Hi all,
I’ve got some good news. We’ve been looking over your feedback and working on as many of your suggestions as possible for the last week and have got some improvements planned for next week. So we wanted to give you an update on where we’ve got to, next week’s improvements, what’s still to come, what we’re unfortunately not able to change and what the next steps are after these first updates.
Next Week’s Improvements
Text styling
We’re aware many of you were having difficulty with the default text styling. The text is going to be made darker overall, larger in most places and bolder in some places. We will also make the text links more consistent and clearer.
Some of the changes that were made as part of the community upgrade were to bring the styling in line with the main RSPB website - it’s important that we have a consistent look across all of our sites and the old community website had fallen away from these as it’s been a while since it was last upgraded. However, there are a lot of places where these have to be changed in the software and in many places the text was showing ‘default’ settings - the lighter grey text for example. This is where there have been some visibility issues which should be improved next week.
Forum post ordering & layout
One of the things we know you’ve been keen to see improves is how posts and replies have been displayed.
With the software upgrade came a new layout to post threads. This meant that replies to previous posts were indented or ‘nested’ which can make it harder to follow the order of replies. Also, it required clicking through multiple pages to get to the end of very long threads.
We plan on switching off the nesting entirely. When you reply to a previous post, it will show as ‘in reply to…’ next to your name in the post. The order of posts will also be reversed so that the latest posts show at the top rather than the bottom, so there’s no need to click through pages to get to the end of the thread. There will still be buttons at the top with ‘Oldest’ and ‘Newest’ so you can switch between these.
This all means that you will see a ‘flat’ list of all replies to the original post shown at the top of the page, going from most recent down to oldest. Clicking on the ‘Reply’ button shown under the original post will add to the thread as a whole, or the ‘Reply’ button under every individual reply will reply to that post itself.
We’re also adding a ‘Latest posts’ list on the right of the page (or bottom, on phones) which will show the latest 10 posts within that forum. This will replace the ‘Related’ post list which didn’t seem to be very relevant according to your survey feedback.
Community home page layout
We’re going to increase both the number of recent forum posts and recent blog posts shown on the homepage, from 10 to 15 (forum posts) and 5 to 9 (blog posts). Bear in mind that you can click through the pagination at the bottom of the forum posts to see more, and we’ve added this to the blog posts too.
We’re also adding a similar feature for photos, so you can view the latest photo/video uploads from the homepage.
On the right of the page (on larger screens, or the bottom on phones), we’re improving the lists here to show the most popular 10 forums and blogs. We have an awful lot of both and hopefully this should make it easier to find them.
Section pages
(ie. the main pages for Wildlife, Places to Visit, Get Involved, Our Work, Chat & About)
All of these pages are being improved to make them align with the main community homepage. This means that rather than just displaying the forums and blogs that live within them, they will also show all the latest forum and blog posts, more like before the upgrade.
Media uploads
The upload limit for attachments will be increased to 5Mb per file. We are continuing to look into how we can alter the software to have different default display sizes of images and video, once we have an answer on this we will let you know how we intend to update and improve this.
Post/blog content
A couple of people in the survey responded that they thought some content was moved or removed as part of the upgrade. It’s important to point out that no content was moved or deleted at all (except for a bit of spam that had crept in!). It’s all still in exactly the same place as before; the software upgrade changed nothing more than page layouts and styling.
Hopefully the upcoming changes will make it easier to navigate around and find what you’re looking for, but rest assured that it’s all still there.
Still to come
Reply box
We’re still looking at ways of making it easier to reply to a forum post, including having the reply box open by default.
Sticky header
We’re looking at removing the ‘sticky’ header so that the area at the top of the page doesn’t ‘lock’ in place as you scroll down, taking up some screen space.
Forum pages
We’re looking at ways of to make it easier to skip through pages of the forums by page number instead of having to click on a button to load the next page one at a time. If we do manage this then we may switch the post order back so that the oldest ones are shown first and the latest ones are at the bottom, but you’d start off at the latest page.
We’re not able to change
Who’s online
There used to be a list of users currently online which some people mentioned in the survey that they miss. This isn’t a feature available in the new software, though each user does have a coloured dot next to them to indicate whether they’re online or not… green if so, grey if not.
Next steps
Next week we’ll implement these improvements and comment on this thread to let you know. Once this is live take some time have a look around and get used to what will have changed then let us know here what we should look at improving next. It’s in our plan that for future improvements you’ll be asked for suggestions and we want to get you involved in the testing stages as well, to make sure this remains your community.
Thanks again to everybody for your patience and helping to feed into how we can improve.
HAZY said:still find the latest post first which follows under the initial post just so tedious as nothing flows properly (like it should in a story - it's like chapters start in reverse after the first prologue so you can't follow the "story", hence you can't read a thread easily, having to click more ...... more...... each time and then follow it backwards.
Well said, Hazel. You put it much more eloquently than I did.
HAZY said:Paul A: if you are reading this, we need a quiz to keep us entertained
Or you could do one of your cryptic quizzes, Hazel, if you've got the energy.
I can't believe the RSPB want this Forum to fail after all the time and money they've spent on it but if they leave it like this more people will drift away.
TeeJay said:Or you could do one of your cryptic quizzes, Hazel, if you've got the energy.
I'll work on it LOL
I’m afraid if nothing is done about this forum and the RSPB don’t seem to care. I’m not very technical with computers and websites and I just want a website that is simple to use, which this website simply is not. I’m afraid I will be one of those RSPB members leaving this forum and it saddens me so much as I’ve loved this community forum, but I can’t take much more of this situation and I’ve been a member of this forum practically since it launched quite a number of years ago. There has been one regular member who is normally a regular poster on here, but I haven’t seen her or him post over the last few weeks, who never mentioned anything about leaving and I haven’t seen any posts at all lately, so I presume they might have decided to leave this forum, which is a great tragedy.
Regards,
Ian.
I agree with most things that have been said here in regards the changes which have been made.
My personal opinion is that the community is now becoming a bit of an afterthought from the RSPB. The huge amounts of people using Facebook & Twitter is sadly the way of the modern world, but these social media sites are not for me. I did try Facebook for a short time but was very quickly put off by the sheer volume of nonsense you have to sift through, and also with the casual and open use of profanity which seems to be more and more accepted as ‘normal’ these days. I’m certainly not claiming to be a saint myself (I do know a few naughty words), but I don’t particularly enjoy having to see such language written down.
The photo uploads here seem to be a wee bit quicker (and certainly more successful) for me, but the multiple uploader is of no use due to the small default size of the photos, and I really don’t have the will to spend time attempting to change settings which really should be set as a default to begin with. I do change the settings when uploading individual photos in a post (so that is actually a bit worse than the old site), but even having to do this the photos still seem to upload a wee bit quicker than before.
As for reading posts, I think it’s a double edged thing; if I click on the latest post it’s ok, but if there have been many replies, having to click ‘more’ all the time is a bit of a nuisance. On the other side of it, if I click on ‘oldest’ it takes you way back to the start of the thread and again and I have to repeatedly click ‘more’ to catch back up if there are lots of replies to the post. I don’t know the answer to this, but I do know that on the old forum, having page numbers at the bottom was handy to navigate quickly to where you want to be in the thread. Perhaps if the page numbers could be reintroduced (at the top & bottom of every thread) it would help.
I think it’s an age thing too, I’m in my 50’s and suspect that I may actually be one of the younger members of the community. I do wonder if the RSPB are concentrating more on the younger generation who are more likely to use the big social media sites, but in my experience, the vast majority of folks I encounter when I’m out and about are in ‘our’ age group. I’m not saying that there are very few younger people interested in nature, but I do know amongst all the people I know, very few have more than a passing interest in the natural world. Again, probably just another sad fact of the modern world and the ‘distractions’ available to everyone.
Anyway, it’s not my intension to leave the community due to the issues we’re having. I do find myself posting less nowadays but the main reasons for this are just varying circumstances of life in general, and not particularly because things have changed in the community. I think it’s important to bear in mind that we all have built up a friendship from the many years we’ve been here, and it would be very sad to see this diminish primarily due to problems with the ease of use here.
When the site has been down on occasion, I’ve personally felt at a bit of a loss at times, even though I don’t post as regularly as perhaps I once did. I wonder how we would feel if the site was to close down permanently? I suspect most of us would likely be happy to have it back in its current form. It’s nice to know that if I do have something to say or show, I have friends here who will listen, comment, advise, and occasionally tease me …. (you know who you are).!!
That’s my take on it, for what it’s worth. :-)
HAZY said:Paul A: if you are reading this, we need a quiz to keep us entertained LOL
Funny you should say that.....
Paul A said:Anyway, it’s not my intension to leave the community due to the issues we’re having.
Glad someone will be keeping me company whilst I slowly go insane on here lol I couldn't agree more about Facebook, I also tried it quite a number of years ago and withdrew for the same reasons you mention.
Paul A said:Funny you should say that.....
Yay !!
So maybe, I'll hang in there a bit longer. As Paul says, I miss it!! I just wish I could get the hang of doing quotes on here. Everyone else seems to have sussed it! LOL
I'll start a few of New threads too Wendy, can't leave all the work to you.
Noisette said:I think the banner running across the top "We've been making improvements! Click for details" could do with removing now. They've done nothing more in the last month & don't seem to be listening.
Agreed.
TeeJay said:All the RSPB staff responsible for this Forum should be back at work next week. I think it's time we put pressure on them to get outstanding issues fixed.I dislike the latest posts appearing at the top especially because they follow the very first post which can sometimes be weeks or even months old. It's just WRONG to have to scan downwards to see earlier posts. I want a simple list of posts starting with the earliest and finishing with the latest.I would still like to see photos filling the width available by default. It's a pain to have to alter the dimensions manually in the image dialogue box to achieve this. In many cases it would obviate the need to open the image to see the detail which can be rather slow.I find the text rather faint for my aging eyes and would like it to be more visible. Also, hypertext links don't show up very well unless you put them in bold as I think Korky has done elsewhere.Those are probably the main irritations for me but I'm sure other folk will have other issues to raise.
All the RSPB staff responsible for this Forum should be back at work next week. I think it's time we put pressure on them to get outstanding issues fixed.
I dislike the latest posts appearing at the top especially because they follow the very first post which can sometimes be weeks or even months old. It's just WRONG to have to scan downwards to see earlier posts. I want a simple list of posts starting with the earliest and finishing with the latest.
I would still like to see photos filling the width available by default. It's a pain to have to alter the dimensions manually in the image dialogue box to achieve this. In many cases it would obviate the need to open the image to see the detail which can be rather slow.
I find the text rather faint for my aging eyes and would like it to be more visible. Also, hypertext links don't show up very well unless you put them in bold as I think Korky has done elsewhere.
Those are probably the main irritations for me but I'm sure other folk will have other issues to raise.
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All that would be an improvement on the current apology for a forum - but my dearest wish is that they'd spent their efforts on repairing elements of the old forum that were messed up at the time of the previous changes.
I would add that it's not just "aging" eyes that the current font is too faint for, and a while ago I posted a comparison with a gaming forum (where the average age will be much lower than here), showing that their font was 'stronger' than ours.
QUOTE BOB:
"I do wonder what people have against Facebook and what elements they have tried."
I have recently been monitoring 2 "nests" in dedicated Facebook groups and it is useless for that purpose - comments get hidden, posts are in random order, all over the place, there's no way of organising them by date, either newest or oldest first - they are actually shuffled!
Facebook is fine for hosting pictures to be commented on, but not if you need any organisation on the page.
Paul A said:Anyway, it’s not my intension to leave the community due to the issues we’re having
I imagine that I have a lot less "service" than the majority of posters, but I sincerely hope that everyone that can do so sticks with the site. I am sad that there have been a couple of long term posters who have said on other threads that they will no longer contribute. Ian
Wowowow !!!
If I'm not mistaken, we have a new, slightly smaller, but superbly denser, font !!!
Anyone else? Or am I seeing things "differently"?