Welcome to the new Boards.ie platform - Version 1.0 :)

Jimmy Bottlehead · 21-09-2021 2:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117917874#Comment_117917874

Not surprising at all. Down almost a fifth of visiting traffic, that's significant. Am I right in thinking that that refers to overall site visits? Because I suspect many users visit but get p1ssed off and leave without posting, which is obviously massively detrimental to a forum.

I'm on a fraction of what I used to be, and I rarely post because the place feels awful from a usability point of view. I'm clearly not the only one either.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 21-09-2021 2:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117917456#Comment_117917456

It's been like that since we changed over unfrotunately but should be rectified with a list of other changes also happening this week. I won't list them just yet in case anything changes but will post there when the updates have been made.

Muahahaha · 21-09-2021 2:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117913398#Comment_117913398

This is only one forum (Fantasy Sports) but a poster there did a comparison with this time last year

Was thinking earlier that the drop in traffic on the match day threads (and boards in general) seems quite evident now. This seasons GW5 thread has had 7.5k views/363 comments. The same gamweek last season had 21.9k views and ~200 more comments.

This seasons GW4 had 261 comments/6.1k views VS last seasons GW4 thread that had 874 comments/32.8k views.

I suppose its directly related to the site update and I suppose plenty use reddit more now as well as its more active. Kinda sad to see but what can ya do.

Ive definitely noticed that forum a fair bit quieter than it was last season. There is a caveat though that football games were more spread out last season becasue of Covid whereas this one they are back to being shown simultaneously. However I dont think that explains all off the drop off.

Another forum I used a fair bit was Food and there seems a fair drop off there too. It was never the busiest forum but it always ticked along with new posts every day. The General Chat thread has only had three posts since the beginning of September whereas before it was more active. Its sad really because there was a good community there but it seems hollowed out to me now and as a result I rarely go there whereas before Id pop in most days.

mossie · 21-09-2021 3:23pm

All the forums I follow are well down on posts. Possibly because it's harder to find those forums and harder to keep track of those you follow.

Pussyhands · 21-09-2021 3:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919958#Comment_117919958

I just a quick check of a weekly thread I participate in, the late late show thread.

Last friday's thread had 209 replies.

I checked the equivalent episode for last year in September, it had 534 replies. That's a 60% drop.

_Kaiser_ · 21-09-2021 3:58pm

Unfortunately there's no point guys... the decision was made, and now they will try to fix-forward under the limitations of the vastly more restrictive platform they've bought into (unless they customise the hell out of it it - leaving them with the same problem they started with)

I have barely been here in weeks and while I'll add as a vistor to the stats count, it's only really to see if there's been any real substantial improvements since my last look. Sad to say that it's just not happening and may never get to even where we were, never mind the improvements we were promised.

The thing that annoys me more than the complete mess that's been made of the site itself from a usability/technical front, is the attitude of those in charge. I don't mean the mods or admins, or even the front-office staff, but the owners/those who decided on this path - tone deaf to the community as usual, and with no understanding of why people still come to a discussion forum in an era of Facebooks, Twitters, Discords and others

It eventually came out that this was purely money driven because of the costs of running and maintaining the old site, but again there was surely a better way to address that before taking the drastic decision to effectively gut the site. Funding appeals (how much is raised here at Christmas), driving subscriptions (and offering increased benefits for doing so) etc.... at this stage, almost anything would have been better than the way we've ended up.

But, as usual, this will fall on deaf ears and it'll be the community who have to live with it.

pleasant Co. · 21-09-2021 4:11pm

@Boards.ie: Niamh or anyone, what is this "hosted" section that ends up with a handful of posts not being posted in their relative forums?

Pussyhands · 21-09-2021 4:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920200#Comment_117920200

Boards was brought out from under distilled media recently wasn't it? I wonder if it's all a long con to shut down the site stating decreasing user base and bigger debts?

I would wonder if Boards can sustain itself with such a drop in users.

Muahahaha · 21-09-2021 4:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920148#Comment_117920148

Yeah the weekly LLS show thread is a fair bit quieter than normal. Another litmus test will be this years Late Late Toy Show thread, Id have to look it up but iirc last year it registered more than 10,000 posts and had to go into a second thread in under 48 hours.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 21-09-2021 4:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920254#Comment_117920254

They are the forums that were Hosted on the old site but it doesn't make as much sense now as they are the same as any other forum. It's something we'll have to look at and maybe move them or merge with existing forums.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 21-09-2021 4:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920285#Comment_117920285

Boards hasn't been part of Distilled since 2015 as far as I remember, possibly 2014. At that point we became a standalone business Boards.ie Limited until 2018 when we were taken over by TheJournal.ie. In 2020 we again became a standalone company as we are now, Boards Software Ltd. There is no long con to shut down the site, surely it'd make more sense to just shut it down rather than pouring thousands of euro into it over time and then closing? The migration has not gone as intended or expected and with a small team we are doing our best to get back on top of things. We really do appreciate the people who are still here as well as those who are checking in from time to time to see what updates have occurred. We hope to have a few updates in place this week.

mossie · 21-09-2021 5:24pm

@Boards.ie: Niamh is there any real prospect of "my forums" coming back? It's my biggest issue with the new site and 90% of the reason my usage of the site has dropped a lot. Also the categories navigation on desktop - is this going to return to a drop down at some stage, and if not can the current categories box be made available on all pages and maybe "float" so it's always to hand?

xtal191 · 21-09-2021 9:18pm

I cant believe there's still no dark mode yet

gozunda · 22-09-2021 12:52am

Is it just me or when doing a search for posts - only "oldest" and "best match" options work? The "recent" option when selected gives no results at all.

