[Closed] Adaptive STW

No Jamie - clembuterol messes with your nervous system in a shit way when it kicks in....

Cougar - I paid for the P from joining in 2011.
I got rid because I'm not prepared to pay out for a magazine that doesn't open in its own specific app properly.
Ads that made it unusable even as P without either constantly rebooting browsers or stopping scripts, running an adblocker.
Constantly being logged out because "remember me" doesn't.
P "benefits" that aren't imho not worth it in the real world. None of the "partners" are either near me (so no walking in and flashing the card) or carry kit that I'm going to buy unless I'm killing kit/parts far more often than I am.
I don't ride as much as many on here but even so I'd have to muller kit to use "discounts of [b]up to[/b] 20%.
I don't.

Better features, P content that is sufficiently above the standard, a stable platform, etc and £1.50 a month is no problem
As it stands? Not a chance.

PM's would actually stand STW in good stead as ultimately any classifieds disputes, issues, fraud, etc can be retrieved so liability isn't an issue - as it stands its as if they just wash there hands of anything untoward.

The ] delete thing happens in Chrome and Safari - hit the "quote" button, right click to paste and the last character gets highlighted blue so unless you either add a space or cancel it the quoting doesn't work.
Why there can't be a very simple " on the post in question is another of those things that sets this place back - perhaps its because T-Rex couldn't reach?

I have to say I like it. Its got all the functionality I need for reading & posting.

Thank you Singletrack for the upgrade.

Which definitely isn't possible on here.

Sure, but it's not default behaviour, which is the point. It's very, very rarely that I've ever felt the need to use nested quotes on here. Quoting is handy to anchor a reply to a specific point, but if you need to read the last fifteen preamble posts, read back up.

PMs - those that want them only need add an email address to their profile.

That doesn't actually provide the same functionality

I got rid because I'm not prepared to pay out for a magazine that doesn't open in its own specific app properly.

Far as I'm aware that's been resolved.

Ads that made it unusable even as P without either constantly rebooting browsers or stopping scripts, running an adblocker.

Again, as far as I'm aware, you don't get ads with a [P] account (I've never seen any).

Constantly being logged out because "remember me" doesn't.

It does for a lot of people, just not for some. No-one with the ability to fix it has ever managed to replicate the problem.

P "benefits" that aren't imho not worth it in the real world. None of the "partners" are either near me (so no walking in and flashing the card) or carry kit that I'm going to buy unless I'm killing kit/parts far more often than I am.

Where you live is outside of STW's control I fear. (I've never used it either TBH, I forget it's even there.)

I think the bottom line is a new forum is going to be a massive undertaking for STW Towers. The sort of stuff we're talking about is not about to be bolted on to the WP site, and to be honest would be a car crash if it was. I know if I was in their position and the forum kinda worked, and you had a hardcore group of ye olde timers* who were vocal in keeping their [s]local[/s] forum as it were, then there is not much incentive to change. I think it took a visit from Farse to push the last major overhaul through.

Either way they're going to piss some people off.

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* 😉

...having to add periods to force line breaks in 2016, tho 😀

That doesn't actually provide the same functionality

How so?

The only difference I can see as that it potentially makes PM conversations visible to STW (depending on whether it's supposed to be secure or not). Whilst there's an argument for having records, I'd be very surprised indeed if we ever got to a point where STW / the Moderators were mediating disagreements. I think I'd hang up my hat if it came to that.

Have I missed something?

Sure, but it's not default behaviour, which is the point. It's very, very rarely that I've ever felt the need to use nested quotes on here. Quoting is handy to anchor a reply to a specific point, but if you need to read the last fifteen preamble posts, read back up.

The thing is, the forums I use with standard software which allow easy automatic quoting aren't the mess you suggest. The other one I use most often will do nested quotes, but the automatic quoting by default doesn't quote quotes. But in any case it's a user behaviour thing and one which doesn't seem to be used badly - to some extent that's down to user policing which works really well here anyway. Quoting on here is still unnecessarily awkward in comparison.

