Out of Curiosity thread, an update ?

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satindoll

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Where do you propose that we make changes to the current hierarchy? This is virtually the same list I've used elsewhere and had no complaints but I'm happy to adapt.

0-24 posts - Newbie
25-799 posts - Regular
[ideally would like to add 2 more here but can mix them round as necessary]
800-1999 - Veteran
2000+ - Legend


Feel free to throw me some suggestions :D

Whatever you choose I suggest they go the other end of the list, or better still why not ask those who have achieved the Legend status if they wish to remain Legends rather than change their status.
 
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Giverny

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What has happened to this site ?? it just looks awful, too bright, with wishy washy lettering, squashed up lettering, avatars too, and many things looking a lot smaller too. As we ALL know, diabetes can and does affect the eyes and badly too. Not great to look at and not a great move either tbh :wideyed: But I see there is a lot more 'advertising' at the bottom of the pages now, oh dear :rolleyes: :eek: . Just a little thought, if it ain't broken, it doesn't need fixing.

Regards RRB :)
To address your concerns more specifically:

Brightness - the forum's colour palette is the same it's always been. Only difference is that we now have a solid red bar at the top of the page to fit in with the rest of the website.

Squashed avatars - No, they're not squashed. That is the image you uploaded and now it's presented in the correct aspect ratio. If you want it to be square, use an image editor to make it square and re-upload it (http://apps.pixlr.com/editor/)

Wishy washy colours - Again, we are using the exact colour palette we used pre-update. The colours are all the same.

Advertisements - The advertising has been there since 23rd December 2013.

I personally miss the links at the top for 'recent posts' and 'watched threads'. The 'new posts' doesn't seem to be quite the same format. I'll look properly later on my PC, as navigating with cold finger tips on a tablet isn't ideal.
The New Posts is the same as Recent Posts, just different wording :)

Ditto on the "watched Threads" although I do have more time than many people I just like to keep an eye on my watched threads and just stroll through the other new posts as and when I get the time/urge..... I mean the whole idea of "watching" threads is to be able to access them quickly...

So it would be a big "yes please" to bringing those back if possible
Unfortunately, we had to remove Watched Threads from the top bar as it was causing a couple of conflicts elsewhere on the index. Hopefully we'll have this fixed very soon.

I still keep getting banners advertising different things across my screen (iPhone), it's not really blocking the view of posts but more annoying then anything. Also, notifications of likes, etc have been notifying me several hours after someone has liked or commented on a post. I've checked my settings etc on phone but they are all set right.
Ah, I see. Basically, the TapaTalk (the framework we use to build the app) forced us to throw in Sponsored messages in order for it to be approved in the app store. We didn't want to do this as we felt it somewhat spoiled the app experience, but didn't really have a choice.

Personally, I prefer to just use my browser if I want to access the forum on the go. The site is designed to shift its contents around based on the device's screen size so it'll work perfectly on pretty much any mobile device :)
 

BooJewels

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@Giverny - the 'new posts' list isn't quite the same, it seems to only show threads you haven't seen yourself. If you then click on 'recent posts' at the top right corner of the posting list, it then loads a slightly different posting list, including threads you've read too, in amongst the new ones, in time order. It's just personal preference really, but I like the way 'recent posts' works better.
 
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Giverny

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@Giverny - the 'new posts' list isn't quite the same, it seems to only show threads you haven't seen yourself. If you then click on 'recent posts' at the top right corner of the posting list, it then loads a slightly different posting list, including threads you've read too, in amongst the new ones, in time order. It's just personal preference really, but I like the way 'recent posts' works better.
Hmmmm, that isn't the intended functionality. Thanks for raising that, I'll look in to it now :)
 
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tim2000s

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Whatever you choose I suggest they go the other end of the list, or better still why not ask those who have achieved the Legend status if they wish to remain Legends rather than change their status.
I want to be King of the World ;)
 
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To address your concerns more specifically:

Brightness - the forum's colour palette is the same it's always been. Only difference is that we now have a solid red bar at the top of the page to fit in with the rest of the website.

