Now the dust has sort of settled, what further changes are needed in this site?

The grumbling about the new incarnation of Boards seem to have died down. Not for me, though. I speak here as mainly from the perspective of being a mobile (iPhone) user.

I’ve been forced to change user identity to my current username which alludes to changes that badly need to be made to make Boards usable. An “infinite loop” in the JavaScript, which I’ve mentioned in other threads, effectively locked me out of my former identity by flooding my screening with perpetual messages. It’s a very simple fix, if given the opportunity I could probably do it over coffee, but the owner seems to be apathetic about fixing that or any other issues.

There is another matter about being unable to delete images in a post when using iPhone (though I believe it’s possible with Android) and I have seen such kind of thing alluded to on Vanilla Forums, Vanilla being the software which Boards uses and has “sort-of”tailored for its needs. It is just not good enough if one accidentally selected an inappropriate picture and was unable to access, eg, laptop, to delete it quickly.

The inability to delete an entire post is unsatisfactory and messy, although it can be edited to a few harmless characters.

It hardly needs to be said that the navigation is still messy and unsatisfactory.

Anybody else still having gripes?

EmmetSpiceland

Was a bit “shaky” at first but the new site has really come along in leaps, and bounds, over the last while.

It’s, clearly, obvious that there are a number of malcontents still, constantly, posting in the “Feedback” forum about the negative differences with the old site and banging on about “dark mode” and “my forums”.

For me, personally, the site is working pretty much the same. The odd “glitch”, or change, here and there to get used to isn’t something I’d get too hung about but there are some lads out there who just don’t like, and can’t handle, change at all.

Penn

Stop the automatic Draft saving and the pre-checked Bookmark This Discussion when you're replying. At least make these things an overall opt-out setting. If I want to bookmark a discussion, I'll bookmark the discussion.

The Draft saving on mobile especially is a disaster as the pop-up saying Draft saved keeps covering the text you're currently typing.

Kintarō Hattori

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948607#Comment_117948607

'there are some lads out there who just don't like, and can't handle, change at all'.

You may well be right but there are multiple instances where the change to Vanilla has been a backwards step. Change is supposed to bring improvements, not subtract from your user experience. A case in point here is the fact that it's a lot clumsier now to reply to a post than it was previously. All the formatting options are gone which makes replying to multiple people in one post really awkward to follow.

There's no point in listing out all the things which we don't have now, which we had before. I've said previously that change is a good thing- but it has to be for the better. While the site has improved, it still has some way to go yet.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948607#Comment_117948607

The malcontents saved the site. None of the owners or employees use it, so they wouldn't know about issues. For example, they had no idea that on the old site, forum posts from PI and RI were showing up on Latest. Things like that.

The ones that simply left didn't say anything. Which was a lot considering the mobile site made it look like you were site-banned for an entire week. Again, for admins, it looked like those messages about the site were visible, but they weren't.

And the people who simply criticised the ones pointing out the issues achieved less than nothing. There would be far more "odd glitches" if no one made an issue out of them. It wouldn't have come on leaps and bounds.

I’m one of those malcontents who have stuck with it with gritted teeth and will continue to moan about what I consider the more serious issues like JavaScript loops forcing me to stop using Boards and change ID. That’s fundamental stuff, not a mere grumble or gripe. Nobody likes change at first, that’s the very reason I stuck with it, to see how I might get to see the benefits, and to let it be developed. Some teething issues are inevitable. I get all that.

I don’t care so much about things like Dark Mode and thd odd graphics issue tbh. Navigation is merely tiresome but can be improved, and I worry about the basics of site security, and having better control of what I post.

I’ve tweeted Boards about issues, but I don’t think they look at Twitter very much. The staff probably have a workload greater than they are resourced to handle. The owner doesn’t seem very interested in actually getting it to rights, as long as enough profit roles in.

GLaDOS

Basic navigation is still a pain without a decent "my forums" option. Having soccer and other private forums in a separate sections makes things worse.

Still nowhere near getting back to where the old site was imo, let alone improving it.

I’m far from a typical original malcontent. I give everything a chance. I know I don’t take to new things automatically. I know things always have to be ironed out. So to anyone who points a finger at my opening post and refers to me as a mere whinger, I have to remind them that I abstained from negative comment for some time, and I showed my appreciation to the people left to administer the difficult changeover, as I imagine they had a lot of pressure with little support and we’re subject to a lot of very impatient complaining. It’s now that I think things need to be seriously taken into hand, especially around the more serious issues about controlling your data across all devices and being able to acccess site is part of that.

jrosen

I dont know if its Mac related but navigation is still an issue for me. If I click into a post to read when I want to go back out of that post I am diverted back to the home page. So if im in "my threads" it wont bring me back to that page. Its irritating

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948607#Comment_117948607

could you tell me what is better about the new site compared to the old? Should users just shut when all of the changes have been for the worse?

