Dec 26, 2019

i've had some unfortunate pressing family matters arise.. will be a few more days before i pick back up on this conversation.

 

Dec 26, 2019

I know who it was but it wasn't theg.

 

Jan 5, 2020

going to begin addressing everything now... might take a bit, but will group into categories of comments..

 

Jan 5, 2020

Spoiler: quotes

Interface / 3.0 v 2.0 / Let's Revert
one of the biggest hitters, so i want to show side-by-side comparisons between 2.0 & 3.0, to provide a clear view of the evolution + some context on why things were done, and to discuss the blanket statements of where the "revert to 2.0" posts comes from and/or the opposing pro-3.0 praises. I'll dig into some of the quoted messages in the spoiler on a deeper-level in another post since there's some variance and specifics in each, but each of you/these posts touched on the interface/usability, so quoting y'all here. there were a few posts about the alert system as well, which i'll reserve another post for...

throughout the post (+ the many more to come), i want to stay focused on the discussion point of this thread: how to grow the forum. In this case/topic, that would mean: how to make current members more involved/active + how to make the site be more appealing to guests.

i'm obviously passionate about the work that went into 3.0, but plz don't interpret this post as me on my defensive.

PM / Profile / Misc views:
haven't heard any complaints on these...feel free to at this time

Thread view:


SXN view:


Homepage:


...it's really difficult to understand the generalization of the disdain for 3.0 when looking at the two side-by-side thread view and sxn view images. If it's just the homepage, then I can wrap my head around the input. But where i've struggled to understand is where the thread and sxn views aren't in nearly every way better on 3.0 than on 2.0 (minus the lack of users viewing thread, which: i hear you). I knew at the time of conception that having the floating reply box would come with some hesitation to some, which is why at the time of launch, the ability to revert to the original / 2.0 version was baked in (@JMG), though this was one thing that i know is a better experience (on desktop), hence the floating being the default.

a little add'l info on the reply box that blends into other areas: i truly didn't want to develop the option to revert to the old reply box because i know that the floating one is the far superior option on desktop, but this was something i knew i'd have to put in the time to try to please everyone, else face nastygrams...which is a big theme here: trying to develop a platform that pleases everyone...which isn't easy (or possible, tbh) and is where there's been so much contention. And on the flipside, there's been input on several occasions that there's "too many options" -- another catch-22: adding a setting to revert to old functionality in an attempt to make everybody happy is then perceived as there being too many options...difficult.

one of the focused objectives for 3.0 was to inject new ways to increase posting throughput. reply box always available, displaying recent posts in the sidebar, quick following of mention groups, quick mentioning of message groups (icon to the left of "reply" shows the relevant groups to the sxn), creating new threads w/o having to leave the current page, etc., etc.. when looking at these side-by-side comparisons today, i still think that this objective was nailed, while also enhancing the overall look and screen real estate. Please let me know if you see anything in the sxn/thread views that I'm blinded by when now seeing these fairly compared alongside one another.
tbph, i haven't heard anybody say "3.0 is great, minus just the homepage view"...and that's pretty bothersome, even now when re-visiting the two versions side-by-side..

...now onto the homepage:
thought process on where the homepage derived: the 2.0/1.0/SL/D12W view is the industry standard, in that nearly every forum you go to has the same, imo stale, interface: show the SXNs, with the 1 latest post from each sxn. My thought: what a waste of space -- the SXNs can be shown in a much much more condensed/horizontal view, and you can see not just 6 (1 per SXN) latest posts, but many many more, giving a wider view of the content, increasing views/posts across multiple forums that you otherwise may not pay as much attention to. Again: increased transparency of what's going on across the forum, in the hopes to help gain interest in other areas that you may otherwise have historically not cared about, and to increase posting/interaction throughput. Again, I/we knew that 2.0 was on a steady decline, and this was another [large] effort to help boost activity and inject more life into the forum.

where this has fallen flat:

1. people don't love change, and changing the landing page entirely is understandably a pretty d--- large adjustment
2. many of us visit more than one forum and are simply accustomed to what my opinion of being a "stale" and "waste of space" is; thinking outside the box here, for what i honestly still do believe makes logical sense, simply wasn't (and may never be) received with praise, for the yearn of the familiarity of the "standard"
3. at a glance, you can see the latest post for the SXN(s) that you're truly interested in; this comes at the expense of not seeing a much wider range of threads across the forum (and only seeing a maximum of 1 post from that sxn). my best interpretation is that it's likely that people like to stay in their personal lane of interest and may not want to see the full array

^ please add to this list, or shed some add'l thoughts on the ones that i've come to believe above. i feel as though i could argue against these 3 points still and would love a back and forth on this

...would enabling the ability to revert to the old homepage view put the broad stroke complaints of 3.0 being a failure to rest? tbh, i had spent hours attempting to do so and came up flat due to the deeper/core add-ons that were developed to make the 3.0 view possible; i could re-investigate to see what can be done. that said, it's a double-edged sword imo, as many people have given praise (ex: @Sav Stanfield 's post above), while many others absolutely hate the new page. I strongly agree with @UnoDeuce 's quoted post above, in that if i feel strongly about a change, then i'm going to make it...the internet evolves and that was the interest here. that said, i'm not deaf -- the voice of those who dislike it has been louder than those who do, and many guests may share that same voice/opinion..
Please help elaborate on some of this.

@Evad , i would love to take you up on your offer to do a homepage mockup -- there's more than 1 (or 2) ways to make something effectively work, so I'm not claiming that 3.0 is the *best* solution, nor am i dismissing that 2.0 had some offerings as well...fresh eyes from someone in the industry would be wonderful.

 

Jan 5, 2020

that'll be one of hte next round of posts i approach... i'm trying to bucket the several trends of responses through this thread together. for now: i'm not sure what's going on with it, so i gotta look into that further, but i'll do something similar to the above post and dig in and find all of the similar feedback to grab those folks' together.

 

Jan 5, 2020

basically saying: pick a direction and stick with it? i didn't think we've wavered from that. always been a music-driven/focused discussion board first, life / culture / etc as a secondary focus. can you elab?

 

Jan 5, 2020

@KING NAME i forgot to include your quote about 2.0 v 3.0 in my post above -- check the long one and continue the discussion plz

 

Jan 5, 2020

@Slyk when I say I miss 2.0 I really just mean the homepage being a list of the boards. I think that's pretty much what people always wanted back was the traditional forum home page and what they mean by they liked 2.0 more. The thread view and everything is way cleaner for sure.

And the taking you to your most recent unread post in a thread or at least the latest post would be a godsend.

 

Jan 5, 2020

@Papa Alpha Andy same for you -- just noticed you had part of your post that agreed with some of the sentiments of the homepage... feel free to peep the above post to elab/braindstorm with the crew

 

Jan 5, 2020

d---, i missed yours as well, @Dirty F

 

Jan 6, 2020

Spoiler: quotes

Not Jumping to the Last Unread Post
rejoice, MFers . this ***should*** be fixed now. As long as the last post in the thread you've viewed is from the past 100 days, it will accurately track your last post/page viewed and take you there instead of going to page 1 every time.

it'll start now, meaning that the next time you enter the thread/page, it'll start tracking then, so if jumping into a thread you've viewed already rn, it won't respect it, but once you view that thread one time now, it'll know where to pick back up when you jump back in a second time.

someone please confirm.

@Boos i've also corrected the issue you had here, where the dropdown -> go to first unread wasn't working. holla.

 

Jan 6, 2020

per above, clicking on a thread should hopefully be fixed now and will auto-take you to where you left off.

have you had a chance to view the side by side images of 2.0 to 3.0 a few posts up? seeing those, i tend to disagree with you that 2.0 was simpler enough as to it warranting discussion between the two rn-- again, unless we're strictly referring to the homepage (which IS significantly different).
thread view: identical, minus we now have a sidebar & you can jump to the other sxns up top..if you recall, we actually had a sidebar in 2.0 for a few months and people loved it, but it had to be removed due to some technical issues at the time
sxn view: same thing.
...this goes back to what i said in my large post above that comments on 2.0 vs 3.0 are painted with broad strokes. if you really do mean that you think 2.0 was simpler across all aspects (outside of the homepage), then hit me with some more detail. but if it's the homepage that we're really talking about, then that part i understand.