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

mr_edge_to_you

It's awful. Just can't be bothered using it anymore.

fryup

To Boards.ie webmasters...please bring back these features

*drop down menu with sub menus

*search within forums

*my previous posts within profile

*pop up window when hovering over thread title

*current users within forums

sporina

when I have read a notification the notification still remains.. quelle surprise with this site.. c'mere boards - just scrap this excuse of a website and start a fresh.. blank threads mayb - but they won't be long filling up if the site is usable.. GUBU created a super functioning website in no time!

FFVII

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117685802#Comment_117685802

What is the other site?

Mav11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117685768#Comment_117685768

+ post numbering.

+ fix the time.

barry181091

I think the number one thing to fix on the front end should be the drop down menus at the top of the site. This is the single biggest impediment to navigation on desktop. I have been around for ages and even I cannot be bothered to dig and search for forums with multiple clicks. @Boards.ie: Odhran I presume this functionality is returning? I think this has to be of the highest priority to get traffic back up.

joujoujou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117685359#Comment_117685359

Comparing current and pre-downgrade traffic I fear this site will soon be one archive in its entirety. :-P

HeidiHeidi

I tried to use the search function for the first time properly last night - WTAF???

The old one was bad, but used to occasionally give me a steer in the right direction - this just gave me gobbledegook!

I was looking for a thread on Masterchef which is starting up again soon - a thread I've posted in previously (but not for ages), bookmarked, in a forum I'm pretty sure would have been one of My Forums......

In the end I had to scroll down the main home page until I found something random under Television, scroll down within that until I found Reality TV, and scroll down through pages and pages of that until I found the actual thread.

Given that Masterchef is a pretty unique word, how come I couldn't find it within the search results??? Is there some secret to using search that I'm not aware of?

cdeb

Worked fine for me strangely?

Clicked on "Newest first" and it led me to your post above.

HeidiHeidi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686077#Comment_117686077

And worked for me too this morning, I tried it just now - I got both the actual series thread, and this thread.... but nothing else? There's a heap of threads with Masterchef in the title, never mind in the body of the posts.....

Maybe it's a glitch like when you click into a thread you haven't used since the migration and it loads page 1 the first time instead of first unread post. Anyway, all I got was nonsense last night!

Just another frustration to deal with.

cdeb

I got a load of threads originally - I think the sort was "Best Match" - but yeah, when I then went with Newest First, it gave me just those two threads alright. I imagine it's not searching the migrated threads for some reason.

I think the most concerning thing about this whole mess is that the people tasked with fixing it don't actually seem to know how people use the site. But if they don't know that, it'll be hard for them to fix it properly.

Truckermal

Where did this Odhran bollox come out of? Only on the site a few months and he has destroyed it. Can they not get rid of the dope and revert back to the old format. I haven't used the site since as it's impossible to navigate.

Admin note: User was infracted for this post, for some reason it no longer shows on the post (it is still visible on their profile to mods/admins at least)

Tork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117684971#Comment_117684971

@Boards.ie: Odhran I only found your updates about what's going on behind the scenes because somebody else mentioned them in a different thread and I happened to see it. It would be far more helpful for everybody if you started a brand new thread where you dealt with these issues. Or perhaps, had a sticky for a while. Burying your Q&A and updates in the middle of different threads means that many people will never see what you've written. There are several threads going about the "new" boards and I for one don't read them all. Does anybody? If people could easily find and read your updates it might help calm frustrations somewhat.

wyrn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686139#Comment_117686139

Ah here, that's a bit strong. Boards realistically had no choice but to change. For years we've been hearing about how unsustainable vBulletin is. Lots of former vBulletin sites have migrated to newer platforms, there's even an example in this thread. Was Vanilla the best choice? From a users standpoint, no not at the moment. From the Baords side, probably. I'm sure they didn't just rush into it. They had their reasons and I do feel so sorry for them that they are having these issues. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Vanilla failed to deliver what they promised.

If you read Odhran's previous post, he mentions that they had no choice but to migrate due to financial reasons. It wasn't like he just joined and decided to be Billy Big Bollix and change the site to put his mark on it. No. This has been in the works for years. Not a hope it'll go back.

That said, I do get the users frustrations. I am not a fan of the changes, but guess what. I've never been a fan of any of the changes Boards has made over the years. Hell the no dark mode is really pissing me off. But I can understand that they have more pressing issues at hand.

Odhran didn't destroy boards. He's just brought it to the next phase. If anything, the stuff that has weakened Boards is some of the moderation and mods and the rise of other discussion platforms. I know myself, I've naturally drifted from Boards because of both of those issues.

I do hope that these issues are resolved soon and that Boards can go on being a great local platform.

Wibbs

Wryn: Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Vanilla failed to deliver what they promised.

I'd bet the farm that's exactly what happened and is happening, or most of it. For a start it was they who started the very complex task of moving the entire database what was one of the largest forums on the interwebs on a Thursday, then when it wasn't going well, promptly fcuked off for the weekend. The internet is a 24/7/365 days a year entity, that an internet platform provider doesn't work weekends is a complete bloody joke.

