On the old forum my control panel nicely listed out all of my subsribed threads from newest post to oldest. My Favorites link in my browser took me directly to this page. It was clean and concise. I now have the My Subscriptions page, but it starts with an inital seemingly random sorting, then changes from oldest to newest on the first sort, then finally from newest to oldest on the next. Is there any way to get the old User CP functionality back?
Go to first unread either doesn't work or isn't there at all
Not all of my threads with new posts have the link to jump to the first unread post. Of those that do have this option, at least two threads so far I've clicked it and realized after reading a few posts that I was reading information from four or five years ago. Why don't all of the threads with new posts have this option and why does it not always work properly? This was not an issue we faced on the old forums.
Read / Unread threads
On the old forums all of my unread threads showed up in bold print with the jump to first unread post button beside them. Now it seems I would need to actually read every single thread before it notes that there aren't new posts. All I care about are the posts since my last visit. I don't need the icon next to a thread to remain blue forever. It would be nice and very convenient if this functionality would come back. I'd like to see the most recently updated threads in bold print with a blue icon next to it to jump to the first unread post. If I come back to the forum two hours later, then threads that I chose not to read two hours shouldn't still be showing new posts. This makes browsing more confusing because I'm contstantly trying to figure out if the the thread with posts from eight hours ago was a thread that I've already seen. I don't feel that asking for this is too much.
Also on this same note, it was nice seeing the little check mark on the thread envelope icons for threads that I had posted in. I can't seem to be able to tell now if I've posted in a thread or not.
Mobile browsing
I browsed the forums quite a bit from my phone. I'm a pretty active poster and when I'm not at my computer, this was my gateway to the forums. Now the site feels harder to navigate from a small mobie screen and the missing options from above only add insult to that injury. Not only that, but it seems to be quite a bit slower to load both the forums and individual threads, especially if those threads have several images and attachments on posts. When trying to actually type out a post, due to the sheer size of the text box, I have to continuously move my screen back and forth in order to keep what I'm typing visible. I also used an app called Forum Reader as quick access to reading threads that didn't require browsing to the forums and signing in. This app no longer works. Visiting MTGS from my mobile phone is now basically impossible.
Aesthetics
Can we please remove the tiny avatar from the latest post column? It's distracting and annoying to have all these animations on the page. I like seeing avatars in the threads next to posts, but I don't need to see the avatar of the last person to post in a thread.
I think this change is such a big shock to me because I'm one of probably many who have been posting on these vBulletin Magic forums since the hey days of MTGNews. Aside from the few years I took off from Magic in the early 2000s, I've been an active poster on those and then these forums. I like the look and feel of those forums. I like to browse from my control panel before going into the forum to see new threads. I like how easy it is to see which threads are new once I get there. I like the quick reply and advanced reply options. I like how everything worked. I don't understand why this change was necessary or if it even was. And I don't understand why the move to Curse required my beloved forums to go through such a massive makeover. Browsing here feels more like a chore now because I'm invested in the content and the relationships that I've built since joining in 2006.
tl;dr - I think the change is terrible for a number of reasons. The functionality in the old forums was far and above the functionality here. I hate this.
On the old forums all of my unread threads showed up in bold print with the jump to first unread post button beside them. Now it seems I would need to actually read every single thread before it notes that there aren't new posts. All I care about are the posts since my last visit. I don't need the icon next to a thread to remain blue forever. It would be nice and very convenient if this functionality would come back. I'd like to see the most recently updated threads in bold print with a blue icon next to it to jump to the first unread post. If I come back to the forum two hours later, then threads that I chose not to read two hours shouldn't still be showing new posts. This makes browsing more confusing because I'm contstantly trying to figure out if the the thread with posts from eight hours ago was a thread that I've already seen. I don't feel that asking for this is too much.
Also on this same note, it was nice seeing the little check mark on the thread envelope icons for threads that I had posted in. I can't seem to be able to tell now if I've posted in a thread or not.
This, x1000. This forum is almost unusable if I can't tell what threads I've read and what threads have new posts and can't go to the first unread post like I could before. This has been driving me nuts, I'm glad I'm not the only one having a problem with it.
Here are some more differences and issues that I've noticed while browsing today.
Post Quoting
Quoting a post that quoted me in their response results in seeing my original post again in my new post. Why is this necessary? Now if I quote a post in that instance I have to clean it up manually and clear out anything that I posted before that we don't need to read for a third time.
