Forum Suggestions & User Assistance - Message to Those Who Don't Like the New Format

If there is something about the new format that you would like to see corrected, post about that. Include a suggested solution. Don't just complain, that doesn't help the mods make this place better.

As I understand it, the previous version of the forum was becoming unstable, as evidenced by the frequent downtime. In an effort to fix this the BF team decided to go to the next generation of forum software. I don't think going back is an option; BF is by far one of the busiest forums on the net, and things would only get less and less stable.

So we have vBulletin 4.0. Yesterday things were very clunky, posting took a long time, and the whole thing seemed kind of unstable. Things have settled down now. The colors are a little different. I personally was satisfied with the old colors, but the new ones aren't too bad. The fonts in the editing boxes, and also those in the post snippets under post titles, are kind of small. I've mentioned this in a few spots and hopefully the mods can address this at some point.

Rather than just venting at the powers that be, if you are not satisfied with some aspect of the new software, try to turn it into a constructive suggestion. Don't simply say, "I hate the fonts"; be specific: "The fonts in the post snippets and the editing boxes seem disproportionately small." Give them suggestions they can do something about.

If your suggestion is "Bring back the old format," save your keystrokes, cuz I'm pretty sure that train has left the station, folks.

So get used to the new BF, report issues that can be fixed, and please, please, please, stop cluttering up the New Posts search with "Wah wah wah I can't adjust!" threads.

(Yes, I realize this one probably falls into that bucket too.)


I, for one, embrace our new vBulletin 4.0verlords. :D

I like the new format. But when I go to my profile and click on Find all started threads, there are only two... that is way incorrect . And the Find all posts only comes up with ten.... that is also incorrect. And I am pretty sure I have more than 373 posts... as is stated under my name.

Heh.... same is true for me; I hadn't noticed that yet.

I've already posted about specific issues.

-- Make the fonts in the reply and new post boxes larger so we can see what we're typing.
-- Get rid of the 1980s bubblegum envelopes (or whatever they are) along the left side of the forums and left side of the threads ... of if they can't get rid of them, make them about half the size.
-- Instead of using the faded blue font for headings and links, use something bolder with more contrast, like navy.
-- Get rid of that annoying "Now using the New vBulletin" icon in the lower, right corner
-- Tell us what the "new buttons and bells" ... I see nothing different other than unreadable fonts and faded colours
-- Fix the multipost issue I talked about in the News and Announcements thread where complaints like all these are supposed to go, and where I've put all my complaints ....

I actually kinda like the new interface but...there's just waaaaaay too much white space, which makes my eyes hurt. Lots of other people think this too. If there is an option to change the background color, or to get rid of some of the white space, please let us know.

*goes off to stare at something dark*

Oh also, scrolling is weird and choppy, also makes my head hurt, especially for the longer threads like we have over at P&R.

I like the other newfangled features like the video embed though.:)

Anything that would decrease the use of vertical white space. (ie: loosing the envelope icons). would be great.
My mouse scroll wheel bearings are nearly shot from scrolling and scrolling looking for text.

Thanks for the hard work.
+1 to all the suggestions above.

I'd love the fonts in the catagories column larger and darker when cruising the "new posts" lists. Other than that, good work and thanks.

If there is something about the new format that you would like to see corrected, post about that. Include a suggested solution. Don't just complain, that doesn't help the mods make this place better.

As I understand it, the previous version of the forum was becoming unstable, as evidenced by the frequent downtime. In an effort to fix this the BF team decided to go to the next generation of forum software. I don't think going back is an option; BF is by far one of the busiest forums on the net, and things would only get less and less stable.

So we have vBulletin 4.0. Yesterday things were very clunky, posting took a long time, and the whole thing seemed kind of unstable. Things have settled down now. The colors are a little different. I personally was satisfied with the old colors, but the new ones aren't too bad. The fonts in the editing boxes, and also those in the post snippets under post titles, are kind of small. I've mentioned this in a few spots and hopefully the mods can address this at some point.

Rather than just venting at the powers that be, if you are not satisfied with some aspect of the new software, try to turn it into a constructive suggestion. Don't simply say, "I hate the fonts"; be specific: "The fonts in the post snippets and the editing boxes seem disproportionately small." Give them suggestions they can do something about.

If your suggestion is "Bring back the old format," save your keystrokes, cuz I'm pretty sure that train has left the station, folks.

