Polycount Update - BUGS & SUGGESTIONS

adam

Use this thread to post any bugs you notice or suggestions you have on improving your experiences on the site.

Please use images whenever possible so we can see the bugs you're seeing, or to help us understand your suggestions better.

Alternatively, if you wish to keep your thoughts private please send me a Private Message directly.

COMMON/IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS & BUGS

Below is a list of common suggestions or bugs we're seeing users report in this thread.

1. The front page won't load on mobile and the forum is loading a default Vanilla skin. The front page should be loading and the forum skin needs to be Polycount themed.
2. The site could use a pass on overall spacing of information, make things a bit tighter.
3. Quote button doesn't work.
4. The WYSIWYG editor can bust formatting at times, making it difficult to fix.
5. Many users used the 'New Posts' button from vBulletin and would like to see it back.
6. The notification window that pops up from the bottom left of the screen has white text on a whitebackground, making it illegible. 
7. There is some confusion over when and how threads get updated. Some users cannot tell where there posts are going when they reply, others have a hard time discerning if a thread is updated since they viewed it last when looking at the thread list. There is an icon indicating this, but it needs to be more apparent.
8. There is a missing step in the forum breadcrumb that is omitting the main Forum name. See here.
9. Emoticons are appearing in the Lightbox and when sending content to the front page. This shouldn't happen.
10. Many users are hoping for redirects from old forum links, as many of them have specific threads bookmarked that no longer work.
11. This member's name is all kinds of buggered.
12. Users reported that Facebook & Twitter links is broken. I need to investigate this bug for better details.
13. Clicking on a front-page news post that comes from a REPLY does not link to the reply, it links to the page it was posted on.
14. Bring back custom Polycount emoticons.
15. The website favicon is missing.
16. Users are reporting some poor performance happening in the WYSIWYG editor.

hawken

also, a date on the topic (posted, last updated, as per the old format) would be nice...  right now all I see it a sign up date for the OP, which doesn't really help?

adam

The date/time is right beside your user name. Mouse over the time to see the date. (Note: We'll probably make it the full date later.)

hawken

@adam
yeah I mean on the topic view, not me like this page: http://polycount.com/categories/general-discussion 

Would be nice to clearly see:

1. when this was posted
2. when it was updated
3. how many pages it has
4. who posted last

moose

True adam, haha... for some reason i thought WYAWO would show (1 2 3 4 ... 57 58 59 Last), but looking at Wayback, I must have been remembering wrong Seeing that the thread has 3+ pages is useful information, even if it doesn't me skip to page 4. 

malcolm

Hey Adam, after setting all my notification preferences to off, then turning them back on I'm not getting e-mail notification. Or maybe you fixed something on your end. The new e-mail notify is pretty lame though, it just says click this link have a good day. In the old system it was great because it would include what the person said so I could filter out all the comments I don't care about. Now I have to check the forum each time I get notified just to see what the person said.

DanaosC

So I am sure this has been mentioned but every link I've bookmarked or fould on the net won't redirect me to the post but just at the front page. This breaks the whole google search and my saved links.

BagelHero

@DanaosC
http://polycount.com/discussion/160432/mini-tut-how-to-find-old-threads-on-the-forums
This is the current work around for that issue.

Saf

1) Fixed header bother me.

2) Font size and margins too big.

3) Bookmark icon better be on transparent background.

4) When you're not logged in, threads open on first page.

5) Youtube and shadowbox.

6) Maybe add rating system?

Bek

It seems unnecessary to receive a notification that a user has messaged you when the inbox part of the toolbar already informs you of this. You're being notified of the one event twice in separate sections.

karnak

Can you please add a RSS feed to the news front page?

SonicBlue

Not that I care particularly for them, but I saw some people who doesn't frequent the forum any more, with very low post counts, having 4 or 5 stars and in one case, an user without the stars, is this a bug?

adam

@SonicBlue
Yeah, thats a bug.

adam

@karnak We'll look in to it, for sure.

iadagraca

As a suggestion i always thought forums like this could use a like/rep/recomend button...

