Adaptive STW

Anyone else pointlessly irritated that the thread title isn’t ‘Responsive STW’ 🙂

And I don’t like the green used for the send post button.

Dear lordy, that green is HORRIBLE[/i]

You think thats cluttered GrahamS?

Yes I do. Here’s a simple visual breakdown of one of the threads on that BabyBMW forum Green is the useful content, Red is extra visual guff irrelevant to the conversation:

The majority is clutter. Do the same to a thread here and the majority is content.

Love to know what you class as “tons of pointless visual clutter”.
Sections are clear.
Links are clear.
No obtrusive adverts.
Forum Sponsor banners are the only possible thing and they are only on the header to their OWN SECTION.

Perhaps you should’ve gone to Specsavers.

This is place is easier to read because theres **** all in it other than adverts that everyone keeps reporting for crashing or redirecting or opening app store pop-ups, etc.

Why is it irrelevant?
Details of the poster, their location, etc are very relevant in many cases.
Especially when there are specific sections for areas such as “general banter” but more importantly – “problems” “coding” “tyres” etc.

Unlike here where the number of threads that cross between the only two sections is ridiculous.
Most of the time they aren’t even moved to the “correct” section anymore just left to run – so what is the actual point in having “Bike Forum” and “Chat Forum”??
The only reason a thread here is according to you relevant is because there are no other sodding options despite members asking for them time and time again.

I thought it’d been hacked!
Random font sizes for me. Large on the topics , so now folk in the pub can look over my shoulder and have their suspicions confirmed that I am indeed a sad bastid.
And I would like to see who has started posts too.
Tiny font for replies also . Banner waaaaaaaay too big.

Wow. With different forum software we could even have stars.

Does Anna know?

I love the green for the “Post” boufon…

Leave it green please.

Love to know what you class as “tons of pointless visual clutter”.

As shown above your post:
– thread title repeated on every post
– name of poster appears twice per post
– multi-line signatures that add nothing to the conversation (at least they aren’t colourful or graphical!)
– extra pointless info about poster repeated on every post (why is how many posts they have made, where they are or when they joined so important? That could easily be tucked away on their user page if I needed to see it).

This is place is easier to read because theres **** all in it

Exactly… content, navigation and a few adverts. That’s all it needs. Minimal clutter.

Unbearably slow on Chrome for iPad. Slightly faster with ads turned off.

It’s terrible on the iPad in landscape and portrait…

Amazing isn’t it….
How so many other forums manage it…

Go and use them then.

opening links in a NEW window rather than the existing one, etc.

It’s been a while and things may have changed since I was last doing web dev, but this was generally considered bad practice. Opening in the same “window” / tab can be overridden by the user (ctrl-click or middle mouse button) to open in a new one; opening in a new target you have no control over it.

Most of the time they aren’t even moved to the “correct” section anymore just left to run – so what is the actual point in having “Bike Forum” and “Chat Forum”??

Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit on this. Threads in the wrong forum are moved 100% of the time we see them, absolutely. The only time they don’t get moved is, oddly enough, when we don’t see them and no-one thinks to report it. If you see any, use the report post link.

It’s terrible on the iPad in landscape and portrait…

? Seems fine on my iPad in both (iPad 3rd Gen / Safari in latest iOS).

Maybe the non-P adverts mess it up?

Jesus…. have you renewed your Readers DIgest subscription for xmas GrahamS?

NUmber of posts is really obvious – someone asks a question, might seem a stupid one thats been answered loads of times before – in half a second you know they only joined last week and its their 8th post.
You answer it politely helping them out.
They joined 2 yrs ago with 500+ posts and they get ripped up.

Location also can be very relevant if someone is asking for help on a coding issue or a mechanical problem – other users can very easily know if they can help as they are local or not.

The signatures on that forum are important because it relates to the particular model they own so most often the question is directly related to that vehicle so other posters don’t then need to spend two pages asking “what model” “what year” etc. Pretty bloody obvious that one 🙄

If its that hard for you to understand that then perhaps you’re better off with a basic forum – odd that a huge number of others here have and are consistently asking for modern upgrades to an archaic software platform with virtually zero options.