So get used to the new BF, report issues that can be fixed, and please, please, please, stop cluttering up the New Posts search with "Wah wah wah I can't adjust!" threads.

(Yes, I realize this one probably falls into that bucket too.)


I, for one, embrace our new vBulletin 4.0verlords. :D

Yes!

New software is fine, but please do something about the new UI. Yes, it's pretty and shiny. But the functionality is a huge step backwards, and it's much harder on my eyes for some reason. I don't know what options come with the software, but please please please try another style or look!

This is not an impulsive response, I've visited a couple times today to see if it grew on me, and it hasn't. At least change the UI color scheme, or provide options for users to configure their own color scheme.

Dear lord, the quote box scrolls at a different rate from the rest of the screen. By the time I got to the bottom of this page I was seasick. Fix that, for starters.

I'm not usually one to complain about new, but this really was a step backwards. Way too much white space, the "shades of blue" typography makes it hard to see, rendering is dog slow.

This thing is like Vista for bulletin boards. Visual and computational bloat.

Yes, it is harder on the eyes; and I have 20/15 vision. In the old format, I preferred to load the list of new posts and scan down quickly, you could digest a lot of information quickly with the old presentation. Now it takes much longer because the eyes have to jump around to gather the same data about relatively fewer topics on screen. I mean on a 17" monitor there are SIX topics on display when searching for new posts! That's gotta be only 1/3 or less than the previous format. -- hence I get bored and leave.

Too much white space on the right is also an issue. I recognize the need for revenue space but there ought to be a more elegant way to do it.

Look at the contrast in the buttons below this entry form. Now look at how you've blended all the pale blues and grey/whites together with little real purpose or visual benefit for the reader. See the difference, the easy way the eyes read the white on DARK background? Some contrast and bold is good.

The previous two posts pretty much su up my feelings. Visual bloat is the worst part, and having tons of useless space, lines, and visual effects is just distracting. I used to be able to fit the entire list of main forums (not the for sale and etc. subforums) on one page, but now I have to scroll all over the place.

Also am I missing it or is the "quick reply" gone?

Also am I missing it or is the "quick reply" gone?

It's at the bottom ... scroll down.

Scrolling to review one's own written text prior to reply is a problem, it responds slowly if at all. I'm already getting used to the overall look and feel and just reading here and now what some have just posted, I'll fiddle with adjustments.

The font on the 'what's new' or main page of sub-forums is dreadfully hard to read, and hard on the eyes. P&R used to give me a headache at times, now all of BF does......please change it to something easily readable.

Wow, take a day away, and everything changes! Being vintage myself, I like the way it was. But as Doohickie said, they ain't going back. Hopefully they can fix this. Job 1 - font and size! I cannot read it! Somebody said "ctrl" and mouse, but nothing seems to change. Colors are also a problem. Very washed out. I can hardly see things like "Post Quick Reply" on my LCD panel.

What happened to the "Forum Jump"?? I used a link from the now closed grip thread in C&V, and cannot find a way back without going all the way out. BTW, I have been kicked out back to the front page twice for no apparent reason.

I visit this forum mostly on my Blackberry. Is there a mobile version?
I'm doing an awful lot more scrolling now.
I'd second the Vista like appearance is a negative.

If the train has left the station, then a lot of the users will go to other forums. They are out there, and they are operated generally by real cyclists with cyclists in mind.

There is NO point in making any suggestions. The operators of this site don't give a rat's about what you think.

The registered user-to-active user ratio continues to plummet. Now down under 9.5%. The problem was not appearance, but the inability to see new opportunities in content.

When eBay started to change its sites, it gave users the option of using the beta version or sticking with the old. It took around 12 months for the transition, and there was a lot of fine-tuning went on. I don't necessarily like it, but the new format wasn't simplly thrust upon users with the glib statement "this is cutting edge".

Get a a grip of yourself. If you think this is one of the busiest forums around, you are sadly out of touch with where BFs actually ranks on IB's list of sites, let alone the web generally.

And appearance has nothing to do with stability of the database.

Cutting edge? It's about as sharp as baseball bat. And the users are being bludgeoned to death with it.

the main page needs the show all the page numbers of a thread, or a last button, or some and the last page #. There's no way to get to the last page of a thread without going into the thread.

at the bottom of a thread there doesn't seem to be a way to go back to the main page, unless you go back to the top.

the main page needs the show all the page numbers of a thread, or a last button, or some and the last page #. There's no way to get to the last page of a thread without going into the thread.

at the bottom of a thread there doesn't seem to be a way to go back to the main page, unless you go back to the top.