BTW it's only relatively recently that nested quoting has worked at all after I'd been complaining about it for years - it is sometimes incredibly useful for context.

Have I missed something?

You can see if a PM has been opened by the recipient.

Also, like a lot of these suggestions, it just makes things a bit more efficient. You press a button and send a message vs open profile, copy and paste email address, open email client/gmail web page, paste email addy and then send message.

Having to do this on mobile makes it more of a ball ache.

This all assumes the recipient has their email address on their profile....which they may have genuinely forgotten to do, rather than not wanted to be contacted. On that issue, you can always turn off PMs if you don't want to get them.

I think the bottom line is a new forum is going to be a massive undertaking for STW Towers. The sort of stuff we're talking about is not about to be bolted on to the WP site, and to be honest would be a car crash if it was. I know if I was in their position and the forum kinda worked, and you had a hardcore of ye olde timers* who were vocal in keeping their local forum as it were, then there is not much incentive to change.

Either way they're going to piss some people off.

I don't know, but I'd say you're probably right. I wonder also if manpower is a part of it. I don't know if there are other webdevs on the team or if it's just Ali now but either way it's not a big team.

If the dev's day job is the care and feeding of new content for the website, that leaves little time for a big reimplementation. Moving to a different platform would require a migration of the existing database into something the new one could understand, I can't imagine that's trivial.
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You can see if a PM has been opened by the recipient.

Also, like a lot of these suggestions, it just makes things a bit more efficient. You press a button and send a message vs open profile, copy and paste email address, open email client/gmail web page, send message. Have to do this on mobile makes it more of a ball ache.

Ah, gotcha. Fair comments.

Have I missed something?

Yes, principally that PM is only available to registered users, not any bot trawling the web.

Edit: and what Jamie said, it's certainly very neat and easy

Good point, well made.

As for the effort involved, I have always wondered how much work is involved in maintaining a completely custom bit of software compared to simply implementing a forum with standard software, where somebody else maintains the fundamental sw and you just select options.

Yes, principally that PM is only available to registered users, not any bot trawling the web.

I forgot about that. Good point.

I won't miss 'hello (dot) world (at) gmail (dot) com.'

....the amount of emails I never sent cause I couldn't be bothered to parse that shit 😀

I can't imagine that's trivial.

Given the source, I would seriously consider archiving what we have so it can be used as a resource and start afresh.

With the amount of IT/Dev/ etc on here though Cougar it wouldn't take much for it to be done at little or zero cost to STW and give the user base a greater respect than some PoS tacked on the side thats only seen to be there to generate traffic.

The PM side can even be locked down in one click to "P" members only for instance.
I think many forget that all the other forums out there are turn key packages, a zero or little costs.
OPen the admin, tick what functions you want to use, authorise any Admins/user levels, etc and hit send.

Do you not think the reason they don't want to pay is that they think the platform is shit? Obviously some never will, but others may not want to pay if they think they'll end up using the same creaky wordpress code.

I dont pay because its just talking shit on the interwebs. Quite like the new look.

I've no idea what's going on under the hood (beyond what the base s/w started out life as), but I do know that the more you bespoke something, the harder it is to later move away from it.

I could probably knock out a replacement forum in an afternoon that does everything we need solely from a user perspective. To get the legacy data working and integrate it with all the other bits and bobs and backend stuff, I'd be in the order of months.

I dont pay because its just talking shit on the interwebs. Quite like the new look.

It may just be talking shit on the internet, but just think how much of your life is spent doing it. Now compare that against what you spend on other activities that take up your time.

Looks horrible on my chromebook - perhaps it thinks its a phne but the blue boxes are like old and the grey ones MASSIVE FONT

Sometimes both

Its definitely worse as user interface for me - I thought it was broken when i logged on tbh

The only positive is Jamie is back - not that I can b bothered to read the thread as STW and "Upgrades" is well what it is

...having to add periods to force line breaks in 2016, tho

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That I agree with.

