Forum Update re Changes

Blulu

Also see https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6196789

MSE Laura has responded very positively and kindly to our petition: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6196788

So our lovely Rahven has stepped up and volunteered to put together something about the changes we are asking for. I will help her, as best I can.

Rahven is putting something together to invite responses from you, and when that's ready, we'll post it, or about it, here. The aim being to provide MSE with list, in priority order of the changes we are asking for. She will then take that to the MSE team for discussion and will let us know what we can expect, and hopefully a rough idea of when. It seems like we shouldn't expect anything to happen too quickly as they're a small team, working flat out to keep the entire forum going. But clearly they want to help us and seem prepared to do what they can for us. We can't really ask for more than that, can we?

So I suggest you bookmark this thread (which is why we're asking for no chat here), then we'll post here when we're ready to ask for your input.

Best wishes

Blulu and Rahven

Rahven

Hi all,

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who has given us info, either directly or via the petition discussion thread. This has enabled us to pull together an initial list of issues that have impacted users since the forum move:

Search
- Search results do not include the last 24 hours of posts
- Search results default order is unclear
- Unable to order/sort search results e.g. by date posted
- Search subcategories button is auto selected but not used in first search
- Search does not work properly when search terms are entered into multiple lines in the search form
- Search results do not display skipped/entered markers

General Functionality
- Hover over doesn't work
- Posting links is difficult
- Users can't see if they have comp-limented a post 
- Users can't see who has comp-limented a post (beyond the initial 10 or so)

- Unable to mark a comp as both skipped and entered
- Unable to filter/sort using skipped/entered markers
- Can't mark threads as expired
- Unable to reply to threads in Game Over
- Posts not numbered
- No marker to show (in forum view) which threads you have posted on
- No PM preview
- Inability to easily post a functioning email address
- HTML coding is lost when users edit posts
- Improvements to post editing interface are needed
- Additional post formatting options - colours, font size etc.
- Inability to delete/clear notifications
- Indicator of user being online
- Inability to change number of threads and posts per page
- Browser form filler function is suppressed
- Minimum characters in a post needs reducing
- Inability to type on a page number on a post to skip to that page without editing the URL
- Emoticons sometimes appear massive (possibly search results/editing)
- Bookmarking/subscribing when posting
- Daily digest emails
- Spam restrictions mark it harder to post comps
- Ability to sort the forum alphabetically to enable users to see all advent comps together - Workaround: new advents board

We're now ready to ask for your further input on the bugs that you've experienced since the forum moved to this new home. To do that please respond on our discussion thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6196789

using the following format that the forum team have asked us for:

When I...{do something}

I want...{this thing to happen}

So that I can...{outcome}

An example of this in use is:

When I am.... browsing the forum to enter competitions

I want... to be able to undo the marking of a comp as entered or skipped (e.g. if I have clicked it by accident)

So that I can... accurately keep track of which comps I have entered and skipped

We'd also like to give the forum team an idea of the level of impact that this has had on your ability to use the forum, so please add one of the following to your issue: 

High Impact - Makes using the forum much more difficult, verging on impossible. A change/fix at this level is really needed.

Medium Impact - Issues that are frustrating but that can be worked around without too much trouble for now. A change/fix at this level should be done if at all possible but it is not essential.

Low Impact - Minor annoyances or cosmetic issues. A change/fix at this level would be nice to have.

(Apologies, you've probably already had enough of three tier systems lately.....)

Feel free to add any questions or comments about any of this on the discussion thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6196789 Or drop myself or Blu a PM. Particularly welcome would be any thoughts about the level of impact you consider the issues listed above to be having. For example you could give us your view on all of them, a selection of them, or maybe you just want to tell us your top three issues. We'll look at the feedback that we get and use it to prioritise everything. If there's not a clear consensus we'll take a view on it.

As we want to clear this stage and start working on fixes, can we please ask that you respond to the discussion thread with your thoughts by the end of the day on Saturday 31st October. At this point we will collate everything and send it to MSE.

We want to end up with something to send to MSE that accurately represents what most of us are asking for, so we really appreciate your time and help with this. Hopefully, it will help move the competition forum closer to the great competition resource that it used to be.

Rahven and Blu 

Rahven

Hi all,
The list of changes for the comps forum is now in MSE's hands. These are the issues we sent:

General Functionality

Hover over doesn't work anymore

Users are unable to see if they have liked (Comp-limented) a post if more than a handful of people have done so Comp-liments disappear from threads when moved into Game Over

Ability to see who has liked (Comp-limented) a post

Unable to mark a comp as both skipped and entered

Unable to filter/sort using skipped/entered markers

No expired thread facility

Posts not numbered - Will not be changed

Ability to see from forum view which threads you have posted on

No PM preview

Ability to delete/clear notifications

User online indicator

Ability to change number of threads and posts per page

Browser form filler function is suppressed - Workaround: Searches can be saved/bookmarked

Ability to type in a page number to skip to that page without editing URL

Daily digest emails

Ability to sort the forum alphabetically by title - Workaround: New advents board

Ability to keep a list of 'friends' or frequent contacts for PMs - Will not be changed