Thomhic312

I would just like to read the soccer forum . Ah well.

expectationlost

used you be able to see the title of the tread at at all times while viewing a thread...now all you see is the forum breadcrumb links, unless you are scrolled to the top. It is useful to make sure you are posting in the right thread to be able to see the title.

Tork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686597#Comment_117686597

The problem is, Odhran is posting randomly in different threads and as a result, many boards users aren't actually getting to read what he has written. We all know that this changeover to Vanilla hasn't gone well and that a lot of issues are beyond their control for now. But there is NO excuse for the poor communication. Burying insightful posts in random threads is very poor form. Because of the reduced functionality, it's hard to even find Odhran's posts or link directly to them.

I also reckon that they went with Vanilla because of the boards's limited finances. It's the equivalent of somebody buying cheap exterior paint from Dealz, then wondering why it's cracking within a week. Vanilla now has them caught by the short and curlies, which isn't a pleasant thought going forward.

wyrn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686779#Comment_117686779

I actually think we're talking about 2 different points.

My issue was that I'm sure Boards didn't change over just for the craic or for Odhran to make his mark on the site. I don't think they had a choice in the matter.

You were talking about the lack of communication and for that, I completely agree. I had no idea that Boards was changing that significantly. I just popped in one day and it was all change. Took a post in the Big Brother forum to point me towards Feedback. I've also been really interested in the privacy / moving our data to another country side of things too. Which I think has been quite worrying.

I wouldn't be surprised if the lack of or sparse updates is because they are waiting on Vanilla to deliver certain tasks.

Leg End Reject

The fact that they've just realised Vanilla can't replicate the old Boards indicates they were misled.

All the employees must have been pulling their hair out trying to implement fixes, only for those fixes to cause other bugs and problems. The attempted migration of "My Forums" is an example of that.

If they'd known the limitations from the off we all could have been aware of it in advance, the migration could have been speeded up and then time spent after answering users questions and helping us get to grips with the new layout and features.

There's been a lot of negativity and wasted time that could have easily been avoided. I agree with the hide and seek element of Odhran's updates and have said that there should be a thread dedicated to updates and timelines. Only Odhran, Niamh, Mark etc. would have access to it, so it would be a one stop shop for information. They could still continue to address individual questions in the plethora of threads that have sprung up here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686751#Comment_117686751

An easy thing to do but stuff like that is called a "JS Hack" around here. It seems that to do what you're asking, the approach would be to write a PHP plugin for Vanilla that has to be approved by the Vanilla team. If they had control over a single JS file, it would make a huge difference in terms of adding functionality.

And what is up with the image quality now....?! That's atrocious looking.

expectationlost

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686962#Comment_117686962

I was addressing boards.ie not you.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686998#Comment_117686998

Same.

Andrew76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686644#Comment_117686644

I agree Wibbs - it is a joke that they don't work weekends - but it's equally a joke that boards decided to go ahead with it knowing that fact. I could be wrong but I thought I remember reading the 'test' migration that was carried out beforehand didn't use a copy of the full data, did it actually use any of the boards data or was it just sample data to show what the new format looked like? Regardless, it's clear it wasn't a realistic test at all so if Vanilla promised it would be done in that timeframe, you'd be very naive to believe that.

Also - we were told it would be much quicker to implement changes/fixes - we now know everything has to be reviewed/approved/merged/deployed by Vanilla first, who are 5 hrs behind us. So boards have less control than they did. It also seems there is no staging environment to test these changes before they hit the live site, we've already seen examples of this with changes making things worse. That's just nuts.

On the point of the migration being forced on boards due to financial reasons - completely understandable - but now they've had to bring in more resources to try and fix the mess faster because they didn't do a good enough job planning it in the first place.

EmmetSpiceland

Would I be right in thinking that once the “My Threads”, “Dark Mode” and “Thanks” issues are resolved that most of the anger in here will dissipate?

After that it’ll just be those, who feel they are “owed” something from the site, that will be still going on and on criticising things they don’t like about the switch.

Hopefully, these little fixes will things on the site going again.

TheChrisD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117686968#Comment_117686968

It seems the post/comment image uploading system has been set to really crunch down the image sizes (I guess they're trying to scrimp and save on storage/bandwidth given all the recent shíte about being unable to afford it). I tried adding something that was originally 3000×2000 and it got scrunched down to only 500px wide so as to be unrecognisable.

Caranica

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117687227#Comment_117687227

No, you'd be wrong. Lots of other issues leading to really low post numbers since migration. Nothing to do with feeling "owed" anything

FFVII

Lack of finances is laughable aswell if you're around here long enough. All feedback ignored.

Christ, i remember the 2 devs at the time must have been 5 years working on a vbulletin replacement. How long ago was that.

FFVII

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117687227#Comment_117687227

You'd do well to listen to complaining from those of which if were not here then the site wouldn't be either.

Duh!