Feedback : New design for the Board

[Simon Lloyd]

I've noticed over the last week or so that at times page load is painfully slow, not too bad today though.

[DonkeyOte]

I've noticed over the last week or so that at times page load is painfully slow

You'll be shocked to learn that this was brought up in the Mod forum about a week ago...

The site at times has been so slow it's been pointless doing anything on it... thankfully there are a few other forums around so I've been posting inane drivel there instead !

The fact the slow down is sporadic implies to me at least either

a) slow query threads against the db

b) some process munching resources on the server itself

Simon, you'll know better than any of us so perhaps you could outline a checklist for Vai ?

...don't say that... they might follow-up.. never say never.


A pretty page that does not render is worth [complete as see fit] IMO...

The fact everything's just a different shade of grey still irritates (you can hardly read the quotes) but I'm more interested in the actual content... if it appears...

[Simon Lloyd]

DO, just to refresh this page it took 10 seconds!, the CSS used spits out 1,400 lines of CSS in the page rendering to change the native look, ideally the css should be in a seperate script and called by the forum scripts. Along side that many many gif's are called for the buttons and boxes...etc

[teylyn]

Simon, my sentiments exactly. When I looked at the source code of a forum page the other day, my first reaction was "WTF" in bold and size 46. Every single CSS item is spelled out in the html and loaded again and again with every single page. As if links to .CSS files had never been heard of.

About 24 hours ago, the forum had a complete croak event. Nada. Nix for two minutes. Server unavailable. Then, slowly, one by one, members were coming back online.

I wonder what this is supposed to mean:

We have dual xenon servers with 8 gigs of ram which are paid off by the adverts which are shown to the unregistered members.

Maybe that's a complete joke for a forum our size. Maybe it's just badly administered.

I'd wager that if the DBAs are of the same quality as the web developers, Vai is paying for a Porsche and gets only a Beetle's performance. And so do we.

But as DonkeyOte said: "There are a few other forums". I was lucky enough not to have to resort to drivel to kill time. Maybe some of the OPs there actually came from here ...!

There's amazing things happening in the online communities elsewhere. You wouldn't believe the punishment other forum owners have to take from unhappy contributors/problem solvers -- and the efforts that they undertake to keep their advisor community happy and in the coop.

The fact that the moderators here have been virtually begging for a few simple structural changes that seem to be neither discussed nor considered, speaks volumes for the regard that the owner really has for this investment. And let's face it: Excelforum.com is just an investment for Vai. He does not know nor care about Excel, Excel users, Excel advisors. All this fancy talk about "the forum belongs to the users" is a whole lot of big bull. Proven by the complete disregard for the moderators' requests about forum structure and the silly and senseless additions of more forums and fake posts instead of keeping the existing house cleared up.

Yeah, OK, so now we can actually click some of the fancy new buttons. Big deal. They used to work perfectly before the make-up change, so that does not deserve any special mention.

Other things that used to work perfectly before the make-up change are now broken, have been reported repeatedly and continue to be broken. Whether this is due to ignorance or incompetence does not really matter to me now.

The only thing this all shows is the complete disregard and lack of respect for the community in this forum by the owner.

Site is run by the members who help each other and the moderators and admins who make sure there is proper decorum

where is my sarcasm font icon?

Completely unimpressed

[martindwilson]

apart from that teylyn, is everything else ok? lol

[Simon Lloyd]

In small defense of the CSS, vBulletin employs a "Main CSS" template within the software, there is a textbox that you simply add the forum CSS to so you will naturally see this on every page as i believe it is loaded when the header is loaded, but there again these guys are supposed to be professionals.

My forum has at this moment 304 users here there are 564

Originally Posted by Vaibhav
We have dual xenon servers with 8 gigs of ram which are paid off by the adverts which are shown to the unregistered members.

should be able to power a dozen forums like this, my server is dual core, 8 cpu's and i run at 512mb RAM, granted on the whole i need 1GB but i don't experience this amount of slow down.

Your sarcasm icon is located to the top right of any post, a red triangle with an exclamation mark in it, find the post you require and apply sarcasm freely

[teylyn]

Martin, have you ever done web development? Do I sound angry? Frustrated?

<breathe in -- hold -- breathe out -- ...in...-- hold -- ... out... -- in ... -- hold -- ... out > Ah, better.

Why would I? Balmy NZ summer evenings and I can give the mosquitos a hearty slap every minute or so. Very satisfying.

Whack!

[romperstomper]

The mods are revolting!
Revolting? They're [fill in your own joke here].

