Proposed changes to site look

Gits_bone

Discodog wrote: »

I like the basic old layout. I am not a dinosaur but I just find it much easier to use & navigate when I can do it on autopilot without having to think.

No offence to the developers here but there is this urge to constantly change. After all that's what developers do. But, in my experience, newer isn't always better. The worse thing is when change is imposed without choices. There should always be the option to retain the old look. Boards isn't a typical site. For some of us it has become part of our daily routine. A change that we don't like can be maddening.

I prefer it when devs allow users to adjust the view with a good range of settings. G Mail upset a lot of people when they made a major change. They eventually added settings to the menu that gave the new design the look of the old but with the functionality of the new. The emphasis should be on choice rather than just imposing a new look.

I recently updated to Lollipop. I love some of the functionality but hate the round icons & "new" look. Because of the flexibility of Android I could retain everything that I liked & still have the new system.

It's all very reddit-y.

And if boards becomes the same as reddit then it's goodnight hogan.

Sideshow Mark

Gits_bone wrote: »

It's all very reddit-y.

And if boards becomes the same as reddit then it's goodnight hogan.

You don't last 17 years in social media without ripping off the competition adapting to current trends in the online space.

Gits_bone

Sideshow Mark wrote: »

You don't last 17 years in social media without ripping off the competition adapting to current trends in the online space.

Boards I believe is making a loss and the only thing that's being done is increasing advertising space to sell.

nesf

Gits_bone wrote: »

Boards I believe is making a loss and the only thing that's being done is increasing advertising space to sell.

Are you saying that trying to stop the site from making a loss is a bad idea? It's no longer the case for the whole internet that a banner ad or two can make ends meet.

Gits_bone

nesf wrote: »

Are you saying that trying to stop the site from making a loss is a bad idea? It's no longer the case for the whole internet that a banner ad or two can make ends meet.

I like version 2 but there's some things I don't like about it.

I like the current ribbon at the top for browsing other forums.

It does look thought that they are following the reddit theme. And if you're going toe to toe with reddit then there will be a lot of users lost to it.

DUB0207-old

Version number 2

nesf

Gits_bone wrote: »

I like version 2 but there's some things I don't like about it.

I like the current ribbon at the top for browsing other forums.

It does look thought that they are following the reddit theme. And if you're going toe to toe with reddit then there will be a lot of users lost to it.

I disagree, other than having a sidebar it doesn't look very much like Reddit. Way more "just more 2015 than 2005."

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the UI change much but as someone use uses and likes Reddit a lot I think calling this copying Reddit is nonsense. I'd be much more in favour of change if they were actually doing that, threaded conversations work far better for most things in my view and being able to up/down vote threads could be interesting.

Mars Bar

I don't mind it looking similar to reddit as long as it isn't "threaded" (I think that's the word) like reddit.

AlanS181824

Both look very good and I'd be happy to use either.

One thing I like about the Talk To forums is that when you post there's a little animation which isn't present in any other threads.

Was this intentional? I'd love to see it site-wide, nice to have some pretty animations! :pac:

Zaph

Reddit is an abomination that's impossible to read because of those threaded views. I don't mind if the upgrade includes them for those who want them, as long as they're not the default and you can still read things in the current format.

coffee_cake

I'll be honest, I've heard a LOT of people say "i've heard of reddit but I found it impossible to use so I never joined". I don't think it's a road we want boards going down when the idea is to be more user friendly


Having the OP at the top sounds lovely when the OP is 2 lines.
When you're in PI and it's nearly a novel, that is just not going to work. You know all those times people quote the OP and we say "ffs stop it, I'm not scrolling past all that?"... like that but worse.

User info on the left is vital for quick glances at stuff, mod related or otherwise. Join date comes in handy a lot.

Usual issue with too much whitespace and needing alternating shading like we do now.


The view of sticky threads etc on the right seems nice.

