Site downtime - 2021-06-26 23:00

[Talbot]

agree that the new rankings display system is a bit in-your-face and not really any value.  I only really used it to be able to have a subtitle to my username and I can no longer be an Express.  Boooring!  I don't really care if someone has 100 posts or 10,000 posts, and a high post count doesn't really mean anything.

The only thing that might be useful is a set of "L" plates on a new user, either for a limited number of posts or a fixed period of time.  Simply to identify them as a new user who is likely still getting used to this site, hence slip-ups like posting something in the wrong area are to be expected.

[hairnet]

3 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

I'm not sure about the little rockets. Having nothing there was good for 90% of us as only the mods / admins / n00bs had stickers which helped with recognition. Rank seems a bit pointless as we already have post count and "number of likes" as metrics, generally I only paid attention to these in the selling stuff thread though.

 

2 hours ago, loserone said:

I'm not sure I get the point of the rocket.  What does it signify?

[Talbot]

They're gone!

Many thanks to whoever is beavering away in the background to achieve all these little changes.  They do make a difference.

[SiC]

Not for me! Possibly because I'm using the standard IPB theme?

[willswitchengage]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

agree that the new rankings display system is a bit in-your-face and not really any value.  I only really used it to be able to have a subtitle to my username and I can no longer be an Express.  Boooring!  I don't really care if someone has 100 posts or 10,000 posts, and a high post count doesn't really mean anything.

The only thing that might be useful is a set of "L" plates on a new user, either for a limited number of posts or a fixed period of time.  Simply to identify them as a new user who is likely still getting used to this site, hence slip-ups like posting something in the wrong area are to be expected.

L plates sounds like a good idea for let's say sub 100 posts or timebound new user. It's also handy to see who's a mod. Otherwise it's nice and clean. I found post count useful too as a metric, obviously I can't remember all usernames and it was handy to tell who has been a more committed member etc. The ranking system is of course a bit of fun but doesn't really 'help' as most of us don't know what the ranks actually are.

[Talbot]

1 minute ago, SiC said:

Not for me! Possibly because I'm using the standard IPB theme?

They're gone on the beige theme.  Switching to the "standard" theme, they're still there.  But then that theme also makes all the avatars round, which is also marginally irritating.

[SiC]

Dark beige on beige sends my eyes crazy and makes the forum terribly hard to read. 

[Talbot]

I tend to agree that it would be better if the text were black.  However, there are downloadable mods for PHPbb forum that mean you can modify it to be any way you want, fonts-and-colours-wise.  At least there used to be anyway.

[SiC]

I tend to agree that it would be better if the text were black.  However, there are downloadable mods for PHPbb forum that mean you can modify it to be any way you want, fonts-and-colours-wise.  At least there used to be anyway.

This is IPB not PHPBB

[tobyd]

I've only made changes on the biege theme to see what effect it'll have. Happy to change the text to black although seems the control of that is currently broken so will update whenever that gets fixed.

The ranking system has been comprehensively overhauled*. And gamerfied (their words.) I suspect this will get tweaked about a bit over the next few weeks and month. Its presence all over the profile stuff is harder to suppress.

What used to be the rank you specified yourself is now a field on your profile and gets appended at the bottom of your posting avatar box. I'll let this look crap until the next update when forum-software refine* some of this stuff trying to treat one field among many with no meaningful differentiation is clunkier than you might think.

A few of the newer features do seem to be a bit from the Giraffe development scheme.

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, SiC said:

Dark beige on beige sends my eyes crazy and makes the forum terribly hard to read. 

this is why i blue and white sadly

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, tobyd said:

 although seems the control of that is currently broken so will update

bigger hammer

drive an allegro over it?

[tobyd]

I can't tell the difference but the main text is now black.

[Cord Fourteener]

4 hours ago, SiC said:

Some of us have completed Autoshite!

 

Not sure if that's a good thing though 🤣

 

Maybe you win a Matra Rancho and a Tagora on a trailer?

