New board- for better or worse

[toppcat]

...like it better. I do second comments about BST being pretty sparse at the moment though.

[DaveH]

I voted "better" but I won't be convinced until I see Jim Crandell over here. I miss hearing about his fabulous collection.

DH

[chaddurbin]

with all the new people (and old members suspiciously changing login ids) can we add a feedback score for each user? that would involve more work for the mods. i just don't want to be rip off...again.

[Jeff D]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

The old board allowed larger images to be posted. In that regard the old board was better. And pasting a PhotoBucket link was easier than going back to CP, then to an album, then uploading an image, then back to the album, then finding the image to find the link. Before, the link was right there once you uploaded the image. The new process is acceptable, wish it allowed for larger images.

The old board also allowed for a link to email someone who'd posted. What this board does is allow for a message within the board site, and then sends an email that the message was sent. I liked the way the old board functioned in that regard.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding what you mean wrt the emailing and posting pictures.

But when you click on a user's name who posted and choose to send them an email, you DO have to send the email to the user through a form on the boards (as you mentioned). But the email is sent to that person with your full message and your (the sender's) email address just like a regular email. There is a small blurb at the top of the email saying that it's from a user on the boards. It then allows you to email them back as you would normally (in whatever program you get your emails), or to go through the boards to respond. This is done to protect your email address from people that you may not want having it, while still allowing you to receive emails.

As far as posting images, on the old board you could just post the address of a Photobucket image and it would appear in your post. The process here is almost exactly the same. You just need to include the code [IMG][/IMG] before and after the image address. You don't have to go through the cp. In fact all you need to do when making a post to insert an image is click on the little mountain icon and paste the image address into the pop-up window. It will insert the code automatically. And when you do it this way, you can have full size pictures, as the old boards (as seen below).




Sorry if this was long, rambling or confusing, or if I misunderstood your dislikes, but the new boards have a lot to offer.

[FrankWakefield]

Well I don't know if I can explain it so you can WRT understand....


Before, I clicked on someone's name and I could email them with a real email from me... from my email program. Now, the email is through this board, this site sends them an email (not me), and when the recipient gets that it takes a moment to scroll to where the real message is. Plus, whenever the recipient comes back to this board, they then have to fool with going to CP, to delete the message from there, too. Suffice to say, the old board dealt with emails in a much more streamlined, efficient, better way.

As for the images, the image size is more limited here. I find the thumbnails an annoyance, and once I do open them the image still isn't large enough to suit me. Again, I think the old board dealt with that better.

Golly, I ended my other post with "All in all, a good, sensible move. Thank you.", if that isn't a positive endorsement I don't know what is. I just mentioned contrasting shortcomings honestly.

Dave mentioned the absence of Jim Crandell up there a few posts ago. I doubt if anyone here has greater disdain for Jim's collecting approach than I do. But my abhorrence of high numbers on slabs should not be mask my praise of Jim's passion, or my appreciation of his collecting knowledge. He's a smart fellow, wish he was posting here. Although the posts I most enjoy are about nuances of card sets, card variations, the history of the game, the history of collecting. If Jim never shows up here, then that is another way the old board was better, 'cause Jim definitely was a presence there.

When I saw Barry posting with his name, that seemed sensible to me, so I changed to FrankWakefield, leaving the Greatwake that I'd chosen when I first started on eBay years ago, in a frantic moment, as I was attempting to sign up for eBay so I could bid on a ball card of The Great Mails; permutations of my name were taken, and as I thought of the Walter Mails card selling I typed in Greatwake, and it took.... I like the real name better here, for me.

So again, the move to this board is a positive, sensible move. Glad Leon and the guys did it. I thank them for it. But it isn't perfect. Yet.

[Leon]

Thanks again for your honest feedback. First of all I owe you a credit for letting me get a copy of the Egan handbook. I have used it often. It is one of, if not the, best book on candy cards in the hobby, imho. Thanks again for that. It is also noted that Egan actually said in the handbook that it could be copied and used in the hobby if credit is given when used.

As for the new board I am not sure how it could ever be perfect? What would be perfect for you would no doubt not be perfect for others, and vice versa. At this point we have about a 91% approval rating (same or better) so I classify it as a success. It is definitely better for security issues and support issues, which help us moderators/admins quite a bit. If we lost a few members in the process then that is a shame. There is absolutely no reason someone can't figure this board out, if not at least minimal things, in order to participate. I am still having troubles with some operations and there are a few things I did like about the old board better....but all in all I am far and away happier with this board than the old one. best regards

[HRBAKER]

The new board is a quantum improvement.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Plus, whenever the recipient comes back to this board, they then have to fool with going to CP, to delete the message from there, too. Suffice to say, the old board dealt with emails in a much more streamlined, efficient, better way.

