So I woke up and found the new design (I was on vacation yesterday) and also found that the mods had decided that “everyone has had their say” already and that the discussion is closed. Never mind the pointlessness of having a closed sticky to announce that things are as they are and there’s nothing to be done about it. Closing a discussion thread that fast seems a bit overeager to exercise mod-power to me.
Since I haven’t had my say, now I gotta start a whole new thread about the same thing, but I do want to say that the thread count is a make or break piece of functionality for some people who primarily use this forum to help others. Lately about 90 percent of my posts are simply to try to help to bring others up to speed with the basics of learning Blender, rather than to ask questions or to talk about works in progress or discuss functionality or whatever. Somebody’s got to go through and answer tedious newbie questions so that somebody else doesn’t have to. For this reason I don’t want to spend a lot of time reading support posts that have already been answered, in order to ensure that everybody’s questions at least get looked over once. AndyD posted the same thing:
I often visit the support forums and will seek out questions with zero response to see if I can help. I’m not likely to drag my mouse over every last reply to read the post report.
Sorry to be negative, but this is about as major a functionality issue as is likely to crop up in a heavily trafficked support forum. Personally, I never complained about the VBulletin or Elysiun design and I don’t plan to complain (or rave) about this one, because I don’t care much about the forum design. I care about the content and the usefulness and without these post counts that’s taken a huge dive with me (and by extension with the people whose questions I would be trying to answer).
This is my five cents. If this isn’t changed, then there will be a drop in how many newbie questions that people like me will be able to look at and answer, which means an overall drop in the usefulness of this site. So, this is an earnest request to please put the post counts back in the headers.
I agree with everything you say - but I also have something to add.
Elysiun used to have a chat box and I think Blenderartists should do to. It is great for new users who only want to find a shortcut or have a simple question. Instead of starting a new thread, they could ask in the webchat. What I would like to see is something like this (if you log in you get a mini webchat on the homepage!):
Considering the huge wasted space in the current design, there is plenty of space for a similar chat box on every single thread page. Now that would be awesome!
I am aware of the IRC channels but it really isn’t the same thing as a webchat on the forum. Occasionally I find myself needing a lot of specific help not of general interest to others and I find myself downloading XChat afresh every single time (bloody annoying).
Anyhow, I am disappointed how long it took to come up with the new theme and how we are unlikely to see any new improvements for a long time (anyone else feel this way?). The chap who made the indigo website started something awesome from scratch in a tiny fraction of the time this new theme was developed. With the number of people who can make assets and understand web design nowadays, improvements (specially incremental ones) should be implemented in days not months.
I have also just noticed that the new theme thread has been locked.
Now i don’t mean to annoy anyone, as this is not my intent, but is it me or was the forum locking a little hostile?
I for one found the locking statement a little offensive.
It it seems to me that this statement has broken the first rule stated within the BlenderArtists Forum Policies. which can be found below. http://www.samcooler.com/files/bafp.pdf
It cant be helped that people feel and the “our way or the high way” attitude is not the way to treat loyal forum users.
They are after all the life of the forum, and without them there would be no forum (or at least an empty one).
People have a right to say what they feel without being censored and any controlled criticism is not worth any weight in my book.
Seeing how fast the thread grew, shows the severity of the situation with the new interface.
The thread was locked prematurely because the content didn’t please the moderators, though it wasn’t offensive in any way.
There are 13011 members of this forum, (though it is certain that all users do not post) everyone did not have there say.
There was mild complaining, but mostly constructive crit. All 12 pages of it.
These concerns cannot be hidden by just closing a conversation, though saying that BgDM has stated that some will be looked into.
Why should users have to “get used to it” This is supposed to be a community that allows each other to talk freely about Blender related subjects, and a community that is, for many, the only link to other Blender users.
Please don’t treat us like we are crying children, i think we deserve a little more respect.
I was getting pretty annoyed with people posting their complaints(often exactly the same) over and over, but closing the forum was harsh. Id like to think it was done in a moment of frustration, and can imagine doing something similar, but closing it was a little nuts. And the closing comment was over the top. I think that lots of good came of that forum( constructive, not just complaints), and maybe more would have, if given the chance.
my…7 cents.
Drew
I was getting pretty annoyed with people posting their complaints
If somebody’s annoyed by a reasonable discussion thread, they shouldn’t read it.
This is a very, very useful and needed website in the Blender community. Most people learn Blender almost completely thanks to this website. If its usefulness is being undermined by poor design choices then it’s the community’s obligation to point this out and request it be changed.
Hi, I’ve been visiting this forum many times every day for a long time (I still type “elysiun.com”) and even though I haven’t been an active user, I looked forward to the new design like everybody else. Now, I applaud the effort you webdesigners did - surely the Blender community derserves better than the vanilla forum look - but I’m not overly excited… sorry!
I have only read a few couple pages of the “New Forum Look” thread, so I don’t know for sure what the reason was to close it, but I felt compelled to reply here, now. I know it is tough to receive some criticism after you spend a long time (own free time) working on the design, but that is to be expected? What I like to know is, do you seriously mean that this is as good as it gets?
I can live with the google-adds (though there’s so much wasted space to the right, why not there?) the huge “user-header” per post, and other tidbits i could get used to, but my eyes! It’s so bright! I at least thought you would make it consistent with the frontpage “Blenderartists.org” (blueish), and it would warm my heart greatly if it looked like Elysiun (like Koba’s image posted in the locked thread), but this… is not a friendly forum colour, sorry. Really, if you won’t change it, make it possible to change themes under user settings, please! You won’t find any serious graphics forum this bright, and there’s a reason for that. Being different just to be different is not good! (applies to all)
I don’t mean to sound harsh, i really like this community and Blender (respect devs!), and I will continue to come by daily, but I’m afraid I won’t enjoy my stay in this forum as much as before… Hope that changes!
Hmm, locked already? I bet if it was all praise it would still be open. Maybe our posts trying to make things better were misinterpetet of solely trying to flame the new look.
But locking the thread seems a bit harsh to me. Even more keeping the post sticky while locked.
PS: the Google Ads in between the posts are lame! I hope the few bucks they get from it will be spend well
I think Ive been misunderstood. Discussion is great, the only way opinions can be expressed. Having the same complaint post multiple times on the same page is overkill. Opinions should be heard, but a complaint desnt need to be told by 20 people to be heard or valid. A couple should do fine.
I am not meaning to offend anyone, so please dont take any of my posts that way.
Thank you
Drew
yeah, obviously…the Mods may have left the thread open longer,(which wouldve made time for some good ideas) if they didnt hve to sift thru copy posts…
just a thought
For certain points (for example, uh, I dunno, say, post counts), repetition and widespread agreement can help to emphasize the importance. If this is just my personal pet peeve, then it’s not necessarily important, but if many frequent contributors agree with me, then it is important and should be changed. This is why people harping on the same points over and over again should be listened to.
An alternative to showing the post counts (if, seriously “space” is the issue here, which I actually think is a pretty lame excuse) would be to highlight unanswered help requests with a color or boldface or something. At least that way I’d know which questions had not yet been answered, so I’d know which of the many, many noob requests for help to start reading.
Im not saying they should be ignored. Im saying its a pain, and mods would have more patience if we didnt harp on about the same things. once, fine, a couple times, fine, several times, fine. But pages worth of identical complaints?
Lots of comments do help to emphasize a point. Agreed. But to many just cause frustration for people who run these things. Thats all Im saying, and everybody is entitled to their own opinion.
Thats all.