Try and broaden the demographic of posters. It seems to be extremely heavily skewed towards dudes in their 30’s and 40’s. Types who may once have had a bit of life in them, but now are just grumpy men with generic contrarian views. I mean look at the current affairs forum if you want proof. You’d feel sorry for some of them tbh.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948969#Comment_117948969

On my iPhone too.

ednwireland

its fine , i can post , its a forum

admin tools need some work havent been able to do anything

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948994#Comment_117948994

Afraid if you are categorising myself as a grumpy man you’re off the mark.

banie01

The quoting system is still woeful IMO. The lack of an ability to easily multi-quote or to quote snippets is galling, but then when you do use the "built-in" quoting system you need to then click the quoted passage to read it.

I'd echo GlaDOS' opinion on the layout of myforums and private too.

The testing and implementation all seems very much desktop orientated. Which completely swerves the majority of the current user base.

Little things like visibility of who "thanked" a post? Try that on mobile. I haven't found a way to do it without switching to Desktop.

The whole profile privacy spiel? It's a pain in the hole for one thing, but completely pointless when I can just search :site and username.

The effort to adopt a new platform and make it look like the old? Then still months later problems are not only being reported but actively ignored.

The deleted PM debacle seems to have swept aside. The userbase are loyal, surprisingly so tbh which goes a long way towards demonstrating the "community" certainly believes the site is still a great venue.

The thing is it's becoming apparent that the efforts to streamline and reduce costs (necessary and understandable) but it's becoming quite clear that many of those efforts are to the detriment of UI.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117949025#Comment_117949025

Wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular. Don’t even know who you are tbh.

It’s more the overall vibe you get when you visit the site. It seems to have the same posters who signed up as younger men 10-20 years ago. It’s far more angry and serious these days, and you can almost sense the low testosterone, receding hairlines, comfort fit denim, and increasing annoyance at a world that they struggle to stay relevant in.

Wouldn’t attract younger and more humorous posters to become regular posters.

TheAnalyst_

Is traffic down by much since they changed it? It seems far less active.

The only PLUS for me is that I can read the text better. I have close-sight issues due to muscular and corneal scarring issues, and the visual presentation has greatly improved in this respect for me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117949068#Comment_117949068

The thread I’m been most commonly active in slowed down a lot with “new Boards” but has been picking up again somewhat, if that is any kind of barometer.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117949141#Comment_117949141

I think there are definitely certain corners and threads that are recovering. I am a regular on the watches sub-forum and it had almost died a death.

It has definitely picked up but, that pick up is the "regulars" getting to grips and posting back where they know.

The thing is, on that forum alone, the number of drop-ins is far, far reduced.

sligojoek

Whatever about the layout and software issues, one of my biggest gripes is how slow the pages are loading on mobile. At least 5,and more often than not, 7 to 10 seconds to load a page on mobile. It's not my connection speed. I can stream HD content with no buffering.

Any half assed website can load a page in less than a second.

Earthhorse

Navigation, to my favourite forums, to threads I have posted in, is poor.

Quotes can't be edited, which is just basic.

The menu when hovering over a user doesn't work; it disappears when you try to use it.

You can't click on a user and look at their post history which is useful for finding content you like (if you like that poster or have shared interests).

Other superficial things like not being able to easily see who thanked a post are also not as good as they were before.

malinheader

I used to be on boards every day, now maybe once a week or less. I find the new website a disaster compared to the old site. This is only my opinion but it doesn't seem to have half as much traffic and discussions as the old site. Lost interest myself.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948986#Comment_117948986

I never said it was better, it’s just working pretty much the same now. I never used “My Forums”, “Dark Mode” or poured over who was thanking my posts.

The platform has changed and after some initial “speed bumps” I have adapted to it. I would imagine I would experienced something similar if I were to move from my iPhone 12 to one of those, cheaper, Samsung android phones. You just get on with it.

I mean, users constantly bombarding the “Feedback” forum to moan about how much you want the old site back and how they feel they are owed something is just pointless. The site has “migrated” and it’s not going back. The sooner that’s gotten across to them the sooner we can all get on with it.

There’s not much else to be done about it, unless you fancy joining that awful “hate site” a few of the angrier, and banned, users setup themselves.

Summer2020

The search is really bad. To the point of being completely useless. I used to use search as a quick way to get to a forum, start typing the name of the forum and it would auto populate. This is a big issue for me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950074#Comment_117950074

The thing is to “get in with it” I had to change my user identity, something I didn’t intend to do. It was due to a site bug from un-debugged JavaScript code. That’s pretty basic stuff for the site owner to look after.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950074#Comment_117950074

Another thing, with me it’s not “hate”, it’s an urging to have the site greatly improved for everybody to enjoy the experience. Happy users will draw in the advertisers.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950074#Comment_117950074

good for you that the bit you use works after a fashion. Many others cannot say the same.

Atlantic Dawn

2 things I really hate that make the site look like some 1980's knock off of vBulletin...

