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ROLL IT BACK

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 4,786 ✭✭✭Doctors room ghost


    Boards needs to go back to the way it was.this new version is cat malodeon.

    cant find anything on it.

    its a pity.was a great site



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,495 ✭✭✭Will I Am Not


    Talk to… the hand.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,393 ✭✭✭Dubh Geannain


    You used to be able to use a search function within a forum when doing word searches. Now all there seems to be is a general site search which throw out loads of irrelevant posts and threads.



  • Boards.ie Employee Posts: 12,597 ✭✭✭✭✭Boards.ie: Niamh
    Boards.ie Community Manager


    @Beirut You can email hello@boards.ie or datarequests@boards.ie to request your account be closed (and anonymised).



  • Registered Users Posts: 53,756 ✭✭✭✭Headshot


    That would mean they actually care about boards or the community which obviously they don't judging from this awful site and lack of communication

    Not a peep out of CEO, Odhran and his ilk

    They don't give a **** about us



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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,406 ✭✭✭✭The Nal


    Question - is this the worst "upgrade" you've ever seen on a website?

    Geuinely cant think of a worse one.



  • Registered Users Posts: 86 ✭✭Final Approach


    I mis-read this and thought it said : those in charge are having an emergency meeting to discuss pulling the plug on this new platform...

    The wave of relief that washed over me, I was like "YESSS!!!"............to then realise my mistake : (

    To those in charge/responsible for this "upgrade". I am a very long time lurker, and despite not contributing much over the years, I have boards.ie bookmarked on my phone and would casually take a read of various threads/forums 5 - 6 times a day. Boards for me is (or was) a fantastic source of news, opinions, and general entertainment. It was a very small, but a significant enough part of my daily life to miss it more than I thought I would. I am speaking in the past tense, as, along with many others it seems, I feel that these changes have ruined the experience for me - probably enough to give up using the site. It is irritating as it is disappointing, because it really was one of my go-to sites for several reasons.

    I can only imagine how those that are used to spending more time and energy than myself on this site than must feel like.

    Please, for those of us that really enjoyed board.ie for everything it used to be, ROLL IT BACK! (It really is worse than you might realise. Really).



  • Registered Users Posts: 350 ✭✭Elwood_Blues


    Thanks for the tip.. I've signed up and gonna keep calling Boards and gubu to see who comes to me first... In all seriousness, the migration approach wasn't great. Will still give boards a chance to see if things improve but will be cheating on it with gubu.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,243 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    Realistically though as much as we all want it to happen, it's never going to happen is it? The die has been cast.

    I'd love to hear from someone who actually knows something about this. It's all very well for us to be screaming ROLL IT BACK without having the faintest clue if it's possible.

    I know fck all about the development side of things. How desperate was the situation that it required a total change like this? How irretrievable is it?

    Boards is still busyish, but traffic is way, way down. There's threads still on the front page of AH that haven't had a new post since 10 o clock yesterday morning. That's a crazy level of declined activity for such a previously busy forum.

    You go into previously bustling threads now and you might find a handful of posts. The only place where some action is is these feedback threads where 90% of the contributions are voicing frustration. And unlike previous threads that become places for people to vent, it isn't just cranks. There's long time users and even moderators queuing up to say how much it all sucks.

    There's not a single person using this site that prefers it this way.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,861 ✭✭✭fancy pigeon


    I wouldn't imagine it's too easy to roll back. We've had a fair few changes over the years but I would (begrudgingly) eventually get used to the new site if the full functionality was there. Like when I want to go to the most recent post, but it just brings me to the start of the thread. Or no differentiation between stickys and threads


    There's a lot of niggly bits that make the experience miserable and I hope they get sorted in due time



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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,139 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    This often happens when a site gets totally revamped to be fair. The problem is that the old site had years of effort in its creation with functionality and tweaks added here and there that the users liked. This all has to be recreated in the new site. With one dev it will take months at best.

    I am not knowledgeable enough to know why vbulletin had to go but it's clear that not even 10% of the necessary testing went into the new site - especially for a site that needs to hit the ground running. That said, I don't think a roll back is a realistic request either.