Squashed avatars - No, they're not squashed. That is the image you uploaded and now it's presented in the correct aspect ratio. If you want it to be square, use an image editor to make it square and re-upload it (http://apps.pixlr.com/editor/)

Wishy washy colours - Again, we are using the exact colour palette we used pre-update. The colours are all the same.

Advertisements - The advertising has been there since 23rd December 2013.


The New Posts is the same as Recent Posts, just different wording :)


Unfortunately, we had to remove Watched Threads from the top bar as it was causing a couple of conflicts elsewhere on the index. Hopefully we'll have this fixed very soon.


Ah, I see. Basically, the TapaTalk (the framework we use to build the app) forced us to throw in Sponsored messages in order for it to be approved in the app store. We didn't want to do this as we felt it somewhat spoiled the app experience, but didn't really have a choice.

Personally, I prefer to just use my browser if I want to access the forum on the go. The site is designed to shift its contents around based on the device's screen size so it'll work perfectly on pretty much any mobile device :)

Then why all the changes?.............................. so the advertising hasn't been updated then and nothing much has changed, or has it ? very confusing to members. It was fine before and someone else mentioned the forums brightness colouring. Also, last time when there were so many changes to the forums structure, many asked for different smilies, clapped hands, thumbs up, hug etc and still that hasn't been implemented.
Wouldn't it be better to implement positive changes, that the 1,000's and 1.000's of members would like and would benefit from, rather than the other way around ? A bit of closing the stable gates after the horse has bolted syndrome.

@Giverny - the 'new posts' list isn't quite the same, it seems to only show threads you haven't seen yourself. If you then click on 'recent posts' at the top right corner of the posting list, it then loads a slightly different posting list, including threads you've read too, in amongst the new ones, in time order. It's just personal preference really, but I like the way 'recent posts' works better.

Here, here :)
 
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Giverny

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@Giverny - the 'new posts' list isn't quite the same, it seems to only show threads you haven't seen yourself. If you then click on 'recent posts' at the top right corner of the posting list, it then loads a slightly different posting list, including threads you've read too, in amongst the new ones, in time order. It's just personal preference really, but I like the way 'recent posts' works better.
Righto, give it another look over - I think this one may have just been a code conflict. This has also *hopefully* resolved the issue with Watched Threads too.

Then why all the changes?.............................. so the advertising hasn't been updated then and nothing much has changed, or has it ? very confusing to members. It was fine before and someone else mentioned the forums brightness colouring. Also, last time when there were so many changes to the forums structure, many asked for different smilies, clapped hands, thumbs up, hug etc and still that hasn't been implemented.
Wouldn't it be better to implement positive changes, that the 1,000's and 1.000's of members would like and would benefit from, rather than the other way around ? A bit of closing the stable gates after the horse has bolted syndrome.
Websites move with the times - we have to update and stay fresh, that's how the internet works. If we had kept the same website layout since Diabetes.co.uk was launched, it would now no longer appear on Google searches at all.

We have taken every measure to ensure that the site is as accessible as possible, and that includes the high-contrast header (the big red bar at the top) and the high-contrast footer (the bit at the bottom). The layout is exactly the same and I fail to see what's confusing other than adding a block of red to the top of the page. The font sizes have been increased slightly.

Yes, we did say we'd try to add in more smilies but due to the way we optimise the images using a CSS sprite, we are unable to add any animated ones. Again, I'm unsure why this is such a monumental issue.

I will give you a partial list of the updates we've made (these are the ones you CAN'T see) - the refreshed look of the forum is designed to function better on every device and to make browsing the forum easier for the visually impaired.