1 - The search function, it's terrible, not functioning at all properly if you try to search for recent keywords, none are found, completely useless.#

2 - Lack of refreshed posts when you post. If I make a post on a thread it adds my post to the end of where the currently displayed posts are, it doesn't refresh to add any that have been added since I made my post, this is particularly irritating in a high post thread like de Liveline or LLS. I think but I am not 100% that I could actually type in 10 posts one after the other in a thread and it would only show me those those posts until I refreshed where it would then respace out my posts correctly within the thread based on time added. Complete mess for a busy thread.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950360#Comment_117950360

Absolutely right there, caller. Sometimes I might find myself posting a few comments in fairly quick fashion, and it would look to me I was the only one on the thread. I’d say to myself, back in a moment, flick on the kettle switch, and then return to a page or two full of posts with my contributions spaced in there somewhere.

Sky King

I don't like the new site at all, and have found myself using it a lot less - especially on mobile.

I don't know why they changed (I am not much of a computer expert so maybe there's a great reason) but for me the old site worked great and I can't see how it needed updating. They wrecked it.

I much MUCH prefer the old system of seeing everyone who thanked a post immediately under the post. It was a great way of filtering quality posts if you are quickly scanning through a thread in AH.

I'm getting an error when I click onto private messages.

The new quote system is pants. 20 years ago I used forums with a better quote function (quote) like this (/quote). Again - why change?

I can't get my head around the notification / my threads function at all - again the old one was simple and logical. Why change?

It's a shame.

roosterman71

My gripes, all based on a 100% desktop user:

1. The search is brutal
2. Not being able to mark a whole forum as "Read" leaves traversing it in future a pain in the hole
3. Not being easily able to see who has thanked a post
4. The text editor thingymajig. Why isn't that in place beside the emoticon, attachment, etc icons is beyond me
5. Not being able to multi quote, or quote part of a post

Strumms

fix quoting so you can quote a specific part(s) of a users post and get darkmode back... darkmode works on mobile site but not desktop.

malinheader

Only way to fix this is scrap this mess of a site and go back to the way it was.

This will never happen.

What in under god was wrong with the way it was.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950730#Comment_117950730

Even if it meant every single post on the site had to be deleted and the site started afresh with the old site structure it would be 10 times better.

The first thing that needs to happen is that boards goes back to the old version and have a rethink. This edition is a pile of horse manure.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950730#Comment_117950730

it wasn't financially viable. It was too expensive to support.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950765#Comment_117950765

This seems to be the nub of it.

EmmetSpiceland

If only griping and whinging were a form of “currency”, they’d have had no trouble keeping the old site running.

Just signed up with the hosting company, Vanilla’s major open source site, GitHub. Very recognisable issues there, lol! 😂 It’s actually funny. I dare ye to educate yer selves if you are not familiar with it.

Vanilla (current Boards) software is written in PHP. My next project is to familiarise myself a bit with that, try to see wtf might have put such limitations on the search and navigation functions. If something annoys me enough I try to actually understand it.

Degag

The fact that i can't look up my most recent posts. Or if i can it's seemingly well hidden

malinheader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950765#Comment_117950765

So really now this is a cheaper version of the site.

Makes sense really.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950765#Comment_117950765

Why not make that clear on the old site? There could have been some fundraising where people could have contributed. i don't remember seeing any paypal or gofundme links mentioned

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117951329#Comment_117951329

it wasn't just a one-off financial issue. the ongoing maintenance costs were more than they could afford.

VanillaCloud

https://vanillacloud.io/pricing/

VBulletin Cloud

https://www.vbulletin.com/en/vbulletin-cloud

Impossible to compare pricing here. One would have to contact the companies with exact commercially sensitive traffic requirements for a comparative quote.

Just started learning PHP (along with a ton of similar web stuff - the more I learn simultaneously the way easier it is I find to learn) as I’m really curious as to know how exactly might some improvements might be made. Might get a job out of it yet. But not with Boards, the pay would be miserable.

I hated my first ever flight, which was in a tiny aircraft in heavy turbulence. What did I do? I learned how to confidently fly airplanes alone in similar conditions. Which inspires me to start another thread!

Sir Galahad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948969#Comment_117948969

Not just you. I've the same issue on an ordinary laptop.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117951443#Comment_117951443

if they had moved to vBulletin cloud they may well have faced as many issues. what existed before was vBulletin in name only, and an old version at that. many of the missing features were customisations that boards.ie wrote on top of vBulletin and not always in an easily maintainable way. The phrase that comes to mind is "held together with spit and string".

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948994#Comment_117948994

You get the same tiresome dig in no matter what the thread/topic.

Every.Single.Time.

hammerdub

Used to visit the old site every night, now don't bother too much. As a non technical old fogie I find the new site harder to use. So for me it's not user friendly. Used to follow certain topics now can't find them. That's progress they say.