Phil O'Keefe wrote:
FWIW, the small size of the avatars was something I commented about very early on in the development process. I know that a lot of people identify other users by their avatars - for some, they rely on that even moreso than screen names, and as it is now, IMO, they're too small to easily do that.
I'm definitely in favor of returning them to the same size we had on the vB site. In fact, as Craig and I have repeatedly said since the beginning, the more that this site looks and feels like the previous site, but with actual performance improvements (no database errors, page timeouts, etc.) the better. While I'm happy that there are cool new features available here, and that this site can do things the old one couldn't, I think the focus needs to be on that core look, feel and functionality, and that the other features should be addressed, added and / or refined only after those essential core items are in place and looking / working the way we want them to.
To me, that includes things like:
Making the text darker - yes, darker still. It's still too light of a shade of grey.
Making the subject line wider. Replies, New, Author, Kudos, Views and Latest Post fields can use a smaller font and / or be much narrower IMO. I'm glad those fields are there, but the subject line should get the space priority.
Turning off, or greatly dialing back the smut filter. If it can be set as a user option, even better, but as it is now, if your name is Richard and you want to use the most common nickname that goes along with that, you get bleeped. That's just ridiculous.
Making the avatars larger.
Creating a single, master list of forums somewhere that is easily accessible to one and all. I don't dislike the current navigation, but there should be a master forum list in one single spot for those who prefer accessing them that way.
Obviously there's more I could list, but that's the general idea. Again, IMHO, the more it can look and feel like the old forums, the better. Once that's established, then we can add, tweak, and improve to make it even better.
I was on my way back to the feedback forum to beat the longer thread title drum again -- those short thread titles are simply ABSURD.
There seems to be some quite good technology driving the Lithium system -- performance has, overall, been sharp.
But I cannot understand for the life of me why they don't have a grip on the sorts of things that make a forum software system useful and enjoyable to use.
You might think it's because -- in the customer support role Lithium is obviously actually designed for -- the prime goal is to get the customer in and out without ticking him off any more than necessary.
That's very different than trying to create a friendly, relaxing, easy to use 'hang out' type of environment.
And, just as with the previous company (disatrously) hired to attempt to redo the boards, these guys just don't seem to understand the use scenario here.
Happily, their core technology seems a much better fit, or this implementation was better conceived. The performance is, overall, quite good.
And the first flurry of changes after roll-out was, indeed, fast and covered a lot of much-needed fixes.
But we've still got a ways to go.
Please don't let these guys think their job is done. Because it most definitely is not.
= )
Help Desk