dave_j

A misnomer I think. In no way is this an 'upgrade'. This is a prime example of a failure to follow the truth of the well learned truth that 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!'
I would humbly suggest that the next 'upgrade' should be attempted by programmers who understand what they're doing.

scrubbedexpat091

I honestly havent noticed any real difference from the upgrade other then the look. Seems to load fine.

Oink

They've kicked out loads of fun people, they've banned me since I criticized something. It's another example of the corporate sanitizing of divergent opinion. It's radical orthodoxy, this place has become the cultural Ambien of bulletin boards. .

BristolUK

I'm actually finding it very similar to what it was - after a couple of things had been fixed.

Initially it was horrible with a huge space over to the right, but then they rolled back a couple of things. I still don't know whether it's Premium membership or adblockers solving the ads issue. There are a couple of things I don't like but they're not daily use. The 'experience' is broadly similar, but I repeat, for me.

But from comments in the feedback thread it's obvious that things are very different for other members (and other browsers) and there's no point in me being okay with it if nearly everyone else hates it and finds it not user friendly.

Even Shard has been negative about it

Shard

Were you really banned ?

There have been a few female posters that for one reason or another have decided to give BE a miss, and I think that may be part of the reason that the forum is less busy than before.

Siouxie

There's a few members (male and female) missing, for sure.... I hope they come back soon, I miss them!

Shard

Come back Ultrarunner...

IBJoel

Hi guys, I hear you. At the same time, our data doesn't bear that out. We have our numbers in this forum actually UP in the two weeks after the upgrade (I can't comment for this week, because we don't have the data). Another part of feeling like there's less activity is simply because forums as a whole have slowed as sites like Facebook and Reddit become hubs for conversation. There could be other reasons, too. Sometimes forums become insular or intimidating. And that's not a shot at you guys at all, but simply perceptions that new users often have. And yeah, sometimes people just stop a hobby because they've got other stuff to do.

Now, as far as usability goes, is there anything in particular you want to me to take a look at? The single biggest change that can be made to make the site closer to what it was is to disable Infinite Scroll here: https://britishexpats.com/forum/prof...do=editoptions

That's helped me a lot. Other than that, we've adjusted fonts to make everything more legible. The desktop version of the site has never been optimized for mobile devices, so anytime that worked in the past was just a happy accident. The ad slowness, we are working on.

Jerseygirl

Despite the unpopular site update...I’ve noticed more posts. I always check The Activity Ticker...posts were down to about a dozen or so per hour. Recently when I’ve checked that number are in a 30/45 minute window.

Novocastrian

Sorry IBJoel, but the downgrade is putting a load of people off. I don't post as often as I used to because there reply box ( this one) has become totally naff.

I've been reading the Site feedback thread, but I don't think I've heard a complaint about the Bold function on this naff reply window, For me (Macbook Pro, safari) when I want to bold a word or phrase, everything else afterwards is in bold.

One of many complaints, The absence of a spell-chequer is an-other.

Just fix it to loose your eyeballs.

Novocastrian

Quick reply to myself. I typed in the above post but this abomination prevented me from editing.

BristolUK

What kind of data is that, though? People logging on? People clicking on a thread or page within the thread?

There really are members who have either barely posted or not posted since then but they do visit. In my book, activity - looking - doesn't count. You can see them currently online but their profile shows little posting activity.

The real guide would be to look at members posts per day and compare a snapshot of that a month ago with a snapshot now.

Bats is a regular...last active yesterday but not posted since May 10, even though I've seen her online several times.
Snowy560 a regular on many topics and off topic has only posted in formal/technical stuff this month, not the chattier things.
Jingsamichty a formerly prolific poster (active today) disappeared, reappeared and posted like his old self throughout April and early May but has made only three posts since May 12.
Oakvillian says he posts less...a look at his history shows his posts for April take up two pages. His May posts fit one page.
Piff Poff's May posts take half a page, April posts one and a half.

Loads of regulars have either disappeared or post far less often. These are the ones who keep the forum going, not clicks.

Shard

Agree with this. The thing to measure would be amount of data posted. And there must be a huge reduction compared to 3-4 years ago, in the Maple Leaf at least.

Also agree with Novo on the annoying reply box, it really does make one want to reach for another Newquay.

dbd33

Aren't most of the additional posts complaints about the difficulty of posting?

In the short term that's fine, lots of clicks, lots of revenue but, over time, a site that's all about how the site didn't used to be shit like this, isn't attractive to people who didn't see it when it was better. Joel's point about reddit is a good one; I've long had an account here and there but mostly posted here. Now, I have one go at posting a reply here, it fails, I know in six or seven goes I can get it to work but I don't bother, I wander off to boggle at r/trashy.

What's interesting to me about this is that I would have expected that, as web software became more of a commodity and most discussion sites moved to the same few pieces of software, what would differentiate successful sites from failures would be the content; the idea behind them. This site tends to disprove that "Brits abroad grumbling about the weather" ought to be a winning mechanism to draw a crowd regardless of the technology but it seems that, if the implementation is bad enough, you can chase the users away regardless of the content.

caretaker

I didn't need an adblocker on my phone before the upgrade, and computers I haven't used for a while and fire up get it right away for this site.