Example:
Quote from RandomUser »
Quote from calibretto »
This is what I originally said.
This is RandomUser's response to that post, which I now wish to reply to.
It hasn't came up yet, but in longer quoted posts or posts that have multiple quotes in them with responses to each, I can only imagine how convoluted and confusing this will become. Even in this small instance, if RandomUser deems it necessary to reply to my post with a quote and doesn't bother cleaning it up, it ends up like this.
Quote from calibretto »
Quote from RandomUser »
Quote from calibretto »
This is what I originally said.
This is RandomUser's response to that post, which I now wish to reply to.
And now this is my reply.
Can't you see how confusing this quickly becomes if the conversation continues in this way?
Who is Browsing?
I can't see who else is browsing the thread. It was nice seeing who else is in the thread with you. I mainly post in the cube forum and we're a pretty close community there. It was kind of cool to see that someone who valued a card or something highly was also browsing the thread in which that card or idea was being talked about. I could expect a good post from them. Also, if I'm having a conversation with someone in particular through posts, it was nice to see that they were still in the thread with me so I could anticipate a reply. This is a minor functionality that I didn't realize how much I used until it was no longer there.
Who is online?
I really liked the little green "light" at the bottom of each post to show if that person was currently online. This goes along with the same ideas from seeing who is in a thread with you. Again something you take for granted until it's not there.
First Unread Button (revisited)
Why does this button show up on threads that don't have new posts? This has happened a few times now where I click the button and realize I'm reading the same post I read earlier today.
Lack of Admin Attention
I realize that this is a free site and the admins here maintain it out of the kindness of their heart and the only payment they are getting is the same enjoyment that I get from posting here. With that said, though, a decision to completely overhaul a forum website with this many members is no small matter. I've seen several posts in this feedback forum that seem to go unanswered by our admin users. At the very least it'd be nice to see a sincere post saying, "We understand where you're coming from and we'll do what we can to implement some of the same functionality from the old forums."
I realize that this is a free site and the admins here maintain it out of the kindness of their heart and the only payment they are getting is the same enjoyment that I get from posting here. With that said, though, a decision to completely overhaul a forum website with this many members is no small matter. I've seen several posts in this feedback forum that seem to go unanswered by our admin users. At the very least it'd be nice to see a sincere post saying, "We understand where you're coming from and we'll do what we can to implement some of the same functionality from the old forums."
I try not to answer threads that others are better suited to answer, but that's completely fair. I know that we really do want to make MTGS better than it was before but also something that feels familiar and has all the good functions we used to have. Right now a lot of the features just aren't there...
The stuff you've listed are all on my own list of things I want for similar reasons and I do hope we can find a way to incorporate a lot of these observations into what we can call a finished product.
Thank you, Galspanic, for being super cool. I know that this is still "beta" so I hope that a lot of the issues I've mentioned have fixes coming down the pipe.
It's a weekend and a lot of people are at the Release events (Oh yeah, I guess a new set came out, huh?) so I think your responses are going to be a bit limited. Come tomorrow, we should see some official stuff about what's been updated on the Home Page, and then hopefully we can start to prioritize fixes.
On the old forum my control panel nicely listed out all of my subsribed threads from newest post to oldest. My Favorites link in my browser took me directly to this page. It was clean and concise. I now have the My Subscriptions page, but it starts with an inital seemingly random sorting, then changes from oldest to newest on the first sort, then finally from newest to oldest on the next. Is there any way to get the old User CP functionality back?
Go to first unread either doesn't work or isn't there at all
Not all of my threads with new posts have the link to jump to the first unread post. Of those that do have this option, at least two threads so far I've clicked it and realized after reading a few posts that I was reading information from four or five years ago. Why don't all of the threads with new posts have this option and why does it not always work properly? This was not an issue we faced on the old forums.
Read / Unread threads
On the old forums all of my unread threads showed up in bold print with the jump to first unread post button beside them. Now it seems I would need to actually read every single thread before it notes that there aren't new posts. All I care about are the posts since my last visit. I don't need the icon next to a thread to remain blue forever. It would be nice and very convenient if this functionality would come back. I'd like to see the most recently updated threads in bold print with a blue icon next to it to jump to the first unread post. If I come back to the forum two hours later, then threads that I chose not to read two hours shouldn't still be showing new posts. This makes browsing more confusing because I'm contstantly trying to figure out if the the thread with posts from eight hours ago was a thread that I've already seen. I don't feel that asking for this is too much.
