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I saw this mentioned a few pages back but I don't think there was a response (but I may have missed it!). When you go to the Forum Replies, it only has your reply and not a link to the original thread. Is it possible to have your posting history with links to the actual threads (like the threads started page)?
Click the little #
I can’t start a new topic as the topic area is taken up with a STW you tube video
That happened to me last week.
Click the little #
Is still a very poor workaround.
It’s temporary. As mentioned numerous times now they’ve been working on making the forum stable and useable the added features will be looked at in time.
Thanks Kelvin
I can read every thing on my screens from a normal seated position, every program i use, every web page I visit. except the main forum thread page on this site, the text is still too small and still to faint please sort it out
Is it just me or is the forum slooooooooooooooooooooow.....for everyone else?
[i]Drac wrote:[/i]
It’s temporary. As mentioned numerous times now they’ve been working on making the forum stable and useable the added features will be looked at in time.
It would however take all of about 5 minutes to improve it. OK, so I know standard software procedures and by the time you've created the issue report, documented the fix, checked in the new code and tested it on both of the platforms they're using to test new stuff before it goes live that 5 minutes turns into half an hour!
@jimjam - yes, it's been slow for ages, it's something they know about, apparently it will be fixed.
What's the latest on getting logged out every so often, is it intentional or on the to be fixed list?
It's not a big deal, just a bit of an annoyance over multiple devices.
What’s the latest on getting logged out every so often, is it intentional or on the to be fixed list?
You don't get logged into the system across multiple devices, think of it as user+device rather than user. WordPress uses PHP sessions which are specific to a device, the details are stored in a cookie on the device not at STW towers.
The standard WordPress login session lasts 48hrs unless you tick the "remember me" box and then the session lasts 14 days. The 14 day bit can be altered in one of the configuration files I believe. As ever it's balancing security against convenience - the longer one session ID is in use the greater the (very small) chance of it being hijacked.
[i]whitestone wrote:[/i]
As ever it’s balancing security against convenience – the longer one session ID is in use the greater the (very small) chance of it being hijacked.
Pretty much every other forum I use keeps you logged in for much longer - mostly until you log out. As pointed out regarding other stuff, it's just a bike forum, the chances of it being hijacked aren't worth worrying about (and if it does happen the admins can easily enough restore everything when they're notified, you don't have the power to do very much if you hijack an account). What's more, the session ID provides a very poor attack vector - the only real risk (apart from if somebody gets direct access to the hardware, but in that case all bets are off) is if not using HTTPS when credentials are sent in plain text, but even then it's not the longevity of the session ID which is providing the attack vector, and clearly that has now been closed. We could now have session IDs which never time out and it would still be more secure than the previous iteration without HTTPS which logged you out every now and then.
In conclusion, the balance is wrong for anything which ever logs you out!
How does one post pics now? I've tried the usual BB code from Flickr but nothing comes of it?
Copy image address and click image button and paste.
The text size on forum index seems to have shrunk. Are you just trying to bolster my colleagues opinions that I should get my eyes tested!?
[url= https://s10.postimg.org/c0l85cy49/20180228-203358.pn g" target="_blank">
I'm getting some grotty redirect ads on the new forum.
Usual "phone is infected" but also redirecting to one like Snapchat except it's a gif of a woman flicking the bean and is called "Snap****"
Bit much when at work sat eating lunch next to colleagues.
Pretty much every other forum I use keeps you logged in for much longer – mostly until you log out.
Do other forums have a longer cookie expiry or do they use a sliding expiry? In the past when I've written some web apps we've extended the cookie expiry on receiving a request which gives a sliding window so if the user is active a lot then they won't get logged out. Not suggesting that's what STW should do or anything but it might be what some people are used to.
@chvck - The forums look like they just use the standard Wordpress login/expiry. Forum software like PHP-BB probably does things differently, they store a lot of user activity/status info - things like which threads you've read/replied to. The WP login will have been written for responses to blog posts rather than forums.
hello,
question for a numpty like me - how do i now find posts that i have posted in - i can find ones that i have started but no longer easily ones that i have responded to?
i can see them but they are all in a list mixed up and i cant just click on the thread title to find it again..
and if i find an old thread its always been chopped to bits - like the first few pages missing and all photos missing?
is this normal?