For instances where someone says something as advice to another user, and others agree but don't want to make a post saying the exact thing the last person said but want to give the whole post more backing.

Or maybe someone who posts a problem and many others have the same issue or they'd like/rep/reccomend the post..

rebb

Are there any plans perchance to have a few different themes/style variations available, that the user can choose ?
I believe some forum software allowed this.

Currently the new look of the forums uses a lot of screenspace ( at least on my monitor with lowly 1280x1024 max res ), making it somewhat more tedious to browse and see information at a glance.
Granted, it's a nitpick and i should probably just get a better monitor or use browser zoom - but would be kind of neat to have some sort of "screenspace optimized" theme available.

slipsius

I do a lot of browsing in windowed mode (not full screen), which results in the author section being cut off. Would be nice to be able to see who started the thread while in a smaller window. Maybe if it had the thread title followed by "created by:" or something. As well as last poster, even if its a hover over

RobeOmega

Is there any chance that you will be prepared to heavily reduce/remove the compression on the large avatar of the original post? The compression level is currently fine on the smaller ones. (replies)

adam

Regarding emailed Notifications. Have you tried setting your preferences here?

notman

Thanks @adam, I missed that section before. I was looking under profile, and I did not have those options. I finally looked at the notifications button again, and saw the 'notifications preferences'. If that's not clear, for those looking, here is an image of the settings link:

adam

vBulletin URL redirects should be working.  So your old bookmarks should be good to go now.

Lord McMutton

Looking good, guys!

I'm with a few others on being able to skip a stickied first post on subsequent pages. Perhaps you could add a collapse button on the top of the post?

I'm also getting authentication errors when trying to connect social media accounts.

notman

@adam, this thread is probably a good example why the OP's avatar should be smaller (or adapt dynamically): http://polycount.com/discussion/160463/epics-paragon

As you can see, @slipsius post is not as tall as his avatar, so it ends up with a giant gap, between his post, and the first reply

adam

YEah we're going to review that when we come around to format changes.

adam

@Marshal Banana  Can I get a screenshot of the error?

TheMadArtist

Maybe this is just personal preference, but I always prefer browsing forums where there is some separation in the topics like before. Maybe that's something that the tightening up will help (which I'm assuming you mean something a long the vein of CG Talks forum). 

Autocon

Has it been mentioned that it was awesome when new unread threads were Green and threads you read all the latest replies were Grey? I miss that, I cant tell when things are updated.

TheMadArtist

^ If that hasn't been mentioned, I totally second that. 

MissMaddyTaylor

There might not be enough of this to make an entire section for it, but I think it would be cool if indie games or small game projects had their own thread so it'd be easy to find and check out other polycounters' games they're working on. Just an idea!  

Lord McMutton

@ADAM; Aye. here's Google:

 Twitter and Facebook are blank pages with text as follows:

Twitter:

{"errors":[{"code":215,"message":"Bad Authentication data."}]}

Facebook:

{
   "error": {
      "message": "Missing client_id parameter.",
      "type": "OAuthException",
      "code": 101,
      "fbtrace_id": "BhdfsszCzHZ"
   }
}

adam

@autocon You can't tell when threads are updated? I know the grey NEW beside each thread isn't as eye catching as green, but that information is there. (We'll look at the green text coming back.)

smsaranraj

there s no previous thread option

Revel

Love the new Polycount looks!
I haven't read the rest of the suggestions posted on this thread other then the OP, but this is a things I missed from the old forum:
- there is no drop-down list to jump between sub-forum without going to the main forum (from general thread to the technical thread for example)
- everything just looks a little too big, if we have a preference to set a font/ button/ padding between elements size, it would be great!

kanga

There is no option to unsubscribe via the thread notification email. Its probably there, but I cant find how to unsubscribe from certain threads via the profile or account settings sections. Maybe this has been mentioned already somewhere. If so sorry.

