Upgrade to vBulletin 5
- Thread starter Cthulhu
- Start date
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
I'm going to show my stupid here: What does this mean?
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
Whaaat? I love the post bits almost as much as I love your naughty bits!
Lex
Administrator
It's the italics and the not italics and the bold and the not bold and the not matching colour schemes and the completely unnecesary "Age, Location etc" information. It looks like someone has taken a bundle of text, thrown it in a paint mixer and then shot it at the screen.
The forums are incredibly difficult to read if you're new to them btw. I had real difficulty when I started posting here because of how busy everything is. My friend who recently joined had a similar problem, but I've become so used to the mess that I had to get her to explain what she meant until I remembered how hard it was to pinpoint what bit of each post is actually the post, then you hone in on the information over time. I've gotten so used to this board that I don't even need to look at the name, I can just tell by the colour scheme out of the corner of my eye who it is that's posting.
And when I realised this I kind of thought.... there shouldn't be a learning curve to read the boards.
The forums are incredibly difficult to read if you're new to them btw. I had real difficulty when I started posting here because of how busy everything is. My friend who recently joined had a similar problem, but I've become so used to the mess that I had to get her to explain what she meant until I remembered how hard it was to pinpoint what bit of each post is actually the post, then you hone in on the information over time. I've gotten so used to this board that I don't even need to look at the name, I can just tell by the colour scheme out of the corner of my eye who it is that's posting.
And when I realised this I kind of thought.... there shouldn't be a learning curve to read the boards.
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. 
Lex
Administrator
How long have you been posting though? That's the thing, if you've been here for a super long time you stop noticing it, and if you were "in with the bricks" as the saying goes, you got used to some of these changes as they happened.
If you're new to boards or heavily stylised boards like ours then it takes time to train your brain to hone in on the information in the post that's actually relevant to you. Think about the amount of information that's on a single post here. The actual message is completely jumbled by text and pic dumps in sigs and the mess of the postbit.
If I was new it would take me time to realise that you're not quoting Quex and Winter in response to something in this thread because your one-line message is drowned out by everything else, and that's really frustrating when all you're trying to do is read responses. Like I say you get used to it over time and in my case almost completely forget what it's like for a newbie.
This is the reason most boards impose a strict limit on sig size and keep their postbits simple. I'm not suggesting we conform/ get boring in the design, but we don't have to annihilate our style to simplify things. We could look into making these changes with the upgrade, maybe imposing a bit of a sig size limit (mine should be smaller for example, other's sigs have been way too large recently and mine is no exception), and a really good idea is to make sure the text of your post stands out from the colour scheme of the rest of it. I'm going to go and do that to mine now
If you're new to boards or heavily stylised boards like ours then it takes time to train your brain to hone in on the information in the post that's actually relevant to you. Think about the amount of information that's on a single post here. The actual message is completely jumbled by text and pic dumps in sigs and the mess of the postbit.
If I was new it would take me time to realise that you're not quoting Quex and Winter in response to something in this thread because your one-line message is drowned out by everything else, and that's really frustrating when all you're trying to do is read responses. Like I say you get used to it over time and in my case almost completely forget what it's like for a newbie.
This is the reason most boards impose a strict limit on sig size and keep their postbits simple. I'm not suggesting we conform/ get boring in the design, but we don't have to annihilate our style to simplify things. We could look into making these changes with the upgrade, maybe imposing a bit of a sig size limit (mine should be smaller for example, other's sigs have been way too large recently and mine is no exception), and a really good idea is to make sure the text of your post stands out from the colour scheme of the rest of it. I'm going to go and do that to mine now
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
Maybe I've just been posting on message boards longer than a lot of people, but nothing other than our color scheme strikes me as significantly different from most vBulletin boards over the past 10+ years? Honestly, boards that don't let you have more than an avatar and maybe a couple lines of text in a sig look boring to me.
Airling
Ninja-Fairy-Jedi-Princess
I'm a newbie and I agree with Tres. All the ridiculous craziness you guys propose to remove are part of what drew me here. Other forums, though lovely in content, have had me pass by because the overall feel of most of them is cold, clinical, and impersonal. This place... feels like it's filled with real people, and not just users, y'know?
