Petition to bring back the old forum set up
Hello 7Cups community! This is a petition to try and get the old forum set up brought back. I understand that change can be good and it can lead us to bigger and better things. This latest forum update has caused some unhappy people. It's harder to follow threads and reply to them. On games where there is no reply button using the comment button will often take you back in years and your post gets lost in time travel. It's very confusing! I say there must be a better way! A way that can give the forums the updates they need but keep the features that the people who use forums the most enjoy. Maybe by voicing this we can convince those in charge to find a solution that we can all be happy with! The worst that can happen is they say no but it's worth a try! So feel free to add a yes on this post. With some luck they'll take us seriously and with alittle more luck this won't get me in trouble! I'm sorry if I tagged you and you'd rather not get involved. Feel free to tag your friends!
Tagging- @Sunisshiningandsoareyou @emotionalTalker2260 @Angelx28 @jennysunrise8 @sunshinegiraffe123 @placidAvocado2692 @AffyAvo
@mytwistedsoul
Soullll *comfy hugs* and *sits with you*, I understand it is not the easiest thing to voice our concerns, but hey, this is a platform for everyone, you're a user here too, if you clap and rejoice for the good stuff, you too, have every right to share feedback when it's something not good. I see you've voiced it in a respectful, kind, "progressive- approach" like manner, which is truly super commendable, so ofcourse not, this, simply sharing what you think and wish is not something that should get you or anyone in trouble. Bottom line is, we all are proud users of the platform, and would only want the best for it, collectively. ❤
I see many people agreeing already haha, and have also noticed some people expressing their discomfort here and there, so again, you're not alone, and I'm also one of y'all, who really would like to go back to the old forumland, mainly in terms of how troublesome the replying part is, the broken notifications and tags, it is a mess to find relevant posts in massive threads, to name a few things causing discomfort.
The recent update might have fixed some old bugs, which is a Yay thing, and I commend all the efforts of our developers, but, the current forumland doesn't feel as *home* as before, and this needs equal acknowledgement too, I feel.
I really hope our thoughts are taken in some consideration. ❤
*signs the petition too* lol
I think they should bring back the ability to post your favorite quotations pictures (images) on your profile page as it inspires others and boosts confidence.
@mytwistedsoul yes! and this is a great idea making a petition its the first petition ive ever seen on 7cups worth a try we will see what happens
this forum change is no improvement the change shows people they cannot trust this website people who have been here for a while and created threads with the understanding what they share here is anonymous and will stay here now see social media share buttons that they didnt ask for agree to and cant turn off and new people who come here see the mixed messaging right away the assurances of being anonymous but also seeing surprise share buttons this will only result in people not trusting the integrity of the website it shows everyone on the site and new people who come to the site that their feelings and privacy is ignored here and what they share here is not secure @Glen
@jennysunrise8 You're right! That is something that we should have a choice on. I can understand that there might be some things, such as information, that would be good to share on other sites. But many people share personal stories of abuse or lgbt issues that might be recognizable to someone off this site, even if it's written vaguely and with an anonymous name
Thank you for joining!
@jennysunrise8
Hey there! Just wanted to clarify: the social media buttons have always been there. They were just moved. Previously they were in full colour too, whereas now they are grey. If you have any other feedback regarding any of the other updates, please do let me know and I will relay it to our team.
@Heather225 oh thats so strange i didnt notice them before i am glad its not something new i was kind of worried about it just causing anxiety for people although i still think its not a good idea to have then on personal diaries and maybe confusing to people since social media share buttons kind of go against being anonymous here (and some rules i think about sharing handle here on other sites) its good to know at least its not something new people would be surprised about unless they didnt notice it before like me ;)
@mytwistedsoul
Hey there! We understand that change is pretty tough and some design choices may not be ideal for everyone. Our dev team is listening to everyone’s feedback and working hard to make the forum restructuring as user friendly as possible.
In regards to your post, Is it the subscribe button (still there but now in a better location) and the no reply button after 5 levels deep, or is it something else? Feel free to add screenshots to reference. The clearer the feedback, the better we can understand and I will be relaying your response to our devs. Thanks!
@Heather225 Hello :) For myself it's the no reply button
after the 5th level. Hitting the comment button doesn't guarantee that
your reply will go to the end of the thread as you intended. In the case
of the game threads it sometimes sends your reply back a few years.
I'll have to see if I can find an example to show this. Another issue I
recently discovered is posting pictures. If I post a picture and then press any key to type something below, the picture will often get much bigger
then it was originally, for that this is the best I can show I apologize for that. This picture should only be a fraction of this size but as soon as I hit any key it blows up enormously
@Heather225
As someone from the autistic community, limiting replies is not helpful. There’s topics that interest me that now after five replies I can’t reply to. By limiting the replies to five, it also means more posts are getting lost in some of the bigger threads. - Allie
@Heather225 I think it would be a lot easier to adjust to the changes if there were fixes on old issues that came with them.