I think hiding the categories away will make it even less obvious for new people that there is an apt place for their topics, and I don't know about anyone else but I really use those dropdowns a lot and don't want extra clicks going hunting for them.
Reddit only has a small number of default fora showing on the homepage and you've to go hunting for the rest. Granted they have about 5 million subreddits so it's more of a genuine issue, but trying that on boards would mean a lot less traffic for a lot of the fora, imo, because they might be harder to find
Also I don't know about anyone else but that straight line menu thing always means settings to me, not "here's more topics we hid away". (or are you saying it's in browse? i dont know??)
If you can find a way of tidying up the existing categories or doing more filters instead, then leaving them at the top like now, I think that would be a better plan

Honestly though I think what we have is more user friendly now.
The new views look like they're going to overwhelm new people, while losing functionality for existing ones

Ehhh sorry I know you guys appreciate constructive criticism and I'm trying to be positive, I just can't, and all that white still makes it harder to look at for more than 4 seconds =/

nesf

Zaph wrote: »

Reddit is an abomination that's impossible to read because of those threaded views. I don't mind if the upgrade includes them for those who want them, as long as they're not the default and you can still read things in the current format.

Having threading as an option is worse than pointless, if you want threading to work properly it has to be the default otherwise you have a mess where replies to posts are not shown as replies in threaded view because a post didn't quote the post they were replying to and the system cannot know to mark it as a reply to the first post.

Not arguing for it as a default or anything, I think there would be too much resistance to such a change.

Into The Blue

Zaph wrote: »

Reddit is an abomination that's impossible to read because of those threaded views

Happy days, I thought I was missing something/getting old

Discodog

nesf wrote: »

Are you saying that trying to stop the site from making a loss is a bad idea? It's no longer the case for the whole internet that a banner ad or two can make ends meet.

Maybe the owners should be more open about it rather than trying to sneak in extra adds. I am sure that we would all appreciate honesty & we want the site to continue. If there is a revenue problem then how about a forum to discuss the ways to increase it without upsetting the users ?

Are people really put off by the look of Boards ? It seems to me that the trend is for shorter comment. Maybe the new, possibly younger posters, have a low boredom threshold

Out of curiosity I took a look at Reddit - I won't be back.

Gits_bone

Into The Blue wrote: »

Happy days, I thought I was missing something/getting old

Reddit is the best site on the internet. It has everything you need/want.

People always say they don't know how to use it so they don't give it a chance. You need to create an account and then mess around for a few hours.

Want to see the highest rated comment in a post? Can do that.
Want to see the most controversial comment in a post? Can do that.
Want to see the newest comments in a post? Can do that.

Wouldn't work on boards unless it was the default way of doing it as others have said.

nesf

Discodog wrote: »

Maybe the owners should be more open about it rather than trying to sneak in extra adds.

They're showing a mock-up of the new layout, ads included, they tell us they're moving the sponsored threads to the right sidebar. We can easily see what's different to the current logged out view (pretty much only ad size and where the sponsored links are as far as I can tell). If they're trying to sneak in extra ads they're doing a poor job of it.

_Kaiser_

Do we know yet why there's a need to tinker with the layout at all? - I get it, vBulletin = old/bad, new engine = good, but I don't see the point in change just for the sake of it.

Nor do I see the point of aping Reddit or whatever other sites Boards is trying to emulate. It's a forum, not Twitter, Facebook etc... if you want to improve it and get more hits do things like...

- Improving the mobile apps. The Android one anyway is worse than the touch site (which itself isn't bad actually)
- Enough with the overzealous "please don't sue" moderation that has threads shut down/locked for no real reason
- Consistency is key. There are forums where moderation is wayy too severe, others where it's barely present at all leading to trainwrecks

Maybe a (very prominent) survey as to why people come here and what they like/dislike might be useful? Multiple choice with additional comments for each question to keep it consistent.
I say this as this thread in itself is talking about a fairly significant change to the functionality of the site and has only 107 posts to-date.. mostly from regs and mods.

Gits_bone

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Do we know yet why there's a need to tinker with the layout at all? - I get it, vBulletin = old/bad, new engine = good, but I don't see the point in change just for the sake of it.

Nor do I see the point of aping Reddit or whatever other sites Boards is trying to emulate. It's a forum, not Twitter, Facebook etc... if you want to improve it and get more hits do things like...

- Improving the mobile apps. The Android one anyway is worse than the touch site (which itself isn't bad actually)
- Enough with the overzealous "please don't sue" moderation that has threads shut down/locked for no real reason
- Consistency is key. There are forums where moderation is wayy too severe, others where it's barely present at all leading to trainwrecks

Maybe a (very prominent) survey as to why people come here and what they like/dislike might be useful? Multiple choice with additional comments for each question to keep it consistent.
I say this as this thread in itself is talking about a fairly significant change to the functionality of the site and has only 107 posts to-date.. mostly from regs and mods.

