Official Forum Feedback Thread

It looks like links embedded in many of the threads are now broken, for example:

The first post in "High Beam’s Flashback Badging Guide (Hero)" has the link to Infamous Brad’s "Welcome to Ouroboros" guide http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122075

for example.

UBB did some ... rather odd ... things with addresses of posts, often depending on how you found it. Much of that didn't translate to the new vBulletin forums, although I'm sure they attempted some scripts (maybe not, but I'd be surprised if they didn't) and weren't able to convert them all correctly, so rather than having even more bugs to troubleshoot they left it as is.

If the Welcome to Ouroboros guide is in the Guides section, it should still be there since that section is, IIRC, set to not purge. If you can find it and contact High Beam with the new address, High Beam can correct it. If High Beam is no longer active, you could PM TheOcho, Avatea, Niviene, or EMPulse with the links to both High Beam's post and the corrected address for Brad's post and ask them to edit the post.

EDIT: Here is the address to Brad's post on the new forums. Do with it what you will. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=121998

Ok, I have to say, YES they need to drop the width some on the header image (VB stretches to fix headers that dont fit 100% in the current window so they could make the width 768 and it would auto resize)
URL formatting has changed from url=http://www.blahblahblahblahblah.com to url="http://www.blahblahblahblah.com"
PNG images honestly wont fix a dang thing with that "grey" background because thats the background in the Avatar section. The background color in the CSS for avatar background needs to change to match the rest of the theme per theme.

page options can be changed in your UCP. The reason why you can only view 200 posts at a time is for efficency of the forums limiting the amount of calls to the SQL database server.

WYSIWYG is available inside the UCP. However its not working as intended. (do a copy from a website by clicking and dragging over images and text, hitting copy and pasting in here does nothing) So unfortunately its not a true WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). Granted you have more formatting options but thats pretty much all you get.

Sardan, the smilies are gif format because some of the smilies are animated, however there are darker counterparts (black outline for the alpha-blend layer instead of white) available from several diffrent mod sites and vbulletin.org

for all the people that preferred UBB... Honestly that was the most ancient and insecure forum software that I have ever seen in my life. The people at CoX made the right choice by switching to something more up-to-date and more secure with constant updates.
Theres also SEO friendly tag abilities which can help CoX get more coverage on google and yahoo so be sure to use the tags when you make a new post as well to help others find it if they are looking for answers for paticular things on the forums.

As for the RE: that was always a redundant add-on to the old UBB forums as well as the "Reply to:" line. Quotes work much better.

Ok, after having spent a little time with the new forums, my first impressions are...
I don't like it.

There are a bunch of small things I don't like, and so far I see relatively few benefits (it's great that the US and EU forums have been combined. It might be nice if the server pools are combined too, but then we'd have the same name-space collisions for Global IDs. Hilarity would be sure to ensue).

However, I do not necessarily see this initial dislike as a problem.
I've had five years to get used to the old forums. I've adjusted the options to my tastes. I've learned to use the tools it gave me, and to work within the limitations it set on me. I've learned the tricks. Basically, I've gotten used to them.

I don't think it's realistic to expect to suddenly feel as comfortable with an entirely new forum software.
Here too, I'll eventually adapt, adjust, customize and learn (and it seems likely that the community team will still tweak a few things on their end too). In time, I'll get used to these forums too.

When that happens, I'm sure there'll be things about the new forums that I'll prefer, and that there'll still be things I prefer about the old forums. At the moment, it's hard to predict which one I'll prefer more (though I hope it'll be the new forums).



There are however some things that I will *not* learn to like.

It is my opinion that signature images are detrimental to the forums, and it would be my preference that the ability to use them is removed, or that an option to block them (and only them) out is added.


Using the game account user/password for the forums *and* sending these over an unsecure connection is unacceptable. It'd be nice if we both got the option to use secure connections and to use (user/)password separate from the game account, but the lack of both is a non-starter.



Finally, a few suggestions.

It'd probably be a good idea to remove the reputation feature. I don't think any good will come from it, and there's a reason it(s counterpart) was eventually removed on the old forums.

I'd like to see an additional userstyle which does not use a color gradient behind our posts. The general look of the new forum is growing on me, but I'd still like to see what it looks like with a single-color background.
Since the forum software supports multiple user-styles, there could be a gradient version for those that prefer that, and a single-color version for those that prefer that.


edit: If you'd be using a color from the current gradient for a single-color style, I think I'd prefer the darker end.

Please. No animated smiley gifs. Ever.

No double-posting :-p Thats what the double-post mod I suggested would fix, it would merge the two posts making it seem like one before the doublepost got spotted. :-p

Oh, and you can turn off signatures in the UCP, however that destroys all text as well. I have to say if your gonna have a forum signature image, make it a userbar. Not some huge image. Keep it to forum standards, 100px high by 250 wide. large enough to be seen, but not too large to be garish.