The subscribe to this thread when posting still doesn't work. I have posted about the sorting options a few times, even something as simple as the labels (like most popular) weren't changed. We can now see forums sorted by newest post using the search feature, but that's not obvious.
Then things were taken away, when I am on the main forum page, open a thread, going back to the main forum page should be simple. It is not, it's another main forum link gone - it's now community.
ie. the link before site updates used to be forums, not community.
The way posts in a thread are now sorted are a mess. Going forward, I don't think that will be the case, it's the old posts, but will this continue to be an issue on old threads? Ie. When going to the last page, will it be possible to still see posts from a few years ago at the end?
I also would very much like to see a post to thread (or if that functionality isn't being brought back a reply to the first post) be added to the bottom of a thread. I think this is especially useful in gam threads. It's odd to have to scroll up past the last post in order to make a new post. If this was done I think in many cases it would improve the issue with losing the unlimited levels of replies. If it is the reply to the first post option that does end up used, then please label it slightly different than just 'reply'. Reply to thread may be a clear option.
Overall, the changes feel like more was lost than gained, especially considering the new glitches, like the issues with editing and how slow the main forum page is to load.
It's also difficult to understand why this was done now. I still don't have a leader progress bar. I still do not have a badge to edit Q&As. For years we have had a number of trauma Q&As thrown into disability because someone decided to relabel all the headings incorrectly (trauma became disability, disability became chronic pain) and then that stayed as is, so new ones were corrected added to these new labels while the old ones stuck to the incorrect labels. The sub labels all go to
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In the chatrooms, timestamps fall off after a few minutes and have for years.
Maybe there was an issue with the forums that wasn't seen simple using them where this did need to be a priority, but that's not something we all see so that needs to be communicated.
This is also the 2nd time in the last year there has been changes to how the forums function where there was no information shared prior to the changes and there was only a response after I posted about them. The other time wasn't as large of a change but was actually problematic as reports went unnoticed because people weren't even made aware of the change. Changes without communication has been an ongoing issue at 7Cups. The timing this time did seem like a bit of an accident (you mentioned the changes were made sooner than expected). Considering this has been something that has happened for years I think there's quite a few long term volunteers who are quite frustrated.
@AffyAvo Thank you Affy! You brought more clarity and detail to what's needed than I ever could
@mytwistedsoul I really hope we can get the feel of what the forums used to feel like, even if there are necessary changes that can't be reverted. Thanks for starting this!
@Heather225 @theriverissinging
These are some things I've noticed with the forum update that I feel make the forums less enjoyable to use. Items #1-3 are bugs while items #4-6 are design choices.
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1) Upvote history not being saved: Normally after you've upvoted a
post, the heart is filled with color and you're not supposed to be able
to upvote that post again. Every so often, the site seems to "refresh",
all of the posts that I've previously upvoted no longer show as having
been upvoted by me, and I'm able to upvote them a second time. (But the
number of upvotes still reflects my original upvote.)
- 2) Upvotes not counting/displaying properly on threads: On any subcommunity pages that show lists of threads, each thread has counts next to it for # of upvotes and # of replies. The upvote counter is not working properly for certain threads. E.g. this thread has over 50 upvotes on the first post alone, but the subforum counter shows only 12 upvotes for the whole thread.
- 3) Upvotes not counting/displaying properly on posts: I have had it happen a few times (most recently about a week ago) that I will receive an alert notification indicating that a post of mine received an upvote, but when I navigate to the post itself, the heart counter still shows 0 upvotes.
-
4) Replies no longer displayed on same page: It used to be that if I respond to a post, my reply would generally be on the same page as the post that I was replying to. Now that seems to no longer be the case. This makes it more difficult to follow the flow of back-and-forth conversations in the forums.
-
5) Fewer posts displayed per page: When combined with #4 (replies no longer on the same page), this also has the effect of breaking up reply chains and making it more difficult to interact with people in the forums.
- 6) Replies limited to 5 levels: This is a known change that seems to have been intentional, but the impact of this is also similar to #'s 4-5 in that it discourages engagement in the forums by making it more difficult for people to have extended back-and-forth conversations.
Quick update: I now have a specific example confirming that issue #3 is still happening (upvotes not counting properly on individual posts).
- I upvoted the Leadership Spotlight thread that was posted today.
- The upvote button is filled in with blue to reflect the fact that I upvoted.
- But the counter still shows 0 upvotes.
Here is a screenshot:
