Just deployed: New dpreview.com forums system

Can you please let us see who is voting? This should reduce the childishness of some of the votes. OR please get rid of the negative votes. It breeds all kinds of negative feelings, reducing the number of people that want to come here.

Dpreview, please, please, -Please- don't keep defaulting us to the 'threaded view' in the forums (unless there is a new some new advanced setting to change this that I missed??) Thanks in advance! It would be so nice to be able to customize this, so that everyone could be happy. I know I am not the only one flabbergasted by this seemingly small annoyance, which adds up over time as it grates on the nerves due to it happening so many, many times over the years for a frequent visitor!

Can we revert to the previous system of displaying images where you could click twice to view at 100%?

The current system doesn't allow viewing at 100% unless I open a new tab to view their gallery and click on the corresponding image. It's such a hassle when someone on the forum asks if you think their photos are soft.

For example: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3283120

And could you please also give an IQ test to people before posting their comments?

Why did so many of my bookmarks disappear???

Why do the uploaded shots look less worse than before???

I can't wait for the day when the wretched, unstable and misleading WISIWIG mode get's binned. The voting war malarchy doesn't help either and the lack of ability to contact the moderators and the lack of feedback from them doesn't make the situation any better! Please return sanity to the forum by binning the whole mess!

Still waiting on a fix for the url link button; I'm using IE8. Gave up expecting that the placment of an image will automatically be below chosen text (though it would be nice if that would be the default behavior). :)

I know you just put out a poll re: voting up/down, but you kinda stacked it in favor of keeping it - in one form or another - 3 to 1.

Bummer.

At least in forum that I participate in, the 'up/down' wars are evident and I'm rather sick of them already. People who hate each other vote each others' posts down no matter what they say, photos get voted down, even if they're nice, and one person has started 2 threads about it and the fur's flying all over the place...

I've had enough.

Whatever you have to do to stop this nonsense can't happen too soon.

Meaning: I'm wanting to see gear & photo threads, not petty up/down wars & useless threads that have no bearing on photography. Yeah I know I can ignore them, but if threads started by people who were on ignore were relegated back down to the bottom of the page like they used to be, they'd be 'out of sight, out of mind' and I'd just see the threads that pertain to my hobby.

Sorry for the rant, but I liked the 'regular' bickering better!

Question - Will the links in the signature be active?
Hynek

I just thought of a new idea after reading some people's posts. Instead of or in addition to the existing rating system, you could have other sub-ratings such as SNOB or NOOB, maybe with different names. That way people will be more careful in their wording and/or use the search feature more often. Other sub-ratings could include BALANCED/CORDIAL, FLAME or TROLL.

You could also allow a user to re-edit their post so that they can earn the coveted BALANCED/CORDIAL rating. Once a post is edited, the original ratings would disappear so that people can start fresh but maybe if they abuse the system, the old rating would come back or there could be other penalties.

I think this could reduce the childishness of some of the replies.

Regarding the poll on the voting system...maybe you could allow the user to turn off the display of the votes. It seems split 50:50 on keeping it the way it is vs. dumping it. I personally would prefer only showing the likes but that's just me. Maybe you can let the user decide what he or she wants to see. I also would like to see who is actually voting.

This may have already been reported. But, one issue with the new layout is that when you click on a post in your own recent activity list, or in another member's recent activity, you're taken the the first post in the thread.

So, you have to scroll through the thread to find the one clicked on. With the old forums software, you were taken directly to the post you clicked on.

Another issue is that the Complaint button doesn't have a way to add more info now. If you look at member names Mattfart, Dannyloff, Raffaelken alen, Raffaelken Srarawat, and GabrielNar, they all recently joined and making posts plugging the same product (probably the same person using different e-mail addresses, etc.). See their posts in this thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/39337044

Here's a thread someone started about that issue 2 days ago (spammers promoting the same product), and the spam is still there (despite being reported):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50027884

Michel J wrote:
> I love it except for the votes!
> It would be better to have only "+" gradation because:
> • if no "+" was be added, no need to say more ;)
> • if no "-" no personal bashing is possible (then, the vote would concern only positive things...)
> (btw: It's me or I don't see a "Post Preview" for the messages? If so... why it disappeared?)
> Big Thanks for all this good job !

Hé héé...

Have a "Poll" about it...! (Column to the right on this page...)

To be right dPr, you must choose the ones that have less votes..

You know why? :-)

Kind Regards,

Bug:
When in flat view, ignored users are no longer ignored :(

The 'thumbs up/down' voting system should be dropped from the forums, and be used only for these news articles. We aren't kids, and this isn't facebook, thanks.

I like the voting/liking system. Just saying this others who like it can like this :)

Simon -

A bug on italic text (not sure if this is already noted below or not):

On two occasions now, which is 100 percent of the occasions on which I have tried to use italic text in the new system, the text which I had italicized disappeared upon post, and I had to re-edit the message to add the italic text back in. Apparently it only disappears during an initial post and not during edits.

