This 'new' community forum site

[HughJarsse]

AARRRGGGGHHHH!

What the flipping heck has happened here???

How the heck do you navigate this car crash??

Previously you could see all the board headers, and peruse the different posts.

Now??? 

Yeuk...😱 

[BSPN99]

I can’t believe that anybody thought this was an improvement. Then again “upgrade” has its own meaning at VM. Don’t they ever test anything?

[IPFreely]

---

@HughJarsse wrote:

AARRRGGGGHHHH!

What the flipping heck has happened here???

How the heck do you navigate this car crash??

Previously you could see all the board headers, and peruse the different posts.

Now??? 

Yeuk...😱 

---

Yup it's abysmal. The design is awful and the colour scheme irritating. I've no idea if this is on Khoros or VM but either way returning it back would be good. If they're going to have a forum as a front for gathering data the least they could do is not have a headache inducing site to do it from.

[IPFreely]

---

@nodrogd wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@nodrogd wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@nodrogd wrote:

One thing with life is that change is inevitable.

So is companies merging & standardizing their products.

The VM community forum now looks the same (& operates the same) as the O2 forum

---

well thats alright then or i guess some think so, did it not occur to use the better of the 2 examples, so you could have said 

the O2 forum looks just like the [old] VM one

change is not inevitable, something that works well does not need changing

---

The VM community forum in its old form had become heavily customised over the period since it started (over 50 added features). To transfer all these features to the O2 forum (which only has 3) was never going to happen.

---

so thats a justification [in your mind] for this then ?

and what has the O2 forum to do with anything. if change was needed to the VM forum then start with a clean sheet of paper not copy something that clearly does not fill the need

---

No, it’s not a justification. I have at no point expressed any opinion about it. I’m just stating one of the reasons I’ve been given for the changes.

This won’t be the only change you will see. There’s more to come.

---

I'm guessing none of them involve getting technical staff back to work on this abomination of a site?

Is one of the changes Richard Branson terminating the deal to use the Virgin brand on the grounds that Liberty have absolutely zero care for it?

[Oyster]

There is always a reason a broadband and media company changes the way a forum operates, and usually its because the old way showed up too many dissatisfied customers

[HughJarsse]

In all honesty, the time, effort, and probably the 'cost'  spent creating this 'abomination' would better have been used to try to IMPROVE the already abysmal 'customer service' NOT make it even WORSE, surely, 

But then again, as mentioned earlier, This is VM we are talking about. They seem to go out of there way to make 'updates' worse than the original was.....DELIBERATELY!!!   😩

[goslow]

I'm coming to the conclusion that the aim of the changes is to remove the 'community' bit from 'Community Forum'!

In the past, there has always been quite a wide tolerance from VM for regular contributors on here to 'tell it like it is' (within forum rules) and provide OP's with information to help them deal with their VM issues and problems.

As a result, there is normally a small, but regular, series of reports back on here from customers who have won their case against VM through arbitration, often as a result of info provided on here by community members.

By redesigning the forum in a way that suits only one-off questions and answers from individual customers, independent sources of information/opinion posting on here (other than the official VM response) will be significantly reduced. Good news for VM, not so good news for the VM customer who has a VM problem to deal with.

[AllenSmith]

I always love how people deal with change! So I would imaging VM is a bit like the community I manage.. 70% of our traffic comes in via Google or bing so the UI change probably won’t have a negative impact on support contacts.

If you visit the community often, stick with it you will get used to it promise 

[AllenSmith]

@buffer6,

can you explain what’s unhelpful about it?

[AllenSmith]

I don’t know why they made the changes they have but two tone communities (I.e where the different messages have an alternating background color) can be difficult to read if you are color blind or have ADHD.

In the community I manage we have to work really hard to ensure our UI is accessible for all and so we tend to avoid two tone UIs. What we are hoping to do, later this year, is offer some skins to users I.e light mode, dark mode, high contrast etc but we need an upgrade to the backend first.

[Adduxi]

First time on the "new look" and it's awful.  Far, far too much whitespace everywhere and why, oh why, does it repeat the original post on the top of every page.  Poor design IMHO and I'm guessing it's for people who only have mobile phones.  I much preferred the old Forum layout that was previous to the last one, but then again I'm an old moaner ,,,,,  😉