Site Changes

[Dark.Green.Feathers]

Fixed that annoying issue.

I am free, thank you

 

[anthony]

Donation amounts can now no longer be seen by guests, only members.

 

[anthony]

Ok, been at this nearing 10hrs, done for today. Look forward to reading all and any issues that are left to do... tomorrow job. Have to work on colours a bit, but most should be stable.

Lot of stuff on the server is now done, hopefully fixes some other problems, and another bunch of threat mitigation. See what happens.

 

[Ecdysis]

It’s not but who originally posted it is. Some people have icons which let me know who is who but plenty are just a letter with a color. I’d like to know who posted the original post and it’s now gone. I also liked it because I could click on it to see other posts by them, helps me learn about a member and make decisions on who I want to read.

I'm still finding this issue a huge headache personally... To the point I don't even bother reading the threads cos I find it so annoying to manually have to check who posted it instead of a quick scan of the eye... I agree with slimming things down but there's also a thing of too little information which makes things cumbersome an user-unfriendly, imo.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Thank you @anthony! This site has been a vast resource for me over the past 10+ years. I really can’t be more grateful for the people I have met and connected with, and a community that knows how I feel and understands how PTSD works!
I hope that the updates goes as smoothly as possible and I am looking forward to learning about the new changes and updates.
Have a great day!

 

[Tinyflame]

the important information is, someone responded, I should go read what they have to say. Not the who!

Thank you @anthony ! I think new formats always take some time to get used to.

I think @Sideways said it, that any post can be surprising and helpful, which I agree. I guess what I meant more clearly was, in no way reducing the importance of a new or unknown member's post, I have to agree to disagree when it comes to admiring the knowledge (present company included here ) wisdom and consistency shown over time by some members. Which to me is just acknowledging that like irl there are as many points of view as there are people but some points of view carry a lot of living experience and internal contemplation and might cut to a helpful chase. I give credit to those special people for that and personally do seek it out.

Like @Charbella said too, if someone is struggling my priority is I actually want to see how they are now. Which maybe isn't the point of the thread but I'm being honest.

A lot of forum setup is very old, dating back 30 years... and we have to move forward with more modern standards, but not dismiss the forum values. I am trying to find that balance, is all.

Yes, understood! And I think it's routine for more and more people to spend a lot of time surfing a site, whereas I know for me I might only have 10-30 minutes of time or energy atm.

Thanks for the response and hard work!

 

[Defaultxlove]

I like the new layout a lot

 

[ninja]

Thanks very much for your hard work!

I'm noticing that at least for me some of the font looks a bit blurry (maybe it hasn't been anti-aliased?).

 

[anthony]

I'm noticing that at least for me some of the font looks a bit blurry (maybe it hasn't been anti-aliased?).

Different font I believe.

I agree with slimming things down but there's also a thing of too little information which makes things cumbersome an user-unfriendly, imo.

I have put back the text OP username. The rest remains gone though.

I know for me I might only have 10-30 minutes of time or energy atm.

Search fixes this best, to be honest, rather than sifting through topics looking for something someone you like has posted. Just go to their profile and see what they have posted / bring up new posts to quickly see in one place everything new.

 

[Teasel]

I have put back the text OP username. The rest remains gone though.

I'm very grateful for this, thanks, and thanks for all your work!

 

[Sideways]

I like the blue. It could be 20+ years old and less fun, but it’s home now, and easy on the eyes. They pinks and purples I instantly needed to shift to dark mode.

 

[DogTired]

As per already outlined with the server upgrade, the site will also be upgraded. As part of this, I'm making some changes that will be vastly different from the way the site currently is. I have a mockup site that I play around with that only staff can access, so as I see if an idea works or not on that mockup, I will roll them out here for member feedback.

Nothing is concrete and everything can be changed, however, because one or two people don't like something, does not mean I will change it. If a whole lot of people complain about it, then I will absolutely listen. Simply, I have never pandered to minority input, but majority rules. I am happy though if an issue affecting a minority can be tweaked to suit both, where possible, but otherwise, it will be a "suck it up" moment where not possible.

Just be honest with me, that simple. I don't get offended by honest feedback. The site is a community, which means the community can decide. To do that, the best way is for me to roll things out here so people live with them a little while, get the feel of it, then tell me if its sustainable or not.

Most of this is simplifying the layout, cutting out as much noise as possible, bringing some terms inline with more modern social media methods, toying with colour change, there will be a sidebar on more pages than just home, to get more content options to everyone on what is currently being discussed and more.

I will discuss all of this here, not in the above server upgrade post, as this is now beyond the server upgrade, as that exists, I just have to move this site to that server as is, then with time I will start upgrading the software and such further. The newer Xenforo software has some more features, but was mainly design towards performance, which was a total rewrite of the underlying code base. Looks the same at the front, is completely different underneath. The theme changes mean nothing for the server or software, as they will exist regardless.

Here speaks a once upon a time mainframe engineer. I always worry about software upgrades as I subscribe to the hardware engineers mantra, "If it's not broken, don't try and fix it with software".