A Question for Mod1 re: new site design

[Unregistered]

This is a question for Mod1, SysOp or any other Board Administrator: Why did you redesign the site? Of course, this is your site and you can do whatever you want with it but I would just like to ask why. This new interface is terrible. No more options to bold, underline or italicize text...the colors are almost headache-inducing....the timestamps for posts are (I believe) Greenwhich Mean Time....the list goes on.

And yes, I know, the easy response is "If you don't like it, don't use the site" but I would think that the site administrators would want unique visitors which in turn raises your site profile and commands higher advertising rates.


(This site is like New Coke...and imagine if Donald Keough (then CEO of Coca-Cola) had said during that debacle "If you don't like, don't drink it")

[MOD 1]

This is a question for Mod1, SysOp or any other Board Administrator: Why did you redesign the site? Of course, this is your site and you can do whatever you want with it but I would just like to ask why. This new interface is terrible. No more options to bold, underline or italicize text...the colors are almost headache-inducing....the timestamps for posts are (I believe) Greenwhich Mean Time....the list goes on.

And yes, I know, the easy response is "If you don't like it, don't use the site" but I would think that the site administrators would want unique visitors which in turn raises your site profile and commands higher advertising rates.


(This site is like New Coke...and imagine if Donald Keough (then CEO of Coca-Cola) had said during that debacle "If you don't like, don't drink it")

I will address your concerns in order I hope I don't miss any. If I do, feel free to call me out on it.

Why did we redesign the site? - The short answer is, we were getting to big for the phpBB software that we were using. It was starting to crash a lot and it there was a lot of hacking of the software done to keep it going.

This new interface is terrible. No more options to bold, underline or italicize text. - I was not aware of this until you brought it to my attention. I have been so busy with issues, that this completely escaped me. I will definitely look into it and try to fix it. I know there has to be a way, I believe I have seen it somewhere and I just have to figure out how to turn it on for everybody. In the mean time, you can always us BB Code. To see how, just make sure you are in advanced reply, and click on BB Code near the bottom of the page.

the colors are almost headache-inducing.- I will talk to my bosses and see what we can do about it. If you don't mind, check out, www.fireaffairs.com and www.teacheraffairs.com and go to the message boards and see if you like those colors better.

the timestamps for posts are (I believe) Greenwhich Mean Time. - This one, I cannot fix for you right now. We are looking for a solution to it. There is a glitch, if we change it, then all the posts that came over from phpBB will suddenly show as being from a certain date from 1969. We went through that with our first install of the board and we are looking to see if there is a way around it. Registered Users can set their own time zone in their settings.

the list goes on. - Please, bring me your concerns and I will try my best to fix them or get who ever can to fix them if I can't.

And yes, I know, the easy response is "If you don't like it, don't use the site" but I would think that the site administrators would want unique visitors which in turn raises your site profile and commands higher advertising rates.- I would never say that. I want to do whatever I can to make things better for our users.

Mod 1

[MOD 1]

Registered User can go to their Settings, click on General Settings, go to the section about posting, and select the WYSIWYG Editor. Then you will have many tools to choose from. I have set it so that all new registered users will get it turned on automatically.

Unregistered Users/Guests At this time, it appears that VBulletin does not support the use of the WYSIWYG editor by Unregistered Users/Guests. I will research it some more tomorrow, but it looks like for now that the BBCode is the way to go.

Sorry,

Mod 1

[Unregistered]

I will address your concerns in order I hope I don't miss any. If I do, feel free to call me out on it.

Why did we redesign the site? - The short answer is, we were getting to big for the phpBB software that we were using. It was starting to crash a lot and it there was a lot of hacking of the software done to keep it going.

This new interface is terrible. No more options to bold, underline or italicize text. - I was not aware of this until you brought it to my attention. I have been so busy with issues, that this completely escaped me. I will definitely look into it and try to fix it. I know there has to be a way, I believe I have seen it somewhere and I just have to figure out how to turn it on for everybody. In the mean time, you can always us BB Code. To see how, just make sure you are in advanced reply, and click on BB Code near the bottom of the page.

the colors are almost headache-inducing.- I will talk to my bosses and see what we can do about it. If you don't mind, check out, www.fireaffairs.com and www.teacheraffairs.com and go to the message boards and see if you like those colors better.

the timestamps for posts are (I believe) Greenwhich Mean Time. - This one, I cannot fix for you right now. We are looking for a solution to it. There is a glitch, if we change it, then all the posts that came over from phpBB will suddenly show as being from a certain date from 1969. We went through that with our first install of the board and we are looking to see if there is a way around it. Registered Users can set their own time zone in their settings.

the list goes on. - Please, bring me your concerns and I will try my best to fix them or get who ever can to fix them if I can't.

And yes, I know, the easy response is "If you don't like it, don't use the site" but I would think that the site administrators would want unique visitors which in turn raises your site profile and commands higher advertising rates.- I would never say that. I want to do whatever I can to make things better for our users.

Mod 1

Thanks for the response. I appreciate the explanation of why everything changed so dramatically, and I can certainly understand that the site's increased traffic required some design changes. That being said, though, I think the new site is a paradox or a Catch-22 situation. The Problem: Site was getting too big for current software. Solution: New software, new design. Unintended result: New design causes downtick in traffic, lower interest and decreased demand.
I agree with the St. Pete PD poster who said that the new interface sounded the death knell for this site. I would wager that ever a cursory review of posts per day after the change will show that this new design is a bust. But, maybe I'm wrong. You have the traffic reports which may show that more users are coming here, but at least on the FHP site it seems like posts took a nosedive after the change. In any case, though, thank you for the response. I hope this new design catches on, as its clear you and SysOp and others have put a lot of work into it.