News, Reviews & Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual women in Entertainment and the Media

Official New Forum Feedback Thread

ok, it sounds like there are a lot of 'complaints', but pls bear in mind that this is still a work in progress. suggestions are definitely welcome, and we thank you for being patient. btw i'll now lock all the other threads.


koma's picture

Suggestion

Minor suggestion (not criticism, not time-sensitive): Can we have the option of "Married/Civil partnership" under Relationship Status in our profiles? :)

 

"Be open. Come out. Keep fighting. This is the only way to move anything." --Eigil Axgil

sarahwarn's picture

Yep

Good idea, thanks. I'll add it right now...
koma's picture

Thanks!

Thanks, Sarah!

BTW, I love that we can click things in our profiles (movie titles, etc) and find people with similar interests. Very cool! :)

 

"Be open. Come out. Keep fighting. This is the only way to move anything." --Eigil Axgil

ElvishOne's picture

Hey Sarah, I really love

Hey Sarah,

I really love the new look of the site! Its great! I'm still getting used to the new forums tho. This might sound silly, but I can't seem to figure out how to delete one of my posts.. lol Is it possible? I simply cannot find the option to delete!! haha

=)

 

msgulp's picture

which post would you like to delete?

let me know and i can delete it for you.
not_acartoon's picture

May I suggest a go to top

May I suggest a go to top or even better a home>>forums>>etc link at the bottom of the page. It’s a bit annoying that you have to scroll all the way up in order to move in another topic :)

sarahwarn's picture

Good idea

I'll add the links to the bottom of the page as well, hopefully sometime next week.
not_acartoon's picture

:D Thank you Keep yourself

:D Thank you

Keep yourself out of trouble...

EllaMack's picture

Forum messages come out looking odd

I'm sure this is just me and my computer illiteracy but since the move to the new forum format the messages come out funny. Specifically, the code for quotes is displayed as part of the text of the message and the quote is not offset in any way. As a consequence, messages are cramped and somewhat unreadable.  I'm sure this is something to do with my display settings but I can't figure out what. I use Firefox but it is the same when I use IE. Thanks.
koma's picture

forum code

Hi Ella,

The forum switchover necessitated going from posts being formatted in BB Code to TinyMCE/rich-text (if I recall correctly). This means that the old way of doing things such as [b][/b] for bold will now appear as plain old code (not formatted text) when viewing older forum messages. Unfortunately I don't think there is a way to fix this.

Emoticons, links, and pictures in the old posts have had a similar fate. :(

Is this what you're referring to? 

 

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. -Henry James

Molly Bolt's picture

I haven't been here for very

I haven't been here for very long, so I apologize if this has been addressed. I've noticed in many of the threads I open that the posts are not in order by date, and, like the Helen Shaver character in Desert Hearts, I like order in my life. ;)

Is there a way to correct that?  

koma's picture

Post order

Posts that were made prior to the forum switchover are, unfortunately, a bit of a hodgepodge and I don't think anything can be done about this (short of starting a new thread anyway, which has been done in a few of the more popular topics). Anything posted after the forum changeover should appear at the top and continue down in chronological order, unless someone has used "Reply to" in an older post, in which case their reply will appear below that post (which will make it seem out of order).

I don't know if Sarah is planning on addressing this further, but when the subject came up in other threads she said that it was a toss-up between keeping the old content out of order or deleting everything and literally starting from nothing. Eventually she decided on the latter but you're welcome to let us know what your thoughts are.

Hope this helps answer the question. :)

 

 

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. -Henry James

not_acartoon's picture

Page index

Since when you click on a topic doesn't redirects you at the last page of it (where in most of the cases) the newer comments exist, is it possible to have at the top of the page a page index like 1 2 3 next last etc?

Yes i'm the one always asking for more links *blushes*

Keep yourself out of trouble...

koma's picture

Suggestion Box

General, nitpicky feedback:

It would be nice to have an option to jump to the last page of a thread (I think someone said this) from the main topic list, or to not have to scroll to the bottom of the page to do it.

Also, it would be nice if, after posting something, the page reloaded on the relevant page of that thread instead of the first page. Bonus points if my browser could "jump" down to what I had just posted. :)

I am not lazy, I swear; just set in my ways.

Finally, since someone mentioned this in another thread:

The user profiles (favourite movies, etc) appear in HTML even when you enter them plainly, so the list looks all funny with < p > and &amp and things. Mine is one such example.

 

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. -Henry James

koma's picture

Suggestion Box

A few more suggestions I've heard from around the board and in my PM box:

-The option to "mark threads as read". This has been mentioned before but since I'd really, really like it (and so would a lot of us, I suspect!) then it goes on the list again.

-The option to "block" or "ignore" posts/threads by particular users. Requested in a PM from an AE member.