In the replies created in your profile click on the # next to the posted time.
I’m getting some grotty redirect ads on the new forum.
Usual “phone is infected” but also redirecting to one like Snapchat except it’s a gif of a woman flicking the bean and is called “Snap****”
Since the 15th, STW, like all websites are on notice from Google to deliver ads that are a) non intrusive (just being there does NOT mean they are intrusive - it means not being awfully flashy, pop ups, or more than 30% screen coverage among other things). STW runs the risk of having Google activate ad blocking in Chrome browsers for the site if we don't. The latest report on STW from Google is green across the board.
That said, Google are masters at retargeting - could be that you're getting ads based on your browser history...
sticky thready dont seem to stick in chrome on android (but are highlighted)
Could you pop the page number above the reply box on the first page like it is in the threads
That said, Google are masters at retargeting – could be that you’re getting ads based on your browser history…
That's odd, because despite watching an absolute metric **** tonne of porn I get no grot in the ads.
Conversely I spend almost no time trying to get my browser to induce me into seizure or fitting, yet get spammed by ads that look like this:
I wonder what we are doing wrong?
I keep getting the premier partners adverts switching from the right side of the page to the left and obscuring the text. and then i think the scrolling goes haywire. I say I think because at that point I give up with it and go and do something else.
Just popped back on for the Bullheart thread and I have to say the forum is looking and working much better now. Still a bit too much white for my liking but the fonts are easier to read (darker) and having the links to the different sections is great for making me click more pages.
The site does still eat up a lot of data though on my mobile, 5 mins is nearly equivalent to a HD video! Guessing that's all the ads doing that.
or more than 30% screen coverage among other things
I think you mean 30% of the page, rather than the screen.
Absolutely shit these last few days in iOS 11.2.1 in Chrome. So many threads fail to open or take literally 30-60 seconds.
Sooo slooooow....
Snow in the router.
And no idea if it's been logged or not....
Autocorrect on android standard keyboard is spontaneously mad too rhouth yepnin this post too.....
Another issue: latest version of iOS - often can’t select text in someone else’s post to then copy and paste into the new post box. Only lets me copy text one word at a time, rather than throwing up the highlight that can be manipulated to select the text to copy
Odd Zokes I’ve just upgrade my iPad and I can select a group of text. Which iPad?
iPhone 6.
But its intermittent. Does it some times, other times fine.
I’ve updated my 7 now as of yet I can’t replicate it but we’ll keep monitoring.
Is it just me or have a bout 4,000,000 posts fallen off the chat forum?
Feb 19:
www.flickr.com/photos/146501625@N06/38762287240
Today:
www.flickr.com/photos/146501625@N06/39677653505
We are testing a new AI plugin that asses the general quality of every post in the chat forum. It then calculates an 'intelligence' score for each post out of 10. Anything below 3 has been deleted.
I don't know what to say....
..this may not be true
I keep getting the premier partners adverts switching from the right side of the page to the left and obscuring the text. and then i think the scrolling goes haywire. I say I think because at that point I give up with it and go and do something else.
I am getting this too. If viewing the forum in a window, everytime I scroll up the premier partner adverts appear and cover the text at the left hand side of the window.
Doesn't happen if it's full screen or the window is narrow enough to force the mobile site.
It's almost as though someone's realised that people reduce the window size to avoid the sidebar and have made a change to make sure they view the ads anyway.
Cynical panther is cynical 😉
Win 7 / IE11
We are testing a new AI plugin that asses the general quality of every post in the chat forum. It then calculates an ‘intelligence’ score for each post out of 10. Anything below 3 has been deleted.
Asses quality would be high on most posts surely?
Asses quality would be high on most posts surely?
not since they pulled the pin on Friday Kylie, no
OK, this is fing annoying, really fing annoying!
