Welcome to the new Forum look – give us your feedback

Blulu

Sea_Shell said:

If, however, they notice a drop-off, then they might take further action. 

Is the site perfect, no.   Is it workable, to get the information I need, on the stuff that matters to me, yes.   

The huge decline in usage from the last major changes didn’t seem to matter to them. It led to us losing lots and lots of ‘stuff that matters’ being posted. Loads of very active users left because of those changes. The Competitions Board was permanently damaged as a result. That’s not just my opinion. It’s been posted about in ‘Compers Chat Corner’ soooooo many times, by soooooo many posters.

Blu XXX

Sea_Shell

Blulu said:

Sea_Shell said:

If, however, they notice a drop-off, then they might take further action. 

Is the site perfect, no.   Is it workable, to get the information I need, on the stuff that matters to me, yes.   

The huge decline in usage from the last major changes didn’t seem to matter to them. It led to us losing lots and lots of ‘stuff that matters’ being posted. Loads of very active users left because of those changes. The Competitions Board was permanently damaged as a result. That’s not just my opinion. It’s been posted about in ‘Compers Chat Corner’ soooooo many times, by soooooo many posters.

Blu XXX

Maybe "comping" doesn't matter as much to them as, say the pure financial sections?    Maybe? 

Blulu

Sea_Shell said:

Blulu said:

Sea_Shell said:

If, however, they notice a drop-off, then they might take further action. 

Is the site perfect, no.   Is it workable, to get the information I need, on the stuff that matters to me, yes.   

The huge decline in usage from the last major changes didn’t seem to matter to them. It led to us losing lots and lots of ‘stuff that matters’ being posted. Loads of very active users left because of those changes. The Competitions Board was permanently damaged as a result. That’s not just my opinion. It’s been posted about in ‘Compers Chat Corner’ soooooo many times, by soooooo many posters.

Blu XXX

Maybe "comping" doesn't matter as much to them as, say the pure financial sections?    Maybe? 

I get what you mean, but actually, the competitions board has generated loads of regulars clicks (and therefore income) for MSE. Most of MSE gets occasional usage, where people want to research one aspect of spending, or chat about something current. The competitions board is different. People post and click there daily. I think it’s probably why they put up with so much moaning from us.

Blu XXX

J_B

HillStreetBlues said:

.Being a Sunday night I can't see anyone wanting to come in on a Monday morning and dealing with unhappy members of this forum  and having to spend hours adjusting it, as at the moment it's mostly a thankless task.

But this isn't just an ongoing situation on a Sunday night - the OP asked for comments on 11th July and now it's 31st and there are over a thousand comments!

As many others have said, if we could just have some feedback from the powers that be, that would be nice.

MikeyPGT

boingy said:

They need a second forum thread.

I tried that with Scottish Power and they basically just blanked me!

HillStreetBlues

J_B said:

HillStreetBlues said:

.Being a Sunday night I can't see anyone wanting to come in on a Monday morning and dealing with unhappy members of this forum  and having to spend hours adjusting it, as at the moment it's mostly a thankless task.

But this isn't just an ongoing situation on a Sunday night - the OP asked for comments on 11th July and now it's 31st and there are over a thousand comments!

As many others have said, if we could just have some feedback from the powers that be, that would be nice.

I did leave plenty of space between my two comments as they weren't linked, my second comment was just in general, as I totally agree some FB is due.

MSE_Stephen

Hi everyone.

Firstly. I'd like to clarify how changing the forum works, and let you why there are some things we can and can't do.

• There are some changes we can make. We can adjust the setting slightly. Sometimes changing one thing in one place changes another thing in a separate place (Eg. See the info about the MegaMenu below). So we have to think about these changes very carefully and consult with our forum provider as we test.

• There are some things we can make a slight patch or additional modification to. If we do this we have to watch it, maintain it, and it could be broken at any time with one of the frequent updates made to the system. Even though these are not recommended, we have added quite a few of these in response to feedback here. But they will take a great deal of monitoring and maintenance.

• There are some features that could only be changed by a fundamental change to the forum. As this is a platform used by hundreds of communities, these changes would also effect them. So these changes have to be requested from our forum provider, and they will consider them along with the requirements and requests from all customers. If they are approved, they have to wait their turn behind the requests of other customers and bug fixes.

And now for some updates -

MegaMenu (The white drop-menu)

This is core part of the new theme. It can’t be made click-to-activate, or have a delay before activating.

Disabling it completely is possible, but this will also disable the side-menu in mobile format - which is vital navigation. We are looking at if there are any options to put in our own changes or fixes, but if there are any, they will have to be carefully tested. We have put in a feature request for more options.

Red Circle ‘New Thread’ menu

This is a core part of the new theme. It can’t be changed. We will be investigating if changing the colour makes it less annoying, or if this would actually make it more likely to be accidentally clicked. We have put in a feature request for more options.

Limit of 10 Threads on New Discussions page

This is how these pages are intended to be displayed and cannot be changed. It is intended to be small for quicker loading times and easier digestibility. However, we know this isn't necessarily the best format. We have put in a feature request for more options.

Width of content Area (Empty Space)

This is a feature of our theme that cannot be changed. The width is very similar to our previous version, and only appears to be different because of the sidebar placement. We have put in our own small adjustment to make the sidebar sticky so that it stays on screen as you scroll which should mean there is less obvious empty space.

Text Editor - Size of text too big/wrong font

Our provider hasn't been able to trace the reason for this. So we have put in our own temporary fix.

Minor tweaks to font colour to make easier on eye

There have been some very small changes to make the text easier to read.

Breadcrumbs at the bottom

Previously, there were some breadcrumbs at the bottom of the editor box. While our forum provider is investigating bringing these back, we have added our own breadcrumbs tweak

Inability to Mark Read / Mark All Read

This isn’t a part of our new theme, but a custom fix is possible and is being worked on by our provider.

Hover effect on Competitions Time board

Some members reported it was harder on desktop to go through competitions when the checkboxes are all the way at the right. We have added a slight hover effect so that it’s clearer what row you are hovering over.

Competition Time. The “New” notice can appear multiple times

Fixes for multiple “new” are being worked on.

Finally, we haven't missed any of the other issues highlighted in this thread. Some are linked to other issues (for example, there have been separate issue with Search and Notifications recently that are being investigated/fixed).

Blulu

Thank you @MSE_Stephen Personally, I wouldn't worry about tinkering with the colour of the red circle 'new post' button. It's the placement of it that is difficult. The bold colour probably helps, a little, making it less likely to be accidentally clicked. But it is a pain having to keep navigating around that. I think the navigation aspect is the worst part of the changes. To get to the page parts we're aiming at, we have to scroll, dodge, avoid and work around far to many add-ons.

As with the last time you made big changes, I don't see how stuff that is annoying to one section of the site isn't equally as annoying to other sections. Surely having to keep dodging that huge drop-down window is annoying to most users, isn't it?

Obviously, it's up to MSE to decide what to change and what to keep. You guys can make your choices and I guess, we users will make ours.

Blu XXX

J_B

Blulu said:

........., I wouldn't worry about tinkering with the colour of the red circle 'new post' button.

Can anyone explain what/where this is?

I have "+Create New"

Is that what you mean?

MSE_James

@J_B  - the button functions differently on small screen devices (like phones and tablets) - if you make your browser window on your computer narrower you'll be able to see the 'other' version.