You can buy an off-the-shelf package that does 95% of what you need with a few quirks, or you can write your own from scratch? Who on earth does that? That’s not “being tight,” it’s not being a mentalist.
cougar - nobody does that - but nobody sane would build a forum around Wordpress (which doesn't really do what you want) and tag on a bunch of plugins (which aren't tested to play nice together), and try to cobble a physical product subscription on too. More appropriate platforms exist. I've no idea how much revenue STW makes from print v's digital but I'm fairly certain that its enterprise value (its business valuation) is weighted towards those 120K subscribers and > 1M users, rather than an expensive to produce and distribute magazine. So if you really want to build a solution on top of Wordpress and use 3rd party plugins - chuck some cash at the guys who made/maintain those plugins to fix your issue.
Does anyone know if they've fixed the issue (on iOS at least) where the site consumes so many resources anything beyond a 1 line reply kills the browser? I've reported that and never had an acknowledgement and given up replying on my phone.
Hey @poly (free member) Good try at assuming to understand the business here but I'm afraid there's so much wrong with your assumptions I don't know where to start - so I won't.
Hey @Mark - Good try at failing to engage your content generators that add to your business value.
Works well enough on my iPhone. Sure I occasionally get logged out but that's not really a big deal.
nobody sane would build a forum around WordPress (which doesn’t really do what you want) and tag on a bunch of plugins (which aren’t tested to play nice together), and try to cobble a physical product subscription on too
The site and the business is not a forum. This bit is, sure.
Good try at failing to engage your content generators that add to your business value.
With all due respect, I rather suspect that your "content generation" isn't as valuable as you think it is.
You know what I think Mark has handled himself pretty well in this thread, so I graciously decided to subscribe again. 🙂
Now with my £2.50 a month coming in they can probably get rid of all the advertising on the site and buy solid gold bikes.
Ah that reminds me.
Display on overview page is all mental on ipad/chrome. Have reported using the (faulty) fault report page 😅
Does anyone know if they’ve fixed the issue (on iOS at least) where the site consumes so many resources anything beyond a 1 line reply kills the browser? I’ve reported that and never had an acknowledgement and given up replying on my phone.
I visit the site pretty much every day using ios and have never had that issue.
Doesn't kill the browser on my iPhone but jeez is this site a power drain - with it open in a tab then battery life drops by 1% per minute. This is using Safari with no plugins of any kind.
With all due respect, I rather suspect that your “content generation” isn’t as valuable as you think it is.
Well 120K subscribers aren't visiting for the articles written by the paid staff and the advertisers aren't paying to clutter the forum with ads for no reason. If the site isn't valuable to the business either directly through revenue or its audience then they should get rid of it because its clearly a pain in the arse to maintain. If Mark doesn't understand the value of the people who generate the traffic free of charge for him, he probably shouldn't be running a commercial forum! However I used to be a paid subscriber a long time ago, and never got any benefit because of the log out issue. Its taken years to even get an acknowledgement that its real, and the crashing on iOS when replying has gone ignore for far too long too... add to that issues with videos autoplaying sound etc - and its really quite hard to believe that the audience is anywhere on the priority list. If Go Far Enterprised Ltd really believe the value of their business is in a print magazine whilst that industry is in decline then I'm sorry to say they'll not still be here in a decade.
I visit the site pretty much every day using ios and have never had that issue.
Doesn’t kill the browser on my iPhone but jeez is this site a power drain – with it open in a tab then battery life drops by 1% per minute. This is using Safari with no plugins of any kind.
Likewise, and the phone gets really hot, and freezes when trying to type a reply - eventually crashing the page, when it reloads the reply has gone. I installed Chrome and its definitely power-hungry there too. Nothing special about my phone. Laptop is certainly consuming lots of power with either Safari or Chrome too. There's nothing the site is supposed to be doing that should be power hungry.
Well 120K subscribers blah blah
You misunderstand me.
Your "content generation" isn’t as valuable as you think it is.
I'm probably one of the most, if not the most, prolific poster on the forum. And in the grand scheme of things, from a business perspective my contribution isn't worth shit. If I stopped posting tomorrow, likely no-one would notice. Certainly Mark wouldn't be sat there scratching his beard and going "hmm, why is revenue down this month?"
If Mark doesn’t understand the value of the people who generate the traffic free of charge for him, he probably shouldn’t be running a commercial forum!
He isn't running a commercial forum. He's running a commercial publishing business which has a forum attached. And I can tell you with cast iron certainty that whatever other criticisms you're going to lay on Mark's feet, and I could lay a few on the grumpy shithouse myself 😁, the one thing he is not guilty of is being oblivious to the commercial aspect. A dozen people's livelihoods depend on his decisions.
However I used to be a paid subscriber a long time ago, and never got any benefit because of the log out issue.
Aside from access to a couple of decades' worth of back catalogue? LBS discounts?
Its taken years to even get an acknowledgement that its real,
This simply isn't true.
and the crashing on iOS when replying has gone ignore for far too long too…
Dunno about that, I don't know (or overly care) about anything iOS related. Safari doesn't seem to like STW much though. Other browsers are available.
add to that issues with videos autoplaying sound etc
Again, this shouldn't happen. Ads are delivered via a third party and they are explicitly told not to do this. If one slips through the net it's a mistake.
Why are you allowing autoplaying videos in your browser anyway? You can disable this yourself.
If Go Far Enterprised Ltd really believe the value of their business is in a print magazine whilst that industry is in decline then I’m sorry to say they’ll not still be here in a decade.
I refer you back to my first reply. Mark is well aware that print is in decline, it's a big problem and one he is seeking to mitigate.
Site does not need an app, very few do, but generally where a poor web experience (which STW is not, for me) has been implemented some people think an app is the way to solve it.
I have no problems with login or CPU, however that said I am a logged-in paid subscriber
Opening in a private incognito window (so not logged in), the fan on my laptop kicks in within a minute.
The cause of this appears to be a script from liqwid.net which runs a small piece of code every 10 milliseconds. Also the page appears to be in a frenzy of making network requests - in one minute it has made nearly 2000 mostly to various ad networks. It seems that every ad network under the sun is active on the page.
A pihole and a sub sorts all issues bar the logout.
As one who runs a number of legacy systems I do sympathise with the site’s various predicaments. STW has grown into being IT centric rather than been born from it. This comes with decision baggage that is hard to shed.
While we're whinging, I'm currently experiencing a large white blob at the top of the forums page.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/cHKhB6Fk/Screenshot-20210708-080157.pn g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/cHKhB6Fk/Screenshot-20210708-080157.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
And, FWIW, when I go to look at the forum I'd rather not have to swipe up past (STW) ads just to see the topics. But I know that's going to fall on deaf ears (again).
Apart from the logout issue (which I don't have, but I use a browser I can't mention as it keeps getting edited out as the name suggests something), everything works brilliantly on my phone and desktops -Android, Windows and Mac). This was the case before I subscribed as well.
What does seem apparent for many is the layout design looks to need a tweak so it works better at the various screen sizes - not always easy and certainly not quick.