[Cord Fourteener]

13 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

is it possible to revert back to the old Rank/user title setup?  

i quite liked that in an Autoshite kind of way

especially when I first joined, I did not realise that after a set amount of posts you could set your own, so I thought Admins would periodically give specific users their own Rank just for a laugh and I was not sure what was an actual rank or something custom set

hence why when I set my own user title I kept the little "Rank:" thing in front of it to keep the illusion going a little bit  

and sadly the ability to set your own seems to be gone now as im now an Isuzu florian LOL 

(which I guess is what my rank/user title would of been if I had not set a Custom one when I hit 500 posts back in the bad old days)

and finally I find the large rocket to be quite intrusive visually as well (that and the strangely large gap between the "full members" and post count if im being nit picky)

 

also it seems theres some slight formatting issues with how its "Rank: Rank:" Im guessing on the Admin side there is a box that says Rank: *input field* where as before it was user title *input field*

so it went from User title: "Rank xxx" to Rank: "Rank xxx"

its like the opposite problem to insuring Model 70's where you have to be very specific and tell them its not "Model: 70, its Model: Model 70" LOL as otherwise you get them showing up on the MID as "AC 70" or "Invacar 70" or just "70" LOL because the Clark inputting the data does not realise "Model" IS part of its Model name LOL

 

 

otherwise so far so good  Thanks for keeping the forum itself ticking along  

nothing has immediately blown up, ill be sure to let you know if anything does crop up

if past experience is anything to go by me and @Zelandeth seem to be very good at making this forum software roll over and die LOL

 

I'm fairly sure the new feature to delete any post with the word Invacar or AC Model 70 has failed. 

I assume the code to also blow up the users computer at their end has also failed?

Did the plan work, Edward?

 

[bobdisk]

5 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Dont care for the big rocket in the avatar.  It hides what could be an important bit for some. Could hover over the "Full Members" or  include the rank info in the number of posts

Thats better now ! Hover over the avatar for all the relevant info

[High Jetter]

Ooh, that's handy! Have to agree, I'd still prefer to see the No. of reactions received rather than the reputation - how is that calculated?

[busmansholiday]

Could the rocket not be replaced with something more appropriate, like a K series engine with steam coming from it ?

[LightBulbFun]

yay pleased to see the user titles are back  Thanks for adding those back  

(although still strange to see them under the avatar rather then under the User name)

 

although I will grumble that the dark brown text is gone, again I liked that again from an Autoshite perspective, it went well with the rest of the theme, the black text seems to stand out like a sore thumb a bit more, but from above I think thats the point to make it easier to read?

im sure ill get used to it eventually!  

[beko1987]

It's still as nice as it ever has been on my phone, Edge for android refuses to upload files though and hard quits. Probably not worth caring about as a fix, more of an fyi

[Talbot]

The black text is definitely more readable and a welcome change.  The brown-on-beige was legible, but this is better.

[tobyd]

I think I side with the black text gang.

[Fumbler]

My glasses are tinted brown so the black text helps massively with seeing things.

[Crackers]

I'll be honest, I'd never actually noticed that the text wasn't black to begin with. Even with it being pointed out to me now, I can't tell the difference.

I don't think I'm colourblind...

[High Jetter]

10 minutes ago, tobyd said:

I think I side with the black text gang.

Ooh, we having gangs now? I bagsy...

Black text is slightly easier to read, but I expect for some it makes a massive improvement. You can go too far with the brown stuff!

[hairnet]

20 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

My glasses are tinted brown so the black text helps massively with seeing things.

stop dropping them in the loo

 

[Fumbler]

1 minute ago, hairnet said:

stop dropping them in the loo

 

Don't worry, they're not shit coloured brown!

[Talbot]

30 minutes ago, Crackers said:

I'd never actually noticed that the text wasn't black to begin with. Even with it being pointed out to me now, I can't tell the difference.

Wait 20 years...

[LightBulbFun]

@tobyd I noticed that the little sound that plays when you get a notification (ie when someone likes your post, quotes or tags you) is not working or turned off?

is there a toggle somewhere for me to turn it back on? I looked in notification preferences and could not find anything but perhaps im missing something

(man all I do when a forum software update happens is complain about things that have changed or gotten broken, I do feel bad! cuz I really do appreciate the effort that goes into keeping the forum going!)

[Yoss]

48 minutes ago, Crackers said:

I'll be honest, I'd never actually noticed that the text wasn't black to begin with. Even with it being pointed out to me now, I can't tell the difference.

I don't think I'm colourblind...

I am colourblind and I can't see the difference either. If somebody had told me it was brown, then if I peered very closely I might have seen it but I just assumed it was black anyway. So now that it is, it doesn't look any different.