Not working with iOS 9.3.5, which my pad has. Double-tap doesn’t work, the full-length ad down the rh-side covers everything up as far across as ‘topic author’. Seems to work on my phone, but I don’t do much with STW on my phone.
😕

NUmber of posts is really obvious – someone asks a question, might seem a stupid one thats been answered loads of times before – in half a second you know they only joined last week and its their 8th post.
You answer it politely helping them out.
They joined 2 yrs ago with 500+ posts and they get ripped up.

Location also can be very relevant if someone is asking for help on a coding issue or a mechanical problem – other users can very easily know if they can help as they are local or not.

The signatures on that forum are important because it relates to the particular model they own so most often the question is directly related to that vehicle so other posters don’t then need to spend two pages asking “what model” “what year” etc. Pretty bloody obvious that one

All of that information can go on their profile, which seems more appropriate to me than on every single bloody post they make.

a huge number of others here have and are consistently asking for modern upgrades

I’m not sure thats true. Seems like it’s fairly evenly split and some that mention it are only doing so tongue-in-cheek anyway.

Doesn’t make them good – plenty of those “modern” forums are full of visual crap and clutter. I’ve always liked the minimalist feel this place has.

Of course. But it also goes the other way, and one could have a forum with all the functionality and still look minimalist.

Most allow the end user to configure the the forum to their specifications, turn off avatars etc, not display sigs.

Seems like it’s fairly evenly split and some that mention it are only doing so tongue-in-cheek anyway.

The ‘new forum coming in 2014’ thing is tongue in cheek. But I would genuinely like to see a modern forum implemented, but 100% see why STW Towers are happy with leaving it as is.

Go and use them then.

Yeah buddy! Love it or leave it!

If its that hard for you to understand that then perhaps you’re better off with a basic forum – odd that a huge number of others here have and are consistently asking for modern upgrades to an archaic software platform with virtually zero options.

And equally a huge number are not, as evidenced by Graham’s post.

TBH, I don’t disagree to an extent. If nothing else there’s a security concern in running old versions of software. I’d like to see some extra functionality: A “like” button for posts, maybe tied to a reputation score. That’d be handy in the classifieds (and for willy-waving). Avatars help Aspie brains like mine keep track of who’s who (I’m in the middle of a Facebook conversation with a large group of complete strangers, and it’s invaluable). An FAQ wouldn’t go amiss either.

But a lot of the rest is pointless clutter. .sigs add nothing other than ego stroking, they’re godawful. Auto-quoting means that you end up with nested quotes containing half of the previous page of discussion repeated, with a line of new content at the bottom. Millions of sub-forums means that stuff gets lost or the place feels empty (think of having a party for a 1000 people in a large function room vs having a party of 5 in there), and it’s an administrative nightmare as we’d do nothing but move misplaced threads (oh, sorry, wait, we don’t do that do we).

Personally, I’d certainly welcome an overhaul. But I’d absolutely reject half of what you’re asking for.

Yeah buddy! Love it or leave it!

Sorry, that was a bit harsh and I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it just gets tiresome. It’s always the people using the forum for free (and probably running ad blockers) who make the most noise about how shit it is.

All of that information can go on their profile, which seems more appropriate to me than on every single bloody post they make.

I think the middle ground is something like HKUD does….

….to be honest their comments section is probably the sort of thing I think would work well for STW. Fairly minimal, and all the under the hood stuff which makes adding pics, replying with auto quotes etc easier.

Sorry, that was a bit harsh and I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it just gets tiresome. It’s always the people using the forum for free (and probably running ad blockers) who make the most noise about how shit it is.

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. Chuck in adverts which occasionally go rogue and ad blockers start to be used as well.

Also, if it was random new users saying stuff I could see you ‘ingrates’ angle, but when it’s longterm user who do provide a decent amount of content to the site, then you maybe shouldn’t dismiss them too easily. Or at the very least hold their arguments in the same regards as those making counter arguments to keep things as they are.

Or summfink…maybe we are all freeloaders and I should get my tag back 😉

Sorry, that was a bit harsh and I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it just gets tiresome. It’s always the people using the forum for free (and probably running ad blockers) who make the most noise about how shit it is.

..or “future customers” may be another way of looking at it.

I think the middle ground is something like HKUD does….

I quite like that actually, yes.

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.

It’s hard to say. You may be right, but I can’t help but think that maybe the loudest voices are people you could give a free house to and they’d complain it wasn’t solid gold. We had a similar discussion a while back and someone posited that even though they’d been here with a free account and adblocking for years they were suddenly “just about to subscribe” and now weren’t going to because they didn’t get their own way. Sounds convincing.