Glitch or switched off?

If this option worked- at least this would provide an alternative to "my forums" tab which has disappeared.

HeidiHeidi · 22-09-2021 2:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922171#Comment_117922171

Search function is completely useless as far as I can tell. Unless there's some magic trick I'm missing.

I used to be able to get the odd relevant result from searching on the old site, but it's a complete waste of time in the new incarnation.

Such a shame, as so many other navigation functions are gone/broken as well.

Cookie_Monster · 22-09-2021 2:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920623#Comment_117920623

my forums is back and works, at least page 1 does. after that it goes all pear shaped

sioda · 22-09-2021 9:17am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922258#Comment_117922258

On mobile? Mines just a list of forums but no way of telling of any new activity, or I can just have a list of threads from all the fora combined which is a pain tbh

Kingp35 · 22-09-2021 9:36am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922258#Comment_117922258

I'm fairly sure mossie means the drop down menu of the forums you are subscribed to, not the list of threads. The drop down list was how I navigated Boards, it needs to come back.

I also can't believe that 'Mark Forum Read' has not come back yet on Desktop site. Surely this is an absolute basic feature of any forum.

GBX · 22-09-2021 10:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922565#Comment_117922565

On chrome mobile you should see a button with "view: all" or "view: "following" - the latter will show your followed forums. Also shows "new" on the 2nd line/under the thread title if there is newer posts in the thread. Works similar to desktop for me.

mossie · 22-09-2021 10:30am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922258#Comment_117922258

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117922637#Comment_117922637

I meant the drop down menu as Kingp35 said. This was my go to when I visited boards. The "my forums" page is useless beyond seeing a few threads.

Agree 100% on "mark forum read" that's another basic requirement of any forum page. The fact it's not on Vanilla is another indication of the poor choice in moving boards over.

ibarelycare · 22-09-2021 11:44am

First time logging into the site in about 3 weeks. The two first things I checked were if the "Most Thanked Posts" function and search function were back/properly working, as these would have been my main ways to navigate the site in the past or find new topics to read. Nope. The site is still completely unintuitive and it's such a shame.

ShiverinEskimo · 22-09-2021 12:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117923155#Comment_117923155

Been checking back in myself from time to time and I still despise it. The amount of functionality that has been stripped out vs the clunky and senseless navigation really makes it a total chore to browse.

And the whole 'we're a small team doing our best guys' pity-seeking being spouted ad-nauseum is getting very old. At some point a decision was made to do this migration and that transition was and remains an abomination of a decision and an abomination of an implementation. You can be 'fixing' this for the rest of your life but some things can't be fixed when the whole site has been changed so fundamentally.

We all know the Admins are hoping the users will adjust and meet them half way, as has happened with other unpopular overhauls in the past, but this time around seems different. This is simply not the same site any more and it's truly, truly awful. I'm being as polite as I can be saying all this, cos people make mistakes and admins are human at the end of the day, but 'doing your best' isn't cutting it. The 'small team' have collectively f**ked it. They've removed a ton of functionality and replaced it with pure unintuitive hassle.

Based on all the fixing that They've no doubt been doing, it's still nowhere close to where it needs to be by now. I predict a slow, grim death for Boards.ie.

_Kaiser_ · 22-09-2021 2:55pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117923379#Comment_117923379

To be fair, it's not the actual staff or volunteer mods/admins that are responsible here and from earlier posts on this thread, they seem as affected by all this as the rest of us. The responsibility/blame lies with the owners.

The rest I completely agree with though. They don't understand why people still come to Boards, what is important to the community and why people are so annoyed about all this - as I said above, it's not just the complete mess that's been made from a usabilty standpoint.. it's that once again the "powers that be" plowed on regardless and expect the users to not only suck it up, but to act as unpaid beta testers while the lads and lassies on the front line deal with the fallout and have to keep selling us the company line that "we're getting there"

Pussyhands · 22-09-2021 3:49pm

What was the My Forums on the old site? I can't remember what that was?

The way I navigated the old site was basically:

Browse the homepage for interesting threads/fora
Seeing the notification number on my profile, clicking on threads I'm following, clicking into threads with new replies by clicking last new post.
Searching for fora via the search bar. I can't do this anymore because it's not user friendly to search for fora on search anymore.

_Kaiser_ · 22-09-2021 5:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117924530#Comment_117924530

It was your list of bookmarked fora.. After the "temporary" menu system that buried everything under 4 headings at the top of the screen (3 now), it was for many the only way to get back to what interested them

Myself I used that method and whatever seemed interesting on the homescreen like you said.

mossie · 22-09-2021 6:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117923379#Comment_117923379

Unfortunately I'm beginning to think the same. Progress is slow - ok I know they don't have many staff - and we're told things are being done but there's been little major progress in the 8 or 9 weeks since the switch. Some minor issues have been addressed, but a lot of major (and minor) issues remain. It's starting to look like progress has come to an end really and it all comes down to picking Vanilla without knowing exactly what they could provide and preparing for the switch properly

22-09-2021 6:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117925134#Comment_117925134

https://www.boards.ie/categories?followed=1

mossie · 22-09-2021 6:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117925292#Comment_117925292

It was a drop down list that showed the forums and highlighted those with new posts. The page you linked does show forums but not highlighting of those with new posts and isn't as useful as the drop down list.

Pussyhands · 22-09-2021 9:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117925134#Comment_117925134

Did it display like the current My Forums does? Or was it different?

Pussyhands · 22-09-2021 9:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117925337#Comment_117925337

The categories section displays the forums you're following and the latest post made in the forum. Is that the same thing?

Welcome to the new Boards.ie platform - Version 1.0 :)

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