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Community Feedback: New Forum Software is Live!

8K views 106 replies 23 participants last post by  AG_Admin 
#1 ·
We are excited to announce that we are live on our new forum platform!

It’s been a long time coming. Let’s face it. Sometimes older forum technology lags behind other parts of the internet. Although seeing the same format for a long time is comforting, the member experience shouldn’t include dealing with outdated, unsafe, slow software.

The transition to a new platform will never be 100% smooth but the days of dealing with out of date forum software are over. We have teams dedicated to building a world-class community for you. The development has been steady with regular software releases since May 2019. Asking members for feedback and coming up with ideas for improvement is what we want.

Speed and Reliability Are Key
No one should have to wait for information. This site has been built to be much faster and more reliable, period.

New Homepage Experience
Our algorithm will serve a personal customized feed based on your prior engagement with content on the site. If you’ve liked and or commented, or are following certain topics that are of interest to you, similar content will appear at the top of the homepage.

Search
We have introduced new search algorithms, powered by an industry-leading AI platform, to help you find information faster. We plan to roll out new features to continue improving search, and to power many additional areas of the forum.

Due to the volume of content, our search platform may take some time to complete indexing over the first few days after migrating. During this process, you may see a limited number of posts until indexing has been completed. We appreciate your patience.

Finding Your Way Around
We have made the design clean and simple to use. Near the upper right-hand corner of the community, you will see navigation icons.

The first icon is for what’s new on the site.

Clicking on it, by default, will take you to new unread posts. On that page, you can click on additional tabs as well, such as Popular, if you prefer to view active topics.

Clicking the list icon next to “NEW” will bring you to the full forum listing.

Clicking your avatar will give you a drop-down menu for all things related to your account.

You can also navigate more by clicking the 3 vertical dots.

Dark Mode
We have introduced Dark Mode. One of our favorite features allows you to access the site with a power-saving, and easier on the eyes dark mode. You can access it in the drop-down menu under the 3 vertical dots.

Save Bookmarks
Now you can save your favorite discussion threads and posts! Bookmarks are a handy way to remember and easily find great content or stuff you want to read later.

We also wanted to make it easier for new users to understand the lingo of forums. We have cleaned up various language to more commonly recognized phrases including:
  • Following - Thread subscriptions, and Watched are now known as Following
  • Conversations - Private Messages or PMs are now conversations and can be accessed from the user avatar drop-down in the main navigation
  • Showcase - Showcase is designed for users to "showcase" items/projects through the use of uploaded images, text descriptions and custom content categories. It’s a way to visually and textually provide detailed information on the content you wish to share. The showcase would be similar to a catalog, whereas the gallery would be like a photo album. It can be accessed from the drop-down menu with the 3 dots.
Take a tour and look around! Check out the Help section for some quick FAQs about the new platform.

Please keep all feedback, questions, concerns, requests for help, etc. regarding the new platform right here in this Feedback thread. This will help us make sure not to miss a request for help and also let us pass along your thoughts to our Product team. The Admins and I will be here to help along the way taking note of your comments.

- Community Management Team
 
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#2 ·
I will be here during your transition to the new platform, to help with any questions, help with navigation or how to do things, and to listen to your feedback so please don't hesitate to holler at me. I want to help. You can also check out our FAQs.

I do want to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Cricket. When I was born, my father told his friends I was the ugliest baby he had ever seen, and that I sounded just like a cricket (I was born with the hiccups.) so yes, I have been Cricket for 59 years now. I live just outside of San Antonio, Texas. I spend most of my free time out in nature and exploring the back roads. During late autumn when it starts to finally cool down, I disappear from the world for a bit for camping trips and hiking.

Please don't be afraid to explore and test out things to see how they work on the site. :)

Although you can certainly use the "insert image" icon to upload an image to your post, you can also just drag and drop it to the text editor or even copy/paste it into there!

You can easily share videos just by adding the URL directly into the text editor!