Agree with everything.

I don't know why boards can't create a term and condition where they accept no responsibility for what's posted on the site.

What is the difference between me slandering someone on facebook and on boards?

evolving_doors

Gits_bone wrote: »

Agree with everything.

I don't know why boards can't create a term and condition where they accept no responsibility for what's posted on the site.

What is the difference between me slandering someone on facebook and on boards?

The difference is that you can't slander someone on boards... and rightly so. Why would anyone feel the need to slander someone anyway?

Zaph

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

- Enough with the overzealous "please don't sue" moderation that has threads shut down/locked for no real reason
- Consistency is key. There are forums where moderation is wayy too severe, others where it's barely present at all leading to trainwrecks

What have either of these got to do with how the site looks or functions technically?

Gits_bone

Armelodie wrote: »

The difference is that you can't slander someone on boards... and rightly so. Why would anyone feel the need to slander someone anyway?

Sigh. It was an example of one thing not allowed on boards because of the "I'm going to sue" thing. Can't even mention where to watch streams now.

Zaph

Gits_bone wrote: »

Can't even mention where to watch streams now.

Well take that up with Mr. Sherlock and his buddies in government rather than directing your displeasure at Boards.

_Kaiser_

Zaph wrote: »

What have either of these got to do with how the site looks or functions technically?

My point was that rather than trying to fix things that aren't broken (in terms of the current design and functionality) there are far better steps that could be taken to increase traffic to the site and revenue AND improve the overall experience as well.

Boards (a bit like Adverts last year) seems to have forgotten what the site is about and why people come here because of this drive to emulate other successful sites.. As I said, this isn't Facebook, Twitter, reddit or whatever they're aiming for and people come to Boards for completely different reasons to the above.

It seems to me that there's far too much effort going into tinkering with the display settings and not enough into assessing some of the deeper issues that would put people off using the site and indeed finding ways to highlight the uniqueness of Boards vs those others instead.

28064212

Gits_bone wrote: »

What is the difference between me slandering someone on facebook and on boards?

Two things:

1. Facebook's owners aren't in Irish jurisdiction
2. Facebook's legal department's annual operating budget is a rather large multiple of Boards' combined gross revenue for the last 10 years

Gits_bone

28064212 wrote: »

Two things:

1. Facebook's owners aren't in Irish jurisdiction
2. Facebook's legal department's annual operating budget is a rather large multiple of Boards' combined gross revenue for the last 10 years

I wasn't aware of the sherlock law. So I retract my comment.

The law sucks, can't post replays of goals in the soccer forum either.

john the one

Totaaly off topic here and sorry about it but are we going to have an AMA with Glen Hansard?? Is that a little easter egg in the first picture?

28064212

john the one wrote: »

Totaaly off topic here and sorry about it but are we going to have an AMA with Glen Hansard?? Is that a little easter egg in the first picture?

Re-read the OP

john the one

28064212 wrote: »

Re-read the OP

silly me, boards 101

Gits_bone

john the one wrote: »

silly me, boards 101

Maybe if the OP was stuck to the top you would have seen it

Turtwig

Gits_bone wrote: »

What is the difference between me slandering someone on facebook and on boards?

Absolutely no difference to you. If you don't believe me try slandering someone on facebook who's a penchant for suing others. The difference comes from the publisher side. Facebook publishes the material just like boards does. Facebook just happens to be a monster publisher. Boards is a tiny slug that could easily be squished by any ongoing legal battle.

Getting back on topic. I don't think changing to a reddit-like interface would necessarily be a bad thing. You're not going to take a slice out of facebook or twitter. Not without seriously compromising the standard of discussion. So targeting the audiences interested in more niche discussions might be an idea. I think reddits a counter intuitive mess though. Probably best not to be spawned in its image.

There a rule somewhere that most people only spend enough time on a webpage to read 18% of its content. Boards in its current format will never appeal to that audience. If redditors are your target audience, which I doubt, then change to something like that. Other wise, get rid of the bloody white.