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?