Gif links from sites like giphy.com will display automatically just by adding the gif URL directly in the text editor. Try it!



I am a huge fan of the dark mode for the community. What is your favorite feature?

The new forum software is still a work in progress.

We will be seeing regular updates which are largely fueled by community feedback. While that doesn't mean we can action every request, it does mean we will be actively listening to the feedback and sharing it with the developers. We do ask that you keep any questions, thoughts or feedback about the new forum software here in the Community Feedback thread to help us keep all the information together so we don't miss anything.

There is still some work going on behind the scene so you may notice some changes as we work.
  • It can take 24-48 hours for the site to finish indexing so it may take a bit for search results to return proper results, including showing all your threads/posts under your profile.
  • We will continue to clean up the order of the sections on the full forum listings page so you might see some stuff move around.
  • We are reviewing permissions and special permission sections so let us know if you notice any issues so we can look into them.
I have worked with our community support team for 6 years. I have worked with forums for closer to two decades. I won't always know the answers to your questions, but I can find someone who does, as needed. ;)

- Cricket
 
#3 ·
Love what you have done with the place. While phpbb is nostalgic, it is no longer the best option. Glad to finally have a functional site on mobile devices. My only real complaint is with the algorithms used to show threads. I would much rather have the option to make the default homepage the full forum listing instead of the recommended page
 
#4 ·
You can make a bookmark in your site browser if you prefer to land on the full listing page. :)


- Cricket
 
#6 ·
Um just no. First of all the header pics....a Assender. Seriously. Replace them w a 1st gen trooper, a rodeo and the new Dmax. At least what made us love isuzu. I can assure u the Chevy Envoy reclad as a Isuzu isn't it.

2nd. There are alot of mature ( not old ) non tech savvy individuals on here. Please don't make it harder for them to navigate than it has to be.

3. Who's idea was this and did the members of the page get a say or warning.

4. If it ain't broke dont fix it. The Isuzu credence. You don't and it's for sure gonna break. Stop fn w it.

5. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
 
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#9 ·
The ads?! Jeebus. Good update to modernize the forum but the monetization is horrible for us old timers who've been used to the plain old vanilla layout.

You know what would be worth it for you guys to do? Build a script that scavenges the external images and then rewrites them to host on the domain. That way if the src of the external images are never lost.
 
#10 ·
And the dissent has begun. Exactly Skeletor. I vote to change it back.
 
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#14 ·
Um just no. First of all the header pics....a Assender. Seriously. Replace them w a 1st gen trooper, a rodeo and the new Dmax. At least what made us love isuzu. I can assure u the Chevy Envoy reclad as a Isuzu isn't it.

2nd. There are alot of mature ( not old ) non tech savvy individuals on here. Please don't make it harder for them to navigate than it has to be.

3. Who's idea was this and did the members of the page get a say or warning.

4. If it ain't broke dont fix it. The Isuzu credence. You don't and it's for sure gonna break. Stop fn w it.

5. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
 
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#22 ·
Um just no. First of all the header pics....a Assender. Seriously. Replace them w a 1st gen trooper, a rodeo and the new Dmax. At least what made us love isuzu. I can assure u the Chevy Envoy reclad as a Isuzu isn't it.
I do agree with you regarding the header, though perhaps not with quite the same passion. Could be cool to have users submit pictures of their rides to replace it
Just wanted to chime in about the header as well. Not sure who made it but it's quite irrelevant. Maybe consider community photos. Or pictures of vehicles more relevant to the forum( trooper, rodeo, amigo, impulse if you want to get frisky).
Get rid of the Ascender on that header! And even the Dmax is irrelevant to this forum.
We did ask for your input regarding the header image prior to migration. :)


- Cricket
 
#17 ·
Just wanted to chime in about the header as well. Not sure who made it but it's quite irrelevant. Maybe consider community photos. Or pictures of vehicles more relevant to the forum( trooper, rodeo, amigo, impulse if you want to get frisky).
 
