Character assassination

[MoominPapa]

2 minutes ago, RLWP said:

Still no icon

I tried this: http://canalworld.net/forums/uploads/reactions/react_up.png

and got:

Richard

 

What device and browser?

Same here for the icon.

srk@julia:~$ wget http://canalworld.net/forums/uploads/reactions/react_up.png
--2017-07-29 14:13:07--  http://canalworld.net/forums/uploads/reactions/react_up.png
Resolving canalworld.net (canalworld.net)... 176.56.61.81
Connecting to canalworld.net (canalworld.net)|176.56.61.81|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
2017-07-29 14:13:07 ERROR 404: Not Found.

 

Firefox/Linux.  For the Avoidance of Doubt, I'm refering to the image of all the reaction types that RichM posted. That's a png and displays here fine. The greenie up arrow icon is broken here.

 

[RLWP]

He's fixed that now

Richard

[RichM]

17 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Were there a large number of 12 year olds which demanded the change, possibly?

Too slow, too shit, FFS bite the bullet and move to vBulletin board sooner rather than later, Invision are taking the piss and have been doing for a while now, time to vote with your feet.

I don't know exactly how Invision decide on what changes they make but from what I can see, they appear to follow trends set by social media sites. I don't blame them entirely as social media has wiped out many forums over the years as you're no doubt already aware. 

I don't dislike Invision but it's no secret I too prefer vBulletin. I haven't pushed for it because I fear the changes it will bring may not be received well by many members, in particular the significant difference in the look & feel. - One of the main gripes when we updated from Invision 3.4 to 4.1. If you could run an opinion poll that would be great especially given your unbiased experience and technical insight. 

13 minutes ago, RLWP said:

Still no icon

I tried this: http://canalworld.net/forums/uploads/reactions/react_up.png

and got:

Richard

 

Should be fixed now. Would you mind trying again?

Cheers

[Alan de Enfield]

7 minutes ago, RLWP said:

Still no icon

I tried this: http://canalworld.net/forums/uploads/reactions/react_up.png

and got:

Richard

 

I don't get the icon either you just have to guess where it is and hover / click and you get the opportunity to be a child again.

[RLWP]

2 minutes ago, RLWP said:

He's fixed that now

Richard

 

Just now, RichM said:

Should be fixed now. Would you mind trying again?

Cheers

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by RLWP

[Alan de Enfield]

I now   have a green arrow,

[RLWP]

I forgot to say, thank you for removing the negative reputation points thing. 

It's still a bit of a mess though, the custom here was to award greenies to people for what they posted. That's what is displayed below the avatars, and contributes to the 'top poster of the day' or whatever it is called on the home page

This awards points to posts, which isn't the same thing. 

Richard

[RichM]

5 minutes ago, RLWP said:

I forgot to say, thank you for removing the negative reputation points thing. 

It's still a bit of a mess though, the custom here was to award greenies to people for what they posted. That's what is displayed below the avatars, and contributes to the 'top poster of the day' or whatever it is called on the home page

This awards points to posts, which isn't the same thing. 

Richard

You're welcome.

The underlying reputation system is the same in that points are awarded to posts and contribute to the total reputation a given member has. The only difference now is that members have the option to better express their reaction to a given post, should they wish. If they prefer to keep it simple they may award a greenie as before. This remains the default option and nobody is obliged to do anything differently. 

[Psycloud]

2 minutes ago, RichM said:

You're welcome.

The underlying reputation system is the same in that points are awarded to posts and contribute to the total reputation a given member has. The only difference now is that members have the option to better express their reaction to a given post, should they wish. If they prefer to keep it simple they may award a greenie as before. This remains the default option and nobody is obliged to issue any of the other reactions. 

We can't issue reactions to your posts on this thread - it appears for everyone elses though

[RLWP]

Just now, RichM said:

You're welcome.

The underlying reputation system is the same in that points are awarded to posts and contribute to the total reputation a given member has. The only difference now is that members have the option to better express their reaction to a given post, should they wish. If they prefer to keep it simple they may award a greenie as before. This remains the default option. 

I see that there is a subtlety I haven't explained properly. We used to award greenies to a person for a post. Hence all those 'I'm giving you a greenie' comments. Not I'm giving your post a greenie

Adding a 'Love', 'Happy' or 'Haha' to a post is not the same as giving something to another person, in this case a Greenie

Richard

Just now, Psycloud said:

We can't issue reactions to your posts on this thread - it appears for everyone elses though

Never could for a moderator

[Psycloud]

1 minute ago, RLWP said:

Never could for a moderator

Never noticed

[RichM]

1 minute ago, RLWP said:

I see that there is a subtlety I haven't explained properly. We used to award greenies to a person for a post. Hence all those 'I'm giving you a greenie' comments. Not I'm giving your post a greenie

Adding a 'Love', 'Happy' or 'Haha' to a post is not the same as giving something to another person, in this case a Greenie

Richard

I might be missing something here but you can still give a greenie. I just gave you one. Technically, greenies were always associated with posts but perhaps not so prominently.

[RLWP]

1 minute ago, RichM said:

Technically, greenies were always associated with posts but perhaps not so prominently.

I give up, clearly it's too subtle. Posts and people are not the same thing

Richard

[dogless]

I'm sorry, but has a 15 year old taken over this place?

The rate of change is mind blowing, for no reason I can understand.

I suppose the next change will be constant 'selfies' with superimposed animal ears.

Was the format previously 'that bad'. I was unaware of anyone complaining.

It's becoming barely worth the effort of logging on.

Rog

[RichM]

50 minutes ago, dogless said:

I'm sorry, but has a 15 year old taken over this place?

The rate of change is mind blowing, for no reason I can understand.

I suppose the next change will be constant 'selfies' with superimposed animal ears.

Was the format previously 'that bad'. I was unaware of anyone complaining.

It's becoming barely worth the effort of logging on.

Rog

Sorry to be frank and while I appreciate the vast majority of posts in this topic given their constructive nature and thus helping me to iron out the few teething issues we've found so far; I find this post to be rather insulting. As planned, we waited until midnight to carry out the work and I completed it by 3am while you were no doubt tucked up in bed fast asleep. This was done to avoid causing disruption during normal hours. While you're way off the mark in terms of the age of the staff here, I don't see what age has to do with anything. At the end of the day, we volunteer our time and money here for free for the benefit of our members. 

As mentioned:

- The update included various bug fixes
- The update included various enhancements to help us with the running of the site
- Yes, there were a few minor design changes but nothing of great significance in the grand scheme of things and we've done what we can to retain the existing look & feel where possible

While I appreciate this is a canal forum whereby many of us are accustomed to a slower pace of life with little change, the forum depends on technology in order to run and technology whether you like it or not is constantly evolving and to be frank, we're not going to be falling behind with that. 

Yes, we could delay the updates as we did do with version 3.4 (we kept that up until its use by date) but sooner or later updates will need to be applied. The problem with delaying things is that when we do come to the point of doing the inevitable, users will notice far more significant changes meaning there will be much more to familiarise themselves with and more things to get accustomed to. Instead of putting things off and taking the delayed "big bang" approach, surely it is better to apply the small updates as and when they come and thus, avoiding major change in such a short space of time. To me, this seems logical.

We value the views and opinions of our members as these help us to make Canal World a better online community for everyone, but we do ask you to keep it constructive, otherwise it's of no practical use to us and ultimately of no use to the wider community. 

RichM

[DHutch]

Can't fault that sentiment.

We had hoped that as part of holding of moving the v4 we could go directly to v4.2 to minimise this second minor update. However when we fell off the end of support 4.2 didn't appear to be this close.

In the instance of the 'reactions' system which adds more options than a simple 'greenie' it is customisable and we could have toned it down further to the point where it was just a single green button. However if we turned of every feature, we wouldn't have greenies in the first place, which we added when that became available with v3. 

It's a constant balance to making use of what members will like as it comes available, and avoiding unnecessary change. Doing testing to make sure we don't release something silly, while also getting on with it and allowing members to feedback their findings.

 

Daniel

[nicknorman]

2 hours ago, RLWP said:

I give up, clearly it's too subtle. Posts and people are not the same thing

Richard

I do get it but not sure it is that relevant. Before, you gave people a greenie. Why? Presumably due to the post they made. Or did you give people greenies regardless of the content of their post? So not a cataclysmic change really! What I do like is that, same as on a certain other canal forum, you can see who awarded the merit points, where as before it was anonymous. And of course for a long time one could award oneself greenies. I see the identification of the people "commenting" on the post or person, to be a good thing.

[Starcoaster]

I think there is such a thing as providing too much choice, particularly when it makes the system overly convoluted for people with different levels of tech-savvy and willingness to play about with things.

Most people just want a simple to use platform that is intuitive to use and works as it should. I totally get that things need fine-tuning on occasion, but implementing additions and changes just for the sake of it does not necessarily enhance the user experience and may have the opposite effect.

In my personal view, seeing who votes a post up is a good idea, but I can also see why some folk may not like this-and/or may have given reputation previously under the assumption of the prior anonymity, which has now been removed.

 

Has the ability to see who is viewing and/or in process of commenting on a thread that used to be in effect gone? It seems to have. Why?

Edited July 29, 2017 by Starcoaster

[dogless]

Damn!

I thought the forum was for it's members not to see how clever the tech's could be.

Sorry Richm stayed up all night. But don't expect me to feel guilty, based on the results, I'd prefer you get a good nights sleep.

Rog

Edited July 29, 2017 by dogless

[Bettie Boo]

Personally I like the the new additions and don't really see a down side to it. 

If someone wants to continue giving greenies only, there's nothing stopping them from doing so is there?  Those of us who will choose to use the new opitions will do so.

No harm done as far as I can see.

[john6767]

3 hours ago, dogless said:

I'm sorry, but has a 15 year old taken over this place?

The rate of change is mind blowing, for no reason I can understand.

I suppose the next change will be constant 'selfies' with superimposed animal ears.

Was the format previously 'that bad'. I was unaware of anyone complaining.

It's becoming barely worth the effort of logging on.

Rog

The changes are minor, and surely the most important thing is the security fixes that the update brings, the visible changes are small.  I work on enterprise sortware, which is used by some of the biggest engineering companies in the world, and we put updates out roughly monthly for similar reasons.  It is the world we live in, and Rich has to do this.

I missed the point that the reputation points chage did introduce the way reducing someone's  points, but that has been fixed so all the positive ones are the same as a "greenie", and you don't have to use them it you don't want to, and it in no different to Facebook for example.

Edited July 29, 2017 by john6767

[bizzard]

Hovering the pointer over the green arrow exposes the other options.

[john6767]

Just now, bizzard said:

Hovering the pointer over the green arrow exposes the other options.

Quite just like Facebook, what a surprise 

[MtB]

The problem as I see it is a version works for everyone just fine. Along comes a new security threat no-one imagined could exist and Invision release a new version with the security hole plugged. Fine so far.

BUT...

Invision have, at the same time, been writing a load of changes to the 'user experience'. These generally make a lot of sense to the coders who live and breathe forum software but are not well accepted by users who would frankly, far rather have a stable, consistent and intuitive interface they have spent weeks or months or years learning the ins and outs of. 

THEN...

Instead of implementing the security patches by themselves (the professional way to do it), they bundle massive unwanted user interface changes in at the same time with no explanation or documentation of what the changes are.

Very unprofessional. 

 

[b0atman]

What green arrow ? Mine is grey and only becomes green when i hover over it .The negatives i thought where good for when posts get hi jacked to another subject .