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

brimal

The lack of communication is the worst aspect of this whole sh1tshow.

They didn't even put a global message about the upgrade on the touch site, just desktop site. That was a sign of things to come.

And now the almost daily radio silence.. when they finally do provide an update it's frustratingly set in a tone where they are either oblivious to the situation or just flat out putting their head in the sand..

The one positive to come out of this is seeing some of the community who have the relevant skills contributing code, giving advice, etc. There are people on this site who are programmers, project managers, etc. IRL and willing to help.

Of course if doesn't even get an acknowledgement from Boards.

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704207#Comment_117704207

If the search function is to be believed (and there's been problems with it!) there were 9.8k posts in the first three days of August. Beforehand, there might have been that many posts in a day. So posts could be down about 60-65% at the moment.

Sleepy

21 days since go-live and the site is still a **** show, for the love of the flying spaghetti monster most decent developers could have written a new platform from scratch in that time.

It's time to accept the migration as a failure and roll back to the backups of vbulletin and the database we can only hope were taken pre-migration, post an announcement apologising for the lack of proper testing of Vanilla, the poor communication throughout the migration and the simple lack of respect shown to the users demonstrated by the management team throughout this fiasco. Then pray the users forgive the **** up and traffic returns to normal while the team can work on finding a suitable replacement for the legacy platform.

mossie

The lack of communication is a big issue, especially given it's 3 weeks with very little progress. I think it's fairly clear that Vanilla is not fit for purpose and could take a long time to engineer a solution that even approximates what boards was. The last communication said the move was for financial reasons so are we to believe that Vanilla was cheapest rather than best?

jammiedodgers

Does DeVore have any involvement with the site anymore?

Fly_away

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704661#Comment_117704661

I don't think so. But I saw this comment from him on Twitter when asked about the migration.

https://twitter.com/DeVore/status/1418524367869419522?s=19

Not too sure what he means by it tbh.

Purgative

@Boards.ie: Odhran @Boards.ie: Niamh

OK, I've read enough. I'm unsubscribing (sic) to this thread. Would you kindly make updates available to the whole community, rather than just replies to individual threads.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704730#Comment_117704730

to me that reads like he is disappointed with the reaction to the migration.

Fly_away

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704755#Comment_117704755

Yes, or he could be talking about the 'group' of decision makers in Boards HQ. Difficult to say.

If he's talking about the user base, I think he's wrong to pin blame in that direction. At the end of the day, people wouldn't stop using it if they felt it was of value to me them. It's that simple. The collapse in activity isn't the result of some contagious domino effect, it's because people **individually** do not think the site is worthwhile anymore.

Pelvis Parsley

I imagine he no longer has any involvement with Boards Software Ltd., which is a very new company.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704755#Comment_117704755

Or as he said feelings to complex to express in a tweet. He built and helped steer the place and did it extremely well for not far off two decades. He served his time and no mistake and I'd say while he's rightfully proud of the place he's also glad it's in his rear view mirror.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117704639#Comment_117704639

So, we left the comfort of quirky old Boards because all the hacks and fixes needed to keep it going were untenable, so they chose a platform that is going to require weeks upon weeks of hacks and fixes to leave us with a poorer experience.

It's different, I'll give you that.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117705987#Comment_117705987

It wasn't the hacks and fixes that were the issue it seems. the problem was the old platform was too expensive.

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117705987#Comment_117705987

Different, yes. It just seems that the move wasn't tested / thought through properly before moving. We haven't had an update from @Boards.ie: Odhran since last week now and there has been no major progress since then (at least visible progress) so I don't think there's any quick fix for Vanilla's basic issues.

Boards.ie: Odhran

Hi all

We have not had a massive amount to update over the past few days as a lot of the work has been in creating PR’s - hence not posting here until we do.

As I have said from the start we are clearly not happy with how the migration has gone. We are working to resolve all issues as quickly as we can. We have upped our dev resource and are working our way through major issues as quickly as we can. We expect to see better fixes from a discoverability perspective shortly and will keep working through the list.We will continue to update you all as we go.