Some general forum ideas:

- 'Forum Feedback' section
A section where the forum users and moderators / administrators can chat about forum features. Users could ask "how to," or post comments and questions regarding the forum.

- 'Intermediate' section
There's sections dedicated to 'Beginners Questions' and 'Pro Digital Talk,' how about a section for photographers that fall in between?

- 'Member Activities' section
Forum users could dedicate individual threads for a specific region. An example:
A thread titled 'Anyone From NYC?' or 'NYC Meetups' could be used for DPR members located in the NYC area, or for those planning to move or visit on a holiday.

Members could organize meetups, ask where to shoot, or discuss interesting local events that would offer good photo opportunities. Members could also share photos with each other.

I think a section dedicated for activities could add to the 'sense of community.'

Shame, a nice format having to become worse in order to become better...

A put-off for me, the site looks like an 'also-run' in spite of the new functionality and features. It's probably the kiss of death for visitors like me.

Just a suggestion, but since you are interested in feedback and bug reports (both technical and philosophical), why don't you move this post, along with its comments to some permanent place where it is easy for all to access?

If you don't, it will eventually scroll away and future input will be lost.

I also don't see any use of the voting system. At least not as long as it is not transparent. There are some trolls in the forums who vote down everything they don't like.
Some people just show some pictures and ask for C&C... and all they get is a bunch of "thumps down".
That's just completely useless.
"thumps up" and "complain" are ok. But "thumps down" is of no use at all. It's just a tool for trolls to vote down whatever they hate or disagree with.

Please, for the love of mercy, don't default us to the threaded view!! Even after the changeover to the new design, I STILL have to keep selecting 'flat view' ... So, if you can please let us go into our settings, and change it one way or another, just ONE time ... and then it is set to that default setting until we change it again, then I would be EXTREMELY grateful. Thanks in advance.

The old system was a total shiet-show of life-long pixel-hunting trolls. I hope this one turns out better.

Dump the "voting" system please. Not all of us are teenagers consumed with the facebook, amazon and the twitter generation. Get rid that garbage and allow dpreview to rise well above the mediocrity of today's social media.

It has been pointed out to me that the new system is unsuitable for posting images.

The images as posted now on dpreview are seriously compromised and do not reflect the original image. You have to open the original image to see the photographers artistic intent.

It's easy enough to test this. Post a nice color jpg from your drive of 1024 or larger pixel maximum edge. Compare the posting to the original.

You don't even have to do this much work. Find a nice photo and compare the image in the post with the original behind it.

If this is not corrected, it may not be possible to keep posting images on dpreview.

Edit: I see that this is addressed below, but more information would be helpful. Is there a maximum pixel size that will prevent images from being mangled?

How do I search these 677 replies to find out
how to turn on signatures ?
I'm sure it's in here somewhere.

The whole vote +1 or -1 thing is puerile & childish for an informative, premiere website such as DPreview - pandering heavily to the teenage facebook/youtube generation. DPreview´s hand has probably been forced by Amazon to include the feature to help with their sales (despite DPrevew telling us they are "independent"). But we do have a choice - just DON´T use it. Let Amazon figure out its own sales strategy and let DPreview feel the full force of ownership by a larger organisation.

After using this new layout, I have discovered quite a few new and good features and I now do not prefer the older layout compared to this new one.

This new layout will be accepted by the majority over time.

I don't really like the new style forum. It's not a very compact presentation, which makes it really hard to scan over the topics on a smartphone or tablet.

As I mentioned earlier, I like the new system. Just wanted to add that I'm looking forward to a more phone-friendly forum system. I'm sure that is in the works!

There may still be some bugs to eliminate, but as I am getting used to the new forums system I enjoy it more and more. Thanks for the effort DPReview.

What's the point of having images uploaded to my web site at 1024 x 768, when this site re-sizes them to 940 x 705? I haven't seen a desktop or laptop monitor as small as that for many years ...

The IQ also seems to drop off rather badly ...

BTW, thanks for all the effort that everyone has put in so far to bring the new code into being, and fixing the inevitable bugs and glitches. Shaping up pretty well, IMHO.

Hope some of you have had at least SOME sleep ...

regards, john

Wow; most news threads would be lucky to get to 100 comment entries, but this news thread's got over 650. I wonder why? lolololol

:)

After experiencing the thumbs up and down system, I just realized something that could improve the overall user experience. You could make it visible who up or down-rates a post (similar to how you can see who "likes" a Facebook post). This way we can see if the same people doing the rating. This would resolve a lot of childish fights and make people think twice about rating a post.

Could not be much worse!

Switching between forums remains unnecessarily cumbersome, I think.
How about a collapsible widget on the right side (below the user profile) with links to each user's ten most often visited forums (or alternatively: allow the user to populate that list in his preferences)?

In threaded view you might want to consider putting the/an additional forum navigation bar (forum, parent, next etc.) under the message. The current position (more or less on top of the page) works well enough with shorter messages. But once a message is so long that you have to scroll downward to read it completely you then have to scroll back up to get to the next post or return to the forum which you would logically expect where your eyes are after reading a message - at the bottom of the message box.