As I've said a few times now, we are going to be installing a home link at the bottom of the page shortly. I just spoke to IB last night and that's one of the things that will be done relatively quickly.

Also, in the user assistance forum, here, there is a tutorial on how to use some of the navigation features you might find helpful. It's up in the stickied threads.

You could have said it a 100 times but I haven't seen it. With 97 forums you can't really expect folks to do a comprehensive search before pointing out something they notice.

It's at the bottom ... scroll down.

Yes it is, but hitting the "Reply" button in the post you're replying to inserts a QR editor directly beneath that post now instead of jumping down to the QR box at the bottom like it used to do. IOW, the QR box at the bottom is practically obsolete. :)

Yes it is, but hitting the "Reply" button in the post you're replying to inserts a QR editor directly beneath that post now instead of jumping down to the QR box at the bottom like it used to do. IOW, the QR box at the bottom is practically obsolete. :)




Whoever designed this new website must have had a HUGE HUGE monitor. Most of us are on a resolution of 1024x768. I am using a notebook computer and you just cannot see as many threads as the old website.

I'm at 1600x1200 and it still shows fewer threads and posts than it used to. Not great, but not terrible.

I personally prefer more text-based than graphics-based UIs, so I like the old UI better. But I'm sure Tom et al. will improve the style over time. In the meantime, I can cope.

Here's one I haven't seen yet:

Please get rid of the outer frame border bars. First, they simply eat space. Second, the light grey is nearly the same as my scroll bar, and I keep clicking on the border bar instead of the scroll bar. :(

Hitting the "last" button takes you to the home page. CSS is broken, page elements cover other page elements. The entire site is an eyesore and an abomination. The colors are infantile and the theme and layout are childish. The new design will most certainly drive the majority of users away. What were you thinking?!?!?

The "Quick Navigation" is cumbersome. The old drop down menu highlighted where you were, making it easier to browse where you want to go, and you could simply go back to the forum after you posted. Now you have to start at the top and work your way down. The colors seem wrong, too pastel and harder to comprehend some icons.

I would like to see a preference option for more threads per page (with less graphics)

I don't see avatars anymore.

Clicking on "view all posts by author" brings up 10 posts, max.

Where did the "insert image" and other HTML editor shortcuts go?

Change is always difficult and I understand that you have to move forward. But you really do need to see if you can tighten up the formatting and not waste so much screen space. When I click "New Posts" I can see about seven or eight posts on my screen at a time. On the old software (and almost any other forum I visit), the number is more like 20-25. When you're screening threads to visit and there are literally hundreds of threads with changes, you can't go thirty pages of threads when the old software had five or six. All you want is the title, poster, date, and replies. To give more information at the expense of using up so much screen real estate doesn't make sense.

- Mark

Bring back "Search this thread" and "Search by Relevancy"... in fact, bring back "Search..." It went awol.

When you're screening threads to visit and there are literally hundreds of threads with changes, you can't go thirty pages of threads when the old software had five or six. All you want is the title, poster, date, and replies. To give more information at the expense of using up so much screen real estate doesn't make sense.


Exactly. This is perhaps the biggest problem for me. And the current indexes don't even let you know who started the thread! They only show who was last to post in it. Every other forum I've ever been to shows who the author of the thread is. That is a standard. Don't mess with it.

Tom, as for your tips and tricks on how to navigate, we'd appreciate that, but the thing is... if the design was actually good, then there would be no need to explain to people how to use the site. The fact that you have to explain that clicking on the time of the post will take you to that "last" post like hitting the "last" button used to proves that the UI design for that function is lacking. Just put something obvious, like a "Last" link, you know, something that tells you what it is going to do before you even try it. Predictability and consistency are the marks of good user interface design, and this software totally fails in that regard.

I would just like an explanation of why Bike Forums went with this crappy interface, why they didn't feel the need to let us know beforehand, and why, Doohickie, can't they change it back?

I've paid BF a lot of money since I joined and this doesn't make me want to give them any more, ever.

Unlike most, I dig the new visual design. It took me a day or so, and some of the icons are a bit 2005 chicklet-ey for my taste, but eh, the old one was dated, severe and cold. Whattayagonna do. You'll iron the stuff out.

