It’s not pissing everyone off

it’s our content. That we produce and publish on this website. Something we have done for 17 years. It stays because it’s what we do. It’s what we are about and it’s what we are for.

Plus it’s a very important part of this website and our future plans for it.

Fair enough it’s your party but don’t start playing records no one likes.

You quoted the STW T&Cs at us in your email.  From the same T&Cs text: “In addition you agree not to promote the use of ad blocking on our site in either story comments or forum posts.” This is why your post was deleted, not because you are using ad-blocking software.  That was never mentioned.

As I said earlier in this thread, premier subscription entitles you to ad-free browsing. It does not entitle you to other-parts-of-the-site-free browsing and never has. Premier users do not get served third-party advertising and this is now default behaviour across the board rather than users having to opt out.

Can I just check I’m not going to get into any trouble for promoting something one version of which removed the right hand side-bar (I’m not entirely sure now whether I ever released that version into the wild 😳 )? Though I’ll point out that the Chrome extension never has and never will (whilst I’m doing the dev) block advertising.

However, just in support of what you’ve done, I’ll point out the emphasis on “one version” – I was certainly browsing sidebar free for a while, but I’ve now disabled that. I found the first sidebar version with big pics and links to FB obtrusive which is why I got rid of it, but I have no idea why anybody objects to the current version. As pointed out the space for forum posts is at least as big as it’s ever been (it was interesting to have them full screen, but also kind of strange) and actually I’m more than happy to have links to other bits of the site I might click on occasionally. The thing is, I have clicked on links in the sidebar – but not since the forum update. It’s not a new thing!!!

So on this issue I don’t see what they’re doing wrong, it’s not pissing me off – not now it’s just text (and I like to think that was fixed quickly in response to feedback on here – so they’re doing exactly what we’re asking them to). Or are some people seeing something different to me?

p.s. I’m still viewing the forum in Verdana (was Helvetica which had the comforting feeling of avoiding change, but Verdana seems slightly better) – I don’t think I’m ever going to agree with you on Montserrat

And with my non-moderator hat on,

As a site user I’m genuinely struggling to see what the beef is here.  It seems to boil down to “I pay £1.50 a month and therefore demand a completely blank page apart from the content that I want to see or I’m cancelling my subscription.”  Either that or “we fear change” I suppose.

I’ve just fired up articles on the first few sites I randomly thought of: Twitter, Facebook, The Guardian, The Telegraph, YouTube and BBC News.  All of them devote as much screen real-estate or more to promoting other content on their site.  In fact I’d be hard pressed to think of any commercial websites that don’t do this (and there are plenty that are much worse).  Do you see related videos on YouTube’s sidebar and think “ZOMG adverts” or do you just ignore them?  Are you hitting the “block element” button of your advert blocker every time Amazon goes “people who bought this also bought…”?

EDIT: sorry, the thread moved on whilst I was writing.  Thanks Mark.

I found the first sidebar version with big pics and links to FB obtrusive which is why I got rid of it, but I have no idea why anybody objects to the current version. As pointed out the space for forum posts is at least as big as it’s ever been

I’d agree with that, doesn’t bother me now, it was awful. In a true ‘can’t please everyone’ demonstration – the white space all over the page makes it look quite spartan now, about 25% of the screen (split each side) has nothing on it at all. No watermark or anything any more. And the fonts being different in messages versus the main forum screen.

I know I’m probably a bit guilty of this myself, but I’m thinking there’s an element of complaining because that’s what we do – complaints when the first version of the sidebar appeared seem reasonable and people have got it into their heads that the sidebar is inherently a bad thing (dare I suggest that the issue could have been avoided by testing the sidebar on a focus group before going live on the whole site? 👿 )

Can I just check though, I’m not the only person who remembers having similar links on the right before the update? So it’s not even a “fearing change” thing (I suspect people have forgotten that already having got used to the post-update look).

@nixie. Thanks for the tip on posting from Flickr on mobile. Unfortunately I’m an iPhone user. Maybe I’ll just need to find somewhere other than Flickr to host pictures I want to post here.

I’ll be honest, it’s not pissing me off.

As an openly-gripey sod about the comms (they were total bilge) the site is looking quite tidy now and I’ve  enjoyed reading some of the front page content lately,

It’s a meeting in the middle thing isn’t it – something’s got encourage further reading & drive interest in things other than the crap we post on here.

We’ve all  got to make money to live, and for perspective, some rely on here for just that.

Edit: Christ, how slow am I at typing? My post’s a bit redundant now!

Just to prove the point, check out the right hand side (and it also proves Mark’s point about the space for posts being wider than before):

https://web.archive.org/web/20170705114115/http://singletrackworld.com:80/forum/topic/our-forum

Yes, there was content on the rhs for years.

As a site user I’m genuinely struggling to see what the beef is here.  It seems to boil down to “I pay £1.50 a month and therefore demand a completely blank page apart from the content that I want to see or I’m cancelling my subscription.”  Either that or “we fear change” I suppose.

