I'm a PC only & Flickr user of STW so I can understand most of @weeksy issues.
I have noticed some strange quirks of pictures uploaded here that when you click on it to view in a bigger format you will get a random picture that is possibly in the reel but not always?
Weirdly, since this afternoon every thread I've opened appears with the topic overview displayed when it hasn't before.
When I close it and go back or forth to the previous or next page the topic overview opens up again.
Not tried it in desktop yet but this is on my Android phone using chrome.
Not a fan of the topic overview - seems a bit pointless and takes up valuable screen real estate on my phone.
Not a fan of the topic overview - seems a bit pointless and takes up valuable screen real estate on my phone.
I'd expect it also takes up some resources too... arguably which may be better served somewhere else ? Screams to me of "ooooh lets see if that's better"... but in truth that's not what 'people' are asking for ....
serve your customers what they want, not what you think they may think is pretty.
serve your customers what they want, not what you think they may think is pretty.
To be fair, they can't really know what we want or don't want without trying stuff out. And even then "we" wouldn't agree amongst ourselves. There have been loads of features which some have loved and some have hated. Having said all that, I agree! The topic overview is a massive waste of screen space and conveys no useful info Imo 🙂
I do like the number of people viewing each thread on the latest posts overview. It's useful to see which posts are busiest/most active and how many people are using the site.
serve your customers what they want, not what you think they may think is pretty.
To be fair, they can't really know what we want or don't want without trying stuff out. And even then "we" wouldn't agree amongst ourselves. There have been loads of features which some have loved and some have hated. Having said all that, I agree! The topic overview is a massive waste of screen space and conveys no useful info Imo 🙂
I do like the number of people viewing each thread on the latest posts overview. It's useful to see which posts are busiest/most active and how many people are using the site.
They can try it out and ask all the staff/tester ? Which they may have done... but well.... who knows 🙂
There's also a lot of user names and when they last viewed the thread just below this reply box too. Which is MORE stuff to scroll past to get to the latest topics button and back to the threads list page.
This includes that advert for the Singletrack podcast, when I'm sure I pay to not see ads. (Yeah, it's an advert, just for the same company as the forum)
The worst thing about that overview box, is that it's really bright when using dark mode. I agree it adds absolutely nothing to the forum.
When scrolling i frequently and accidentally press the full screen button on the reply box when i least want to. When actually replying i frequently and accidentally press the bullets button.
These things happen so often I've decided it must be a you problem and not a me problem 😄
I don't like the ai overview, it doesn't add anything apart from taking up space and I have to read the original post to make sense of it.
I'm also not keen on the display viewing and users online.
When scrolling i frequently and accidentally press the full screen button on the reply box when i least want to. When actually replying i frequently and accidentally press the bullets button.
These things happen so often I've decided it must be a you problem and not a me problem 😄
Same! On both counts, all the time! I didn't want to mention it, as I had put it down to my fat fingers and general clumsiness.
Again I think thats a side effect of the increased functionality on here. So many buttons that on a phone they are tiny. On my phone I did that a lot.
I think it is gradually getting faster, but I personally think simplicity is better, maybe reducing the swathe of extra buttons/duplicate information and definitely getting rid of the AI overview (think of the planet too!)
Still think the magazine and articles are great - thank you
Site is behaving well for me currently, on phone and laptop. Page loads are fast-ish, formatting and page navigation tools have become mostly useable. I'm not seeing any adverts other than STW's own (still adverts mind) or pop ups. I haven't been logged out for ages. The search works quite well now too - thanks for fixing that 👍
I have noticed a thing where a post or new thread appears within 5-10 seconds, but subsequent edits can take 15 or 20 minutes to appear. No biggy. I know others are still having a lot of issues. I get the fact that users having totally different experiences must make fault finding very difficult. Keep up the good work.
There's some parts of tech stack that are adding in delays to first responses to our server. We are doing tests on our development/sandbox server - we have some candidate plugins we think could be a problem.
In the meantime: This might help. When you click the like button. That's it. It's registered and you can move on. You don't have to wait for it to show up. It will, even if you scrollon or navigate to a new page before the thumbs up changes. The same with edits. Once you hit the submit button it's done. There's a delay in it showing up but you can move on. This is not the behaviour we want - we want responses to be quick - but I know some people have been hitting the like buttonn for example and then waiting for it to show up before moving on.
