Has the 1 week downtime & move to vanilla killed this place?

Rollback or fail, you couldn't make up what has happened, I hope whoever owns the site as a good contract with vanilla that means they can sue them, there used to be a full site option so you didn't need this desktop crap, it works OK on desktop but I only access boards or the Internet on my phone so end up switching every time I access boards, not user friendly.

The new design has broken the Boards.ie's information architecture. That is going to make the main asset of Boards (its historical posts) difficult to use. Conversations and discussions are now more difficult to follow.

Regards...jmcc

Ya, boards is a lot quieter since the update, and whilst some will say the weather is the cause of that, that wouldn't have lead to this amount of a drop. To me the week offline and then this abomination are the cause of it, and I don't think you can fix this site fast enough to stop it. It's rollback or this site is done for imo.

I can't exactly put my finger on why it's so bad.

Normally if the content is there I'd be happy enough and wouldn't be one to get overly upset about a few click extra here and there. A forum I read and post in a fair bit has definitely slowed down and I'm not coming here as much. I feel oddly distanced from the discussions now for some reason?

And it's not r/ireland that's winning me over. I don't get the format at all.

Is there any way to go to the first unread post in a thread? That's vital for any enjoyment of the site for me.

Maybe it's there somewhere and I'm just too old to find it.

Desktop here mainly - no list of my comments available.

Weird one here? You have just made two posts. If I hover the mouse over your username on the second post the View Profile/Send Private Message drop down appears below your username on your previous post.

It is not just a new interface. All of the data has been moved to a new platform. One that is based outside the EU so god knows what the GDPR implications of that are.

Have just tried that, you're right

You gotta jump through some manual hoops!

Not ideal, but still looks a lot better imo

The Vanilla software running Boards is made by a Canadian company, but according to the footer down there 👇️, it's still hosted by Digiweb, who are Irish, so I don't think there's any changes in this regard to when it was running on vBulletin (a US company).

To those saying roll back, that's clearly not going to happen. The fundamental architecture behind the old system was crumbling, something had to be done. The issues we're seeing now are mainly interface ones. They're the ones users notice the most, but are also easier to fix. There's also a certain amount of getting used to anything new to contend with.

I've certainly been frustrated by a few things (some glitches when posting, no way to delete a post, no Subscribed forum list, threads aren't automatically bookmarked when you post, some layout issues), but there are some positives too - uploading images is much better now, there's more icons, posts you're writing get auto-saved as drafts. I'm willing to give it some time for both the team to fix things and for me to get use to it.

I'm on a few specific, what are they, subs?, on Reddit - but only because they're the only active places with up-to-date discussion about the particular topics that I've found. I've never posted there - I don't even think I can. I don't like the interface at all, and the general atmosphere there doesn't appeal to me. I don't look in the r/Ireland bit at all, no interest.

Oh, one thing Boards need to fix is the "Like" button. I know things are a bit quieter at the moment, and that could be the downtime, the migration, the weather or a combination of all 3, but I definitely think there's less "thanks" being given out by people, and I think that's at least partly down to the button being called "Like" now, with a Facebook thumb-up. It make it look like if you click on it, it'll somehow post to FB, which may be making people wary of doing so. I think they should rename it "Thanks" and change the icon - it's the Boards way. I think they should also get rid of the Twitter and FB sharing icons. I know they're almost obligatory, but we're all here because it's not Facebook or Twitter.

Also, I'm a little sad that all the attachments and thanks from the old site are gone. That's a lot of Irish internet history lost. Maybe they can migrate them back over at some point.

the site is woeful.. I would not know where to begin with its faults.. feck all right with it..

any hope of it improving???? thats what I wanna know

Good point about the footer. None of the links in it work.

Just came across another annoyance. I can't edit the quoted text above to highlight a particular bit. Usually for a reply like this I wouldn't quote your entire post - I'd just pick out the specific relevant bit like "to my mind they just copied the text from the previous version and didn't bother to update it" that I'm replying to. That's annoying.

All the basic practicalities that make a discussion site functional and attractive to post in have been bizarrely removed. The mobile site could not be more of a disaster imo. I’m more of a browser/poster while doing other things like watching tv or on the bus and can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve used boards on desktop, so I’m really struggling with the update. Can’t find any of the threads I used to view/participate in, and even if I could, meh, the interest is just not there.

I loved the layout of the older design and how the “latest posts” enticed you to click in and engage with the recent happenings but what it has been replaced with just doesn’t have the same draw for me. I’m not looking for new threads which is something I would regularly do. Even as I’m writing this post on mobile it’s not auto scrolling for me as I reach the end of the space, little things like that aren’t conducive to a touch site in this day and age. I shouldn’t have to stop posting and manually roll down. I could pick up my phone before and be reading one thread and one hour later be reading something entirely different on another forum. It was a testament to how user friendly and flexible the site was. The link that allowed that to happen has been broken for me.

I just hate it tbh. The old design had everything I needed from a touch site. Easy to use, functional, inviting and could work it with my eyes closed. This by comparison feels like a massive step back. All of the little things that had me previously attached to the place are now gone

I get the impression that they got so caught up in sorting the background issues and the technicalities around migrating the data, the end user's experience became an afterthought. Old Boards was far from perfect and I'm sure the people working behind the scenes have stories to tell about the crumbling infrastructure. But it worked and people were able to find their way around the place. We're now learning how important site navigation is, and how frustrating it is to try and find your favourite forums if you can't subscribe to them any more.

It's easy to be wise after the event but the people behind Boards should have done more testing of the actual site. If numbers are limited behind the scenes (I think I saw mention of a handful of staff and one developer), why didn't they reach out to the people who use Boards regularly? There are people out there who would have gladly helped out with the testing of the new interface and would've given helpful feedback. Again and again, we're seeing people asking about Dark Mode. Why was that not an option from the get go? Why is the mobile version of the site so badly hobbled? That should have been a priority, not the desktop version. From my experience of dealing with software developers, they like to tell you what you should have, and are a lot less willing to give you what you actually need (unless you pay up, of course). It looks like the people behind Boards went to Vanilla like lambs to the slaughter and didn't know what they wanted.

Not only would there be people willing to beta test there would be people willing to test that actually do that for a living. I'm not sure they did any beta testing at all.