Hi all,
Thanks for your patience over the last week or so while the community has been in lockdown. Good news – the upgrade has now been implemented and you’re free to start commenting and posting across the community again.
With the upgrade I’m sure you’ll notice quickly that there are some minor differences in how you find and create posts, please give it a bit of time to get used to it. To help we’re producing some step by step guides about the most commonly used feature’s on here which will be posted in this thread as well. We're hoping to have these live by the end of the week.
While the community has been thoroughly checked we’re sure that the eagle-eyed amongst you will find some issues so please if you do find any errors drop them in this thread that we’ll be moderating to make sure any issues are picked up on and corrected asap.
We know you’ve been keen to get some new features on the community as part of the upgrade and I have some news on that as well.
Thanks again for the enthusiasm and support, we hope you like it.
RSPB Digital Team
And why is it calling me by my date of birth rather than forum 'name'? Started doing that just before you closed down for upgrade.
Thanks for your work though, I suppose.
This is definitely going to take a lot of getting used to. My only concern at the moment is that some users might get thoroughly fed up with this and leave the Community - could someone please promise that, if they do, they will not be allowed to demand that their entire posting history be deleted? That caused utter chaos last time around.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
I am posting from the perspective of one who, in the osprey season, “monitors” nests blow-by-blow. I cannot believe that ‘you’ have adopted this Facebook format, which is obviously non-negotiable, and am devastated. I had imagined you’d use something along vBulletin lines.
QUESTIONS:
(1) Is it a blip that there is no Reply box that does not require one to reply to a specific member's post.
(2) Is it intended that threads will not be paged but that we will be required to "Load more" ad infinitum to progress thru or get to the end of a thread? Some threads have hundreds, even thousands of posts. It is not possible to reach Latest from the thread title link.
Even when that is fixed, members who call in once or twice a day will have a laborious time, finding where they left off and trying to catch up with posts in the intervening time.
(3) Will it be possible to set the font to be more readable? The present one is too faint.
(4) Is it intended that so few of the posts will be visible on a page? EG:
It’s quite easy to end up with this filling one’s screen:
(5) Can we have date and time of posts, not “so many minutes ago” requiring hovering to see the required info?
(6) Posting pics & videos:
Could the Insert box default to File Upload and 550 pixel width, please,so that pics are clearly visible without having to click to enlarge?
It appears that it’s no longer possible to embed a video link without using the Insert box. One used to be able simply to Enter at the end of the posted link.
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It would be helpful to have a "still to do" list from the Powers That Be, so we know whether to despair or not. The way the forums are presently set up, they are unusable.
Last question - whose bright idea was this?
.
Believe it or not,
Respectfully yours,
scylla
IMAGICAT
Hi Claire, very good question! I can confirm we have the ability to remove users and hide their personal details (including username) but have the posts remain live. The only instances we would remove the posts themselves is if they were inappropriate or contained personal details that they have requested be removed.
Hi Scylla,
Thanks for getting in touch. I don't have an answer for all of your questions but let me try to do my best:
1 - The generic reply to the forum should be made as a reply to the original post. In this post for instance replying to my original post.
2 - This was functionality that has been adopted as standard by the platform the community is hosted on in upgrades past the version we used to be on. It's already been commented on by our internal development team and we're going to have conversations to see what solutions we can put in place.
3 - The current default font choices are based on our brand guidelines and usability standards for a range of visual impairments and colourblindness. Our usability team are constantly monitoring how industry standards around usability change and will look into this as well.
4 - To meet usability standards our text is a certain size,this means you will only ever be able to fit a certain amount of posts in to the window, the amount you will be able to see will vary device to device dependent on screen size to make sure the lettering remains clear. As for the footer issue, this should only appear at the bottom of the page where there are no more posts to show so will only fill the page when scrolled past replies.
5 - This is set as standard by the platform to display minutes ago as it's intended to work across timezones so that users can easily see how recently something has been posted no matter where in the world they are. We will have a chat as a team and look into whether this is something we can change.
6 - Default picture size is something we'll have a look into to see if we are able to change. My understanding is that the default is set to a smaller size as large images can cause a platform to become unwieldy and slow right down. We're conscious that photography is a major part of the community that you all enjoy and will work on getting the balance between quality of images and the speed the community runs at right.
7 - I'll have a look into the different ways to insert a video into a post and try to include these in the upcoming how to guides.
If you do find anything that is making the community technically unusable please drop us an email at web.enquiries@rspb.org.uk and we'll have a look into it.
JonB said:1 - The generic reply to the forum should be made as a reply to the original post. In this post for instance replying to my original post.
Hi JonB
so do we always have to scroll back to the original post? and why do we need to see and use the first post , which may be months old?
When is step by step guide available?
Where do you see whois online?
Thanks for answering with patience.
Just thought!!!
Could we not have a 'NEWPOST' Tab alongside most recent as well as 'REPLY'
This would alleviate scrolling back to original
Hey all,
Just to let you know we've set up a new survey so you can help inform us of your opinions of the upgraded community, this can be accessed here.
Some of you will have already seen this as it should pop up automatically.
This survey should help us keep feedback in one place and gauge the most pressing issues to look into, both by the strength of feelings and the number of you that report them.
I'm not sure where this will end up!
SunnyKate2 said:Where do you see whois online?
SK2 Hi! I haven't found a list of folk online, but on a particular thread you will see a green dot to the left of a person's name. If they are not on-line the dot will be grey.
Birdie's DU Summaries 2018 https://www.imagicat.com/
I've found out how to post against the margin, rather than as "reply", where it could get lost. At the top of the page against the name of the thread and the first post, is a reply 'button'. Using that will hopefully bring my current post to the bottom of the thread. But it is a very long winded way of doing it, and makes it impossible to refer to the lower posts.