And again. Why us and not other sites? Our tech stack is considerably larger than theirs. No bragging - A small tech stack is actually much more efficient. But the fact we run our entire editorial and subscriptions system for everything from our subscriptions and mailing databases, downloads managers, payment systems (Stripe, Paypal, Direct Debit etc.) which all have to talk top each other - Your full member badge on the forum is related to your status in our subscriotions database for example. And dozens more integrations... (Our editorial media library contains a quarter of million images!) all means we are a much more complex system than other simpler and faster websites with forums. If all we were was a forum it would be lightning quick. But we aren't. That's no excuse - it's just the challenge we face. We make improvements all the time with the very limted resources we have. (One person could easily manage a forum from a tech pov, but one person couldn't manage the forum, editorial front end, subscriptions managements, payment provider APIs, connections and integrations to systems like the members discounts scheme, pocketmags app connections and countless other systems we have to juggle.) We are severely underresourced in that regard but to the effect it means we can move only slowly and need to pick our battles carefully. When was the last time you saw a 502 error?
This week Andy is working on consolidating how we serve paywalled content to full members - it should lead to us being able to ditch a very heavy plugin from our tech stack. Anthony and I are looking at new site themes - our current theme is not just old but we suspect it's now very inefficient and adding to the long server respons times. Our current server averages show that 95% of users get a page in under 4.5seconds. 75% get a page in under 2 seconds and 50% of users get a page in 1.1 seconds.
That sounds generally not too bad but these are averages and also, I'd expect that a site like ours should be getting much better scores than that. the 50% average should be in ms and not seconds. The 95% average should be under 2 seconds. So I'm aware we have work to do.
Your full member badge on the forum is related to your status in our subscriotions database for example. And dozens more integrations...
So could I create an entirely new login and the page loads be much faster?
This includes that advert for the Singletrack podcast, when I'm sure I pay to not see ads. (Yeah, it's an advert, just for the same company as the forum)
It's hard to blame STW for promoting their own content. The BBC doesn't have adverts, but it runs trailers for what's coming soon.
It’s not an advert. It’s an actual audio player. You press play and it plays. Crikey! The podcasts don’t even cost you anything if you do press the play button. I get the desire for nothing but the forum but that’s a bit out there saying the podcast player is an ad. Is the logo at the top of every page also an ad?
What is an ad? There are headlines for our editorial stories in the rh column. Ads?
Classifieds are definitely ads. But I guess they don’t count because, well. Er. I dont know why they don’t count. They are definitely ads.
🙂
So could I create an entirely new login and the page loads be much faster?
See what happens when you log out?
This was a huge problem when the new site launched. Page load times were impacted by a user's post count, so for me it was in the order of minutes. It was literally unusable, not the "unusable" that some people are saying because a page refresh takes 4 seconds. I created a temporary login to get around this (after gaining permission from Mark to do so first) and it made a massive difference.
Today though? That problem has gone away, hence me back on my overly prolific regular account. Could it be faster? Sure. Is it comparable with the rest of the Internet? I wonder sometimes whether some people actually use more than two websites.
The worst thing about that overview box, is that it's really bright when using dark mode. I agree it adds absolutely nothing to the forum.
Yeah. I'd try turning off dark mode, but seems there's no way to do that
Yeah. I'd try turning off dark mode, but seems there's no way to do that
It follows system settings now I think.
Fwiw I've found loading times to have gotten significantly faster in the last couple of days, now taking a few seconds rather than 20+ seconds
Hello old friend 😐 After a few weeks of fairly snappy forum performance, it's ground to an almost complete halt for me today. Pages taking 15 minutes or more to load, or not loading at all. I'm doubtful this post will make it! 
I'm assuming some sort of updates have been applied as the site did seem to be down with a maintenance message (saying it would be back shortly)...
I note the overview pane has gone. Which is nice.
The forum is in flux. I can see why they're (intentionally or accidentally) throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks. Mark's suggested that a new theme is on the cards so cosmetic issues are, well, cosmetic and presumably transient.
(White text on a white background is still irritating though.😁)
I'm assuming some sort of updates have been applied as the site did seem to be down with a maintenance message (saying it would be back shortly)...
Yes, they did some maintenance earlier today.
When replying to a topic I can’t see the whole of the body text box due to a message stating “you are not allowed to attach files on this forum etc etc “. iPhone 12 - this happening to other people.