Code:
▪ In certain circumstances, message edits were not subject to spam checks.
▪ Remove the hard-coded "Spam" ban reason from the spam cleaner. This now uses the spam_cleaner_ban_reason phrase.
▪ Cron entries that are part of disabled add-ons will no longer show a next run time to indicate they aren't run automatically.
▪ Ensure that visible staff members are the only ones that cannot be ignored.
▪ Fix an issue where custom field values were not always selected properly when editing.
▪ Adjust spinboxes to work as expected when mousing into or out of them while holding the mouse button down.
▪ Prevent a fatal error when rebuilding attachment thumbnails and unexpected data is found in an image.
▪ Improve conversion of certain data in the SMF importer.
▪ When receiving a security/CSRF check error via an Ajax request, return a slightly different error message that does not recommend pressing the back button.
▪ Ensure that the editor HTML is always synchronized when submitting a form.
▪ Add limits to the number of images being fetched by the image proxy simultaneously and add more strict limits to time outs and retrieval speed.
▪ Allow a character set to be specified in the SMF importer.
▪ Fix an off-by-one style error with the flood check that could allow multiple requests through in a 1 second window.
▪ On the customized components page, only revert items matching the filter.
▪ Remove deprecated Facebook social buttons and convert to use the HTML5-style versions.
▪ Fix an issue where Chrome would not re-focus the editor properly when opening a menu.
▪ In the editor, update the current button state using the browser APIs when backspacing.
▪ Load external JS/CSS when opening the smilie menu.
▪ When running the spam cleaner, stop redirecting when not checking IPs.
▪ Dynamically change whether fixed overlays are used based on the overlay height (when loaded).
▪ Properly number format user upgrade costs
▪ Prevent double inclusion of the Facebook JavaScript files in certain cases.
▪ Add default support for the new Facebook video URL format.
▪ When upgrading an add-on, maintain the active state for existing BB codes.
▪ Fixed a Firefox button display quirk by removing the text-shadow.
▪ Fix a situation where accessing a draft with attachments would generate an incorrect URL to manage those attachments.
▪ Disable smilie parsing in HTML emails due to general lack of client support for sprite-based smilies.
▪ Improve email bounce parsing to detect additional cases.
▪ Allow the current thread prefix to be maintained when a thread title is edited and the user editing does not have permission to use the current prefix.
▪ Fix a potential timeout when embedding large data URIs in minified CSS.
▪ Add cache prevention headers to database/server error pages.
▪ When merging threads, remove the threads that are replaced with redirects from the search index.
▪ When getting default warning conversation details, use the language selected by the user being warned.
▪ Only show one RTE per page for Android due to keyboard issues when multiple are present.
▪ Conversation invite emails no longer imply the person doing the inviting necessarily wrote the message being shown.
 
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Righto, give it another look over - I think this one may have just been a code conflict. This has also *hopefully* resolved the issue with Watched Threads too.


Websites move with the times - we have to update and stay fresh, that's how the internet works. If we had kept the same website layout since Diabetes.co.uk was launched, it would now no longer appear on Google searches at all.

We have taken every measure to ensure that the site is as accessible as possible, and that includes the high-contrast header (the big red bar at the top) and the high-contrast footer (the bit at the bottom). The layout is exactly the same and I fail to see what's confusing other than adding a block of red to the top of the page. The font sizes have been increased slightly.

Yes, we did say we'd try to add in more smilies but due to the way we optimise the images using a CSS sprite, we are unable to add any animated ones. Again, I'm unsure why this is such a monumental issue.

I will give you a partial list of the updates we've made (these are the ones you CAN'T see) - the refreshed look of the forum is designed to function better on every device and to make browsing the forum easier for the visually impaired.

