Considering the recent re-vamp will you continue to use boards?

DublinWriter · 21-08-2021 5:36pm

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117785592#Comment_117785592

Sorry mate, I don't engage with trolls. Too much life, too little time. Have a Coke, Snickers bar and a smile on me.

pc7 · 21-08-2021 6:36pm

No

I voted no because I’m using it less and less, maybe as improvements continue I might get drawn back in but find it a mare to use on the phone.

Flex · 21-08-2021 6:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117785636#Comment_117785636

I still remember your previous stances in Investments, Property, Irish Economy forums and so on here given your reckless, ignorant and (ill be frank) dumbass positions throughout 2008; others warning about the property crash and already occurring implosion of property prices were 'gutless 30 something year old chumps' trying to 'justify the fact they still live with their parents' due the fact they 'arent ballsy property investors', then shamelessly in the years thereafter saying that people objecting to calls for the government to raise taxes during that crash to bail out those same 'ballsy property investors' were suddenly selfish mé-féiners. Good man.

Rather than dismissing others, perhaps go enjoy your coke and snickers, and grow some humility. Boards.ie was a fun place for everyday people to pass the time. It has been ruined through carelessness. While you previously lauded such behaviour, try to learn from those errors; people are rightly annoyed and frustrated about what has transpired.

21-08-2021 7:02pm

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117785636#Comment_117785636

And yet the only person trolling, with silly comments about 'pissy' kids and vomiting, is you.

I do always enjoy the angry posters who insist that they're happy and smiling though...

elperello · 21-08-2021 9:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117785116#Comment_117785116

I use Google Chrome or Firefox on a laptop and tablet.

Nothing fancy and never use a phone to access Boards.

Others seem to be having trouble with phones.

fenris · 21-08-2021 9:42pm

No

I am using boards less and less since the re-vamp, browsing on a phone or tablet is not exactly low friction and tends towards just being frustrating, desktop is not as bad but still a bit of a pain compared to the previous version, which just worked.

Now boards is more of a repository than a living community, so some work is needed to prevent a decline into irrelevance, starting with taking the crayons off whoever has gone the form over function route.

DublinWriter · 24-08-2021 7:11pm

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117785881#Comment_117785881

I've no clue who you are, but you're quoting my posts from 13 years ago? Dude, go have a chat with yourself.

AllForIt · 31-08-2021 10:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772078#Comment_117772078

I see what I was on about is available. I found the link on the touch site which I don't normally use. Anyway bookmarked it on my PC browser.

Edit: I think the thread title should be on the top though, not the bottom, in a bigger heading size.

https://www.boards.ie/profile/comments

cj maxx · 05-09-2021 6:25pm

My pages are really long to scroll down, toomuch on page for phone. It used to take 10 mins to check my threads from my posts , now its a grag

05-09-2021 6:33pm

it’s not just lack of familiarity. It really is much more awkward to navigate. The only way I could find my posts was to bookmark the “comments” page of my profile. Took me a while to figure that one out.

I would suspect a lot of people might just find the new system either awkward or to have a steep learning curve that isn’t worth the effort.

I notice a lot of forums are much quieter now and others seem to be increasingly dominated by trolls as the regulars aren’t posting as much and the moderation seems to be patchy and less effective too, so I assume the mod tools must be less useful.

SouthWesterly · 05-09-2021 7:29pm

Browse through the Home page and have to do a search to find the few groups I still look at.usage is way down on what it was.

elperello · 06-09-2021 2:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850482#Comment_117850482

Agree about the lack of moderation.

It will finish the site off if the revamp doesn't do the job.

The place is full of re-regs and trolls running riot with ad hominems, one liners and general coarseness.

06-09-2021 3:16pm

Yeah, the old Boards prime directive of attack the post and not the poster seems to be evaporating. It’s especially evident on the COVID forum threads. I have given up even trying to participate in discussions over there.

I would assume the mods are over stretched.

The ban lists seem to have disappeared in the change over too, so I would assume a lot of the re-reg and reappearance of trolls is because of that.

In general though I think the whole flow of the site has been severely messed up

06-09-2021 3:26pm

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117785834#Comment_117785834

Thats exactly how I feel. Using it less and less. If it improves significantly, I might return, but, unlikely.

ghoulfinger · 06-09-2021 4:52pm

Yes

I speak here from the point of view of an iPhone user of Boards and, having forgiven the initial teething problems and my own ineptitude at navigating the new site, I’m still finding the latter aspect particularly irritating.

On the plus side, as I have visual problems with close-sight, I find it easier to read the current mobile site.

Bear in mind the development team has consisted of three individuals, Ódhran, Niamh and Mark, and the last very sadly died unexpectedly, having completed a course in CSS (quite a handful of coding for visual web layout which works in alliance with HTML, JavaScript and allied web development tools) and implemented it in redeveloping this website. It is a tribute to his hard work and he had hoped to carve a further career in this area had his life not been cut so tragically short.

It has left a bereaved team of two colleagues to shoulder the rest, and further develop the site. Functionality in the navigation and query facilities definitely need to be worked on, and I expect with one person down (and hopefully another soon if not already in training) that this area may considerably improve, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath for it to happen overnight.

