Who'd like to see this junk forum scrapped and the old one reinstated?

Firstly, although it's frustrating, it is a tad rude to call the IPC bods nobs, i was threatened with a ban for calling Tim Bartlett a nob, and he was being one :)

Anyway, arguments that "is isn't happening here", "mine works OK", "must be one of your settings", "must be your version of Windows" etc, etc are invalid. It should work for everyone, regardless of OS, settings or anything else. If it doesn't, it's wrong.

As i said in another thread, why upgrade to 4.1.12 ? This was released in April last year, there was very quickly a patch released for it that required the upgrade to be re-done, although the version number remained 4.1.12 In May last year, version 4.2 was released, with 218 feature changes and bug fixes, which suggests that our version isn't too stable.

Maybe someone needs to look into using the latest version, which has happily been in use since last May, rather than a patched (if they did patch it) version that was scrapped in less than a month.
 
Works OK for me from my W7 Laptop, but I can have difficulties with the iPad, sometimes I think due to wireless connectivity. For me the new system s not as good as the last one, but I'm not going to moan.
 
oceanfroggie said:
Complaining about a FREE service???
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Agree OF. I've experienced a number of glitches with the forum since the change but it's not right to slag off IPC or their staff over the problems because, as you say, the service is free. I've never quite understood what IPC get out of these forums in commercial terms and I bet there are a few managers at IPC who would happily pull the plug on the whole thing. So, whilst it's right to point out any issues, we should do it politely and with due regard to the people at IPC who invest their time and effort in maintaining these forums.
 
Mike - it is all about reputation.


Time Warner / IPC aspire to be the leader in media and communciations; that is what gives them profits, and profits mean bonuses.

If people, who are paid to deliver a web presence via both forums and standard websites, fail to deliver in a timely and effective manner, then damage is caused to reputation.

"Ah, do you remember good old IPC, who used to run those paper things called magazines in the old days ? Sad that they never managed, like Jessops, HMV, Comet, to adapt to delivering a robust and progressive web presence, isn't it ? Shame they were taken over by the Chinese / Malayans / Russkies who then went on to use the sites to deliver proper commercial services to all the leisure and recreational people in Europe."

This is not a failure because an organisation is at the bleeding edge of the technology. Users have identified many areas where the forums fall over, suggested fixes, and considered whether other versions or upgrades of the core software should/could have been used. Experience from other large forums shows that other VBulletin iterations work in ways which are far more effective than this one. Who can justify a skilled magazine photographer having to turn his hand to minor adjustments of graphics and layout of the forum site ? That was the band playing on the Titanic.

There seems to have been an absence of rollback planning, of contingency operational response, of good corporate-level post-event communications. Those lead to damage to reputation at an organisational level, and will be having commercial repercussions from reduced hit rates, and bleed-off of users.

This debacle is fixable, by applying skills, time, and money and good project control. That will save IPC the need to spend even more skills, time, and money when other brands in the IPC stable also change software and applications.
 
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i dont like it as much as the old site but we all have to get used to change, i am the worst for change i just like things to stay as they are once i am used to it but it wont in this world

its a free service and i am sure who ever is behind the scenes is doing there best, i have sort of got used to the new site now and i dont have any of the issues stated previously so all works fine for me

if i was being picky i think the smileys are very poor im affraid the site could learn a lot from the sealine site regards smileys
 
The only 'change' or 'bug' seems to be that this latest software seems to remember previously read posts per platform. So if I move to from Mac to iPad or iPhone and click view first unread it jump to the last post read on the current machine and not last thread read on any platform . So a pain in butt having scroll down again on posts I've already read to get to posts I haven't. But then I am on all Apple platforms ;)
 
What a nightmare,,,loged in,,then told your not loged in,,,,,then the admin wants you to login,,then told your loged in,reply to a thread,,click to post,,,then your not loged in, certainly going to find another site to get my answers,,,
 
Deleted User said:
Agree OF. I've experienced a number of glitches with the forum since the change but it's not right to slag off IPC or their staff over the problems because, as you say, the service is free. I've never quite understood what IPC get out of these forums in commercial terms and I bet there are a few managers at IPC who would happily pull the plug on the whole thing. So, whilst it's right to point out any issues, we should do it politely and with due regard to the people at IPC who invest their time and effort in maintaining these forums.
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+ 1
 
I think this image sums up the responses to the changes on the forum. stolen without apology from the 'who moved my cheese' book.

characters.jpg
 
sarabande said:
Mike - it is all about reputation.


Time Warner / IPC aspire to be the leader in media and communciations; that is what gives them profits, and profits mean bonuses.

If people, who are paid to deliver a web presence via both forums and standard websites, fail to deliver in a timely and effective manner, then damage is caused to reputation.

"Ah, do you remember good old IPC, who used to run those paper things called magazines in the old days ? Sad that they never managed, like Jessops, HMV, Comet, to adapt to delivering a robust and progressive web presence, isn't it ? Shame they were taken over by the Chinese / Malayans / Russkies who then went on to use the sites to deliver proper commercial services to all the leisure and recreational people in Europe."

This is not a failure because an organisation is at the bleeding edge of the technology. Users have identified many areas where the forums fall over, suggested fixes, and considered whether other versions or upgrades of the core software should/could have been used. Experience from other large forums shows that other VBulletin iterations work in ways which are far more effective than this one. Who can justify a skilled magazine photographer having to turn his hand to minor adjustments of graphics and layout of the forum site ? That was the band playing on the Titanic.

There seems to have been an absence of rollback planning, of contingency operational response, of good corporate-level post-event communications. Those lead to damage to reputation at an organisational level, and will be having commercial repercussions from reduced hit rates, and bleed-off of users.

This debacle is fixable, by applying skills, time, and money and good project control. That will save IPC the need to spend even more skills, time, and money when other brands in the IPC stable also change software and applications.
Click to expand...

Absolutely 100% agree with you on this. Irrespective of whether this is a fee paying or free service, the likes of IPC and the resources and professional people within this organisations communications department should of had this tried and tested to ensure it was 100% or as close as prior to general roll out. Someone's not done their job properly and considering the big chain of command thats very surprising.

BTW it took me 3 attempts to log in to be able to post this!!:(

Does anyone remember the debacle Pistonheads.com had when they attempted to roll out their new site? It took several attempts to get it right and the public were the guinea pigs...downright unprofessional and pee'd off a lot of advertisers and general public.

The smilies on here are craarp too.
 
It's important to understand (and communicate) why the upgrade was necessary. vBulletin 3 (the old much loved forum) is now "end of life" meaning that it will no longer benefit from fixes, potentially including security ones (see https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/1-vBulletin-Announcements).

Personally I have no issues with the new one. The only minor login issue that I had just needed cookies to be deleted to get it working again. Like others, I use the Snooks template which I find to be easier to read.

I do feel however that comms haven't been good on this. I'd have moved all the complaints to the appropriate sub-fora and made sure I had a sticky containing a list and status of all reported bugs.

In my experience (>25 years in IT) it's not what you do it's how you communicate it that counts.

Pete
 
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