Hey STW, let's have a poll about users' current views and experiences please. It could perhaps assist you in your efforts to improve the site.
Ambrose
pretty perfect the older i get.
You’d only get ‘satisfied’ or higher results. No one is forced to use the site so those that are dissatisfied will have foxtrot oscar’d
As if users are shy about what could be done to improve the site…
Works fine for me.
I hope that you’re not expecting a response Ambrose? My post on the weeksy thread wasn’t responded to by editorial at all. I find it disappointing that the communication appears to be one way.
Ignoring concerns, even if considered trivial, doesn’t help foster a good community feeling.
[mod] we’ve already responded to the issue that has lead to this thread
It's ugly but at least mostly functional, for now. Just like me.
I'm scared in case they keep fixing it until they break it.
Yeah, I type stuff, it gets posted. I post some pictures, they get posted. I post some Instagram links, they get a preview posted.
Most of the time!
The users on the other hand .... 😉
Only give the forum a cursory glance a few times daily and with the delay in opening threads they have to be somewhat interesting before I bother, same with posting stuff, sometimes I get halfway through and decide “nah…” and just leave it.
It doesn't always reflect my views but it's always good to read what other people think. 650b is a strange compromise.
It doesn't always reflect my views but it's always good to read what other people think. 650b is a strange compromise.
Excellent
[mod] we’ve already responded to the issue that has lead to this thread
The assumption behind this is pretty astounding. @Mods, I raised this particular issue because it was the 'last straw' type thingy.
Where shall I start?
Unbelievable lag compared to other sites?
Being logged out randomly, sometimes on Android, sometimes on Windows, sometimes on both; occasionally on neither?
When logged out I'm presented with a bunch of advertisements that make the site unacceptable despite being a fully paid up member. Surely this won't attract new users. I really like what this site represents and offers but despite mine and others' additional investment I have not seen any real improvement in the site's performance. The additions of emojis to the forum has been the only significant change that I can recall- and tbh, the use of emojis is a pretty trivial thing, for me at least.
The messaging function- well for me at least it isn't a function; it's a it of a trial.
Maybe it's only me?
FWIW, fully updated Windows 11 on laptop, via Firefox
Fully updated Sony Android phone which usually works fine but not this evening even though it was OK this afternoon.
AFAIAC I pay to use the site so surely I should be able to do so easily, thus the last two statements should be irrelevant. I post them because they seem to be de'rigeur in cases like this.
Having just read through Ambrose’ list of complaints, I can honestly say that I don’t recognise any of those criticisms. I’m using accessing the forum on a fairly elderly iPad Pro, it’s about six years old, and I don’t see any laggy behaviour, or anything else that’s causing me problems.
About the only problem is when I select text to quote, I have to start at the end rather than the beginning of the text I want to quote, otherwise it will open the quote box with the last part missing.
This may well be just the age of the device, it may be a bug, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to kick up a fuss over such a minor issue.
Having been a member for around twenty years, before the ‘Great Hack’, I genuinely believe that this forum is easier to use and navigate than any other forum I’ve visited; which is why I’ve stuck with it, also this is such an amazing resource for all kinds of random questions about so many random subjects.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying it ain’t broke, so nothing to fix. Tweak, yes, because nothing’s perfect, I’m not throwing my toys out of the pram over tiny little niggles every now and then.
👍🏼
Having just read through Ambrose’ list of complaints, I can honestly say that I don’t recognise any of those criticisms
It can be a bit laggy, but not enough to worry me. I don't use the forum to get a perfect user experience, I want knowledge, experience, support and laughter.
I'm surprised to see your thread today, Ambrose. I'm a free user and it's all working pretty well at present, in fact its been working well for months. I now longer feel the need to copy every post before hitting return in case it's lost. Lag is acceptable, pics work, messages work, navigation fine. I used STW on my Android phone last night and found it was still logged in after days or weeks.
Luck, location, I don't know. You could try a VPN or a different browser to try and change the ad content (which is probably there even if invisible to you) which I've noted is often a source of glitches and beyond STW's control if they want to stay solvent as Mark has explained.
Slow, covered in adverts, still randomly takes me down to the bottom of the page whilst typing responses. But its still better than doing actual work. Just.
Another one with a pretty good user experience for the last few months. No issues staying logged in, no exceptional lag, functionality seems OK. The main thing that bugs me is that clicking to get to the first unread post bounces through the first page of the thread and sometimes sticks there. Oh and that the handle you drag to enlarge the reply box can be tricky to find on my phone. That's all consistent across a selection of browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera) on Win 11 laptop and Android.
It has been working well for me since the last update. Best that I can remember come to think of it.
It's using about 500mb less RAM than it was in its previous iteration so there's been some serious deshittification somewhere.
I can't really complain as i'm not a subscriber anymore, but the mobile ads make it unusable, to the point where I won't even open it when i'm on the bog and that used to be peak STW time
All good here.
Good for me too. Haven't experienced any of the issues talked about here. So, satisfaction poll? Yes, I'm satisfied!
Laggy whether on windows laptop or android. No adverts on android and minimal on laptop. Only pain is needing to uploads pics elsewhere then link them here but I am not a subscriber so keyboard.
The main thing that bugs me is that clicking to get to the first unread post bounces through the first page of the thread and sometimes sticks there.
I find that on really long threads, (the Trump is probably the worst) using the first unread post click is really slow, like 30 seconds sometimes, I assume it's somehow processing all 280 odd pages in some way. I've mentioned it in the new forum thread a couple of times, but apart from that it's working pretty well at the moment. Certainly have no logging out issues, but TBH I never did even back when it was a common complaint.
Extremely slow and laggy. 30 seconds to open a thread.
Broken again this morning. I've posted about it in the "New Forum" thread hoping that someone in charge might actually read the thread they started regarding forum problems.
People have voted with their feet.
The forum isn't anywhere near as busy as it was before the "new" forum, which has many of the same underlying problems, like search functionality
The people who remain haven't changed, so that's (mostly) a bonus 😉
It works 'ok' but couple of thing that annoys me is that:
- I can no longer mark threads as read...so when click on unread it brings them all up.
- Notifications seem to have to involve getting an email which is bloody annoying on popular threads. Previously could just 'watch' and just see a bell when logged on to show updated threads you are following
Not a huge problem but a bit annoying when I've put on on the forum thread a couple of times and emailed the team but just been ignored.
People have voted with their feet.
The forum isn't anywhere near as busy as it was before the "new" forum, which has many of the same underlying problems, like search functionality
The people who remain haven't changed, so that's (mostly) a bonus 😉
I pointed that out a while back but was told that because there are more threads viewable on a single page, it just looks like theres less activity 😀
Just checked the bike forum - 13 threads have been updated in the last 8 hours. Pre all the crap updates, stuff was dropping off the edge of the first page after far less time.