HQ Forums Upgrade - July 2010

[Michael@HQ]

I'm using Firefox version 3.6.8 too. I don't see any difference between the functionality of this version of the software and the previous one, other than it looks a bit different.

[jtownjohn]

I'm getting better at moving around, although still not nearly as comfortable as before. Looking at the ability to move back to the site home page, is it possible to add that to the quick links at the top of the page? I appreciate the links listed, but that would add more options.

[rugby12901]

Guys give it time! Yes, the format has changed but lets not forget why we use this forum in the first place. I don't come here to analyze colors and tabs. I use this forum because all of you guys give me great advice and insight. (not just HQ employees) This forum is hands down the hidden gem of the fantasy baseball world! Have you ever used the forums over at rotowire? It’s a complete joke! (love the site just not the forum) You’re crazy if you're going to give up on it because you don't like the light blue color contrast or new features. Don't worry about the Noise just concentrate on the content.

[Tom_T]

And, as noted elsewhere, we are going to change the colors. This new release of vBulletin gives us a lot of control over the page style. Right now, we're just making sure that there are no bugs and that the functionality we want is there. The look-and-feel is something that is easy to tweak. Don't let the colors dissuade you from using the Forum! Eyes on the prize, as they say...

[Kevin]

Eyes on the prize, as they say...

But my eyes! They burn!

J/K. I'm not a huge fan of the new look, but I'm not going to leave over it. I'll probably adapt over time.

Have to agree with Howie that the timing is tough... at this time of year, with the hours ticking down before the trade deadline, I'm checking into these forums on an almost hourly basis (when I can get away with it). Might have been a better time to start tweaking in mid-August, or even October.

[dkjhunt]

Am I doing something wrong with the "search" function as the returns threads are all over three years old?

[billybill8]

Tried again still getting the following:

Sorry, Rotopass subscribers must logon to the BaseballHQ.com forums AND select "Remember Me?" to use MACK 2. You can also continue to use MACK 1.0.

I logged out of the forums to make sure I had the "remember me" checked and still the same problem.

[RAY@HQ]

Am I doing something wrong with the "search" function as the returns threads are all over three years old?

There seems to be an issue with search, we alerted tech.

[MikeK@HQ]

Tried again still getting the following:

Sorry, Rotopass subscribers must logon to the BaseballHQ.com forums AND select "Remember Me?" to use MACK 2. You can also continue to use MACK 1.0.

I logged out of the forums to make sure I had the "remember me" checked and still the same problem.

Sorry, there was two places in the code had to make the change, missed the second one.

Can you give it one more shot?

[billybill8]

Good to go. Thanks.

[Howie M]

I think it would be productive for HQ, which thankfully encourages communication with its members, to address two things at this point.

- Can we agree that the week of the trading deadline, in retrospect, was a really bad time to do this? The best customer service, to me, acknowledges errors. Yes, we all make them in our own lives. But the sooner a company admits the obvious, the better, imo.

- A simplified technical explanation as to how it's not possible to be sure that the search function works before launching an "upgrade" (p.s., by any definition so far it's not an upgrade. Better to call it a 'revamp' or something so that if it at first causes more problems than it solves, there's no Orwellian language vibe going on). I'm not tech-savvy, so it will be easy to convince me, lol.

I respect how frustrating changes can be when it's offered to what may seem to be an unpleasable audience.
But we're also paying customers to what seems to be a very profitable business, so that's inevitably going to raise expectations.

Thanks for the listen...

[RAY@HQ]

Howie,

We're obviously sorry for any inconvenience here, but really I think the negative impact has been minimal. Couple of things you need to understand:

- vBulletin is a 3rd-party product, and we can't always just "leave well enough alone" as someone suggested, as there is a need to stay somewhat current with their newly-released versions to maintain our support, to pick up security fixes, etc.

- the upgrade we applied was "broken" in the sense that they didn't tell us that it was going to force us to change the look and feel that we had already configured. That was an "undocumented feature" of this upgrade. That will happen from time to time, but it wasn't expected. If we knew fully what we were getting into here, we may very well have chosen to do it at a different time.

My best technical explanation for you is that this isn't like rolling out an upgrade to MACK or Playerlink: we write those things ourselves, we test them, we support them, we know them inside and out. The forum software isn't homegrown. We pay someone for it... and as such, one of the things we're theoretically paying them for is that when we do an upgrade, "it's just supposed to work". We don't have a test forum to try an upgrade in first. We shouldn't need one. We've done many forum upgrades in the past, and you guys have never noticed. That's how it's supposed to go. Unfortunately, this time was a bit different.


All that said, are you missing any trade deadline information as a result of this upgrade? The forum works the same way as it used to. It just looks a little different. We'll get the search function straightened out, that's obviously a big deal. The other items, like the indicator of where you were in the new posts string when you last visited, aren't as critical as the search, but we'll get those taken care of too.

[Howie M]

Search is a BIG deal for me right now, in terms of the trade deadline, yes.

I don't really know what I'm missing as a result of this (so far) downgrade.
For instance, I was considered Heisey to replace my Victorino by noon tomorrow, but I don't know if there's been a recent post about Heisey's playing time possibilities here. I can't even find the Reds 2010 thread.

Thanks for the response you were able to provide, though.

I do think it would be help for HQ to make a clearer statement about negative impact on us as we near July 31.
Seems obvious, so why not just address it front and center?

[RAY@HQ]

While we're working on Search, you shouldn't need it to find recent content like the Reds team thread. Just go to the main forum page, find the MLB Teams subforum, the Reds thread is about 10 from the top. Took me all of four clicks to get there.

Similarly, each subforum (AL, NL, Clubhouse, Roster Mgmt, etc) is sorted by date of most recent post, so you can always go into any of those and see what activity there's been in the past couple of days, without using Search.

[Howie M]

"Took me all of four clicks to get there."

Ray, that's several more than it used to take me.
That's not an upgrade, obviously.
I don't know which subforum BBHQFML's trashtalking thread was in.
Before the downgrade, I didn't need to know.
Now, I have to hope (I looked for it in several places, to no avail) that someone else posts there so I can find it again, and I guess write down a note next to my computer so that it doesn't take as long to find the next time.

No offense, Ray, but acknowledging the obvious is a good thing. Not having a useful Search function the week of the trading deadline is a significant hassle.
So there's no point in doing an "upgrade" at such a time, even if just on the tiny chance that the change isn't actually beneficial.

Let's just agree that an elephant is in the room, and then we can move forward.
It's tougher for everybody if anyone doesn't seem to notice the big fella....