    I know boards owes me nothing nor I them and they don't have to answer to me. It is sad to see such a great resource go down the swanee though. But all great projects ultimately end in failure.



  • Politics Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,655 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    Let me preface this by saying that I am posting my opinion rather than as site admin. It's fair to say that we are all struggling with the new forum software until changes have been made - mods and admin as well as regular users. And I do think that Niamh and Mark have tried to be as transparent as possible with where areas of focus are right now, namely site speed and navigation. vBulletin -> Vanilla was never going to be a like for like migration in all areas, particularly with 20 years worth of content, vBulletin hacks and so on. I imagine that once core issues have been sorted, issues that are more shopfront facing and visible to the user will be addressed. But I understand that it can be frustrating when what's being worked with under the bonnet isn't always immediately visible.

    For those saying, "roll it back", "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and so on, I do think there is an element of rose tinted glasses or convenient ignoring of the truth going on, depending on how you look at it. To the best of my technical knowledge in this area, vBulletin, or at least the revision used by boards, was never designed for the amount of traffic Boards received. Nor the size of the threads that endured on the site. Multiple hacks were incorporated into the site over the years to implement certain functionality, to address database issues and so on. The software as it stood was most definitely broke in that it had reached its capacity, and people are forgetting the myriad of 503 errors, freezes, and so on. My personal opinion is that an upgrade to the forum software wasn't just necessary, but long overdue, and that Boards simply wouldn't have been able to continue in any reasonable capacity on its existing platform.

    That's not an argument that the site as it is right now is something I'd wish to stay in place, but I do believe it's a far more stable platform to build on than the previous, outdated, hacked together vBulletin platform, and I think that with some time and patience, the functionality that we all want can be brought back in a far more stable form. Again, personal opinion rather than any great insight into what's happening behind the scenes, but I imagine that once things have settled with the new platform, development time can actually be pointed towards improving the user experience, rather than almost all development time put towards keeping the site up and running, which I believe was the case in the past.

    Just my 0.02c...



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,795 ✭✭✭✭Discodog


    The question is will the few posters using it hang around until it's finally fixed & then will Boards be able to attract the additional posters to replace the ones that have left or just given up ? I can't see a way that Boards comes out of this mess with more traffic.


    By the way Tokyo it's a good job you mentioned Admin as there's nothing to say your an Admin :)



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,139 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    There are some issues with that comment. Boards traffic is way way down on its heyday of 2010/11, so it was not traffic issues. Granted the database is bigger than ever before but a much much simpler solution would have been to archive threads that have seen no action in say 5 years. I don't know why that wasn't the road taken but that's somewhat besides the point. The key point is that the migration has been a complete and utter shambles. The team were obviously not at all ready for it.

    You might think that's easy for me to say, captain of infinite wisdom hiding behind the keyboard but at the moment at work in managing a technical transition too. Failure is not an option in any sense. We must embed the new technology and it cannot result in downtime or lost data. That's why it's a parallel project, executed on the new system and copied to the old at the end of the day. Yes, we don't see the productivity gains all immediately, in fact it's probably negative and expensive but when the system is mature and we are comfortable we will drop the evening copy. As I said failure is not an option.

    Traffic is critical for this site to survive as a business and the move is killing it. I cannot for the life of me understand why this transition was carried out in such a half baked careless manner - since the staffs jobs depend on it being a success. It was obvious to everyone, that while a lot of effort had gone into the template, it wasn't in the ballpark of being ready, it's an alpha stage release.

    That said, those hoping for a roll back are not going to get it, it's vanilla or bust at this stage.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    [Tokyo said:] I am posting my opinion rather than as site admin. ....... I do believe it's a far more stable platform to build on than the previous, outdated, hacked together vBulletin platform, and I think that with some time and patience, the functionality that we all want can be brought back in a far more stable form. [/tokyo said]


    With all due respect, that comes across as the opinion of a site admin or a techie who looks under the bonnet to see the arcane stuff that the rest of us mere mortals neither know nor care about and says: "Hey that's neat! Compared to what it was." What he/she hasn't considered is what the users experience, ie the basic access and navigational controls of how to use the site.

