New Forum..theme and design comments

asim18 wrote:

When browsing a profile, the "Most Recent", "Most Likes" and "Solutions" tabs don't work for some profiles.

I think the lack of content on some tabs, for some users, is possibly to do with archiving.

Just before the switchover to the new platform, it looks as if a huge chunk of forum content was archived. As far as I can tell, it looks as if most things over 2 years old on the forum have gone into the archive. This has resulted in little/no info for some users on their profile tabs.

asim18 wrote:

Also quotation function is broken? Previously we could simply press a button and it quoted a post for us automatically, now we need to copy and paste manually?

The quotes function seems to be blocked and throws up the same HTML errors for me as trying to post a hyperlink.

@Asim18

The only praise I see on the Internet is Khoros praising Khoros and your right, it comes at a cost its not free, it has continually reduced features siting security concerns as the reason and 250 views per page might be an exaggeration for promotions sake.   It has to keep archiving content and doesn't seem to be able to handle a large data base.

Maybe the need for an ISP technical support user forum is now defunct. Many people I know have little general technical knowledge, or interest, about 'how stuff works' nor do they have any practical skills in making things nor using basic tools. I would say there's now a widespread view in society of the need to get in an 'expert' every time a mildly technical or practical task arises at home.

For example, I am often struck by how many 'broken omnibox' topics on here need nothing more than the lid hooking over the top of the wall plate and securing at the bottom with a cable tie. But it is often the case that some customers posting on here have absolutely zero intention of even attempting to spend 5 minutes trying a DIY fix and would rather spend hours engaged with VM trying to get a tech to come out to do the task. That said, at the other end of the spectrum, there's likely to be a decreasing amount that customers can do themselves in future as connectivity increasingly involves more advanced tech to work, such as fibre optics etc.

I think the present functions/features of the new forum lend themselves to the simple task of customers asking a question and VM/forum users providing simple answers.

The archiving of a lot of past content means that the past knowledge base, from previous topics, has gone. Previous forum features (such as forum rank, kudos, helpful answers, badges etc.) are a bit meaningless now as they are not explained anywhere and there are now only quite a small number of established users who post regularly on here who know what they mean.

So, if the forum is now becoming just a helpdesk ticketing system, I do actually quite like the new format, compared to the previous version, as it is now super-simple. The problem is that most of these super-simple features don't actually work at the moment (now that I, and others, have had an opportunity to test them). The current issues are well documented on this topic, and on other topics, but I haven't worked out yet if they are not working because of some unintentional mangled security restrictions or if they are just broken.

Interesting times! Let's see what happens next!

Not properly, but when the tiny bite on the top right is taken out of the bell it means you have a new message. I suspect the number is still there, but the colour is the same as the background. The bite disappears when you have read the messages.

The bite seems to have been replaced with a blue circle.

The bell now has a purple dot.  Someone may have forgotten to change the colour.  Anyway, it's sorted now.

You have to sort by "Newest". It's awkward as I like to view the most recent posts from oldest to last.

Are you still being logged out, I don't get signed out automatically, if I want to sign out I need to select the option to sign out and I didn't select the keep signed in option.

@MrHalfAsleep

Click on your profile icon.  Go to My Settings, then Preferences, then in the Replies and Comments box, Default sort order should be set to "Newest to Oldest". Anything else can be set up here

That only applies if you are logged on