Easy to find list of board guides

Unable to deselect Skipped or Entered

Sort by date duplicates posts over several pages Posting Allow functioning email links and weblinks to be copied - Will not be changed Functioning email links and weblinks sometimes duplicate Unable to reply to threads in Game Over despite the sub-forum description encouraging users to discuss them there Ability to easily post a functioning email address - Will not be changed HTML coding is lost when users edit posts Additional post formatting options - colours, font size, underlining, expanded emojis Make the post editing screen more user friendly Min. characters in a post needs reducing - Will not be changed Spam restrictions make it hard to post comps - Will be revised, but probably not soon Make Closing Date field visible to forum users & used instead of posters entering the date twice Search Search does not pick up last 24 hours of posts Search results default ordering is unclear Unable to order search results e.g. by date posted Search Subcategories button is auto selected but not used in first search Search does not work properly when search terms are put into multiple lines in the search form Search results do not display the same data and functionality as the main forum. i.e. cannot see the entered/skipped markers Emoticons appear huge and display HTML code in search results Search subcategories is stuck on Ability to search by skipped/entered markers Forum displays a different total of search results than actual results that are returned

Thank you very much to everyone who got involved. Please see Blu's full update here.

Blulu

We got a lovely reply today from MSE Laura about our list of issues. She emphasized that it was clear and made it easy to see each bug. She plans to pass it on to "the team" for discussion. Hopefully, meaning that they will do their best to address each issue, one by one.

She also said that, due to the second lockdown, we need to 'bare with her on it' - I assured her we would be very patient about it all. After all, it's the long-term aspect that really matters. She said she'd keep us updated re how it is progressing. I don't know if she'll post here herself, or let us know, so that we can pass it onto you.

It's left me with a lovely sense of 'all in this together', thanks to MSE Laura, all of you who signed the petition and/or helped us come up with our list of issues, and defo to Rahven, who really and genuinely did us proud, and worked very hard in doing so - bless 'er.

Thanks loads folk.

Blu XXX

BootsMullery

Blulu said:

She also said that, due to the second lockdown, we need to 'bare with her on it' 
Thanks loads folk.

Blu XXX

Why do we have to take our clothes off? 😮

BootsMullery

Are these two the same thing?
Search Subcategories button is auto selected but not used in first search.(I think it is now used in the first search as well.)
Search subcategories is stuck on

Rahven

No, they are different things. But the first of those is now masked by the second. They are separated out because we need to check both when the fix(es) comes through (one fix might fix them both).

BootsMullery

Re 'Search results default ordering is unclear'.
Results do now seem to be in thread start date/time order with most recent first.

Rahven

A quick update on this:
We've added a new issue to the list - Comp-liments disappear from threads when moved into Game Over
Three issues have been resolved - default ordering of search results, and ability to order forum alphabetically, and Browser form filler function is suppressed.

As per Blu's update here, the team are looking to do a big chunk of work on the search function of the forum early this year. They are confident this will fix the majority of the search issues. There are also some issues that they are not planning to address. Quote:

• Posts are not numbered: we have reviewed our decision to not number the posts, but will not be reinstating them at this time for reasons that affect the forum as a whole. We are looking at ways we can make it easier to link to specific posts. At the moment, you can right click the date and time on an individual post to copy a link to it…but we plan to make a more obvious way to do this soon.
• Ability to keep a list of 'friends' or frequent contacts for PMs: this is a feature that we have actively decided to not include on our new Forum.
• Allow functioning email links and weblinks to be copied: there are security reasons as to why we have intentionally not allowed this that affects the wider forum. We’ve investigated how many competitions this would impact, and the number was very small, so we are not planning to review it at this time.
• Ability to easily post a functioning email address: there are similar security reasons why this currently is not possible and we won’t be revising this right now.
• HTML coding is lost when users edit posts, and additional post formatting options - colours, font size, underlining, expanded emojis: for security and accessibility reasons, we have to be cautious around what people can add to our website so we need to be careful with HTML. However, if there are specific things you think could be useful, let us know what the goals you are trying to achieve are. We will also pick this up in the interview sessions we have mentioned in February.
• Min. characters in a post needs reducing: unfortunately to stop spammers and scammers from being able to use programs to automatically post build, we do not plan to change this. 
• Spam restrictions make it hard to post comps: this is part of our spam strategy which has a lot of work going into it at the moment. We will revise these, but currently it’s there to protect the forum.

If you have any thoughts on the addition of post formatting options, send myself and Blulu a PM with, as Laura says, the goals you'd be trying to achieve with these.

Best,

Rahv & Blu

Edit - Reported an extra issue to MSE today (02/02) regarding search result numbers:
If you search for PS5, the forum says there are 53 results. If you then flip through the pages of results shown you get:
Page 1 - 8
Page 2 - 5
Page 3 - 6
Page 4 - 6
Page 5 - 9
Page 6 - 3
This adds up to 37.

janetmuff

i seem to have lost all my notifications for competitions, i aren't receiving any at all, and cant find where to look to find out what the problem is but i have noticed that some others are having the same problems. i love using this forum but it has become very frustrating, seem to spend ages looking for my threads but just end up giving up altogether. can anyone help please.

janE1956

janetmuff said:

i seem to have lost all my notifications for competitions, i aren't receiving any at all, and cant find where to look to find out what the problem is but i have noticed that some others are having the same problems. i love using this forum but it has become very frustrating, seem to spend ages looking for my threads but just end up giving up altogether. can anyone help please.

I had to change to a different e mail to get them