What? Somebody "fixed it" when it ain't broke?

Glenn - through my recent wanderings, I stumbled on my photonet Home Page (http/www......) which doesn't seem to be accessible from within my portfolio page but only if I click on an icon of myself somewhere on a picture or thread where I have posted a comment. That brings me to the Jack McRitchie info page and from there you can locate the "home page" box on the left hand side down below my picture. It's a rather round about way to get there but that's not the point - get there I did. The homepage which I guess any member can access, lists the number of comments, critiques, etc.. It also lists the number of my favorite pictures as 435 (not the "nearly 1000 ..." that I claimed. Memory is such a fragile and unsteady thing) Indeed, they all seem to be there. It's only when I try to access favorites from within my portfolio that I am limited to the 93 pictures I cited earlier. I thought you might be interested in this discrepancy.

To me, the issue here is not so much having to learn a new format or different features; I can do that. What is surprising is that this was rolled out with many of the same functional deficiencies and bugs as version 2.0. Good luck with getting it fixed.

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To me, the issue here is not so much having to learn a new format or different features; I can do that. What is surprising is that this was rolled out with many of the same functional deficiencies and bugs as version 2.0. Good luck with getting it fixed.

 

I respectfully disagree - but I certainly grant you last release was - putting it mildly - not fun for anyone (us included) - the forums were previously bbPress and it was not built for the load we gave it so it failed. Now, this go around we have (in my opinion) upgraded the forums, upgraded and streamlined the gallery presentation and our learning articles will be run off an updated CMS - we have partnerships in place for additional content so I believe we are headed in the right direction - many of the points of pain are being addressed and pages are being optimized for speed - so call me an eternal optimist but I see things headed in the right direction. As mentioned before I will keep you updated on fixes and what the dev team has prioritized to work on next - if this was a site that had millions in funding maybe things would be different, but we operate on a very tight budget - online advertising is not what it once was so our goal is to make this 100% subscriber driven - besides - the market has changed. In 2000 people expected to see ads next to their photography, in 2017 certainly less so. Above and beyond all - I hope people see that we're on your side - we all want this to work, lets try to keep it positive - there is so much negative in this world we all could do better with less of it.

Glenn - through my recent wanderings, I stumbled on my photonet Home Page (http/www......) which doesn't seem to be accessible from within my portfolio page but only if I click on an icon of myself somewhere on a picture or thread where I have posted a comment. That brings me to the Jack McRitchie info page and from there you can locate the "home page" box on the left hand side down below my picture. It's a rather round about way to get there but that's not the point - get there I did. The homepage which I guess any member can access, lists the number of comments, critiques, etc.. It also lists the number of my favorite pictures as 435 (not the "nearly 1000 ..." that I claimed. Memory is such a fragile and unsteady thing) Indeed, they all seem to be there. It's only when I try to access favorites from within my portfolio that I am limited to the 93 pictures I cited earlier. I thought you might be interested in this discrepancy.

 

Thank you for the update. We have checked into the favorite and again - its all there in the DB, but its a page optimization issue which they are addressing. Our process is to push the fixes to our QA site which is for the most part a mirror image of the live site and see how it performs. If it performs as expected, they push live. If not, then then they crawl under the hood again and see what belt they broke off the engine.

Glenn - I understand you have nothing to do with the programming. However you still haven't answered my question regarding the scaling back of my favorites folder from nearly 1000 images to less than a hundred. This seems the result of a policy decision. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Yes - favorites is a bug reported and is tied to page optimization tasks they are testing now. Each page is different, but of course there are some common threads - so we're addressing slowest pages first and working our way through - again fix, test - if fix tests positive - we push live. But just wanted to let you know it is on our list and it is tied to making the Member Center operate much faster.

Glenn - Thanks very, very much for the updates on what's being worked on--they help a lot, as do the insights into what's involved. I just stumbled across this since I hadn't been following this thread, and I bet a lot of others don't know your updates are here, either. It might be really useful to have a separate thread devoted to your updates that we could all follow; even better might be a blog, so the update info doesn't get diluted with other comments. (BTW, you seem to be working 24-hr days!)

Thanks for your comments, Glenn. I wish you the best.