The sidebar now has STW adverts and premier partner adverts served directly from the singletrackworld domain. If you are going to put these in here then make them static images, not flashing text (a bad idea on the 1990s WWW and still appalling) and not pseudo animations.
If I'm on the forums then I want to read what people have written not have inane flashing/moving images distracting me. Stop treating users like 6yr old idiots.
Get f***ing rid!!!!!
The ads you mean? That help pay our wages?
Get rid of the flashing/dynamic ones, there's no need. Even the STW add for the magazine has "On Sale Now" blinking away. Why? It doesn't need it, just put the text there and leave it alone.
Our ads are in compliance with Google's new standards. Static ads don't work. In that no one 'sees' them and so they don't get clicked and so we don't get paid.
The ads stay. They have to. Or we don't exist.
i would like to say that i don't approve of the new (more common) way of sorting classified posts according to time of latest reply, meaning they can be 'bumped'.
i regularly scan the classifieds to see what new things have come up, and this makes that type of use much more difficult.
i imagine a lot of other people use them this way too, but perhaps not?. anyway, i always agreed with the way it worked before; sorted only by the time of the original post.
Hm, I was thinking this was all running better, it certainly looks better, but it's far too slow. I actually just ran speedtest to check that my pipe wasn't broken and it came back fine at nominal fibre broadband levels.
So, why are pages taking over a minute to load on either current iOS or 10.13.3 running on an i7 with stupid amounts of memory for the simple task of rendering web pages?
Admittedly, logged in with a 'P' the ads aren't present and in Safari, pulling the window size in gets rid of the sidebar, but the overall speed is pitiful. Given that I've noticed my iPhone firing up location services when loading forum pages (not yet clear if this is always or just sometimes) I'm wondering just what it is that's slowing things down. Location services only starts on that phone when it's asked to. Something's up.
The latest report on STW from Google is green across the board
After you got rid of the ad from the premier partner in Jersey that looked like sbob's jif then. (insert winky smiley here)
That's just a tease, honest. Things are working quite well apart from random slowness that gives timeout 504 for long periods then things return to normal. Other people aren't afected as posts continue to appear - firefox and W10.
Most features are back but I'm still lacking smileys unless I'm just being dumb - I spent ages trying to post a vid then gave up and posted the url - which appeared as a vid. How about a closed sticky with a "how to use the new forum" guide for all the new features so we don't have to wade through this thread to find out how to use (for example) quotes.
It's back!
Hello Aaaron, if you wanted to attract my attention you've succeeded. However, if you're anything like your ad in real life I don't want to know you or pay for your services. I have 36 tabs open on my browser and you are the most irritating person on any of them. It means I can't leave the computer on in line of sight when anyone is watching TV.
Does "On Sale Now" flashing really increase sales of the magazine? It's not big or especially annoying but surely a nice pic of riders and a dog in a forest is enough without it flashing.
Anyhow, a word of ernest advice to Premier Partners - your ads need to inform people without irritating them.
FREEZE AGEDDON WANTS TO KILL YOU
And I want to kill your ad.
This post is intended to be constructive, I hope your advertisers can see this because, yes you need them, and yes I understand that and I'd like their ads to work rather than make people hate them.
OK - I spent a month away whilst the site was sorted and now I've tried a few posts - what a total bag of shite. How can you **** up this badly? I applaud letting the YTS boy get a chance to do something useful but surely it's time the adults took over and fixed this mess?
Very slow atm on iPhone, 15 seconds to load a page is a bit poor.
[i]Mark wrote:[/i]
We are testing a new AI plugin that asses the general quality of every post in the chat forum. It then calculates an ‘intelligence’ score for each post out of 10. Anything below 3 has been deleted.
I don’t know what to say….
..this may not be true
Fake news, most of my posts are still here.
I don't think I've seen it mentioned and it's hardly the biggest problem, but I noticed that the sticky posts are only semi-sticky. They appear at the top of the first page, but if the last post on them is old enough to appear on the 2nd (or older) page then they also appear there in the position they'd be in if they weren't sticky.