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
I was super confused when I joined here, not by the postbits and the graphics, but by the way everyone changed their username every few weeks. Thankfully, that seems to have calmed down now - only a few people still do the themed username thing - so I think we're already a more noob-friendly place then we used to be.
If we move to vB5 and make some design changes, my biggest priorities would be increasing the default font size in a few places (having moved to a 1080p monitor I've resorted to browsing TLS with a 125% zoom because it's so small, but that makes the images blurry, so it's not ideal) and fixing a few colour inconsistencies (e.g. the link colour that is used in posts doesn't show up in previews).
As for the postbits, how about this as a compromise: let users choose which user groups show up below their name. In my case, I'm happy for people to see that I'm the Community Manager but I don't particularly feel the need to show them that I'm a donator or an elite member, and I'd hide them if I could.
I'd also suggest that some people shrink their AKA fields to only the names people actually use when referring to them (e.g. when was the last time someone on TLS said "Hey, Ariadne" when addressing Tres?), but that's up to each individual and shouldn't really be a forum policy.
It's important to balance the desires of our existing members with the potential concerns of our new ones.
If we move to vB5 and make some design changes, my biggest priorities would be increasing the default font size in a few places (having moved to a 1080p monitor I've resorted to browsing TLS with a 125% zoom because it's so small, but that makes the images blurry, so it's not ideal) and fixing a few colour inconsistencies (e.g. the link colour that is used in posts doesn't show up in previews).
As for the postbits, how about this as a compromise: let users choose which user groups show up below their name. In my case, I'm happy for people to see that I'm the Community Manager but I don't particularly feel the need to show them that I'm a donator or an elite member, and I'd hide them if I could.
I'd also suggest that some people shrink their AKA fields to only the names people actually use when referring to them (e.g. when was the last time someone on TLS said "Hey, Ariadne" when addressing Tres?), but that's up to each individual and shouldn't really be a forum policy.
It's important to balance the desires of our existing members with the potential concerns of our new ones.
Lex
Administrator
Argh Tres. Argh argh argh. I tried to make it as clear as possible that I'm not in favour of changing our signature look to become like other forums, I just want to make things look a bit neater/ simpler with the forum upgrade.
Agree strongly with Flint about the AKA field thing. Although how to reconcile that with the rule that all previous usernames must be listed is a question. I guess we can change the rule.
Agree strongly with Flint about the AKA field thing. Although how to reconcile that with the rule that all previous usernames must be listed is a question. I guess we can change the rule.
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
I'm not sure what you're responding to. All I was trying to illustrate is that there was never a period of needing to get used to stuff because what we have isn't all that notably different from what boards I've been on in the past (before TLS even) had. I'm confused as to how our setup isn't Just Another Board, albeit one with a color scheme pleasant on the eyes instead of ALL THE BRIGHTNESS WE CAN MUSTER shoved into one's eye sockets.
I'll grant you I threw in that I have noticed some newer boards going for the "less is more" thing, and it just looks like "less is less" to me.
I'll grant you I threw in that I have noticed some newer boards going for the "less is more" thing, and it just looks like "less is less" to me.
I agree with both Lex and Mex. Can we come to a compromise?
Lets modernise the forum with vB5 or the other one Aaron suggested, BUT let users customise the crap out of their posts and the profile thing at the side of the post.
We could come up with maybe 2-3 different versions of this new forum on separate sub-domains and after a few days/weeks, have everyone on the forum vote on which they like better or something like that.
EDIT: Or maybe just one, with constant input regarding various things from everyone in the forums.
EDIT2: My thanks from Airling and Claymore(i think) disappeared when I edited the post. That sucks =(
EDIT3: They're back!
Lets modernise the forum with vB5 or the other one Aaron suggested, BUT let users customise the crap out of their posts and the profile thing at the side of the post.
We could come up with maybe 2-3 different versions of this new forum on separate sub-domains and after a few days/weeks, have everyone on the forum vote on which they like better or something like that.
EDIT: Or maybe just one, with constant input regarding various things from everyone in the forums.
EDIT2: My thanks from Airling and Claymore(i think) disappeared when I edited the post. That sucks =(
EDIT3: They're back!