    [Tokyo also said] I imagine that once things have settled with the new platform, development time can actually be pointed towards improving the user experience, [/tokyo also said]

    IMPROVE?????

    How about starting with "Retain"?

    You/they have thrown out the baby with the bath water. The user experience has been completely sacrificed to please the techies. For example, when I tried to quote these two sentences from your post to reply to you, the only option offered is to quote your entire post!!!! You used to be able to click "Quote", the entire post would appear and then you could delete all but the line or lines you wanted. Now, to do the same thing, I have to manually cut and paste each phrase. And that's just a minor gripe.

    How on EARTH is it a good idea to completely disregard how users access the site just to make some under the bonnet modifications that, I'll take your word for it, might have been necessary?

    It's like taking your car in for a service and on collection finding that the garage has taken out the seats, disconnected the radio, reprogrammed the dashboard computer so that it now appears in Kanji and saying "Hey your oil and air filters were in rag order but now they're brand spanking new and we've also replaced the head gasket! You'll really notice the improved compression. Did you really want those seats anyway?"

    I'm all for making techies' lives easier and reducing their stress levels by limiting the amount of repetitive crap they have to deal with but this is the sort of heedless "upgrade" that gives techies a bad name.

    Was this performed by the BOFH?

    Looks like it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,935 ✭✭✭Glaceon


    Definitely can't see a rollback happening for the reasons outlined in @Tokyo's post above. Also because it would result in the loss of all data from the Vanilla version and I couldn't see a "reverse migration" being done for those. I'm guessing that migrating to a supported version of vBulletin was probably not possible due to the amount of hacks and mods made to it over the years.

    I don't know the ins and outs of this but I feel it could have been handled better. I don't understand why it wasn't possible to beta test the new environment before going live because the state it came back in had definitely left a sour taste in many people's mouths. As did the long downtime to migrate it (was it not possible to take a live snapshot followed by an incremental sync during downtime?). Even the much-hated responsive site didn't produce such a serious reaction, although in fairness it wasn't mandatory either.



  • Registered Users Posts: 35,339 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    That says it all


    Lik


    e



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,139 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    90% of the data since the migration has been about complaining about the migration.

    They really should go live with a parallel vbulletin old.boards.ie while they fix this.

    And when it's actually ready then kill the old site.



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    Is it possible to close an account and remove all posts? I know the official answer but two well known posters (Fratton Fred and Srameen) come to mind as posters with huge numbers of posts who seem to have removed everything.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,913 ✭✭✭✭ben.schlomo


    It literally says Admin under their name. A lot of people's complaints re speed and not being able find things seem very odd as I've no speed issues and don't find it difficult to find anything now that I know where the soccer forum is. Is it down to the browsers people are using? I'm on chrome on mobile and find it no better or worse than the old site for speed.

    My only gripes are similar to an above post mentioning no differentiation between sticky and threads. No name of user and last post time in a thread. No email updates for threads, as far as I can see.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 15,795 ✭✭✭✭Discodog




  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    You have to click on profile and then go there to find out whether a poster is what they claim to be.



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,121 ✭✭✭mossie




  • Registered Users Posts: 6,335 ✭✭✭SouthWesterly


    I can see he's an admin.


    I can live with the new design but having to search for forums I use is madness. Definitely my usage is, way down.


    Rollback won't happen and a parralel site isn't workable as it builds up data which will then have to be transferred

    Disappointed that the menu fix didn't work. Not seen an explanation for it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,795 ✭✭✭✭Discodog




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,121 ✭✭✭mossie


    It shows admin on mobile but not on desktop. Another glitch I guess



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,710 ✭✭✭podgeandrodge


    You "literally" should make sure you're right without having a go at other people 😆



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,913 ✭✭✭✭ben.schlomo


    Well I was right, it literally says it under their name. I'm on the mobile site. I can't be accountable to others choices to use a desktop. 😄



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  • Politics Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,655 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    ^^ I think we're getting hung up on the wrong thing here :) Mobile site shows user titles, but it seems that the custom layout for the desktop site doesn't yet.



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