Cougar – I stopped my premier for one simple reason – the state of this site on every single device I use.
I actually emailed STW as to why I wasn’t renewing the “P” after the “whatever” number of emails constantly asking me to renew to gain access, this feature, that, etc.
I’m running no adblockers here other than on my phone and I’ve openly stated this on threads recently wheres theres been a problem.
One thats still not fixed so yes – I’ll continue to do so on my phone until such time as it is.

I’m not asking for all the stuff on other forums but as you said – avatars for definite should be here.
Proper quoting as currently it is a joke – on Mac you have to even add an extra space before you paste the quote as the forum deletes the last ] if you don’t and thats regardless of the browser in use.
Doesn’t need to be multi-quote – single is fine but one that works.

PM’s too as the amount of times people ask for it in here shows its needed. No good when someone doesn’t add an email or any other info to their profile so suggesting that “that info is better placed there” is f’ing stupid.

Like button and reputation is another simple thing that would change how this place works massively, cut down many times the amount of crap posting, poor quoting, etc – “like” and it’s done. Simple.
Classifieds out of bounds until minimum post count/reputation/bhp/whatever is reached will cut down on the frankly ridiculous number of classified only posters that keep returning.

..or “future customers” may be another way of looking at it.

Yeah, and there’s probably merit to that. Rather than “people who won’t pay because they think it’s shit,” there will be a number of people who would pay if it was all-singing and dancing.

I wonder how many people are [P] users for the mag content, and how many for the forum, and what it’d take to convince the others. That might make for an interesting poll.

RIP my post….

Anyway, was just adding this to it:

there will be a number of people who would pay if it was all-singing and dancing.

I know this is not what you mean, but I do think there is a disconnect with some of those who always hit the ‘insta-nope’ button when this topic comes up, as they think STW will end up looking like Lin’s Cars or Dog’s On Acid. When that won’t be the case.

Cougar – I stopped my premier for one simple reason – the state of this site on every single device I use.

Fair enough.

I’m running no adblockers here other than on my phone

Reading back it’s not clear from my post, but I genuinely wasn’t accusing you of anything, I was generalising.

Proper quoting as currently it is a joke – on Mac you have to even add an extra space before you paste the quote as the forum deletes the last ] if you don’t and thats regardless of the browser in use.

I’ve never heard that complaint before – can anyone else confirm?

PM’s too as the amount of times people ask for it in here shows its needed. No good when someone doesn’t add an email or any other info to their profile so suggesting that “that info is better placed there” is f’ing stupid.

I’d forgotten about PMs. There’s arguments for and against (there may be an issue with classifieds and site accountability?), but I think I’d welcome it so long as there was an opt-out option.

Classifieds out of bounds until minimum post count/reputation/bhp/whatever is reached will cut down on the frankly ridiculous number of classified only posters that keep returning.

No arguments here.

I’ve never heard that complaint before – can anyone else confirm?

Don’t get that here. (Chrome/MacOs Sierra)

I do get the end quote tag being a line extra down so you get ugly padding in the quote, tho.

Continuing on my forums that aren’t shit line, Spotify comments has basic posts, but a fully featured editor. So looks clean, but you can do all the stuff you want.

Virgin Media community pages….just strip out the stupid badges, and it’s pretty low key:

If its that hard for you to understand that then perhaps you’re better off with a basic forum – odd that a huge number of others here have and are consistently asking for modern upgrades to an archaic software platform with virtually zero options.

And equally a huge number are not, as evidenced by Graham’s post.

TBH, I don’t disagree to an extent. If nothing else there’s a security concern in running old versions of software. I’d like to see some extra functionality: A “like” button for posts, maybe tied to a reputation score. That’d be handy in the classifieds (and for willy-waving). Avatars help Aspie brains like mine keep track of who’s who (I’m in the middle of a Facebook conversation with a large group of complete strangers, and it’s invaluable). An FAQ wouldn’t go amiss either.

But a lot of the rest is pointless clutter. .sigs add nothing other than ego stroking, they’re godawful. Auto-quoting means that you end up with nested quotes containing half of the previous page of discussion repeated, with a line of new content at the bottom.[/quote]

Which definitely isn’t possible on here.

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

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 up to 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 local 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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