One thing to please please do now though:
Get rid of that stupid 'Now Using the New VBulletin 4' thing on the lower right.

Oh I'm using VBulletin 4.
Yes, I know.
OK, great, I know. Yes, you told me.
You're in the way of the buttons on the right half the time. Shoo! SHOO!


http://www.bikeforums.net/images/new_vbulletin_4-BR.png <-- GO AWAY

Another glitch:
Why is this pan-handle shape above my icon with the gray background here?
Does this really need an extra line of space to show the triangle?
It should be a smooth gray bar all the way across like on the other posts.

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/9766/glitchk.png

Another glitch:

It is just me, or do the '<<First' and 'Last>>' buttons on the thread page nav not work?

They kick me back to the main forum list.

Looks like a bug.

(Sorry for all the bugs, I do software for a living so I can't help but QA stuff.)

Another glitch:

It is just me, or do the '<<First' and 'Last>>' buttons on the thread page nav not work?

They kick me back to the main forum list.

Looks like a bug.

(Sorry for all the bugs, I do software for a living so I can't help but QA stuff.)

Yes, that's a known bug as of now that they're working on. No worries on the feedback, and bug reports, we want you to tell us these things. :D

New forum lacking in navigation button. Used to be 1 click from the listing of the thread to the last message. No last message button now. At the bottom of the page, I used to be able to go back to the forum thread listings with one click. The drop-down menu is stupid and slow. Or I can click my way to the top of the page and do what I used to be able to do from the bottom.

I don't know if this has been brought up in this thread, but if we're going to start advertising post counts, I think it's only right to include Foo and P&R posts. After all, while not contributing to the "bike" community, those post do contribute to the overall bikeforums community.

Thanks.

I don't know if this has been brought up in this thread, but if we're going to start advertising post counts, I think it's only right to include Foo and P&R posts. After all, while not contributing to the "bike" community, those post do contribute to the overall bikeforums community.

Thanks.

You just want to see your post count shoot up by about 20,000 or so :p

the colors are terrible, specifically there is not enough contrast to ready easily.

The buttons are really bad, first they are hard to see, (see the contrast colors issue listed) and second it is hard to tell what is active or not for buttons(activer buttons are so grayed out I am always double checking to see if they are active) and third the reply,reply with quote etc are unclear as to which post they belong too.

The higher user of realestate is an issue also.

The 'bug' with not being able to go to the last post, etc is one that is hard to imageing going live with.

Overall the changes makes it a) much more stressful on my eyes to use b) takes longer (and I probably spend too much time on BF anyway) and c) have already reduced my use

I don't see these as learning/adopton issues as for example there are with moving to from office 2003 to 2007, but as fundamental issues that will reduce my usage on an ongoing basis.

hope this helps

When I try to post a new thread in a forum, I just get a giant blank page. I can see navigation at the top, ads waaaaaay over to the right, and the contact us/bike forums/archive/etc. bar at the bottom of the page, but no tools for creating a post.

Thanks.

When I try to post a new thread in a forum, I just get a giant blank page. I can see navigation at the top, ads waaaaaay over to the right, and the contact us/bike forums/archive/etc. bar at the bottom of the page, but no tools for creating a post.

Thanks.

Internet explorer is your Browser?

Internet explorer is your Browser?

Yes, IE8, Windows XP

Yes, IE8, Windows XP

So far, I've had best results using Firefox 3.5.5, Safari 4, or Google Chrome for page render and functionality and all 3 are free. We do know about the IE issue, and are working on it.

So far, I've had best results using Firefox 3.5.5, Safari 4, or Google Chrome for page render and functionality and all 3 are free. We do know about the IE issue, and are working on it.

OK, thanks. Been thinking of going to another OS & browser, more reasons why.

I'm no fan of IE, but I don't believe it's a very good idea to go public with a site where it doesn't work properly.

Another glitch:
Why is this pan-handle shape above my icon with the gray background here?
Does this really need an extra line of space to show the triangle?
It should be a smooth gray bar all the way across like on the other posts.

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/9766/glitchk.png

I'm not sure of the why, but it looks like every BF member that has an icon next to their username has that panhandle effect, while all of the free/basic memberships (like mine) do not.

Bring back "Search this thread" and "Search by Relevancy"... in fact, bring back "Search..." It went awol.

Oddly enough that might make it less AWOL than it was before?