Also on this same note, it was nice seeing the little check mark on the thread envelope icons for threads that I had posted in. I can't seem to be able to tell now if I've posted in a thread or not.
Mobile browsing
I browsed the forums quite a bit from my phone. I'm a pretty active poster and when I'm not at my computer, this was my gateway to the forums. Now the site feels harder to navigate from a small mobie screen and the missing options from above only add insult to that injury. Not only that, but it seems to be quite a bit slower to load both the forums and individual threads, especially if those threads have several images and attachments on posts. When trying to actually type out a post, due to the sheer size of the text box, I have to continuously move my screen back and forth in order to keep what I'm typing visible. I also used an app called Forum Reader as quick access to reading threads that didn't require browsing to the forums and signing in. This app no longer works. Visiting MTGS from my mobile phone is now basically impossible.
Aesthetics
Can we please remove the tiny avatar from the latest post column? It's distracting and annoying to have all these animations on the page. I like seeing avatars in the threads next to posts, but I don't need to see the avatar of the last person to post in a thread.
I think this change is such a big shock to me because I'm one of probably many who have been posting on these vBulletin Magic forums since the hey days of MTGNews. Aside from the few years I took off from Magic in the early 2000s, I've been an active poster on those and then these forums. I like the look and feel of those forums. I like to browse from my control panel before going into the forum to see new threads. I like how easy it is to see which threads are new once I get there. I like the quick reply and advanced reply options. I like how everything worked. I don't understand why this change was necessary or if it even was. And I don't understand why the move to Curse required my beloved forums to go through such a massive makeover. Browsing here feels more like a chore now because I'm invested in the content and the relationships that I've built since joining in 2006.
tl;dr - I think the change is terrible for a number of reasons. The functionality in the old forums was far and above the functionality here. I hate this.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
This, x1000. This forum is almost unusable if I can't tell what threads I've read and what threads have new posts and can't go to the first unread post like I could before. This has been driving me nuts, I'm glad I'm not the only one having a problem with it.
Post Quoting
Quoting a post that quoted me in their response results in seeing my original post again in my new post. Why is this necessary? Now if I quote a post in that instance I have to clean it up manually and clear out anything that I posted before that we don't need to read for a third time.
Example:
It hasn't came up yet, but in longer quoted posts or posts that have multiple quotes in them with responses to each, I can only imagine how convoluted and confusing this will become. Even in this small instance, if RandomUser deems it necessary to reply to my post with a quote and doesn't bother cleaning it up, it ends up like this.
Can't you see how confusing this quickly becomes if the conversation continues in this way?
Who is Browsing?
I can't see who else is browsing the thread. It was nice seeing who else is in the thread with you. I mainly post in the cube forum and we're a pretty close community there. It was kind of cool to see that someone who valued a card or something highly was also browsing the thread in which that card or idea was being talked about. I could expect a good post from them. Also, if I'm having a conversation with someone in particular through posts, it was nice to see that they were still in the thread with me so I could anticipate a reply. This is a minor functionality that I didn't realize how much I used until it was no longer there.
Who is online?
I really liked the little green "light" at the bottom of each post to show if that person was currently online. This goes along with the same ideas from seeing who is in a thread with you. Again something you take for granted until it's not there.
First Unread Button (revisited)
Why does this button show up on threads that don't have new posts? This has happened a few times now where I click the button and realize I'm reading the same post I read earlier today.
Lack of Admin Attention
I realize that this is a free site and the admins here maintain it out of the kindness of their heart and the only payment they are getting is the same enjoyment that I get from posting here. With that said, though, a decision to completely overhaul a forum website with this many members is no small matter. I've seen several posts in this feedback forum that seem to go unanswered by our admin users. At the very least it'd be nice to see a sincere post saying, "We understand where you're coming from and we'll do what we can to implement some of the same functionality from the old forums."
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
I try not to answer threads that others are better suited to answer, but that's completely fair. I know that we really do want to make MTGS better than it was before but also something that feels familiar and has all the good functions we used to have. Right now a lot of the features just aren't there...
The stuff you've listed are all on my own list of things I want for similar reasons and I do hope we can find a way to incorporate a lot of these observations into what we can call a finished product.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.