As for the images, the image size is more limited here. I find the thumbnails an annoyance, and once I do open them the image still isn't large enough to suit me. Again, I think the old board dealt with that better.

Frank - thanks for the constructive feedback - I believe what you are describing in the first paragraph above is a "Private Message." When you send someone an email through the board it gets sent directly to their email account and there is no remnant of it on the user CP and nothing to manage as far as deleting in the user CP either. That management is only when you send a "Private Message" which basically is like a board messaging account and since the board stores those messages you have to reply to them and delete them from the board.

As far as the images go, we can discuss changing things so that uploaded images will display larger when the thumbnail is clicked. I'm not sure what limit the old board had on uploading images, but we can certainly look into it. On the plus side, your uploaded images aren't removed after 2 weeks like they were on the old board.

[Leon]

Since Corey suggested it, and I didn't know it could be done until Matt just told me, I have made the # of posts that can be seen in each thread go in increments up to 80. So now instead of 40 you can have 50,60,70 or 80.....

NOW THAT BEING SAID....please realize that if you make your number bigger in you Admin Conrol Panel (CP) then your download time will be effected (slower), since you will be downloading more data at once. ALSO, there is a very small chance that this could effect everyone and we have to go back to the lower post count per page but I doubt that will happen.

As of right now everyone should be able to go set their viewable posts per thread to 80 if you want to. I don't think we want to go higher than that for now.....Lets see how that works for a while and go from there.....thanks again for the positive, constructive feedback. My apologies for not remembering this could be done, as Matt enlightened me that we did speak about it before.....

[martyogelvie]

[batsballsbases]

Thanks Leon 80 would be better. Leon just an observation when you use the Network 54 Archive Center when you click back to the main forum It brings you back to the old forum. Just thought you might want to look into that.
Al


edited to add that I don't want to keep bumping this thread so will respond to a few questions within the posts- This linking back to the old board, for anything, will be looked at in the not too distant future. It's not a top priority but is on the "to do" list. (leon)

[sox1903wschamp]

I just went up to 60 posts per page and no noticible slow down in loading. IMO, 80 is enough per page as usually the only ones that get above 80 are the train wrecks


I set mine to 80 and there is no noticeable difference in speed but I will guess if every post has pictures there will be a slow down (leon)

[uffda51]

On the old board clicking “next topic” took you to the thread below the one you were looking at.

On the new board “previous thread” takes you down the page and “next thread” takes you up the page.

Seems counter-intuitive to this Luddite.

Plus, “previous” and “next” appear only at the end (bottom) of each thread, while “next topic” appeared at both top and bottom - unless I'm missing something.

Posting pics used to be as easy as pasting a URL into your post. Now the process seems convoluted.

Both of these issues, to me, slow things down. Maybe I’ll get used to it.

[Leon]

"Posting pics used to be as easy as pasting a URL into your post. Now the process seems convoluted."

Unless I am missing something on this I think we might have gone from 1 click to 2 clicks....but not much more than that? All you do is click on the little yellow square box right above here, paste the url in and click ok.....unless that is being a pain?

For me the small issue is having to load my pic on my personal site, to host it, if I want it to be a larger image in this post....since I don't use photobucket.

[uffda51]

Sorry, Leon. I figured it out. I'm icon-impaired.

[Leon]

No worries....and I think with that very recent image loading change from our pc's, we are getting closer to the ease of the old board. There are still a bit more bells and whistles than I really wanted with this new s/w but I think over time it will be even easier to use than the old board. I feel everyone's pain that didn't really want to come to the new board. My guess is that the majority of folks that don't think the new board is better are folks that didn't post a lot on the old board or posted mainly pictures. Maybe the recent changes will help that. In a few months maybe we will take another poll like this. It's a little disheartening to see the number of folks that liked the old board better....

[Rich Klein]

I learned a great lesson in 1974; during the final days of the Nixon Presidency when the polls all indicated that 25 Percent of Americans STILL supported Nixon even after the smoking gun relevation came out.

No matter what you would have done on the board; 25 percent of our users would not have liked the change. So whomever had that signature of change your socks; and keep going. Use that now and we can all continue to move on with our lives

Rich