Controversial

Ms_Dee

I know this is probably very controversial and I'm likely on my own.
But I feel there is so much negativity on this forum at the moment.
People want things to change but they are leaving or threatening to leave.
We need to stick together, yes. But I feel we also need to thank you the MSE team for still giving us the platform to share and enter competitions.
They have made quite a bit of changes since the big switch over and trying to get the platform to work for us.
We didn't have the Entered and Skipped button when we switched over and we never even had an entered button on the old forum.
The reason I stuck with this forum, is because of the upbeat community and friendships built, which is what other platforms didn't have much of chance to have.
Yes there are plenty of things that don't work properly, like the search function which is so frustrating! But there is plenty that does work, some of the things people are saying that don't work, is just a luxury in my eyes and I would really like the hover over button but it doesn't stop me comping.

I'm not sure if I have posted a similar post before, I know I have wanted to, but didn't want to get ridiculed. But if I'm being honest, it isn't the forum that is making me want to leave 😢

203846930

I would really like the hover over button but it doesn't stop me comping.

This is the one and probably only thing that I really miss from the old platform and I doubt if it will ever come back so I have learned to live without it.
On the same subject the folk posting the comps could go a long way to help get round the lack of a preview by being more descriptive on the subject line by actually putting what the prize is so that others did not have to click into the thread to get the details. For me there is no point in clicking a subject line that just gives the name of a magazine, I don't want to win a mag.

I know people do put in a great deal of effort to find comps and bring them here to this platform to share but a little extra effort would mean that we don't need the hover preview.

Blulu

Aw, Ms Dee, for what it's worth, I don't read what you said as being controversial. It's just you seeing this 'stuff' from a different, and equally valid, perspective. For me, the last thing I would ever want to promote is negativity, and if I have helped to make you feel that way, I am sincerely sorry.

All views and opinions are useful. I hope you won't mind, but I would like to add a link to this thread in the "Save Our Forum" one.

Blu XXX

Rahven

I don't think this is that controversial tbh, and you shouldn't feel reluctant to post it because people shouldn't ridicule you for having a different point of view. 

You're not the only one(s) to think the forum is fine, and I, and I hope the other users who have a different opinion, am certainly not going to tell you what to think. Just as you wouldn't tell us what to think.

I'm glad that you find that the forum is working for you and hope you get many long years of using it and winning with it.

Ms_Dee

Thank you for your kind words everyone.

I am more than happy for you to share it/the link to the post @Blulu
You didn't exactly bring negativity, I am just the type of person who can see negativity in anything. 😆

mjm3346

Competitions time was by far the most used part of the forum, plugged many times in the weekly e-mail, a major contributor to the site ranking and very much in their interest to keep - competitions time totally dominated every time they would have a go for a few weeks producing figures with say top thread etc and after a few weeks they would give up (sometimes they would change what counted or limited a section to only one post etc but the domination was almost total). .
No extra useful features have been added and many existing features have been lost
"We didn't have the Entered and Skipped button when we switched over and we never even had an entered button on the old forum" not sure what version of the old forum you were using but the tick and cross for entered/skipped had been there for a long while so that is not a new addition and they do not work as well as they did previously.
Competitions time still works after a fashion but it takes longer to post a competition and far longer to use for entering what is a now smaller range of competitions
Had this new forum come as a surprise and features needed to be worked through then that would be slightly different for the first few weeks (not the length of time it has been now) but this was a planned move and the site was supposedly tested before the switch over so things should have been working from the off.
There are people who are not bothered by the missing features (probably the majority who come on site enter competitions and leave and also probably enough for mse that they don't really have to bother trying to restore things) and those who are not happy but are prepared put up with the loss of features and the extra time it takes to use the site - there is nothing wrong with that, just seems sad to me that the new site has many backward steps, no forward ones and there is now better to be had elsewhere.

(sort function - you used to be able to sort sections with one click by views or posts so if say there was a new request for TW/FB friends in the chat corner a one click sort made it so easy to find the existing threads to link to)

Blulu

Yeah, I agree with mjm. It's not a problem for those who don't experience it as a problem But for some of us it has made a big impact, not in a good way, on our comping experience. All sides of the debate are useful, but I really hope we can be in it together. I'm a little anxious (?) that if we have two threads on this: one for 'gripes' and one for 'happy', it could develop into an 'us and them' thing. I think that would be a shame. Better if we're all in it together, with our varied opinions. That way we can agree over some bits and agree to disagree about others bits. Remember, sunshine and clouds together can create rainbows (Sorry, I know it's cheesy, but I can't help it).

Blu XXX

thingamaBob

Ms_Dee said:

I know this is probably very controversial and I'm likely on my own.
But I feel there is so much negativity on this forum at the moment.
People want things to change but they are leaving or threatening to leave.
We need to stick together, yes. But I feel we also need to thank you the MSE team for still giving us the platform to share and enter competitions.
They have made quite a bit of changes since the big switch over and trying to get the platform to work for us.
We didn't have the Entered and Skipped button when we switched over and we never even had an entered button on the old forum.
The reason I stuck with this forum, is because of the upbeat community and friendships built, which is what other platforms didn't have much of chance to have.
Yes there are plenty of things that don't work properly, like the search function which is so frustrating! But there is plenty that does work, some of the things people are saying that don't work, is just a luxury in my eyes and I would really like the hover over button but it doesn't stop me comping.

I'm not sure if I have posted a similar post before, I know I have wanted to, but didn't want to get ridiculed. But if I'm being honest, it isn't the forum that is making me want to leave 😢

Totally agree with you @Ms_Dee. 

mjm3346

Blulu said:

Yeah, I agree with mjm. It's not a problem for those who don't experience it as a problem But for some of us it has made a big impact, not in a good way, on our comping experience. All sides of the debate are useful, but I really hope we can be in it together. I'm a little anxious (?) that if we have two threads on this: one for 'gripes' and one for 'happy', it could develop into an 'us and them' thing. I think that would be a shame. Better if we're all in it together, with our varied opinions. That way we can agree over some bits and agree to disagree about others bits. Remember, sunshine and clouds together can create rainbows (Sorry, I know it's cheesy, but I can't help it).

Blu XXX

People use the forum in the condition it is in and that is fine but I don't see how basic features from the old forum can be considered "luxuries" when they are missing from the new one. 
Spending more time to enter less on this forum than the old one is certainly not an efficient use of time and clearly not moneysaving, time=money

strawberri_shortcake

This is not intended to be negative or argumentative. I don't use this forum for friendship, I use it to take part in a hobby that these days I have little time for and to that end, it's no longer as fit for purpose as it used to be. I understand that Competitions Time is only a small piece of a larger pie so I don't really have strong feelings about it, I just use another forum that is very suited to my needs and check this one for anything I've missed (which is pretty much nothing). 

sleepyjones

I think the issue a lot of people don't think about is the technical aspects of the site that needed to be updated, security being the biggest.
The old forum was using OLD, OLD software, so to say it's taken steps backwards but no steps forward is not correct,  the site was updated, at a great cost no doubt, to improve security, better archiving, better encryption who know what else that you don't see.
The competition forum might well be the busiest area of the forums, but MSE isn't a competition site.