Please don't change the forum

[Paul R Johnson]

I've been reading on many of the forums I use hundreds of complaints because forum owners get pressured or persuaded to update software, add features and install modules to make forums content managed friendly - apparently this is modern and cool. At least three of my favourite forums have virtually died when these changes have been made, and all the old members hate it. The site owners have all spent money and hours of work on a worse product - so before this forum changes, please don't.

It's great as it is. The white and two blues is easy to read. The sections are organised and the notification of new posts works really well. Please don't go to white text on grey backgrounds and black boxes and remove the 'New Posts' button and replace it with current/trending/popular or other nonworking buttons that dredge up current posts that were made twenty year previously, but as somebody found one by searching, brings it up as 'popular'.

DV Info is appreciated and liked - so can I please suggest not listening to anyone who tells the owners they need to 'improve' the forum.

One forum I used I have totally dumped and three others are now rubbish - and of course the owners take the hump when their improvements are universally hated. One got the "well if you hate it so much, leave" treatment from the owner and dozens of posts a day is now one every few days, and he is having to start his own topics because everyone has got fed up.

So - just thought I'd say how much this forum is appreciated before anyone tinkers.

[Dave Baker]

Hear hear Paul, I agree 100%!

[Patrick Tracy]

I thought RO's brief change to XenForo was okay. I'm fine with it on HR dot com. But the implementation of Drupal at RO just makes me click away.

[Tony McGuire]

I also agree with Paul on this mater. Please leave the forum the way it is.

[John Nantz]

Originally Posted by Dave Baker

Hear hear Paul, I agree 100%!

Yes! Two thumbs up!

Due to lower traffic from pre-pandemic days, perhaps change the "New Posts" to span two days inside of one?

[Andrew Smith]

Apart from mobile friendly display (why would you bother using a mobile device for reading a forum board anyway?) DVinfo works well and certainly isn't broken. Look forward to it staying as it is.

Andrew

[Paul R Johnson]

I suspect many of the software changes in 'updates' are meant to enhance the phone viewing audience of the internet. People who view on large real screens are not the bulk anymore, it seems.

[Ron Evans]

I agree. Don't change. I go to DVXuser and GV EDIUS forums and they have both changed for the worse. Simple buttons like New Posts and quicklinks like mark all read have gone from both on the main screen. Argument again was for phone reading. That's fine but leave the PC user the same.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Haha, DVinfo - last refuge of the grumpy old men! Honestly guys, I don't understand what you're talking about. I'm a mod on two forums that switched to Xenforo and think it's great. I also like the dark themes, nice in a darkened room (like where I edit video). But there's an option to choose either light or dark.

This reminds me of the days when people here were so adamant the 4:3 video was the ultimate form and 16:9 was just some kind of fad. Seriously... it's the *content* that's important, not the colors and forum software. Personally, I'm getting pretty tired of the blue and white. And I know Chris, he always hated things like smilies and "likes"... but, c'mon, it's 2021 and that's the standard. It's about time to adopt those here. Don't get me wrong - I hate FaceBook, Instagram and LinkedIn, so that's not what I want. But having a set of "like" icons let's people quickly react without actually composing a whole post. It's just more efficient.

But - whatever - leave it the same or change it. Doesn't matter all that much to me. It just surprises me that you feel so strongly about this to start a thread.

[Christopher Young]

"... it's the *content* that's important, not the colors and forum software."

EXACTLY! And that in a nutshell is the problem.

The "content" access is nowhere near as accessible as it was previously on one of the forums I visit. Maybe the forum I have in mind is easier to administer, but it is surely nowhere near the elegant functional user-friendly forum it used to be. The end-user experience obviously had little or minimal consideration when any layout changes were being considered. If the end-user experience had been a major focus of consideration which one would expect from a public forum when being "re-worked", then one would have hoped that the end-user experience would have been enhanced. Sadly to date, this has not been the case. The changes wrought have delivered more of a retrograde user experience. What used to be a pleasant enjoyable interaction with a forum has now become a bit of a drudge to dig through. Shame, because it has so much talent contributing. I guess the passage of time will tell us just how successful that particular forum's functionality changes are... or not. As always, all will be revealed in the future by the numbers attending.

+1 about keeping the status quo here at DVInfo. Without a doubt!

Chris Young

[Ron Evans]

+1

Content is what matters. In that regard I want to know what is new from the last time I visited a forum. A nice "new posts " button and when I leave want to mark "all read" Really simple I really have no bother about colour etc just the content and know whats new. Is that so hard to achieve in a new layout ? DVXinfo and Grass Valley EDIUS forum failed in this simple layout where they had these features in the "old" layout.

[Boyd Ostroff]

That's all fine. But it has nothing to do with the choice of colors or forum software. I'm not familiar with the sites that are being complained about - DVinfo is the only forum I frequent for video. Sounds like they made poor choices with forum re-designs. But you can still have all the things you guys like in terms of content and organization PLUS give the forum a more modern look and have features such as "likes", emoticons and optional dark mode.

[Ron Evans]

Changing colours is fine. Just don't loose all the convenience for the colour change. Just change the colour scheme, make it easy to see on phones or whatever. Just don't reduce the useful features. It is just as useful to have a button for new posts or mark read on a phone as it is on a PC. Simple needs please note for the forums you moderate Boyd.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Simple needs please note for the forums you moderate Boyd.

I don't understand, is that a question? FWIW, the best example would probably be MacRumors which (aside from apple.com) is the largest Apple-related site on the net and also one of the largest forums of any kind. We have hundreds of thousands of members and surely more posts in a day than DVinfo sees in a year. Anyway, we migrated from vBulletin to Xenforo a few years ago. Seems to me that the layout would meet all the requirements that people want here, and I especially like the sidebar that shows recent posts - but you can hide it if you don't like it. And yes, the light mode is still blue and white, LOL. There are also buttons for new posts and marking everything read. Here's an example of the dark and light styles. You can choose either, or automatic mode to switch after dark.

Coming back to my earlier point, look at all the space that is being used in this thread by people simply saying they agree with the OP. That's just a waste IMO, a "like" button would accomplish the same thing without taking up so much space with "+1" type comments.

[Ron Evans]

They look fine as they seem to have the ability to, with one button, give the user a list of new posts for them. There is a difference for totally new activity and a new post on a thread that I am following. With the one button press I would like to go to the place I left off as well as list anything new. Not an unreasonable request for a new improved forum software. I really have no comment on colour scheme as that is of lower importance to me. Even create my own button would be great too.