There is an upcoming release that addresses spacing issues you speak of however this forum software is not proprietary to photo.net - it was build by the best in the business from a company solely dedicated to forum software and they have been at it for more than a decade. I believe what you are experiencing is that feeling when you buy a new car and don't know where the headlights are or how to turn on the wipers, but once you get familiar with it you enjoy it. But thank you for the feedback, it shows you care which is important.

 

I just visited the 1x site, its fast and efficient and looks super professional....might want to have a gander at what they are doing? Just a thought.

As a software developer, I understand what's going on behind the scenes. For those of you who aren't, maybe this tidbit of information might help you come to grips with the new site:

 

photo.net is a business and business hasn't been good, lately

 

Times and technology have changed and a whole new generation has come of age, ones who never shot film nor connected to bulletin boards by modem. They never configured expanded memory. The first computer they ever saw was running over a gigahertz in speed, not megahertz. For photo.net to survive as a business it needs to attract people, new ones, who will spend money here. For whatever reason, the old site did not encourage new members. This one, given the "modern" look, might. This is the way things are at photo.net right now. You can adapt or leave. I'm not sure that was taken into account by the current owners, but if it was, they believe the influx of new members will offset those disgruntled folk who leave. Time will tell.

 

Overall, much is the same, at least to me. There are bugs and those will be addressed. Coming on the forums and blasting the admins that it's all horrible won't do any good. Adapt, or leave, but this is the way things ARE.

Trying to find my way around the new site;successfully uploaded a few photos and entered contest even if locating photo in my rather large folio was somewhat tedious.I like how the photos pop against the dark background.Sorry much info lost in upgrade(equipment/date/location) but I'll survive.Hope your continued look will see good to re-instate ''alert' 'function of comments on uploaded photos and work of photographers followed;this is a prime feature for me. Wonder why photos I meticulously arranged in my portfolio folders are being shuffled around;I haven't yet found how to fix.For what it's worth,cannot get my Account page to accept Canada on address line....keeps going back to USA.Good luck with your continued effort to make this work.

Patrick: As another software developer, I'm sympathetic to the market needs. I'm generally trying to be supportive of the move, so please take these comments in that light.

 

In order to change a product for which people are currently paying, there should be an analysis of which features are in use and an analysis of which features prospective new members may want (where "features" includes changes to look-and-feel). Proposals for improvements can be made, and this should be via consultation with site members who have a lot of familiarity with usage of the site on a lot of platforms and are likely willing to provide feedback, suggestions and testing for free. As the new site is developed, members should be given status updates and invited to test new features, rather than being given a blanket "here's a prototype" with no information when it's not in a working state. They should certainly be given a chance to test before final roll-out. Members do need to accept that there will be changes they don't like in the hopes of attracting new, different members (although remembering what I said about the expertise of the current membership being the greatest resource this site is going to have unless it starts paying to try to compete with content-driven sites like dpreview), but since I like to think most of us are reasonable people, these compromises can be reached far more successfully if there's a chance for negotiation and a statement of the reasoning behind a decision. Finally, I think many of us subscribers see ourselves as paying customers, meaning that a site upgrade project should be reporting to us, not just to management - and that means a visible record of progress and bug management. No, lots of companies don't do this kind of thing when they change their services (especially my ISP, and yes, I'm about to stop paying them any money). Their customer retention rates would be much better if they did, though. Given the enthusiasm and willingness to help of the photo,net community, I have to think that including us in the process would have vastly reduced the work rather than increasing it. My biggest frustration is that we said exactly this after the previous site redesign, and we still weren't given a chance to contribute, test, or generally help. Too late for that now, but it's still frustrating.

 

There was also a reference to the old site being expensive to maintain. I hope that's not it - a previous company moved to Lotus Notes in order to avoid paying for an Exchange Server licence, and it had a horrible effect on productivity. As a friend of mine reported: Lotus Notes, lovely package, terrible email client. I'd gladly up my subscription fee if it avoided the pain of a partially-working site transition. :)

 

If all else fails, and if the management make the decision to prioritise attracting new members over the existing membership despite the time and energy that the existing members put into supporting new visitors out of interest and kindness... well, it looks like www.previousphoto.net is available cheaply.

I just read through this thread, and it took me forever because the lines of text are so long. I like a lot of the new site, to be honest, but I'm not sure in the least that it will somehow draw new members.

I just read through this thread, and it took me forever because the lines of text are so long.

 

The line length relative to font size in the text layout, or the way paragraph breaks aren't maintained? :-) I hope both might get fixed...