MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
It's unusable enough that I can barely be bothered anymore
The 'upgraded' forum is a bit of a Brexit, isn't it? What is the forum coding equivalent of revoking Article 50?
Depends what kind of border style you want.
.
>The ‘upgraded’ forum is a bit of a Brexit, isn’t it?
Well post (real) Brexit, we'll be well adapted to everything being completely shit.
I have to login regularly and the formatting issue is a pain in the arse making some threads unreadable.
I don't really read the hard copy mag anymore. It kinda goes from letter box to living room to recycling without ever being read. If I get chance I'll try and feedback to the team why this is, it wouldn't be fair of me to criticise without backing up the reasons why. I've never really utilised the digital facility for reading the mag so wouldn't miss that.
I do feel that the forum has lost it's spark. Don't get me wrong, there is still some funny stuff occasionally and my requests for advice and help have been a goldmine. However the general "feeling" is more sterile. I don't know if it is due to key characters/ contributors leaving and not being replaced or something else, but I feel that there is a definite staleness. Maybe it's just past it's sell by date, not everything lasts forever.
To answer the OP, not yet but on my list of unnecessary expenditure, it's definitely up there.
I've been here since pretty much the beginning and been a subscriber for most of that time. I've now turned off the auto renew and won't be turning it back on unless it gets sorted.
There are plenty of forums out there that don't:
Log me out randomly, sometimes whilst typing a post
Make the log in button the last thing that loads, which on my slow broadband could be a couple of minutes.
Redirect me to spam and porn sites even when logged in.
Allow me to post photos which don't randomly reformat themselves.
Allow me to quote without all the formatting crap.
Allow me to zoom on a mobile so I can actually see photos etc
Make me pay for a premium service so I can use the site without adverts which take so long to load the site is unusable.
Have a function to let me go straight to the last post I saw in a thread.
Let me easily see if a thread I have commented on has been replied to.
Etc.
When these issues are raised, they are either ignored, or there is a passive aggressive response along the lines of "look it's really complicated and you can never understand how complicated it is but when it's done it'll be brilliant". The exception of course is from Drac and Cougar who frankly deserve a medal. Or a beer - give me a shout if you come up to Scotland! It may well be complicated, I know nothing about IT, but pretty much every other website and forum out there manages to do it so much better than this. Of course this is nothing new, the "new inproved" website has been "coming soon" since about 2006, but each update has been worse, not better so I don't have a great deal of faith that it will be brilliant when it's done.
The irony of course it that the content I come here for comes from forum members, not the owners or journalists paid by STW. The magazine is very "samey" with its features these days, and the articles on the website seem to be very much based around press releases or are badly written. For example the review of the Funn pedals uses the word "<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">concsidered", and the phrase "least smoothest". Does anyone proof read the text?</span></span>
I'll very much miss this place if it does fall by the wayside, but unless this is fixed very soon I really fear that it'll die down in the same way that most other MTB forums have done.
If this is a taste of post Brexit Britain, even us remoaners were too optimistic!
Im sure the stw 🐹 will find their legs again
Despite the current forum glitches, i'll be keeping my P - the mag is my preferred bog literature.
My credit card expired shortly so my P didn't renew, this was shortly before the upgrade. I'm not bothering to renew for now. I assumed that the forum was essential to the business, perhaps not as it's a shambles now.
The ‘upgraded’ forum is a bit of a Brexit, isn’t it? What is the forum coding equivalent of revoking Article 50?
`git checkout v1.0
`
In the olden days, I'm fairly sure that backticks would give you preformatted text. There's no option for that anymore, yet another feature fallen by the wayside.
boriselbrus' comments up there very much match my feelings.
Also it's definitely lost something. Not sure what, but the forums are just not as alive. I think fewer people are posting.
> I think fewer people are posting.
Yep, mainly as it's such a ball ache to use post upgrade.
In the olden days, I’m fairly sure that backticks would give you preformatted text.
It still does.
[img] 
[/img]
How would anyone tell the difference? Lol
In the olden days, I’m fairly sure that backticks would give you preformatted text.