We used to have a “visually busy” (read in my case, difficult to see) touch site with great search facilities and where I could jump reasonably quickly (site speed etc permitting) on my phone to the full site if I tried very hard to use my eyesight. The old site was particularly subject to downtimes, slow speeds and glitches. Hopefully in future the current site will regain the best of the functionality of the past. I don’t use it quite so much, but I’ll play the long game and give it a chance to improve.

Comhrá · 07-09-2021 8:06pm

Yes

I'm sticking with it for another while anyway, but only on the desktop site. I used to love browsing my favourite forums on the phone in bed early in the morning, but the new mobile site has been hobbled so much it's put a stop to that.

I still scan my regular forums but the drop in activity and dearth of new input has made my visits very much shorter and more infrequent than before.

Beasty · 07-09-2021 8:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117854017#Comment_117854017

On the specifics of the Coronavirus forum I look at pretty much all of the reports and act as I see appropriate. I can assure you that despite lack of resources all reports do get reviewed (both there and in Current Affairs, the 2 main forums that I can speak for as I actively moderate both). Sometimes it may be a day or more later, but action is taken where appropriate

Pussyhands · 07-09-2021 8:39pm

I'm having less interest in coming back.

The things which made my experience are gone.

Hover over threads for previews, notifications on my profile of threads I've commented in where I can quickly see new posts, list of users that thanked posts (visual representation) are all gone and they were vital to my experience on here.

Oh and it's very very slow. Took about 6 seconds to click into this thread on desktop.

search functionality is terrible aswell. I used to always use the search bar to quickly navigate to forums or users. Now that easy function is gone.

08-09-2021 5:00pm

Yes

It's the New Coke, Guinness Light and Gap logo change of Irish forum re-vamps.

ghoulfinger · 08-09-2021 5:03pm

Yes

Frustrating as it presently is, especially the mobile site which is the one I use due to the sheer convenience & speed of my phone, this site is a work in progress.

Below Niamh implies that the mobile site will sometime be way more usable. Fingers crossed.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058202425/state-of-the-site-and-ongoing-issues-updates

Jimmy Bottlehead · 08-09-2021 6:09pm

No

How on earth was it decided that this present incarnation would be 'good enough' to switch to? I completely empathise with having a platform that was not ideal to use, but it WORKED for the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time. It was easy to use.

Why wasn't the proposed 'revamp' tested? Why wasn't it realised pre-release that its a shambles, and the last 6-8 weeks (or whatever its been) of desperate patching, updating, etc. could have been conducted on an offline version of the site? I've worked in software development; you simply DON'T dump a ****-show of a programme / app / update onto the audience. You test it, you get feedback, you only go live with something once it's ready to go.

Ugh. This whole thing absolutely wrecks my head because it was SO avoidable.

ghoulfinger · 08-09-2021 6:28pm

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864729#Comment_117864729

I think it is simply economics on the part of the owners. A minimum number of staff, one of whom very sadly passed away during the process, all sort-of simultaneously handling the old site, the migration, the revamp, and learning along the way. They have been doing their utmost and getting little thanks, but as the site seems to be run on a shoestring I think we know where might look to point the finger.

ghoulfinger · 09-09-2021 1:27pm

Yes

One thing I’m getting fed up with is the easy-ability to unintentionally double-lost on the mobile site and lack of ready ability to delete one’s posts. This not only is a nuisance but somewhat infringes on data rights. Should be prioritised to rectify this issue.

Pussyhands · 09-09-2021 1:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864807#Comment_117864807

There's surely other forums in the world that use v.bulletin that ran into the same problems as boards did.

I also wonder what the problems were that it wasn't working correctly? The site worked fine when it had peak users years ago?

ghoulfinger · 09-09-2021 1:43pm

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117867773#Comment_117867773

There seemed to increasing downtimes. I wasn’t using Boards years ago, so can’t really comment too much about this, only going by what the admins had been saying. I would actually love to see it explained in relatively understandable terms.

Pussyhands · 09-09-2021 2:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117867813#Comment_117867813

Never noticed much downtime tbh.

I actually come across far more downtimes and errors on reddit than the old boards.

09-09-2021 3:23pm

No

Inability to delete your own post, being two features currently missing.

Usually an upgrade of this size, you would install the new version on a new server or servers, with a url of testing.boards.ie, do your QA, then invite the larger community to test it, and then when its nearly perfect, point www.boards.ie at the testing servers and voila.

The last software company I worked for, the mantra was to build for mobile first, because if it works on Mobile, it will work ok on Desktop. Its much easier than designing for desktop and then trying to make it work for mobiles - from a UI point of view. They clearly didn't do that here either.

09-09-2021 3:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117868562#Comment_117868562

You can edit your post - the three dots beside the number in the header of the post. I believe the time limit for editing is shorter than it used to be: 24 hours instead of 48.

While there's no explicit delete, you can edit the post to just contain a '.' instead

JimmyVik · 09-09-2021 3:33pm

Im so close to it now. Even today.

Its down for long periods every day.

Has just become a pain to use.

ghoulfinger · 09-09-2021 3:37pm

Yes

You can edit your own post on mobile site but not delete it. That is quite annoying if you posted something you regretted and then had edit it into some fairly nonsense post. I’m getting fed up with double and triple postings too. Niamh & Ódhran etc had asserted that they were prioritising the mobile site. I must get my heavy laptop down from its perch just to see exactly how other the version is currently working.

Considering the recent re-vamp will you continue to use boards?

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