Some new updates:

• We have been writing a module last that will give us control navigation on both desktop and mobile and our PR submitted today. That will allow us to have control over navigation for top nav etc. We might gave an interm solution to roll out ahead of that tomorrow - but we do expect this to be approved in a couple of days.
• Included in the above is follow functionality on forums and sub forums on both Mobile and Desktop
• Regional forums are all showing correctly now
• We have made some improvements to category structures which has improved site speed - please let us know if you are still experiencing speed issues
• We are in the process of archiving all deleted forums which will again improve speed.
• Looking at overall design for mobile (particularly homepage view) but conscious of not making any changes there until we fix the broader issues around Navigation / Discoverability
• Pagination issue missing from the Motors forum and has been fixed now

I have said several times that we are not happy with the length of time that it is taking to get stuff live. We have resourced up the dev team again and are working on the above. However as I said before we have had to take a differnt approach and are working our way through that now. I hope to have a more robust update before the weekend. Some have asked about an email issue which effected a small number of users - Niamh has posted an update regarding that and did indeed make me aware so I am fully in the loop. I will be writing to the DPC to make them aware of this specific issue later today.

I appreciate that this has been a frustrating couple of weeks for everyone - us included. We are seeing a bit of light however so please bear with us.

I would like to thank you all again for your patience.

Odhran

HeidiHeidi

Seeing as I've been banging on about the speed (or lack thereof) since the migration, I feel I should report that I've noticed a distinct improvement in the desktop site. A smaller improvement on the mobile/touch site, which is still a bit laggy.

But overall a lot better in the last day or so.

Does that mean it’ll be quicker to retrieve data when it’s being leaked too?

Peregrine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706264#Comment_117706264

Could you post these updates in a separate updates thread? No discussion, just updates. It's bad enough that site-wide messages don't seem to be possible but we really shouldn't have to go through hundreds of posts every day to see if there are any updates.

mossie

The speed of the site has improved a lot since launch date.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706361#Comment_117706361

Hasn’t at all for me. Still jumps all over the place whenever you go back a page, and more often than not lands on the wrong page.

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706404#Comment_117706404

Yes, I've noticed that happens sometimes for me too.

YellowFeather

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706264#Comment_117706264

What's a PR?

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706355#Comment_117706355

And perhaps a post that acknowledges the issues raised since his last drive by post?

I really expected an acknowledgement to be posted on the email thread about the data leak, but I suppose the posters on that will just have to figure out it's been referenced here.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706557#Comment_117706557

Pull request.

From what I have managed to determine they are updates and they send these to Canada and wait for responses.

GiftofGab

Mods can you please bring back the days most thanked posts?? Not sure why you would get rid of that.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706557#Comment_117706557

Pull Request... seems to be part of the process of making any updates. They send all the updates to Vanilla, who look it through and then process it, or send it back for tweaks. That's how I understand it at least!

YellowFeather

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117706614#Comment_117706614

Thank you.

@Boards.ie The terminology can be a bit confusing, and it would be better to write these updates with the audience in mind.

Gadgetman496

So if the ice-cream company asked Boards to change or implement something it would be a "Push Request"?

Leg End Reject

Niamh did explain pull requests before, I think it's when they send code to Vanilla to implement changes. If there's an issue with the code Vanilla send it back to be changed. A round-the-world way of tweaking features and the appearance of the site.

Factor in the time difference and support only being offered 9-5 Mon-Fri and you end up with the current mess.

*dramatically flails arms in despair*

YellowFeather

Thanks all

Nah, it's just frustrating, as there are so many feedback threads and different messages being posted by Niamh and Odhran across these. It's hard to keep up, and whilst I'm fairly technical, I guess I got narky because I miss the old boards. :)

I wouldn't put myself in the shoes of the guys here for the world, as I've been the front-facing person for a migration that didn't go amazingly before, but communication is key. Just let us know what's going on in clear terms, and I'm pretty sure that we are a forgiving bunch, and all just want the same end result.