Last edited:
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
If we want customization options and shit though, that pretty much rules out Discourse - it was never intended for all that stuff, and although we could add it, it'd take quite some developer effort, compounded by the fact it's written in Ruby on Rails (so new language + new framework) and stuff.
I do think people have a point with most forums though, the ones with for example just an avatar and a username, they're pretty bland / impersonal a lot of the time. Wouldn't mind a bit of cleanup though, I mean stuff like the online/report/etc images, postbit information that could just be a pop-out or listed on someone's profile if anyone's interested, stuff like that.
I do think people have a point with most forums though, the ones with for example just an avatar and a username, they're pretty bland / impersonal a lot of the time. Wouldn't mind a bit of cleanup though, I mean stuff like the online/report/etc images, postbit information that could just be a pop-out or listed on someone's profile if anyone's interested, stuff like that.
Lex
Administrator
^That's what I was talking about. Simplifying and modernising the board, but making it look neater. IMO the report post button should be next to the post number or somewhere on the actual post (like say next to edit) rather than on the postbit, because it looks like it's a "report member" rather than "report post" due to where it is. I mean I guess you're reporting the member but people might not know that the report button actually reports a specific post.
Also re: customisation, I think the majority of people would be happy with the ability to change font and colour of their text in posts. And possibly usernames. The font and colour of posts wouldn't be too difficult with discourse would it ? (I'm assuming this feature is not included with the software based on your description)
Also re: customisation, I think the majority of people would be happy with the ability to change font and colour of their text in posts. And possibly usernames. The font and colour of posts wouldn't be too difficult with discourse would it ? (I'm assuming this feature is not included with the software based on your description)
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
It probably isn't, so it'd require some work, i.e.:
* adding user field
* reading user field
* applying it in templates
Which probably isn't that hard, but it'd still require me (or whoever) to learn part of the software architecture, database design, programming language and templating of Discourse to build,. Which again wouldn't be that big of a problem, if only it was my day job and not something I'd have to do in my spare time.
* adding user field
* reading user field
* applying it in templates
Which probably isn't that hard, but it'd still require me (or whoever) to learn part of the software architecture, database design, programming language and templating of Discourse to build,
. Which again wouldn't be that big of a problem, if only it was my day job and not something I'd have to do in my spare time.
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
Alright, I managed to fixx it; yesterday I got stuck at the incorrect forum URL being set in the settings somewhere, and said settings getting cached somewhere (apparently) and I didn't know that. Today I managed to reset / rebuild that cache and get it working. Sort of, .
See http://thelifestream.net/betaforums/index.php?styleid=1, the username and password are both 'tlsbeta' (vB's licence demands it to not be publicly accessible, to prevent more than one board running under one license and stuff. You may need to log in first to be able to see any poasts.
Some stuff:
* Admin CP doesn't seem to work; the navigation that should appear on the left, well, doesn't. I probably did something wrong, idk.
* It definitely feels slower than vB 3 in the basic stuff like opening threads and shit. Seems to be server-side processing slowing stuff down, despite the end-result being about the same. Note though that I haven't set it to use memcached yet, which vB3 does atm - I'll fiddle with that, I guess.
* If you accidentally change themes using the selector at the bottom and fuck shit up, just click here: http://thelifestream.net/betaforums/index.php?styleid=1
* you may need to log in again on the current forums after logging into the other one, idk why, I set a different cookie prefix but no luck I guess.
.See http://thelifestream.net/betaforums/index.php?styleid=1, the username and password are both 'tlsbeta' (vB's licence demands it to not be publicly accessible, to prevent more than one board running under one license and stuff. You may need to log in first to be able to see any poasts.
Some stuff:
* Admin CP doesn't seem to work; the navigation that should appear on the left, well, doesn't. I probably did something wrong, idk.
* It definitely feels slower than vB 3 in the basic stuff like opening threads and shit. Seems to be server-side processing slowing stuff down, despite the end-result being about the same. Note though that I haven't set it to use memcached yet, which vB3 does atm - I'll fiddle with that, I guess.
* If you accidentally change themes using the selector at the bottom and fuck shit up, just click here: http://thelifestream.net/betaforums/index.php?styleid=1
* you may need to log in again on the current forums after logging into the other one, idk why, I set a different cookie prefix but no luck I guess.