These have been communicated to Jeff Tucker and Daniel Sanchez. I’m posting it here so people know this advice has been made, and maybe others can give their thoughts.
Select 1080p+fullscreen for best viewing.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a98kZysE5pI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a98kZysE5pI
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I’m still trying to figure out how to moderate the forum.
Anyway, as you’ve alluded, it would have been great to have an introductory video that show new users how to use the new community.
Also, what is the purpose of having the first page after signing in be a feed of the most recent (pubic) activity, when there are “groups” and “forums”?
Also, why is there a differentiation between “groups” and “forum” when they encompass the same content?
I agree with everything said in the videos. Plus, there are also way too many groups/forums, and the layout is just terrible. I’m a tech guy and I even find it difficult to wade through all that. I honestly take one look at it and just end up saying “it’s not worth it” and coming back here.
And little things that don’t even make sense…like having the most recent post in a thread go straight to the top…and then after some time get shoved down to the bottom. That has to be the most confusing “feature” I’ve ever seen. I don’t know any “consumers” who would have “demanded” that.
What’s wrong with these forums?
I second Sieben.
The only change that could be useful is listing the subforums like in a normal board (as in http://www.criticalsecurity.net/). And that’s not even necessary that much. I really like the “most recent” feature right now.
If by that you mean to say “why do we need a new forum?”, I think that speaks directly to Nielsio’s point. You have the 5th highest post count out of more than 40k users. Daniel is 4th. Nielsio is in the top 25, I’m in the top 30. (And I haven’t seen at least half the top 30 post much, if at all, in the last 6 months or more). I think this shows quite well that no one really asked for this “upgrade”. And if it is a necessary switch, because we can no longer use this platform for some reason, or to help make the community section more compatible with the new CloudFlare, that’s understandable…but one would think the values of the actually community should be taken into account…and those in charge of the move should be quite sensitive to the demands of that user base, and effort should be made to appeal to them for suggestions on improvements and what should stay the same.
I agree with Niels that the whole thing feels like a strict top-down approach, without any concern for the people who actually use the community section. To me it feels like there’s this mood of: “Oh this would be cool. Let’s do this. Oh that’s neat…let’s do that too. Also I want this and this.” And all these changes are made without so much as an announcement, let alone crowd-sourced opinions and suggestions from actual users. It makes me wonder if appealing to users is even really the goal any more. More and more it seems that achieving some vision of what the community section should look like is more important than the actual community.
I would like a quote button and a button for embedding Youtube videos.
More and more to seems achieving some vision of what the community section should look like is more important than the actual community.
Websites do this all the time. You see it in design, user interface, etc. People like what’s familiar and would likely not want a new thing. Top-down stuff sometimes imposes nice changes that people eventually find nice. For example, I am generally displeased when yahoo comes out with a new layout, but after a bit I get used to it and laugh at the old ones. Of course, the same reasoning doesn’t apply to governments (had to make that clear).
So it is a balance of what the community wants and what the web developers believe the community will eventually like. It does seem like the community here has ideas for what to improve without completely restructuring the site (such as muffin’s ideas), so it might be a good idea to introduce features without re-doing the whole thing.
I babble…
Well, my biggest beef is that my eyes have adjusted to these forums, and I can navigate them very quickly and easily. The new mises.org forums lack… contrast or something. Other forums do just fine (see my sig) with really basic setups. I don’t know why the new forums are so bad.
Yes, you’re right, owners change their sites all the time. But as even Tucker noted, when it’s done out of nowhere, without any real consult of the actual userbase, it ends up being a failure…and good companies learn from this and make appropriate changes…they don’t continue on the same path. (As you implied, that’s what governments do). And yes, of course there will always be people who are familiar with the older format and just don’t like adapting to the change…but you’ll notice there is almost always plenty of feedback, and when the majority of it is positive, the change stays, and that’s when you find the rest of the crowd eventually comes around. You’ll also find that not only is there feedback after the change, but input is solicited before the change.
Again, that obviously hasn’t happened here.
I would love to spend more time on the mises.org forums but the awful software keeps me away.
“I would like a quote button and a button for embedding Youtube videos.”
Yes. Quote button, reliability (non errors losing posts), formatting, medium-large sized text box, easy link, youtube embed, centering.
“I would love to spend more time on the mises.org forums but the awful software keeps me away.”
Yep and I think tons would as well. And yet atm, I can hardly be assed to even go through the hassle of logging in. Atm - frequent errors, and it seems you need to log in to even view threads. All these great threads over the years, archived, but not accessible? Tried showing someone something few nights ago, they couldn’t access it.
There is now a wysiwyg* editor (a pretty good one). *what you see is what you get
The size of the entry-field is much enlarged. No preview page though (which may be fine if the wysiwyg editor works predictably and consistently).
You can embed videos, but only using the old html embed code of Youtube.
The quote-function is broken. Have to do it manually now.
It’s home-brew software and - not to be rude to whoever wrote it - it’s crap.
This forum could be made bearable if the quote and copy/paste were fixed, but just barely. I had recommended some time back that whoever operates the LvMI forums consider using a commercial forum, such as VBulletin which I understand is pretty inexpensive to license. The user-interface is industry-standard and it just works. Also, it has threaded-view which I consider the only correct way to view forum discussions (lots of you are happy with the linear format and vBulletin has that, too… but linear-only is hell for those few of us who grew up on threaded-view).
I agree with all the criticisms of the new forums. There’s a complete lack of focus and clarity. Having to type in HTML is pretty annoying, too. A basic WYSIWYG editor (not home-brew!!!) would be really nice. I’m willing to bet $10 there’s a free, open-source WYSIWYG editor in a web language of your choice out there that is bullet-proof and just works.
Also, what the hell is going on with the bandwidth on this forum? It’s constantly crashing and simply refusing to load a page or loading sloooooooooooooow. It’s been better over the weekend but last week this forum has been essentially “down”, at least, for me.
Reference for the “powers that be” of LvMI forums:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software_%28PHP%29
Clayton -
It would be great if Mises.org would move to use some commercial forums. Funny thing is, that even the RevLeft has better forums than the Austrians. I find the new Forums really confusing and messy if I say it simple. Tucker has done great work with other parts of Mises.org, but I think that some division of labor would be good for LvMI-forums.
I understand labor is limited. I would just be happy with more bottom-up planning.
Reps to you, my friend! (Yet another feature neither of these forums have).
Clayton -
There has been a quote button feature which i have been using for the past month or so. Are you sure you don’t have a quote button? I just used it to quote the above.
The early Austrian Network forum was perfect.
This second one we are currently posting in has unfixed bugs.
The third latest one is so obviously horrible that it is almost insulting.
Weird trend.
Regardless, my biggest beef is the loss of intellectual wealth that occurs with each migration. The old forums have fine discussions that are gone now from the public view. Shame.
You’re talking about this one, right?: