What do you think of the new forums?

[Joonatan1998]

I agree that the new editor is bad, and now you can't really use an external editor and copy-paste anymore...

[StarStreak2109]

I love it. Granted, it takes some time getting used to, but I like how clean and orderly everything looks. I understand that the transition was not quite smooth for everyone. but if a software does not get properly maintained anymore, you gotta switch at some point.

[katateochi]

Well, first up, gotta say thanks for all the hard work this must have been in transitioning the old content.  Thanks for preserving things like our ranks/points, joint dates and existing posts.  (where'd all my friends go?....I'm all alone...snif)

My initial thoughts are; It seems like there is some nice new functionality, but that's rather overshadowed by the changes in layout (by which I mean the excessive spacing, double spacing text, etc) and the loss of the option to choose between a WYSIWTF editor and BBcode.

Others have already said most of the points I'd want to raise (too much wasted space, user section too tall, omg it's like...so facebook, etc), so I'm just going to yammer on about the loss of BBcode.  

We're not a community that really needs things to be dumbed down so giving us a simplified WYSIWYG editor isn't going to be something we're all going to be thrilled about.  TBH I was hoping that we'd also have the option to use reddit/github style markdown and be able to choose between markdown, BBcode or editor (we could choose editor or BBcode on the old forum).  But it seems we've been apple'd into having the simplest option chosen for us.  As this forum is a more up-to-date system, does it have the functionality to take different text parsers as modules? If it is at all possible, please add in BBcode and markdown support!!

 

I think that functionality-wise this is an improvement; the old forum's search was always a bit wonky and it's notification system was primitive.  Aside from the lack of BBcode/markdown this forum's main issue is due to layout and I'm sure a little bit of CSS tinkering will clear that right up.  It's mostly the user-section of posts that needs fixing so its height is reduced.  Also the multi-quote, Quote, and "like this" buttons; they occupy a lot of space with dead white space in between them (and personally I find the quote links on the lower left to be counter intuitive).  Could we not have those buttons next to the "share" button (top right of each post), so a) all post related actions are in the same place and B (*1) it uses up some currently unused white space at the top of each post.

What is with the word "members"? It's everywhere and seems totally meaningless (in the user-section on posts under the avatar, under username in profiles and on user-info popups).  That one word wastes a lot of page space as it's so frequent and has a whole line to itself! 

 

*1 - so I tried to say a) this thing and  that thing, but I get stupid emoticons. how can I write b followed by a close parenthesis without getting an emoticon?

 

EDIT - What's happened to our blog posts? Do they still exist somewhere? I was using one as a note to myself about game issues and for keeping track of links to reported issues that I'd encountered.  Was kinda useful and had been built up over a while, so if I can just get the text back that would be great.  

 

Edited December 2, 2015 by katateochi

[Stone Blue]

Sorry if this has been brought up, but I'm finding it tough to use the Activity Streams...

Longwinded explanation:
 ... I've been addicted to the forums for over a year now...
Daily, when I first get on the net to surf, I used to come to the forum and open a page with a list of thread TITLES that had unread posts since my last visit... What, like, 50 or 60 titles all nicely condensed on one page?

...I could scan down thru that list with at most one or two little nudges with the scroll wheel, then one click at the bottom, and load a whole nuther page...
... If there was a title that caught my eye, one click, and it opened the last page...Then I could read each unread post from there..

.... ... But you all say, wait, you can do the same with the new forum...
.... Yeah, but it looks and feels like Facebook...If I wanted Facebook, I'd GO to Facebook...

... At my screen resolution (on a laptop), I get 4, maybe 5 "posts" on a page...

A very WHITE page...
... ...Most of us read from left to right, so as we scroll down the page, (cuz "I" only get 4 linked titles per screen), the eye and brain is first drawn to the left, having to analyse and process the long vertical line of meaningless icons ("Post", "Past Hour", "Yesterday", "Earlier", etc...) plus the huge, varied avatars..

... . ... Then our eye strains to hit the thread title and read that...

...  If its a meaningless title to us, and we're not interested, the eye still ends up scanning down (and you end up reading) the useless post body, till you can get to the next title...
Your eye moves quickly back and forth and down the page, for 4 thread titles....
.... ... ... You scroll, and scroll, and scroll.... Page upon page...

... You've scrolled, scanned, and read in maybe 10 minutes, with 10 times the eye movement, and 10 times the brain processing of taking in all the useless icons and text...Now your eyes hurt, you're kind of nauseous, and you're developing a headache...

... All for what used to take a minute or two per page of thread titles, without all the eye and brain strain...

... Also, going back to the Unread Topic page, from reading a topic, it refreshes, throwing just posted stuff up on top of what I have already read thru...And it of course, deletes the title you just read...Makes sense, since its not unread anymore, but throws off where exactly you left off on the page...
So I find myself jumping up and down the list... Constantly losing my "spot", and wondering how many threads I end up missing, not ever realising they had new posts... Its very disjointed...

I know its probably too much to ask, but does the forum software allow for having the Activity Streams displayed like the thread titles in the actual forums themselves?....

If the Unread Threads stream remains as is, I know I for one will be both physically and time challenged to stay current on the forums... I'll end up spending way less time here, which means I will end up less INTERESTED in spending time here, and will only come back to the Addon Releases as needed, I'm sure, through a direct Google link to a specific mod's thread, then out once I've (hopefully) quickly gleaned the necessary info i seek... Never to return till next time I only REALLY, REALLY need an issue answered....

Now that you've made it thru all that, did you prefer all THAT, or THIS below, which I could have just posted:

So the new Activity Streams are hard on the eyes with all the white, the avatars and stuff on the left, the out of context post bodies, and all the ENDLESS scrolling...
Any way to make them more like the thread listings in the actual forums?

Just a thought...Take it or leave it...

Edited December 5, 2015 by Stone Blue

[Red Iron Crown]

@Stone Blue Try switching to "Condensed View" with the icons at top right, and you can make it more information-dense still by making condensed streams. I wrote a little thing about it here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/126874-miss-the-old-subscriptions-page-try-a-custom-activity-stream/

[Stone Blue]

^^
Thank You Crown ... Yes, I had previously seen that, and tried it quite a few times... It does not seem to work for me... I make changes (I mostly just need the one change to show "Topics"), but after saving, nothing changes, and the page displays exactly as it did before... ???
 

[Red Iron Crown]

Changes to the default streams do not seem to be saving properly, try making a custom stream instead. 

[Stone Blue]

^^ Yup...tried that... Tried editing existing streams, and creating a new stream....
The ONLY thing that I could get changed, was if I changed the sort order from newest to oldest first... And THAT didnt seem to work properly, as doing oldest first, the posts were all jumbled randomly by post time, NOT in chrono order...

Edited December 5, 2015 by Stone Blue

[boolybooly]

The problem for me is it has undone 3 years work in carefully constructing the K-Prize challenge honour rolls, which allowed readers to look up mission reports anywhere in the thread, from v0.16.0 to the present, from the roll lists in the OP, using hyperlinks. All the links are now broken. So I don't see it as an improvement.

I don't understand why it was not possible to find a way to do it without breaking the links, there must be ways to avoid doing that, not just for the sake of one challenge thread but for the entire KSP player community and the diaspora of threads representing their accomplishments and enthusiasm to other communities drawing new players to KSP. Any links to the forums in these are also all broken. I understand the modding community has also been upset by the demolition of resource links.

Even though some of this may be rebuilt, it can't be good for Squad. I am saying this because dont think it was the right call and unless we say what we really feel noone will know and if this mistake is not recognised something similar could happen again, when it would be best avoided. 

 

[Red Iron Crown]

Thread links work fine, it's just the individual post ones that aren't working. I sympathize with you, my own (much smaller) challenge thread suffered the same fate.

[Hcube]

I don't like this forum (at all) for a few simple reasons :

1)the international section was trashed and there doesn't seem to be much will to put it back up : who thought mixing posts in different languages in the same subforum was a good idea ?

2)it's so sterile with 4colors : 2blues, white, and gray. The all-white facebook/apple flat design literally gives me headaches after a while

3)i used to be able to display many posts on my mobile screen (wich is huge) and now i can only display one (if it's short enough !)

4)my cursor randomly moves when i'm typing. It is terrible. I'm spending twice more time as before to write a post because letters disappear, duplicate, whole words change position... Also the BBcode is gone, and i miss it

There are some big mistakes like tables sticking out of the frame on the mobile version... 

 

[richfiles]

also couldn't help but notice that they killed off our thread subscriptions... I have NO idea what threads i've lost now. Little up and coming mods who's author's name and mod name i can't recall, but WOW, that was cool, to just some random topic I held and interest in, to discussions I've been deeply involved in...

 

All gone! 

 

Is there an archive of the OLD forum that can be accessed, so that we can scrounge our old data out? I mean, the timing was perfect, but the announcement was insufficient. Doing the upgrade when Fallout 4 released was genius! I didn't KNOW the upgrade was happening! 

That's also the problem... I didn't know, and have no idea when the announcement and warnings actually posted. We should have had like over a month's warning, with BIG BOLD RED LETTERS or something...

[Virtualgenius]

 

On 12/6/2015, 11:35:26, richfiles said:

also couldn't help but notice that they killed off our thread subscriptions... I have NO idea what threads i've lost now. Little up and coming mods who's author's name and mod name i can't recall, but WOW, that was cool, to just some random topic I held and interest in, to discussions I've been deeply involved in...

 

All gone! 

 

Is there an archive of the OLD forum that can be accessed, so that we can scrounge our old data out? I mean, the timing was perfect, but the announcement was insufficient. Doing the upgrade when Fallout 4 released was genius! I didn't KNOW the upgrade was happening! 

That's also the problem... I didn't know, and have no idea when the announcement and warnings actually posted. We should have had like over a month's warning, with BIG BOLD RED LETTERS or something...

I have been asking for some time now whether its possible to re-import our lost subscriptions and friends list or at least provide us a list to the threads, request is ignored. I asked about being able to access the old forum as an archive  but was told NOT POSSIBLE as VBulletin doesnt like its name changed. The subs where causing 502 errors when they bought the forums back up but now thats its stable I cant see why they cant schedule some maintenance and try and get peoples subscriptions and friends list back, but I am guessing it will be the standard SQUAD response when they DONT want to do something NOT POSSIBLE

Edited December 7, 2015 by Virtualgenius

[Felsmak]

It kinda feels like a combination of Facebook and Tumblr.

[sal_vager]

No idea how to do that Virtualgenius, IPS doesn't seem to have a proper subscriptions thing, my attempts to replicate it with the activity streams as Red Iron Crown showed didn't work for me (I have posted in too many threads).

I suggest messaging KasperVld about it, maybe there's a plugin to add it to IPS.

[adsii1970]

Still would like to see the blogs brought back. Otherwise, I am learning to be happy with the new forum, even though I do not like the WYSWYG editor...

[richfiles]

33 minutes ago, Felsmak said:

It kinda feels like a combination of Facebook and Tumblr.

Just with fewer SJWs... Still just as much whining though... I'm doing my part to contribute to the droning sound of unrest! 

[Virtualgenius]

8 hours ago, sal_vager said:

No idea how to do that Virtualgenius, IPS doesn't seem to have a proper subscriptions thing, my attempts to replicate it with the activity streams as Red Iron Crown showed didn't work for me (I have posted in too many threads).

I suggest messaging KasperVld about it, maybe there's a plugin to add it to IPS.

I did message him 5 days ago no response, I too followed Red Iron Crowns direction and it doesn't really work for me either 

I would be interested to see stats on old forum use to new forum use 

Edited December 8, 2015 by Virtualgenius

[Rath]

I hate it.  Sure, this one is more intuitive, but to quote John Scalzi about Facebook: "this is the Internet hit with a stupid stick".  The old one was kinda like an old cottage.

[Rath]

You see, if I wanted ksp Facebook I would go to the KSP FACE BOOK NOT THIS EYE-SEARING HELLHOLE!!!!!  KSP is a technical game about to ROCKET science.  We are okay with using the forum equivalent of that (bbcode).  The MINECRAFT FORUM SOULD BE HIT WITH A STUPID STICK not KSP--KSP is rocket science. (And an actually-having-moderators-stick too)

Edited December 9, 2015 by Rath

[Engineer of Stuff]

I think it looks more modern than Vbulletin. But I dislike the "Like" button too.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Engineer of Stuff

[aramil]

On 9-12-2015 at 5:10 PM, Engineer of Stuff said:

I think it looks more modern than Vbulletin. But I dislike the "Like" button too.

yesh but thats easily changed (edited screenshot for da kiddies)

 

[Hobbes Novakoff]

On 9-12-2015 at 2:11 PM, Rath said:

You see, if I wanted ksp Facebook I would go to the KSP FACE BOOK NOT THIS EYE-SEARING HELLHOLE!!!!!  KSP is a technical game about to ROCKET science.  We are okay with using the forum equivalent of that (bbcode).  The MINECRAFT FORUM SOULD BE HIT WITH A STUPID STICK not KSP--KSP is rocket science. (And an actually-having-moderators-stick too)

Dude. Calm down.

Also, stop using "We." As evidenced by this thread and others, the community is by no means united in their opposition of the forum. Don't imply that we all agree with you. I certainly don't.

On 9-12-2015 at 6:02 PM, aramil said:

yesh but thats easily changed (edited screenshot for da kiddies)

Wut? Is that permanent, or just temporarily messing with "view source?"

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Rath said:

You see, if I wanted ksp Facebook I would go to the KSP FACE BOOK NOT THIS EYE-SEARING HELLHOLE!!!!!  KSP is a technical game about to ROCKET science.  We are okay with using the forum equivalent of that (bbcode).  The MINECRAFT FORUM SOULD BE HIT WITH A STUPID STICK not KSP--KSP is rocket science. (And an actually-having-moderators-stick too)

Also, I wouldn´t say "KSP is rocket science". KSP is a very realistic game, but can´t simulate all the vaious problems that come up in real life rocket science. Also, a realistic game doesn´t mean it has a highly educated customer base of nerds and geeks that would like to use the raw source code instead of WYSIWYG.

[Majorjim!]

The new forum scared off a lot of people. My usual hang-out, the space craft exchange, feels dead now.. I really hope it picks up because it feels a bit like a sinking ship. And I don't know how to operate the bilge pumps..