I have had the redirect on my phone again on Wednesday - appleshop or something that hijacked the browser. NO screen shot as I had to restart the phone to kill it. some sort of spinning wheel thing offering chances to win apple stuff
It is certainly nothing to do with ads I have clicked on as I have never clicked on an ad on the phone. Its certainly coming from this site
Edit - nor is it anythig to do with browswer history. On the phone I only go to here, the grauniad, BBC and a rugby forum - none of which do I get any ads on on the phone and I don't have an add on blocker
Not liking the fact P members are going to get ads as part of their subscription. I'd happily pay a little more rather than have ads. I may have to cancel my P revert to the that thing must not be mentioned, seeing as I'll be using it anyway.
Eh?
Subscribers get no ads.
Today we fixed a bug that you aren’t going to like.
As you know paying subscribers have ads disable on the site once they are logged in. Since we launched the new theme the filter that handles that has been disabling ads for most registered users too. Today we fixed that and registered users now will be seeing ads on the page.
Firstly let me reiterate how important they are. Ad revenue is a vital revenue stream for us and without it we would not exist. I can’t stress that enough.
However, what we are going to do is ad another layer of filtering to our ad system that will reduce the ads for registered users by around 20%. It’s going to take some time to implement as I have to completely rebuild the ad inventory to allow the filtering to work but over the coming days the number of ads on the page will reduce for registered users.
I may have mis read that as P users were getting 20% of ads on site
and its still painfully sloooow
I have to say its not usually slow for me. sometimes slows down but 90% of the time is fine
getting to threds you've commented in is now a very long winded process.
and only htanks to cooie do i know how to do it at all, lcickin on the # in my list of replies.
i don't understand why this should be more complicated than before
Bruneep, Premier users ARE subscribers. You are paying us money ergo subscribing.
Registered users are not subscribers. They’ve just registered a user name
There is the word ‘subscriber’ next to your name as a further clue.
Still very slow for me, also the old version of the forum used to have a function whereby if you rollover the time of post/freshness it would give you the last poster's name so you could see clearly who had replied, or rather, if it was you're own reply you're looking at.
Of course, off the shelf forum layouts have the thread starter under the thread title and the name of the latest user replying opposite but I guess that would limit advertising real estate or make it look too much like a normal forum and that would drive away people who don't want avatars...although most people appear to have been driven away anyway....
Its appalling tbh - why on earth do you insist on using what is one of the worst softwares out there as the backbone to the site?
Something like Invision Community is massively simpler to use, has hundreds of far better options, proper quoting, image insert, etc.
Makes this place looks like a 10yr old did it for their homework.
Actually - most 10yr olds would know how to do it better using one of the dedicated forum software packages rather than this hash up....
although most people appear to have been driven away anyway….
Based on what figures?
Interesting first post regensis I smell a disgruntled banned member.
Based on what figures?
Obviously I don't have the metrics. It's certainly my impression that things have slowed down a lot over the last month or so in terms of posts and new threads. Or is the forum slow down caused by heavy traffic? The days of seeing your new thread vanish off page 1 in an hour or less certainly seem to be long gone. Could be selective myopia on my part, am I wrong?
Thursday was the busiest day on the site since Bez’s Column in early January. 70k people on the site. The thing to bear in mind is that we aren’t just a forum. The content we publish gets a lot of views and that’s our commercial focus. We are a publishing company that ALSO hosts a free to use forum. That’s not to say the forum is not important to us and isn’t part of the bigger picture it certainly is
But I’ve been through this before. Several times on this thread. I am aware many use the site only for the forum and they would naturally wish we just developed a forum for them, but our commercial plan encompasses more more than just the forum.
The site is slow. This is due to our hosting company being unable to cope with our high traffic and load, which has increased a lot As previously stated, we are migrating to a new host. Google cloud as it happens. But to ensure uninterrupted service we are taking our time on this and it will be a few more weeks before we make the full transition.
why on earth do you insist on using what is one of the worst softwares out there as the backbone to the site?