I pay for other sites I visit many are less than the £1.49 a month here and they manage to centre the page content, are ad free, faster loading and easier to post on from a mobile and have more function that this current format.

@aracer – it’s a good question and one I can’t field.  That’s one for Mark I fear.  The moderation team have discussed it previously and didn’t reach a firm conclusion, and when that happens we generally err on the “leave it, then” side of caution.  We’d rather under- than over-moderate.

simondbarnes  Member
Yes, there was content on the rhs for years

Testing testing function 1, 2, 3 …

p/s: still can’t get the underline to work … hmmm …

Can I just check I’m not going to get into any trouble for promoting something one version of which removed the right hand side-bar (I’m not entirely sure now whether I ever released that version into the wild  )? Though I’ll point out that the Chrome extension never has and never will (whilst I’m doing the dev) block advertising.

Just wanted to confirm that this is the case. I’ve previously considered removing the sidebar in the extension in order to widen the forum area but decided against it. I don’t really see the issue with the sidebar in and of itself. It’s pretty inoffensive and I don’t really even see it anymore, it’s there but I just don’t usually look at it. I even clicked a link on it this evening 😮

I think that the site looks pretty good now, it’s a bit too white for me but that’s personal preference – I use stylish to use dark themes on Google, Github and Facebook…

I pay for other sites I visit many are less than the £1.49 a month here and they manage to centre the page content, are ad free, faster loading and easier to post on from a mobile and have more function that this current format.

You’re beefing that the text isn’t central on the page?  Seriously?  With all due respect, have a word with yourself.

STW is ad-free for [P] subscribers.

Faster loading is being addressed, this has been mentioned numerous times (see the “our forum” sticky), they’re looking at new hosting which is better able to cope with STW’s traffic volume.

Easier to post I’ll grant you, but this is demonstrably being worked on as we’ve already seen a number of improvements.  Again with reference to “our forum,” this has been bumped in the short term because the priority is performance.

“More function” will come once everything else is stable, that’s kinda the point of the exercise here, to bin the legacy shit so that STW can move forward.  This has been discussed at length several times over now.

<span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>STW is ad-free for [P] subscribers.</span>

<span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Testing underline ….</span>

The underline function works in preview but not when Submit. 🙁

Just wanted to confirm that this is the case. I’ve previously considered removing the sidebar in the extension in order to widen the forum area but decided against it. I don’t really see the issue with the sidebar in and of itself.

Me and chvck will just have our “get a room” moment on this thread – for those who are aware of the Chrome extension, you may not be aware that chvck developed the original (and most of the code is still what he wrote). Glad to see we’re in agreement here. I had a bit of an 😳 moment when the sidebar reappeared, because I’d seen that your branch of the code had some new commits which I ignored when I picked it up to make it work with the updated forum – because of course I didn’t need to remove a sidebar which wasn’t there (and I’d never considered that as something which needed doing!)

<div class=”bbp-reply-author”>Cougar</div>
<div class=”bbp-reply-content”>

You’re beefing that the text isn’t central on the page?

</div>

Yup, other sites seem to manage without issue, your continual defence of the overlords must please them greatly.  I’d  insert a winky in, but they’ve gone.

<edit>  insert rolley eyes <edit>

Faster loading is being addressed

…

“More function” will come once everything else is stable, that’s kinda the point of the exercise here, to bin the legacy shit so that STW can move forward.  This has been discussed at length several times over now.

Kind of with reference to both of those – and just a suggestion rather than a complaint at this point – regarding the “REPLY” buttons bottom right of a post. Those just seem to take you to the reply box, but they do it so slowly that they’re currently totally pointless. Is there any plans to enable quoting of the post you’re replying to (which is the way most forums work) – and to make that work a whole lot faster? It appears that at the moment that acts as a normal URL, thus reloading the whole page, rather than running a script just to scroll the page which is how it should work (and how our extension worked before the tinyMCE broke it 🙁 )

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but not sure I’ve seen it mentioned by anybody else and it might have got lost in the rest of my comment on something else.

I’ve said everything I can think of to explain what we are doing. I’ve even invited anyone who wants to to visit us and see for themselves what we are doing and what we are dealing with. I’ve tried to be open and honest but I’m at a loss now with some users. I’m going to have my weekend now. I’ve done 13 days straight and the team here (all 11) have been pushed to their limits and yet keep coming in every day. But the biggest stress in all our lives right now comes from this forum. Which is our forum. That we invite anyone and everyone to use for no direct cost.   Many in here will not be aware of the times I’ve stood up to third parties demanding their censure, even when accompanied by silly legal threats against us. And they never will.

But this site needs to change or it will no longer exist. It needs pulling apart from the roots and it will take us time do do that. We have limited resources (ie no spare cash) and so it will take longer than you or I would wish it to. But there it is. We all have choices to make. You can stick with us or not. You can subscribe and help us or cancel and go elsewhere.