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#20 ·
I really liked the old forum. I don't do facebook, or for that matter, no social media sites. I'm from the old school, don't fix what isn't broken, which is why my battery is dated 2014 and still going strong.
 
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#34 ·
@cricket
Yes, you asked for images. But no, you didn't offer to pay for them. It's all about the $$$ for your company, so why shouldn't content creators get their fair share?

And one of the first things to hit me in the face was the "Upgrade to Premium" thing. Is that the alternative to getting bombarded with ads?

Jack
 
#35 ·
There is NOT enough contrast between the light background and the text. It appears Grey not Black. You need to darken the text or make it BOLD to stand out.

And yes, I have tried "Dark Mode" and cannot stand the black background with white text. There has to be something in-between that will work better than this.
 
#37 ·
@AG_Admin could you please advise whether inline attachments are going to be supported? Currently they are all showing as, "View Attachment 1" "View Attachment 2" etc and all link to the same set of placeholder images. Is this a bug?

Here's an example post showing the issue: '88 Trooper resto...

Here's a screenshot of the above post:
Rectangle Font Line Parallel Slope


Thanks for any updates on this!
 
#41 ·
Couldn't agree more. Will do my part and try to learn my way around. My first post went fairly well and the picture I included was bigger than the older forum. My initial response was negative, but I'm going to try to hang on and continue to be a productive member
 
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#40 ·
Ugly & cluttered. Plus, had to wait probably 3 mins for "browser security check" then do "Captcha" bs twice... just to get in. Wasn't "broken" before, so it didn't need "fixing".
 
#43 ·
Change is tough and this is exactly the level of bitching that I expected. That said, there are some legitimate gripes, and those should be focused on to make improvements. Let's try not to drown out the useful comments with too much, "ugh, I don't like it. whiiiiiiiine!"

As to the ads monetizing the site, the issue, imo, was that ads appeared OVER the photos posted, which is a direct monentization of posted photos without any compensation to the poster. It's certainly not analogous to taxation without representation, but it's shady either way.

Anyway, there was zero chance that the site update was going to be the simple retro format that everyone was used to, so I'm not sure why everyone is throwing a fit like this came out of left field. I look forward to not having terrible search, photos, and videos. I'm out on work and too busy to dig into the site now, but I expect everyone to stick around and get it worked out without acting too much like toddlers.
 
#44 ·
I really don't have a big issue with the software you chose. Change is tough, but we'll learn how it works.

But your team came to us with false pretenses. If you really want to "move forward", how about we start with some honesty.

Here's how I see things, and please feel free to prove me wrong:
  • You have no interest (zip, zero, nada) in Isuzu vehicles (aside from revenue you hope they bring you). You did not choose this site because somebody in your company had an Isuzu, or even because, "Hey, that's a cool old SUV". You saw an active community that you thought you might capitalize on.
  • This forum was and is seen as just an investment, a new revenue stream.
  • Your interest going forward will be to simply placate as many users as possible while maintaining a decent ROI.
If you can admit that much, maybe we can move forward.

Jack
 
#45 ·
My take on this. Older guy here, definitely old school and computer challenged. I use a laptop, no smartphone for this guy. The older I get the less I like change, with ANYTHING, but I adapt. A couple of the motorcycle forums I frequent use this type of layout/system so I'm kinda familiar with it, but not what I call fluent. Sorta getting used to it. Dark mode is definitely easier on my eyes. Haven't tried attaching pics, hopefully it's not too different. Haven't used the search function yet, but anything would be an improvement over the old system. Used to use the "Unread posts" function, now use the "New" button, about the same. I don't see a lot of ads, but my computer guy installed some kind of ad-blocker on my computer. Guess it works. I frequent the Planet for the "chatter" and KNOWLEDGE. Although I don't post much, I feel a camaraderie with folks here. And I would sure hate to lose the knowledge here. So as long as the "feel" of the place doesn't go away and the knowledge is still here, I'll stick around.

Mike
 
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