Well done the site looks fab!

adam

@kanga  - Check the thread you want to unsubscribe frmo and see if the "Favourte" button is clicked at the top left of the thread. If so, click to disable and see if that works.

kanga

@ADAM thanks, yup a huge button I missed. Looks like it did the trick  

thomasp

a like function would indeed be nice to have i think. saves you from responding with quick one-liners when a thumbs up is all the intent anyway.

slipsius

I dont think Ive seen this mentioned, but I can't seem to find the reply/send button on mobile? The box is there for quick replies, but cant send said reply...

notman

@slipsius it looks like the footer is overlapping everything (not that there is anything you can do to fix it)

adam

@slipsius  I've shared your post with Vanilla.

pior

@thomasp a like function would indeed be nice to have i think. saves you from responding with quick one-liners when a thumbs up is all the intent anyway.

Maybe that's going to make me sound like a cranky old man, but I'd personally rather see no reply to a thread than having to deal with "likes". It might stroke the ego to the poster of a thread, but for viewers looking to engage in and/or read discussions that really just amounts to background noise.

Don't get me wrong, I think they work well on a place like Artstation where thumbs up are the main interaction device ; but here on PC the community is much more involved.  I guess what I am getting at is that I wouldn't really mind them "on top" of a rich discussion, but I am afraid that all we'll get from them would be less content and involvement overall.

On a side note : just I checked the new layout on a iPad. Thread listing works pretty damn well in portrait mode, but besides that the threads themselves still look very stretched out, even on what seems to be the target device. Avatars get cropped too.

thomasp

pior: i see likes all the time being used very effectively on another forum where you basically use them to agree with a post, reinforce a poster's POV. that does not mean that people suddenly stop posting if they actually have something to add besides 'awesome'. i know often i just don't and then post nothing at all. if there was a quick and easy way to show appreciation, i'd be all over it.
for an art forum i would suggest to stick with positive vibes only though. dislikes can get personal really quickly, more so when you put yourself out there by showing off your work.

do i have to get off your lawn now?

notman

^What @thomasp said (see there, I could have just liked his reply)

Francois_K

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned before but I've noticed that if you write something in a post , it saves a draft, but if you remove it  and save it , it still has the old draft saved even if you save over the old draft.
I'm not sure if that is on purpose or if that's a feature but yeah...

pior

@thomasp
/shakes fist and slaps suspenders !

Yeah I see your point ... it's just that it feels very non-committed, almost like a "minimum effort" kind of thing. I feel like it would ultimately only make the conversation more poor. But of course it's impossible to tell in advance.

Bruno Afonseca

I think that the huge margins and font sizes all over the place made my reading experience much worse, I need to scroll twice as much to see the same amount of information. Reading it at 75% zoom makes it slightly better overall but then some of the text becomes too small to read.

Autocon

@adam I guess it just hasn't been catching my eye as much as the green and I am so used to quickly scanning pages for green out of habit. Maybe if the new button was green if you didn't want to have green text?

Could just be a symptom of habits formed over years of PC use

slosh

So, not sure if this has been mentioned but when I am in "Recent Discussions" the preview image icon doesn't seem to be working for me.  Also a fellow polycounter gave me the link to bring up the "Recent Discussions" as I had no idea where it was...can we get a link from the top bar for that?

Deathstick

Is it possible to bring back the ole' polycount rank system? I thought moving on up from null to vertex to polygon was fun, and I was so excited breaking to the rank of polycounter and was looking forward to becoming MOP some day

On the other hand, I'm also against adding "likes." I feel like that would be possibly detrimental to promoting a meaningful discussion with people or find out what is or isn't working. Just feels too much like a dating/social/whatever popularity contest thing to me versus something more substantial.

adam

@slosh Got a link?

Michael Knubben

Adam, what will I do without my beloved ignore list reminding me of who I don't like?

Please help.