Code:
▪ In certain circumstances, message edits were not subject to spam checks.
▪ Remove the hard-coded "Spam" ban reason from the spam cleaner. This now uses the spam_cleaner_ban_reason phrase.
▪ Cron entries that are part of disabled add-ons will no longer show a next run time to indicate they aren't run automatically.
▪ Ensure that visible staff members are the only ones that cannot be ignored.
▪ Fix an issue where custom field values were not always selected properly when editing.
▪ Adjust spinboxes to work as expected when mousing into or out of them while holding the mouse button down.
▪ Prevent a fatal error when rebuilding attachment thumbnails and unexpected data is found in an image.
▪ Improve conversion of certain data in the SMF importer.
▪ When receiving a security/CSRF check error via an Ajax request, return a slightly different error message that does not recommend pressing the back button.
▪ Ensure that the editor HTML is always synchronized when submitting a form.
▪ Add limits to the number of images being fetched by the image proxy simultaneously and add more strict limits to time outs and retrieval speed.
▪ Allow a character set to be specified in the SMF importer.
▪ Fix an off-by-one style error with the flood check that could allow multiple requests through in a 1 second window.
▪ On the customized components page, only revert items matching the filter.
▪ Remove deprecated Facebook social buttons and convert to use the HTML5-style versions.
▪ Fix an issue where Chrome would not re-focus the editor properly when opening a menu.
▪ In the editor, update the current button state using the browser APIs when backspacing.
▪ Load external JS/CSS when opening the smilie menu.
▪ When running the spam cleaner, stop redirecting when not checking IPs.
▪ Dynamically change whether fixed overlays are used based on the overlay height (when loaded).
▪ Properly number format user upgrade costs
▪ Prevent double inclusion of the Facebook JavaScript files in certain cases.
▪ Add default support for the new Facebook video URL format.
▪ When upgrading an add-on, maintain the active state for existing BB codes.
▪ Fixed a Firefox button display quirk by removing the text-shadow.
▪ Fix a situation where accessing a draft with attachments would generate an incorrect URL to manage those attachments.
▪ Disable smilie parsing in HTML emails due to general lack of client support for sprite-based smilies.
▪ Improve email bounce parsing to detect additional cases.
▪ Allow the current thread prefix to be maintained when a thread title is edited and the user editing does not have permission to use the current prefix.
▪ Fix a potential timeout when embedding large data URIs in minified CSS.
▪ Add cache prevention headers to database/server error pages.
▪ When merging threads, remove the threads that are replaced with redirects from the search index.
▪ When getting default warning conversation details, use the language selected by the user being warned.
▪ Only show one RTE per page for Android due to keyboard issues when multiple are present.
▪ Conversation invite emails no longer imply the person doing the inviting necessarily wrote the message being shown.

The above has gone straight over my head, and this, as an example ▪ Add cache prevention headers to database/server error pages. no idea:wacky:
I remember only too well from the last update and this similar sentence being used, quote:- Again, I'm unsure why this is such a monumental issue. unquote. Probably due to the lack of response from HQ which, I would say was the main issue.
This site was and is, visible on Facebook and Twitter, as are many of our threads and posts and has done so before the changes were made today. quote :-Websites move with the times - we have to update and stay fresh, that's how the internet works. If we had kept the same website layout since Diabetes.co.uk was launched, it would now no longer appear on Google searches at all, quote.
I just typed in, 'Looking for a diabetes forum', which I have done many, many times before over the years and this site always came up, that's how I found it. //www.google.co.uk/webhp?source=search_app&gfe_rd=cr&ei=9dNtVc6KMMmq8wfc8YDADw&gws_rd=ssl#q=looking+for+a+diabetes+forum

Regards RRB
 
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Giverny

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The above has gone straight over my head, and this, as an example ▪ Add cache prevention headers to database/server error pages. no idea:wacky:
So do you understand that we update everything for a reason?

I remember only too well from the last update and this similar sentence being used, quote:- Again, I'm unsure why this is such a monumental issue. unquote. Probably due to the lack of response from HQ which, I would say was the main issue.
I have just explained why we cannot add certain emoticons/smilies and I'm unsure what else you want me to say here.

This site was and is, visible on Facebook and Twitter, as are many of our threads and posts and has done so before the changes were made today.
This issue was addressed long ago and I'm not willing to rehash those discussions.

I just typed in, 'Looking for a diabetes forum', which I have done many, many times before over the years and this site always came up, that's how I found it. //www.google.co.uk/webhp?source=search_app&gfe_rd=cr&ei=9dNtVc6KMMmq8wfc8YDADw&gws_rd=ssl#q=looking+for+a+diabetes+forum
Yes, that's because we move with the times.
 
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So do you understand that we update everything for a reason?

Excuse me, pardon ?? :wideyed: