Old or New

[frommagio]

Remember that the vote will be prejudiced by the fact that the technical staff was unable to get the new software to work.

I think we can have a fair vote if 2+2 can hire some folks to test it first before deploying it.

[Cry Me A River]

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but who said that they didn't bother raising any issues on the test server or on the archives because they thought things were pretty much set. What gives?

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Because most of the problems with the upgrade, specifically loss of features, weren't really noticeable just browsing around the archive version for five minutes. ie: The loss of highlighting in unread threads, visited links, jump to first unread post, the disappearance of "My Favorites", the crippling of Search.

Obviously the slowdown issues colour everything, but, even if it had worked 100% there were still big problems. I'm as much a technophile as anyone, but an upgrade is generally supposed to mean it gets better. You're not supposed to loose important features particularly when the tradeoffs gained in return seem entirely superficial and trivial. I mean fonts? We're supposed to get excited about fonts?

[ncboiler]

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Remember that the vote will be prejudiced by the fact that the technical staff was unable to get the new software to work.

I think we can have a fair vote if 2+2 can hire some folks to test it first before deploying it.

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I believe it was stated by a mod somewhere that it was tested.

[matrix]

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I think 2p2 is right to upgrade - and I hope that an upgrade that pleases the majority of the posters here is out there and will get moved to soon.

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hmm, the poll says something else.

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the poll in this thread is not a reliable indicator or the users actual preferences.

i) people who disliked the change are more likely to vote
ii) people who didn't get to see/use some of the better features because of major issues like unacceptable slowdown don't have an accurate basis for comparison
iii) people who disliked the change are more likely to read this forum
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tbh I think a lot of the stuff that people were complaining about is just resistance to change and being comfortable with whats here already.

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I don't think so. There are (and always have been) 2 primary concepts:
- readability (usability)
- paintability (colors)

Some people like colors come people like command line.

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I think that oversimplifies things.

We are living in the information/TV age. Image in todays world is HUGELY overrated - but I think that more people of the type that have the disposable income that 2p2 is looking to capture would be turned off from 2p2 because it's forum interface looks archaic or it's web page looks 15 years old.

People judge books by their covers (why else have 2p2 stopped putting the clipart six-shooter and some playing cards on their book covers?) I don't see why the forums can't be improved so that usability (which the present forums are SUPERB for) can be improved along with "paintability" (which 2p2 sucks for ATM.)

The forums can have the best content in the known world (and I believe 2p2 is very BIG on content and I commend them for it) but if noone opens the book because it looks old and dusty whats the point?

Perhaps an upgrade to ubbthreads is not the way to go - perhaps it's time to completely change the entire forum s/w?

[Feroc]

I really liked the new design and hope it comes back soon. It just looked cleaner and more like the forums I am used to.

[Klompy]

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It just looked cleaner and more like the forums I am used to.


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I think most of the people who really liked the new layout have the bold part in common with you.

I HATED the new style because of not knowing how to get to anywhere, and because when I did find the correct link it still never worked. I'm sure I'd get used to the new layout eventualy though, as long as the issues with the software actualy working are ironed out.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

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It's not just the hardware. It's the software that's not scaling well w/ the number of users and posts we're getting here.

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Maybe someone needs to start a thread with this info in the subject line. It might cut back on some of the whining and push discussion in more useful direction.

What is a bigger problem, the number of users or their posts? Would it be helpful if every thread inactive for six months (or even three) was archived? Perhaps that should be done right before the next time you try to implement new software.

[MrWookie]

It's not just users or posts. As we observed during the upgrade, it's also due in part to an inefficient search algorithm, I think. Some of that could conceivably be alleviated by only having 6 months of active posts on the main server at any given time, but then we'd rack up complaints of people not being able to find their posts.

[RacersEdge]

I really liked the layout of the new software - much more visually appealing. With the new sidebar, I actually realized a few forums existed that I didn't know about becasue the current (orange/green) sidebar is such a mess to view.

[wims]

I like the new one much much better. The old software is very 1990's. If your hardware is not good enough to run a modern forum software i suggest you upgrade ?