By which you mean going back to the previous page, using the < on an iPad in Safari, for example, or using the edit button?
If so, it didn’t work initially, just after the update, but it functions perfectly on my pad now, and my phone AFAIK, I don’t use the phone that often.
The ad thing confuses me a bit as well, I used to get a column of ads down the right-hand side of the page, with some ads running across the page the width of the text, but now I only see one ad across the page just above the ‘skip to top’ button, currently some gambling thing, I see no other ads at all, or pop-ups, full-page ads, nothing, and I’ve done nothing different to my set up on my pad, just using the latest iteration of iOS, with DuckDuckGo as my search within Safari, same as I’ve done for the last couple of years or so.
It’s just a bit bewildering to see so many different issues from so many members, I can sort of see why the devs and others behind the scenes must be almost reduced to walking round in tight little circles talking to themselves, trying to compile so many different issues and making sense of them all.
Being able to use quotes and image posting properly seems to work for me, because I was having a lot of issues on my pad where I wouldn’t see the formatting buttons along the top of the comments box for much of the time, so I just became resigned to tapping them in manually, so nothing much has changed there!
I’ll be a happier bunny when the buttons come back, just to cut out a fair bit of tapping on my screen when I post.
🐰😬
How would anyone tell the difference? Lol
I think that's an iOS issue - are you using the latest version?
>I think that’s an iOS issue – are you using the latest version?
You could be right there! It's an old iPhone 5S I'm using while my usual one gets fixed, it is using iOS 8.something so pretty ancient lol
>There was a page of threads you were suppossed to be involved in but it just showed BS, so instead of fixing it they’ve just removed it.
Do you mean the 'forum update' page? That's up there ^^ as a sticky 🙂
There was a page of threads you were suppossed to be involved in but it just showed BS, so instead of fixing it they’ve just removed it.
Aside from the page that was fixed. Profile / Forums / Replies Created. The # link will take you to the relevant thread.
...only you have to guess which thread it was that you replied to and you’ve no way of knowing if you’re the last poster until you’ve clicked through.
C’mon guys, stop treating us like fools. Two weeks ago Mark was yelling at me in capitals and the pair of you thought it cute to stick the boot in too when I’d dared to suggest that this might be something that needed fixing ASAP else your customers go elsewhere. I appreciate you do seem to be tasked with defending the indefensible here, but by now it should be abundantly apparent that if this ain’t fixed soon, it ain’t going to be worth fixing. That would be immensely sad.
And as for being owed a beer or two, by now Mark probably owes you an entire pub, if not an actual brewery!
Cougar
<div class="bbp-author-role">
<div class="">Subscriber</div>
</div>
In the olden days, I’m fairly sure that backticks would give you preformatted text.
It still does.
OK, let's try it out:
one backtick
two backticks
three backticks
And some quoted ones:
one backtick
two backticks
three backticks
Checking with the preview button, none have worked.
Now to see what happens after I submit....
…only you have to guess which thread it was that you replied to and you’ve no way of knowing if you’re the last poster until you’ve clicked through.
If you mouseover the hash it gives you the URL. As for the 'last poster' thing, that's the first time anyone's mentioned it. I can't comment for anyone else but the history thing isn't a feature I've ever used so I wasn't aware. I'll add it to the list.
else your customers go elsewhere.
You're not a customer. I'm amazed it's not been mentioned before.
two backticks
I'm not quite sure why you're using multiples? The first will open a code block, the second immediately close it again. [ code ] and [ /code ] should also work too I think.
[code]test[/code]
EDIT: yup.
What does the forum have to do with your P? Surely you only have the P because you subscribe to the mag. Or do people buy it as a status symbol?
It would be fantastic if the STW approved trolls all flounced out and left the forum though.
"What the **** is that?"
That's what mine looks like too, no buttons, and I get a variety of interesting fonts in the reply box depending which browser.
What does the forum have to do with your P?
You can do a digital only subscription that allows you to view the forum without ads and see premier only content on the main site.
What does the forum have to do with your P?
