I’ll be frank and suggest that you should revert to the old site as soon as possible.
“BlenderArtists” isn’t a social site. We’re not looking for reputations, for similars, or for what are the latest posts. We’re looking in particular topics of interest, and quite likely we wish to scan all of the topics at once to see which ones have received posts. We don’t want to set up a “social profile” of any sort.
This new configuration is, in my humble opinion, much more intrusive but also actually gets in the way of what this forum of this nature should be. More than half of the usable screen-space, for instance, is now lost. And I’ll predict that your server utilization will now be substantially higher to service the same number of parallel visitors.
I can certainly say that henceforth I will be visiting this site much less often than I have in the past.
I agree that it would be nice to be able to hide the recent posts in the home page and focus on the forum structure. Maybe it could be implemented with a small button above the content toggling between full homepage and only the categories or have it as an option in the preferences.
I don’t agree with the fear of a social website. There is less profile information shown directly next to the post than before. Likes are a nice feature that I silently wished for in the old forum. It’s a fast way to say “thanks” or “me too” without having to write an appropriate answer or using up space for this rather unimportant information.
We also don’t have a signature anymore. This is a direct step against the social aspect of building up a personal presence with some short personal content or links to social networks. I liked the signature, where I could link my website, portfolio and games, but I like it without a signature as well. It’s cleaner and less distracting that way.
Are you referring to the homepage here with the right side showing recent replies, or is it some social features somewhere else taking up too much space?
why?
the most recent posts is usually what I come to see on a site like this. if I need something older, then I start digging through categories or search.
But usually there are so many posts from categories one is not interested in, that only a few in the list are really useful. It makes sense when you’re interested in most topics, but I’m mostly looking at artworks and the weekend challenge, rarely at coding, support and news. So I think the recent list should be customizable with a category selection or optional.
I like it. It displays most recent posts AND categories like it used to. There is no functionality that is taken away. New and latest posts is what I am looking through often. I would even look through a feed of the content off all latest posts. Social websites have many useful features, I don’t see a reason not to use them if it makes life easier.
It’s an interesting choice to say ‘we’, when you are talking about your own personal experience as well as to suggest the hard work and effort to improve and modernize this forum is useless and should be thrown away even before it’s completed. It’s hard to agree to this point of view.
that would be cool. so i understand your point, but instead of removing it from front page, maybe some sort of “follow these categories” kind of thing. still… to be honest, I find it interesting what happens in groups I’m not really following, so it might change my mind and even start checking out those too if topic is interesting.
but yes, maybe at least some sort of sorting. “you like” → “might be interesting”.
aaaaanyways, i think its nice to have this right on your face when you arrive.
prejudicial boy… judgement day… it’s all in your head (and in so many others with lesser intelligence, no tolerance, no patience)… either it will make you ingenious & stronger in your decisions or you will start to witness hell within
learn, gain experience, use knowledge to your advantage and try to use emotions to express artistically instead of calling for witch hunt or worse, start a war
exercise well & stay sharp
You can simply visit the Categories view directly if you don’t like the hybrid view of Categories and Latest Activty. Or you can view just the Latest or just the New since your last visit.
Now it’s up to you rather than the forum settings.
Seems like a very sensationalist title and post. Sure, this new site can continue to be improved, but I didn’t find myself on the old Blenderartists hardly at all for quite a while. This, in my opinion was a needed refresh. You’re welcome to think otherwise, but saying, “Hey everyone, I’m here to announce that this is terrible.” seems a little over the top…
To the contrary, disagreements are often the things most necessary to have discussion. Just having a button to ‘dislike’ doesn’t help contribute to resolving the issue in any kind of constructive way.