FFS - that is all.
Helpful.
Helpful
Well it’s all been said before. Several posts disappeared, loads of 500 errors, general slowness. Usual stuff, just particularly irritating me today so yeah - FFS, that is all.
Oh and more helpfully - pleased the thread overview has gone.
Well it’s all been said before. Several posts disappeared,
First I've heard of that.
loads of 500 errors,
There's been 1 reported on this thread.
general slowness.
It's fairly fine here. Posting is sluggish. Browsing could be faster, page loads are about 2-3 seconds - as Mark has said, they're looking into it - but it's perfectly useable.
Why can't I see the 'New Topic' button at the top of the page? Viewing on Kindle Fire. Works fine on my phone
OK, just me having issues with the forum then. Righto. So yeah, FFS - that is all.
Why can't I see the 'New Topic' button at the top of the page?
You need to be in one of the forums first, not the overview.
Either that or you have your eyes closed. 😁
I'm in The New Forum thread in the Bike Forum.
Must clean my glasses.
Switched to Opera browser; link appears. So obviously a problem with the Kindle Silk browser.
Just a suggestion for those having issues...have signed out and cleared all your temporary internet files and cookies and log back in.
I've only had issues once and I did that and I'm now not getting any of the issues other are flagging.
I seem to have the same experience on desktop (Mac and Windows 11) and my mobile (latest Android), all running Chrome.
No idea if that will help, but it might.
I am not able to attach files in this forum apparently, I thought it was because I am a free member and well, fair enough i suppose. But I have seen other free members post pictures so not that. Is it my post count and whats the requirement?
Its not the end of the world but I did want to show off my blackbirds 🙂
I am not able to attach files in this forum apparently, I thought it was because I am a free member and well, fair enough i suppose. But I have seen other free members post pictures so not that. Is it my post count and whats the requirement?
You can't use STWs photo upload feature* but as far as I know you can still post the old way with a bit of HTML linking to your image.
(*this saves you having to upload your photo elsewhere like postimage.org)
4 and 20?
Use an image hosting site, then copy and paste the image link on your post.
Ha ha 🙂 , thanks, i'll give it a go
A few thoughts on User interface now its all up and ruinning...
There are losts of buttons on the screen, and even on PC when you hover over them they don't tell you what they do, so it's kind of a "guess and find out".
The symbology of the forum controls isn't obvious (for instance the "go to last post" icon at teh top of the thread looks a bti like a shortcut icon from Windows 95, but on the mane page is a double arrow, but neither clearly indicate "hit me to go to the last post". )
Quoting previous posts is loads iasier with the new quoting function, so thats good, but is doesn't present in the text editor box as it displays once posted, and there doesnt appear to be a "preview" button anymore, which I used to really value as I'm terrible at proof-reading my own stuff until its nicely formatted. Or if there is one, see previous comment about symbology!
EDIT: Seen teh preview button now, bottom left hand corner of the reply box. Maybe better nearer the "sadd reply" icon with similar appearance? Maybe inverted colours so it is subserviient to the "add reply" button? Actually, there are a lot of controls at the bottomg of the "post reply" editor - woudl be nice to tidy it up and reduce screen space. Maybe
Revisions Save Draft Preview Post Reply
across the bottom of the text editor?
Sometimes I seem to get to a list of the forums, and sometimes to the consolodated list of threads from all forums (which is my preferred view). One is the "overview", one you get to by pressing the "forum" icon at the top of the page. I can never remember which is which normally, so have the time end up lookgin at the wrong page, wonderign why I cannto see all the threads from aross bike and chat.
Thanks all, and as a subscriber using either Chrome on Windows 11 or Andriod mobile, it generally all seems to work now. The only issue is that I never seemed to have many of the more fundamental issues that others seemed to suffer! Maybe I have a bit of "Drac's iPad" syndrome...
I'm in The New Forum thread in the Bike Forum.
Must clean my glasses.
Go back to one of the indexes then.
A few thoughts on User interface now its all up and ruinning...
Up and jogging, perhaps. 😁
From what Mark's said previously, I wouldn't be losing too much sleep over layout at this point. It sounds like they're investigating alternative themes. This one is clearly suboptimal but it's better than having the site down.
Oooh new themes? I vote for a "pre 2008 coffee and cream" style please!
but on the mane page is a double arrow
The developers took great pride in that.
What you did there. I see it.
👏