I don't read the mag but P for a couple of reasons. Firstly I wanted to support the forum as it was somewhere I use to spend a fair bit of time and got quite a bit from it. Second was to avoid ads on the iphone (use a blocker on the Mac) but I now don't bother browsing from my phone much as the experience is so poor.
I'm bored of the owners' contempt so I've cancelled my direct debit.
I’m bored of the owners’ contempt so I’ve cancelled my direct debit
I will pay for a p to make up for this shortfall if a PayPal option is added.
Personally I have no interest in the mag, never read it, I have a digital sub purely to support the forum as I enjoy it & think it's a good community.What does the forum have to do with your P? Surely you only have the P because you subscribe to the mag.
I've cancelled my auto-renew though & will see if the forum's still pants when the time comes around!
I guess that's what must've happened on this post http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/grand-big-mac/#post-9832072 😆I’m not quite sure why you’re using multiples? The first will open a code block, the second immediately close it again. [ code ] and [ /code ] should also work too I think.
"<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8rem;">If you mouseover the hash it gives you the URL. As for the ‘last poster’ thing, that’s the first time anyone’s mentioned it. I can’t comment for anyone else but the history thing isn’t a feature I’ve ever used so I wasn’t aware. I’ll add it to the list."</span>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
I used this feature all the time. I tend to post on threads expecting an answer or reply, so I'd go in my profile, see the name of the thread I posted on and the number of replies. If the number of replies had gone up, I'd click it.
Now there's a list of my replies with no immediate indication of which thread it's from, and no indication of there being further posts. It's the main feature I'd like to see back.
What munrobiker said (but without all the markup code).
The current workaround is rubbish, just in case you're in any doubt.
Back on topic - I probably wiould cancel my P if it remains like this, but surely it won't.
'I’m bored of the owners’ contempt so I’ve cancelled my direct debit.'
Difficult to argue this is undeserved
"I’m bored of the owners’ contempt so I’ve cancelled my direct debit."
I little harsh, surely? Do you have any examples?
#edit - I was querying whether the comments regarding the owners' contempt was justified.
#edit2 - What's with all the <span> stuff
'I little harsh, surely? Do you have any examples?'
He might be able to find some if the search function worked 🙂
"<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">#edit2 – What’s with all the <span> stuff"</span>
God knows. I tried copying and pasting Cougar's text into the reply box and posting three times, and the best result I could get was to copy it into word, change the formatting so it was arial font with no grey background and even after all that there's still loads of markup code in my reply. STW could do to help us to help them by making the fixing of the quote thing top of their priority list.
@bigjim some posters have said they pay for a digital subscription to help fund the website/forum
Cougar
<div class="bbp-author-role">
<div class="">Subscriber</div>
</div>two backticks
I’m not quite sure why you’re using multiples? The first will open a code block, the second immediately close it again. [ code ] and [ /code ] should also work too I think.
<code class="bbcode-code">test
EDIT: yup.
Well, for one thing, in the "What you see is a complete crap shoot at what you might get" so-called "preview", backticks don't work at all.
None of these come out preformatted in the preview:
foo
foo
foo
Or this one:
foo
And let's try the "code" thing:
[code]This is some code[/code]
Nope, also not preformatted.
OK, let's take the plunge and submit....
the best result I could get was to copy it into word
If you're doing that, use Notepad instead. That's what I've been doing. It's a faff but it's reliable.
STW could do to help us to help them by making the fixing of the quote thing top of their priority list.
From the outside looking in I don't disagree, but I'm not privy to anything else that's going on.
...and now they're preformatted.
Cougar, I think you deserve a lot of credit for the patience you've shown over this, but I think you'd have every right to feel more than a bit let down by STW.
@munrobiker - see the sticky post at the top of the forum - it's the paste function that's part of the new text box where we type our messages. Doesn't matter where the text comes from - I've tried copying from a code editor that almost by definition is plain text and the code behind the paste functionality still adds the span detritus.
I've not read this thread as life really is just too short, but has the phrase 'whiney middle class cockbags' cropped up yet? 😉
Yes, I think it has binners 🙂
http://What does the forum have to do with your P?
