding tables or whatever!)

Basically, there are two types of character. "Simple" characters - Roman letters, numbers, simple punctuation marks - pretty much just what you can type on a US/UK keyboard. And "extended" characters, which is everything else - Roman letters with accents, Greek letters, Cyrillic letters, every other alphabet, unusual punctuation, symbols, emojis, etc.

In January, someone made a change on this forum to disable all "extended" characters. Any time someone enters one in a post, the software converts it to a form like !!!9829;. I don't know for sure why this change was made, but I believe it was a temporary solution to the problem of non-English spam posts.

The most common problem this causes relates to "smart" punctuation. Some programs/devices have a feature whereby simple quotation marks and apostrophes get converted to special ones in order to look better. For example, if I said 'hello', you're seeing a straight-down apostrophe, but what I really want is single quotation marks that bend inward - the one before the word curls to the right, and the one after the word curls to the left. iOS and Microsoft Word, among other programs, do this automatically. It's a nice feature.

Unfortunately, smart punctuation marks are "extended" characters. In my specific example, the left single quotation mark is U+2018 and the right one is U+2019. So your forum software replaces them, and my example winds up looking like !!!8216;hello!!!8217;.

You've linked to an article that tells iOS users how to switch off smart punctuation. This is not a solution, for four reasons.
1. Smart punctuation is GOOD. Everywhere else on the web, it works and is great. Why should we have to stop using it because of a problem with your forum software?
2. You've only provided a solution for iOS users. Smart punctuation is becoming more common, and many users of other operating systems are starting to use browsers that have the same feature.
3. Smart punctuation is just one of many, many reasons why people might want to use "extended" characters - your workaround doesn't cover any of the others.
4. The people causing the problem are not the people suffering from the problem. I can't apply your workaround because I don't use iOS - that doesn't help me when OTHER PEOPLE don't see your thread and continue to use smart punctuation. I'm seeing posts full of !!!9829; and there's nothing I can do about it.

Please, get someone on your forum team to revert this change and get the forum back out of the 1990s.

Loanranger

MSE Andrea
Can you please answer my question from earlier in the thread...
Will this update stop the spam?????????????????

RG2015

Loanranger wrote: »

Can we PLEASE stop the spam with this updated version?
I am fed up of opening spam posts and clicking on spam.
Will the update help to deny the spammers access?
Can anyone answer this?

Loanranger wrote: »

MSE Andrea
Can you please answer my question from earlier in the thread...
Will this update stop the spam?????????????????

I think can answer your question.

1) Yes
2) No
3) Maybe

sbirks23

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Sorry Tigsteroonie, that's a version that's going I'm afraid.

Hi MSE Andrea, as a Programme Manager for Software Design & Development I totally understand the need to streamline and reduce maintained versions. I appreciate you can't please everyone, however can you confirm if any of the requirements for the 'blue' version are representative of desktop/laptop users and / or comping users?

Has the Analyst / Product Owner / Designer / Decision Maker ever tried using the forum in the way we do? It doesn't feel so. I've tried using the blue version on my iPad and iPhone and laptop however it just masses of empty space in-between text which ends up with pointless scrolling when using the forum, making it hard to skim read what you're looking for and results in an aching hand! Exactly the opposite of what you need when trying to relax at the end of a long day.

Stretchy is the exact functionality which overcomes this for me in the 'green' version, fitting more on the screen so less scrolling required. I, like many others, predominantly use the forum for comping so quick reading of multiple threads in one page view is vital for speed and efficiency. I already shrink the green page view to a smaller size to see more on one page, the blue version doesn't do this with the same result - it just shrinks the text smaller, leaving the same white space inbetween. The UI / UX / design of the 'blue' version is very poorly designed for how the forum is used.

I would have to leave the forum and move to one of the other popular comping sites if vast empty space enforcing unnecessary scrolling, and fixed narrow width, wasting yet more screen space and also enforcing unnecessary scrolling are forced on us. I'm yet to see anywhere, anyone giving as much positive feedback for the blue version as there is for the green version. I'm keen to know this is being taken on board and factored in to current thoughts / development / design of the blue version. How is this being done please?

Tarry

I use the green one too.

savingwannabe

I love the green format too.

Spender£

Keep up the good work, this forum has helped me to get great advice already and i'm a newbie!:money:

ballisticbrian

Another vote for green. When mine went Blue, I thought what the hell is this completely unusable forum format?

tgroom57

I am on "new masthead, stretchy, less bright" (also green)

If you are going to discontinue earlier skins, could you please start numbering the options in the drop-down menu so that we can tell in advance if we'll be affected.