I've found it a positive improvement on Android and no downside on Mac+chrome. I do think not being able to jump to the last page/post or... The dream... To my first unread post is an issue, I assume it would be an easy fix to make the number of posts a link to end of thread.

I personally think it is long overdue moving to some proper forum software - but if you want to eek out the life of this: then you need to be able to quote not rely on cut N paste which is horrible on mobile devices. Proper pm's are less essential but I think some way of contacting people is probably useful, ideally you want to offer that without making public email addresses.

The most surprising thing is the devs seem to have played around with the live site during the day. Do you guys not use a staging / testing server to get things working before risking breaking the main event?

(oh and for what it is worth I am a lapsed P user, but didn't renew as I found my setup didn't keep me logged in so I still got the annoying autoplaying ads despite paying for peace)

Yeah

That I agree with.

I remember when all of this was fields.........

I'm not moaning, I like it!

If you can get the menu bar on android and fix the zoom on iPads it will be nearly as good as the old one.

I could probably knock out a replacement forum in an afternoon that does everything we need solely from a user perspective. To get the legacy data working and integrate it with all the other bits and bobs and backend stuff, I'd be in the order of months.

What back end bits and bobs are you thinking of? there really isn't any clever integration to do it there?

Im finding it frustrating to the point of being unusable on iphone and ipad.

What back end bits and bobs are you thinking of? there really isn't any clever integration to do it there?

Dunno TBH, I don't have visibility of the codebase. Advert integration?

It may just be talking shit on the internet, but just think how much of your life is spent doing it. Now compare that against what you spend on other activities that take up your time.

I spend a lot of time shitting and dont pay for that either. (Or more importantly I am quite happy with my freeview tv too)

I subscribed for the first 30 or so issues of the mag...so dont see what the problem is 😉

[b]What back end bits and bobs are you thinking of?[/b] there really isn't any clever integration to do it there?

Im finding it frustrating to the point of being unusable on iphone and ipad.

I did notice a sharp dropoff in cracker joke level puns. 8)

I like it. Thanks!

If i were able to quote or type properly i would unleash the full power of my scathing wit upon thee for that remark............which you would be able to like with the button provided

No one has complained about the lost Share button..

The fonts are all over the place on a couple of PCs I've tried with IE11 and Firefox. However, no doubt those things will all get sorted.

I often run browsers at different zoom levels, and I couldn't see the login box on one system - I think it had disappeared off the edge somwhere until I'd set the zoom back to 100%.

However, no doubt these things will all get sorted with time.

The Singletrack banner is the biggest turn-off for me. I'd much rather have discrete browser windows, and I find static banners on other sites to be a real pain, to the extent that I avoid using them. I'm not able to use add-ins to block or configure things.

It's not unstable on either iPhone nor iPad if you are running the latest update.

It's been stable all day.

I honestly can't think why there is so much whining, then I realised.. it's the posters on here wanting different UI experiences for each individual.

And my question was answered.

Merry Christmas MAWCB's

I honestly can't think why there is so much whining, then I realised.. it's the posters on here wanting different UI experiences for each individual.

Not really.

Jamie, you've [b]always[/b] moaned about the forum style and UI.

I think you moaned once too much before 😉

It's a simple platform for simple people, HTHs.

On an iPad, adverts on the right side hide forum text.

I'm getting the same as Dan. Can't read the right side of any thread on iPad.
Have emailed the mods with a pic.

It was fine on my phone earlier but it's unusable on iPad.

perchypanther - Member
Im finding it frustrating to the point of being unusable on iphone and ipad.

For realz? Not seeing any particular issues on this iPhone, especially ones that make it "unusable"

Have emailed the mods with a pic.

I've passed it on to tech.

What a lovely early Xmas present.

Thank you STW, it's just what I wanted.

PS. Non-subscribers whinging about this need to get a ****ing grip.

Constructive feedback good.

Unconstructive complaining bad.

You know that question "do you care who posts a thread"?

Just realised I did! Annoying to not be able to see that and deffo takes something away - and pretty sure that's not just me doing a kubler-Ross.