Well I have very slow internet so I paid for the P to make the site actually usable. Otherwise the ads slowed everything down to the point that it was quicker in the very old days on a 56kbps dial up. I don't have to do this on any other forum I use.
How do you mouse over the hash thing on a tablet? Or copy into notepad on a phone?
Until last year I was using a 7" tablet for most of my browsing. Then the "upgrade" came and I couldn't zoom any more - even in desktop mode. So I bought a 10" tablet, mostly so I could continue to read STW. This was working OK and does allow zoom (no idea why). And now the next "upgrade" has made it virtually unusable on that. I pay (admittedly not very much) for this service, and I can't really use it. So I'm not paying any more.
And why did it put the http thing in front of what was supposed to be a quote? And why won't it let me edit? FFS It's pathetic.
Thank Fk it’s the forum! I didn’t realise it had had an upgrade I just thought my old mark 1 IPad Air was playing up! Great I can get a bit longer out of it without needing to upgrade.
Oh and I don’t know what ‘P’ is but no need to explain.
As for the ‘last poster’ thing, that’s the first time anyone’s mentioned it.
I've seen it mentioned quite a few times on multiple threads.
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px;">little harsh, surely? Do you have any examples?</span>
Crap forum that doesn't work with little sign of improvement. Given that every other forum I use is better than this one, I can only conclude that it's a very low priority for the owners.
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">Given that every other forum I use is better than this one, I can only conclude that it’s a very low priority for the owners.</span>
I genuinely think they don't know how to fix it. As such, they should get all of our support in this time of need.
#prayforstw
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; background-color: #eeeeee;">I genuinely think they don’t know how to fix it. As such, they should get all of our support in this time of need.</span>
Isn't that when you find someone who does?
No. Faith alone will be strong enough. If it can ward off evil spirits, then it can untangle this clusterfudge.
#pray4stw
It would help if Mark actually acknowledged this this is a total disaster of a forum upgrade and gave us an update on the plan to fix it. Thst would show a bit of respect for the STW customer base.
Apologies if he's done so but I'm not even going to attempt a search.
I managed to post an image in another thread earlier. The feeling of unrequited joy this gave me is reason enough to keep my P. If I can get quote to work I’m going to weep tears of pure happiness
With the over 55s taking to Facebook in droves, I'd imagine the writing is on the wall for specialist forums like this one anyway.
I'd embed this url if I could...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/12/is-facebook-for-old-people-over-55s-flock-in-as-the-young-leave
It'd be interesting to see STW's user-demographic actually. I wonder if it's as male, pale and stale as you'd think from the forum.
As an upgrade to the forum perhaps they could introduce a classifieds section at the back of the magazine. Then we could all communicate using short cryptic messages. STW Towers could even charge per word just like in the olden times! 🙂
#prayforstw
"It’d be interesting to see STW’s user-demographic actually. I wonder if it’s as male, pale and stale as you’d think from the forum."
you missed out self-entitled
Male, pale, stale and self-entitled. At less than a pound a week I'm frankly amazed that anyone would be tight enough to not have a P. Particularly when you get a superbly put together magazine thrown in for free.
The amount of whingeing and complaining is frankly embarrassing. The guys who run and work for this business do so at a time that is incredibly difficult for the publishing industry. They're desperately trying to make ends meet whilst trying to improve things, and all they get is (for the most part) a bunch of spoilt "little Englanders" complaining. Shame on you.
And no, I won't be getting rid of my P. Great value at twice the price frankly, and at least I'm not a freeloader..
😲
“Thst would show a bit of respect for the STW customer base.”
Apparently we’re not customers 🙄
On you still not one Zokes?
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; background-color: #eeeeee;">The amount of whingeing and complaining is frankly embarrassing. </span>
Best just put up with a product that isn't fit for purpose.
Increasingly less so, Drac. Along with many others, it seems...
cba
Male, pale, stale and self-entitled.
I’ve or complained yet, but whilst I’m male and stale - pale isn’t one of my characteristics. I’ve not complained either so not self entitled.