Im here at 11pm posting this from a train on my way home from 3 days at the bike show. I’ve answered direct emails from some of you on the way. I’m really tired. But I’m doing this because I absolutely DO give all the shits about about Singletrack and how you all use it. When someone describes the editorial content we link to as ‘that crap’ it actually hurts.

If you want to help us then keep on pointing out bugs. If you want to make us wonder what else we could all do with our lives that would be easier then keep calling what we do crap and slinging insults at me and the rest of the team here who work really **** hard for not a lot of financial gain. And if you really really want to help us build a better website and forum then subscribe.

i have nothing left to say right now  so thanks to all those who are supporting us right now. I’m going to sleep until Sunday so please keep the noise down

cheers

Mark

I’d  insert a winky in, but they’ve gone.

<edit>  insert rolley eyes <edit>

Hmm – winkys worked the way they’ve worked since the dawn of the internet – “; )” gives you 😉 if you remove the space.

For the latter, try “: roll :” without spaces for 🙄

When someone describes the editorial content we link to as ‘that crap’ it actually hurts.

Ignore it, people are just venting, and it was a ridiculous comment. And yes, I know I’ve written things which have pissed you off, for which I’m sorry. I do think some of the criticism is justified, but a lot of it isn’t. But I hope most of us support what you’re doing (I’ve certainly written enough times that I’m completely behind the change happening and understand the reasons for it).

Mark

Which is our forum.

I totally agree with that ^^^.

I point out bugs.

No complain from me coz I think the site is nice.  Very clean look.

The site will be even better if I am promoted to Mod status.    🙂

I can offer my service as Mod if everyone agrees.  😀

The site will be even better if I am promoted to Mod status.

I suggest sending them an e-mail offering your services, nobody here would want them to miss out on such an offer. I expect with you doing the job they could get rid of Drac and Cougar and save a load of money which could be spent on employing another couple of devs. Heck, even scotroutes might be surplus to requirements.

The site will be even better if I am promoted to Mod status. 🙂

I can offer my service as Mod if everyone agrees. 😀

ROFL! 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

JoeG
ROFL!

I am missing me smileys   😀

The underline function works in preview but not when Submit. 🙁

What platform (OS / browser)?

regarding the “REPLY” buttons bottom right of a post. Those just seem to take you to the reply box, but they do it so slowly that they’re currently totally pointless

Reply is pretty broken.  I suspect it was a default ‘feature’ from the upgrade and hasn’t yet been looked at.

Ignore it,

I’d hazard that he’s been trying and has been getting a kicking for doing so in the process.

Cougar   Subscriber

The underline function works in preview but not when Submit.

What platform (OS / browser)?

Win7 Sp1 & Firefox 58.02 (64 bit)

Cougar  Subscriber

The underline function works in preview but not when Submit. (also can’t do quote within quote)    🙁

What platform (OS / browser)?

<span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Testing underline</span>

Edit – as above, looked fine in preview, didn’t work on submit. Win 10 PC, Firefox 58.0.2

Can I do <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>underlined text</span>?

EDIT: Nope. Chrome Version 64.0.3282.167 (Official Build) (64-bit), MacOS 10.13.3 (17D47)

Any chance of having all the forums linked at the top of each forum page, like it used to be? Now you have to go back to the front forum page to change between forums, which is frustrating.

Is there anyway to stop the news, reviews, forum, opinion, features, magazine, shop, subscribe bar thingy from being superimposed over the words I am trying to read when scrolling down? It makes me feel nauseous. I’m on firefox on windows pc.

This is still happening for me. It goes away if I zoom out but then I can’t read the text so well. It only becomes an issue on the third level of Ctrl +. Is there an easy way to make it stop?

There is no way I am going to read through the gazillions of posts above, but I am familiar with at least some of the complaints.

Whatever the case, and however much it might come across like arse-kissing, can I just say that I really like the improvements so far? I know I’m not the most critical guy around, but regardless, I think if I was visiting the site for the first time today, I would be impressed.

That is all.

Forum is now perfectly ok.

Would like the activity button back though, and move the forum more centrally – or widen the gap between it and the watermark

The submit button keeps changing to a jump to first post on page button. Weird.

The transparent menu bar thing seems to be a feature of Firefox (and maybe some mobile browsers, I don’t know).  It’s fine on other desktop browsers.  In fact the site rendered quite differently generally on Firefox last time I looked.

I don’t know if this is a database glitch or what, but currently on page 2 of the chat forum there is a thread about the cost of Intense bikes with a bike forum logo. But it’s in the chat forum.

Thought it worth mentioning in case it’s something that needs looking into on a wider scale (i.e if it’s more of a widespread issue)

I’ll take a screenshot that I can upload if required.

Ahh… my thing was on a poor data connection it seems… so just a failure to post, with no feedback on the button I suspect.

@stumpy01 – Thanks.  We know about this.  It’s not a problem with the database, it happens when we try to move threads posted on the wrong forum – it changes the logo but doesn’t actually move the thread.

How on earth are yo supposed to quote now?  typing it in don’t work, hitting bolck quote don’t work?  How do I quote folk?