[teylyn]

Naw, it's just me being emotional because I like this place and I hate the carelessness and neglect it's currently facing.

Thing is, I work in IT project management, focussing on Change Management. I know how it's done properly. How to avoid all the mistakes that we've seen here in the past few weeks.

You need different environments for development, testing, staging, production. Thorough tests by real users in each environment before you progress to the next stage. Set up a site with bogus data and get the mods and some super users to test and feed back to the project team. Bug fixes will happen before you release into production. Communication will go out to users to announce changes before they go live.

That's my job. That's what I get actually paid for. And that's why it irks me immensely to see that this forum is being reduced to banana software.

[Ron Coderre]

You want feedback...OK, here's my latest feedback.

This forum has dropped from being my first choice (checked continuously duing the day)
down to my THIRD choice (checked several times a day).

Why?...Because its glaring apprearance, poor formatting, small fonts, and horrible
code display are too annoying to tolerate in large doses.

PLEASE FIX THIS FORUM.
The people are great. The place is a train wreck.

[shg]

Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.

[DonkeyOte]

Vai, just guessing, but I'm assuming that losing the support / contributions of one of the few Microsoft Excel MVP's is not part of your master plan ?

I have to say that since the deckchairs were re-arranged I've noticed a number of people, myself included, posting again on other forums in greater quantity than was previously the case implying that Ron is unlikely to be alone and shall prove to be a trail blazer as opposed to the exception.

I concede in my case woeful performance has been the predominant irritation but in the past six months or so the whole "ambience" of the board has changed and that is down solely to the actions taken outside of the Mods remit...
ie decisions made over which no one here has any control / say

I joined just over a year ago having been a member at MrExcel.com for a number of years... in the first year I felt that this site was catching up - quickly - in all aspects.
I much preferred the more controlled aspects imposed by the Mods here and the file upload facility is a huge advantage over MrE.
However, the fact that as owner you see fit to test on live systems, have days where even the most loyal of contributors are inundated with inane advertising* and generally display all the hallmarks of someone who sees the "value" of the board in an entirely different way to the rest of us makes me question not only my continued participation but that of a large number of the members here Mods / non-Mods alike.

Your site (and it's monetary value) is entirely dependent upon the expertise of it's members and as far as I'm aware this is not something your "team" has in abundance ?
(indeed it would seem they know only how to ask questions in the OS forums)

If you continue to ignore those people that actually add value to your site (at no cost to yourself) you will lose that which gives it value in the first instance.
I really (honestly) hope that the loss of just one Microsoft Excel MVP should be significant enough for you to sit up & recognise that fact ... I dread to think what would happen should the likes of Andy Pope decide to follow suit.
(I am assuming you know the significance behind the MVP award of course...)

FWIW, I'm not overly interested in a response to the above, talk is talk and it's plainly apparent to all that actions are what is required at this juncture.
The structure is a mess, the performance is at best mediocre at present.
Were I in your shoes it would be to those two areas that I would focus my attention.
I would not be losing too much sleep about which icon I should have to close a thread or add reputation (?!)

Don't (continue) to take your contributors for granted, listen to them and act / prioritise accordingly.


*advertising - made worse by the fact that the content has zero relevance to the site's content

[Simon Lloyd]

DO, thats a loud echo and passionately put, you're right as MVP's posting at your forum is testiment to its attraction for both meeting the needs of a challenge and the satisfaction of furthering someones education in to something we all love.

If you check the Alexa ranking here http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/excelf...ph&r=home_home you will find that Excel Forum has dropped in all rankings bar two, that's Bounce (the number of people that only visit the site for one page turn) and Search, which proves people are still visiting from matches found in a search engine but then are unwilling to surf the rest of the site.

If Vai is going to stave off the exodus it has to be now, as at least in the UK, folk will be using Excel frantically trying to meet year end accounts needs.

[Richard Buttrey]

Hello Vai,

I've refrained from posting on this subject whilst I gave the new look and feel a fair chance - change always being somewhat problematical in all walks of life and I didn't want to come over all reactionary.

However I think I've given it a sporting chance and I have to say that my principle concern is the eye strain that has resulted.

The background is way too light and the 'grey' text really hasn't sufficient contrast. The new design may be the latest modern arty farty design chic and all that, but for those of us on the wrong side of 60 it's just too much trauma for the old Mk. 1 eyeball.

Please review this aspect with some urgency.

Regards

[ratcat]

Tho I haven't read the lot thread but my 2 cents is the current colour doesn't cut the rug. I quite enjoy the original colours that where displayed when I first registered.