When people are paying for a service - as some of the complainers are, if that service becomes poorer and worse value for money - I think that’s fair. Even in a difficult times within the industry, people should get what they pay for.
“little Englanders” complaining.
That’s a little harsh, especially since a large part of that demographic is often criticised for being wet, Euro-centric and liberal ‘snowflakes’...
I have cancelled my rolling sub. I don't read the magazine even though I do download it sometimes. I dipped into my pocket for the P because it felt like the right thing to do considering how much time I used to be on here and the sometimes invaluable advise and banter. The adds never bothered me, even when I was a freeloader (sic). The logouts i could live with. The starving hamsters was but a minor inconvenience.
Bottom line is we the users, especially those who pay, are being used and short changed at every turn. Look at all the threads about redirects, porn adds etc.
If anyone dare complain they are labelled whiny cockbags or worse. Someone earlier in the thread used the term self entitled. Some of us pay for this shite! Well we do till something better comes along and I suspect the writing may well be on the wall for this place.
And to think, most of this bad feeling could have been avoided with a little communication, which literally costs nothing.
Nah, much easier to be snarky at your customers.
How effective a business strategy that snark is remains to be seen
at least I’m not a freeloader.
I bet you cycle on roads paid for by motorists vehicle excise duty, don't you?
Oh, hang on a mo....
Yes of course times are tough in publishing. All the more reason to not piss off your customers eh?
I currently pay for a service. The service is falling way short of the standards it used to so I am not paying for it anymore. Why does that make me "self entitled" or "whiney". Would you continue to pay for a mobile provider who regularly made it impossible to use their network? Or a bike shop that kept on failing to service your bike properly? BT were properly crap and I moved away from them, but at least they never redirected me to a porn site in front of my partner and her daughter.
Yeah, those porn redirects were/are simply awful and shouldn’t have ever been allowed/accepted on a public sports based forum.
We were told that all that has been sorted, but it did seem like those redirects went on for an extraordinarily long time.. which TBH IMO is unacceptable timeframe from first reported to them ceasing (have they ceased I wonder)..
The forum is ( according to previous comments from Mark) the only bit of STW that makes money. the posters on here provide the content that attracts people to the site and thus create the advertising revenue. This update has made the experience of using the site much less nice. Posting things is tricky especially if you want to copy and paste stuff in. I find even if I click "clear formatting" and "paste as plain text" I still have to post then go back to edit the post to remove all the <span >etc nonsense that makes posts unreadable. A worse user experience will surely result in a drop off in traffic / posts / users which will mean a drop off in ad revenue.
I would be very interested to see the drop off in traffic on the page. It would seem this update has been done very poorly and risks killing the golden goose.
Isn't self-entitled a redundancy anyway? Just "entitled" would have been sufficient. And in this case subscribers are arguably entitled to a functioning forum.
Seems like that's not what's annoying most people though, more the odd lack of comms from STW Towers and the sense that they're refusing to "own" this shambles.
In short, there are some legitimate gripes from normally sane and balanced contributors amid the whiny cockbags here - yet one gets the feeling everyone's been tarred with the same brush.
We know STW don't like being told how they could do their job better, but I'd be happy to provide some basic pointers on online customer service if it might help.
🙂
Good luck with that
You'd be on the DNR list to be fair Zokes.
😉
😱
It's probably been suggested already, but have they tried turning it off for 30 seconds and then switching it back on?
"<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">It would seem this update has been done very poorly"</span>
It would seem that it has been very poorly tested and implemented, true. The worrying bit is that there doesn't seem to be a roll back plan which to be honest as a PM I would have invoked by now.
Communication has also been touched on above. From the contents of this thread Cougar is trying to firefight and offer workarounds but to be honest asking people to paste from notepad or Word isn't really acceptable.
If it were up to me, I'd be looking at a roll back sooner rather than later.
"You’d be on the DNR list to be fair Zokes."
Do not resuscitate? a bit harsh even by the standards of this forum
Do not resuscitate? a bit harsh even by the standards of this forum
Well it means "Do Not Reply", but I don't think the similarity is accidental.
😀