I am going to broach an issue here that hasn’t been touched upon yet, probably due to the small numbers of the specific demographic which I represent. Specifically, I am going to attempt to draw your attention to the issue of accessibility.

The new forums are extremely, exceptionally unfriendly to people who are visually impaired. I honestly don’t know how many of these play CoH on a regular basis, but I am certain there’s at least one – to wit, me. I am normally operating with something like 18% of normal average eyesight, photophobia and colour sensitivity, eyestrain, fatigue and so forth.

I use a computer with a large monitor without aides, so I get to see the forums in their “natural state” so to speak. The factors I generally consider when deciding upon the ease of my user experience are icon sizes, colour contrasts, font colours, clear outlines and easily accessible forum functions presented as text labels rather than as icons.

So far the new boards have been an almost textbook example of how not to do it. Allow me to list some bullet points for you to consider:

• New Messages: With the removal of the colour change on new, unread threads, and with the only markup being bolded subject texts, they’ve become literally impossible to find. I open a forum, and have no idea where the new stuff is, beyond remembering which threads were not at the top before.
• The arrows marking going to new posts are much too small. I have, in fact, not found them ‘till my husband pointed them out to me.
• Font colour (white) upon the new blue-gray of the background is considerably more difficult to read. On the whole, half-tones and shades are much more of a mess than clear base colours, and this one especially seems not to contrast with the thinner white font sufficiently.
• Colour gradient: the change between blue-gray and darker blue at the end of the reply box is not conducive to ease. (Incidentally, if the dark blue were to be the base colour, readability would improve significantly).
• Fonts: The font size is smaller, and the font face is Arial (a sans-serif font which is notoriously difficult and seems to enjoy a certain bad reputation on the ‘net).which is thin and narrow. Sans-serif fonts are sometimes clearer, but serifed fonts are more easily parsed.
• Small icons with overloaded graphics: make it impossible to find anything on the forum.
• General graphics overload: On the whole detracts from the ability to focus on the text, hinders rapid responding and makes scanning a forum for new information completely impossible.

These things are important. Perhaps a skin looking more like the old forums, which were, on the whole, very easy to read, would be advisable?

Genia, have you tried the forums with the Villain style? I think you may have some of the same difficulties as you did with the gradients on the Hero style, but some visuals have different effects.

I'd just like to get your impression of that style.

To quickly change the style to test it, scroll down all the way to the lower left corner under the Posting Rules box. There is a drop-down there where you can set Hero or Villain using the Quick Style chooser.

Could we get rid of the random letter generation on the search function. It is extremely annoying to have to try to decipher a puzzle while I am searching builds, or subjects. thanks

Elvnsword

I'm not particularly fond of the new layout. The previous boards seemed pretty straightforward and clean; the new ones are aesthetically unpleasant to my eyes. Admittedly, this is a reaction to change and I may change my mind when I'm used to the new look. However, I would request an option to load the forums without any graphics in the background for connection purposes.

The NA/EU name suffix is very annoying. Will there be an option in the future for those who've had their names changed by the boards to rename themselves, or is this not supported in the board's program?

Edit: I didn't notice the sticky thread created by TheOcho, but according to him the NA/EU suffix are temporary. Very pleasant news. Thanks, boards team!

As an addendum to my previous list of points, a list of minor issues of lesser importance:

-Sticky threads are not distinct enough from regular threads.
-Links are the same colour as the rest of the text, which makes them more difficult to find. I liked it when they were distinct and stood out. (Yes I know they are underlined, but what fi someone simply chooses to underline plain text?)
-Underlining function is either not in UBB Code, or unavailable. Perhaps because of the link issue. That seems oddly unnecessary.

I did notice that after my post, and edited it. Hopefully it will be an encouragement to others who read this thread any didn't notice the sticky.

Thanks for mentioning it, too, Croesis.

How does anything work? How do you save a thread you want to keep an eye on? How do you use emoticons? How do you change the name of a link? How do you put pix in your sig? how how how how how how how???????????

How do you do anything here? Cant you guys give us some directions to this thing?

So far I hate these damned forumes, and it hurts my eyes and it's giving me a headache!!!!!!!!!!!

<QR>

If I go into the User CP and try to change my birthdate (which somehow got screwed up in the transfer) it tells me that it's "Bad Input" and won't change it. That's more than a little annoying when the only thing I'm using is the form that the forum itself gives me-I'm not trying to change anything else BUT my birthdate.

[color:yellow]Likes[/color]

• Background color

• Smaller Text Windows
• Smaller Font, hard to read
• Slower to load
• Graphics in signature
• Where are our avatars
• (Added)And obviously code is screwed up.

• Confusion of not having a single front page
• Cumbersome Mailbox

• 1000+ PMs I deleted in the last few months returned to my inbox, many were duped.
• PMs in my inbox and outbox that weren't addressed to me