 

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. -Henry James

emmon's picture

I could scream

but I won't.  Seriously, I love ae.com and all it has to offer.  But geez, here it comes, I am so tired of getting server errors and ginormous processing delays.  I can almost watch an episode of Bad Girls in the time it takes to post to a thread.  I don't like to complain, really, I mean it.  But (don't you hate that word), it seems that ever since ae.com went to avatars for all (which I like btw) there is a serious problem with speed, posting, and just plain old navigation.  (Turning off pictures makes no difference)  I'm not an IT person, although I was an IBM mainframe nut and COBOL programmer in a previous life, but something needs serious tweeking here.  Is it bandwidth?  A crappy server?  I honestly don't know but please do something.  It is driving me to other websites and I want to be here.  And I want to post.  Ahem, thank you for listening.  If the server blows away this post I am really going to be ticked.  Love you MsGulp :)  And if you'll notice, I behaved and didn't use any bad language.
Luckycharm808's picture

And I thought I was alone!

All this time I thought it was my connection or computer that was wrong. I feel better now. But yeah I love being on here so hopefully they are on it!

theDgrl's picture

Posts Jumping Into Random Places of Topics

Hi, I have a tinsy winsy minor issue with the forum so far.

When there are old topics that's been dated back from Jan and onwards.. whenever I or others post currently, it jumps into the middle of the topic thus making it difficult to find who posted last. http://www.afterellen.com/node/159#comment-394079 ==> that is an example, do ctrl+f and type in today's date.. you'll see my post jump randomly in the middle of the topic. Which is annoying ;s

Also, I wish that there would be some kind of setting where if a poster looks at certain topics of the certain pages within the topic.. that they wouldn't have to keep clicking to the "last" navigation and that the forum would automatically know which last page of the topic they had viewed on. Just helps from clicking "last" and such.. reducing time of finding certain posts too.

I think that's about it.. :]

 

x

"I never knew a love
A love that could be sweeter
No matter what my mind says
Your music gives me fever"

-iio "Is It Love?"

TheFox's picture

phpbb

I hope this is the right place to post this...

Have you considered making the forum into a phpbb forum? It's freely available code that is constantly being developed and thus improved.

I think it would be a lot easier to navigate (let alone admin), spare future problems with post dates, things going out of order etc.

Also, it has a lot of the features people requested here built-in, such as bbcode and "mark topics read", and is extendable so you can add more features such as "ignore/block".

It also supports themes, so you could adjust the appearance to fit into the rest of the site. (Admittedly, that would require some work..)

 

Just a thought...

- Fox

MontyCello's picture

*puppy dog eyes*

I hope this happens. It would be so much easier to navigate.
MsWoo's picture

PHPBB

It has its drawbacks as well. There are so many phpbb forums out there, ditto for Invision and even SMF forums. I suppose with a portal attached, it would not have to lose much in the way of content... but still, I sort of like that this is not the same as other forums. I have no idea which software is being used, (maybe a php nuke frontend?), but to change would mean migrating the database - and THAT is a HEADACHE and HALF.

 

btw, I do like the new functions recently added :D

TheFox's picture

Yes, well...

Change is never easy! ;)

And I agree migrating the DB would be painful, probably the most painful part of it all, but sometimes it's worth the one-time effort...

The difference between phpbb and Invision/SMF is that phpbb isn't a single-piece system, it's not a portal.. It's just code, you can combine it with the things that already exist, you can change it, mess around with it, it doesn't have to be like every other forum. It's open source, you can utilize the parts you want and get rid of the rest.

Anyway, that was just my geeky need to clarify, not trying to pick any "my code is bigger than yours" fights. ;)

I'm well aware there's also drawbacks. :P

 

- Fox

koma's picture

phpBB

The forum was phpBB last year, before changing to the current system, so I doubt very highly that AE would switch back (i.e. they must have had their reasons for switching away from it in the first place, and I believe it was so they could streamline the forum and blog commenting process into one system).

 

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand. -Henry James

TheFox's picture

Cookies

What about a "remember me"/"stay logged on" feature?

 

 

- Fox

verityld's picture

search option..

Is there a possibilty of getting a search engine happening for forum topics?

 Much easier than trawling through all the forums trying to find one particular topic.

gypsywee's picture

Edit, or not...

I've noticed that I have the ability to edit some comments, and not others. Do you know why the "edit" is not always available? See the pic below for a good example:

edit

Brunette's picture

you can't edit

your original post if someone replies it. As long no one replies, you can edit it.

gypsywee's picture

Oh!

You're so smart! Thanks Brunette!!! :)
Brunette's picture

No problem

:-)

TooCute's picture

Buddy Request

Hey, this may sound weird but I got this buddy request and the name of the person was blank. There was no name and you can't click on it either because its just like a space. When I check to see what buddies are online it shows the blank buddy online. What is with that?
lunakiss's picture

Mysterious AE.commers

 I agree with Toocute. I've gotten mysterious emails from AE.commers showing me links to stuff or join this blah blah but its I don't have access to see who they are. WTF? It makes me think it's a spammer.  So is it? Can you filtered those type out, please. I too have the same problem like  AE. commer TooCute. What gives?

Did I ever say I would play nice?-Miss Ketina

Hzelen's picture

profile options

Under sexual orientation, there's both "gay" and "lesbian" but not "queer." Could there be? I don't think it's redundant.

User login

Recent comments

After Ellen home page on logo online