Sam Harris

as an obtuse prick, I’m hereby lodging my formal protest of the recent changes made to the layout of this board. Please change it back so my mind can stop hurting.

Protest noted.

Take two aspirin and let’s see how you feel in the morning.

Travis,

You say these changes were necessary to improve the spam situation? I have to say that it appeared to be well under control, compared to previous months. I rarely see any, anymore.

On the positive side. . . I like that the posts are now numbered—excellent for reference purposes.

Negatives:

~ The “Most Popular Threads” column. This seems largely irrelevent to the regular visitor, especially since most threads—regardless of how many posts they get—tend to run their course and then die. Can that column be minimized, perhaps, so that if people really wanted to search  for a list of the most popular threads, then they could do so?

(EDITED to add: Apologies, I spoke to soon. There is an option at the top of the forum list for “View New Posts” and “View Today’s Active Topics”)

~ The quote boxes. They would benefit, visually, from some sort of highlighting, to differentiate them from the response to a quote. As it is, the same-ness is hard on the eyes. If colors cannot be altered, can either the quote box or the response area be indented, or the text in bold, or something?

~ I had to re-register because of a new (and seemingly arbitrary?) new rule that forum IDs must be at least four characters long. WTF? Why? Seems to me that spammers use long and weird names, not short ones. It also effectively wipes out my posting history. Unless someone knew me before, they will not know to search the old ID for previous posts. Can I have my previous self back, please?

~ Our various objections to the new format are likely meaningless to you, but I’m lodging one more protest against the skinny screen format we’ve been living with for months now. I realize you are married to it, because it came bundled in with the software used for the rest of Sam’s site. . . but considering that a great many topics inspire extensive responses, the skinny posting box renders those postings uninviting.

~ The emoticons are completely psycho <—- I mean, what the hell is that? I guess it may prove a ‘positive’ for those who hate the use of them, though, since we will hesitate to post them.

Are avatars a positive or a negative? I vote positive, since the rest of the look is so sterile.

A request: Can you take the “Signature” label off the the line below each person’s post? It kind of goes without saying.

Mia,

What I can fix quickly, I can fix quickly: three-letter user names are now allowed, so your previous account should be usable.

Other changes will be made as time allows, but your feedback is very useful, and will likely help shape the forums going forward.

And yes, spam was the primary motivator for the forum software switch; however, you might see some additional benefits, that I can’t discuss yet.

Lastly, do check out the other forum styles (see the menu at the bottom) and let me know what, if anything, we might use from those to improve this Sam site style.

TTFN
Travis

Yes, we will be improving the icons soon.

TTFN
Travis

Much appreciated, Travis. I got my history back : ).

Travis: I don’t have any problem with the new format, but I get an e-mail notice every time someone posts on a topic on which I have posted.  I don’t really need that.  Can I avoid it?

Bruce
When you post you have to uncheck notify me via email. In the past this was the default. I would also like to see the return of the view posts since last visit button and the view your posts button. They might be there but i can’t find them. I am having trouble locating those active thread in which i am involved.

Yippee! We got avatars!

Yippee! More smilies!

Now the forum won’t look so bland.

frankr - 22 September 2007 12:31 AM

Bruce
When you post you have to uncheck notify me via email. In the past this was the default. I would also like to see the return of the view posts since last visit button and the view your posts button. They might be there but i can’t find them. I am having trouble locating those active thread in which i am involved.

Thanks. I didn’t even notice it.

FWIW, I like it, especially after I changed the theme to Default from Samh. Nice wide display, pleasing blue colors.

You’re right. I like default best. Tried the other ones too, but this one is most pleasing to my eyes.

I miss the thread tree at the bottom of the page. It is really annoying when you finishing reading a long thread to have to go back to the top to return to the forum home.

I also miss the link that took you to the first unread post in a thread. Now all you can do is go to the last post or page and try to figure out where you left off.

Travis, I love the forum viewing options, love having the wide format available again—thank you! My favorite is Developer.

camanintx - 23 September 2007 12:22 AM

I miss the thread tree at the bottom of the page. It is really annoying when you finishing reading a long thread to have to go back to the top to return to the forum home.

camanintx - 23 September 2007 12:22 AM

I also miss the link that took you to the first unread post in a thread. Now all you can do is go to the last post or page and try to figure out where you left off.

I second those. Also missing now is the summary of the thread, once you hit “Reply”. In the old format, you could still scroll through the previous postings from the “Reply” page.

Another thing. . . once you’ve posted to a thread, and the page refreshes and brings you back into the thread, it used to be that it would snap you automatically to your own new post, but now it refreshes to the top of that page, and you need to scroll manually down, if you want to proof read what you’ve posted.

By the way, caman, that’s a very cool avatar—so serene : ).