I had a look into this after I'd visited STW. Irrespective of what hypothetical alternative I looked at, the first stage of the migration process always required first moving the latest version of BBpress. Even if STW was to use a different platform - which they aren't - this upgrade would have been a prerequisite.
most 10yr olds would know how to do it better
Before I had a better understanding of the site I thought I was an expert and knew better than the site owners as well.
Yay! New body font. Much more readable for blocks of copy.
Yup. We are listening to feedback
I preferred the previous font. 😬
I have a few minor frustrations, but they seem to be getting rectified one by one.
The new forum is looking good.
Font much better although I still struggle to read anything when it's written in blue. Change it back to black please so it's readable to us colour blind people.
New font is better, while it was being changed, I would've thought the inconsistencies in all the forum fonts could've been sorted?
It's just messy with so many different sizes of typeface. I know it's not crucial, but I certainly wouldn't be happy unleashing something so ugly on the public 😀
Here's what I see, massive headers, tiny main page font, big (much nicer) thread font, blues/blacks -
I clicked "bringing back trousers to trouser town".Ads that look interesting beat ads that drive me nuts. Pace Service Center and suttonbank bikes good too.
22 seconds to open a page using macbook os x el capitan safari and over 25 seconds using iPad mini safari.
between 3 nd 5 seconds to open threads for me. desktop win 7 firefox
It's shit, slow and not very user friendly
As well as cancelling my sub recently I had been slowly drifting away from STW, slow with news, too many preachy opinion type articles , FGF full of dodgy pics of blokes modelling clothes that were just embarrassing to scroll through at your work desk on a Friday lunchtime, Facebook page that keeps dragging up articles from months ago, the only reason I still drifted over to the 'main' site was when I was browsing the forum. Now that's been made so unfriendly to use I can't see myself spending much time here at all, by the time it's no doubt sorted and running faster I, along with a few others I suspect, will be gone
just checking in, still shit. see yous in another fortnight.
Font is better, thanks.
Still slow. Looking at the network traffic in the Firefox diagnostic tools thing, while I'm not an expert, it feels like there's a lot of flab in there.
"Forum replies created" appears to be somewhat broken.
New font is fine (but didn't dislike the old one 🙂 ). The forum main page font isn't eye-friendly at all in light blue and it's too small IMO, but it's growing into a really smart looking site.
But goddamn it put a freshness/time stamp on the mobile version one day! Please!
If I go to "Profile->Forums->Replies Created, then I can see the post above, and a post from a my question about 42t cassettes, which has been intermingled, like some kind of chimera, with another post I made. And then the post I made to the thread about Sherpas seems to have vanished.
(Oh, and adding links, why is that so hateful now?)
Thanks for listening on the font - Open Sans is much better (though I think I still prefer Verdana, so switching back to that having turned it off to have a look 😉 )
Lots of good things recently… getting better every week. Priorities being content, rather than forum, seems the right way around to me. Glad the forum is also receiving some love though.
Is fixing post editing on iPhones on the list of things to look at? If a post contains an URL, long string, or reasonable sized picture, you still can't really edit it.
A slight retrograde: when you hover over the menu at the top of the page, the sub-items have text but no images. This is on Chrome 63 on Mac OS-X
Thursday was the busiest day on the site since Bez’s Column in early January. 70k people on the site. The thing to bear in mind is that we aren’t just a forum. The content we publish gets a lot of views and that’s our commercial focus. We are a publishing company
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> that ALSO hosts a free to use forum. That’s not to say the forum is not important to us and isn’t part of the bigger picture it certainly is</span>
Hiya.
Could you give us a clue as to what the 'bigger picture' is?
Love the mag,it's evolved and seems to be back to it's best. Excellent writing and content, spot on.
I can't use the forum . Too many issues to mention. It's much harder and less pleasant to use than it was.I understand why and I'm sure it will get fixed at some point.
I don't want to use Facebook or any other platform to access STW content. I read the magazine. I then usually read it again in a slightly different form on the website.
Pushing the same content to me on Facebook or any other platform is pointless. I've read it. Much of it twice.
Please don't make content platform specific. Exclusive Facebook content won't make me join Facebook. it will just make me less likely to visit this site.