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Upcoming forum changes: investing in our community's future

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MoreorLess said:
TN Args said:
Mathew Anderson said:
TN Args said:
It always struck me as utterly bizarre.
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There isn't a default thread limit like the current forums.
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Excellent! Thank you
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Indeed, very good news, I think that's been a bad handicap for the forum as when a discussion really takes off it gets curtailed well before it would be plus anyone who "discovers" it in the future can't then post in it.
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;-) Welcome to the equivalence thread: Your post is the 999,999,999 th in this thread and you missed the billion prize by one...
 
BryanHL said:
MoreorLess said:
TN Args said:
Mathew Anderson said:
TN Args said:
It always struck me as utterly bizarre.
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There isn't a default thread limit like the current forums.
Click to expand...
Excellent! Thank you
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Indeed, very good news, I think that's been a bad handicap for the forum as when a discussion really takes off it gets curtailed well before it would be plus anyone who "discovers" it in the future can't then post in it.
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;-) Welcome to the equivalence thread: Your post is the 999,999,999 th in this thread and you missed the billion prize by one...
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That was basically the reason the thread limit was implemented. Not an elegant solution perhaps and certainly one size fits none. But not bizarre
 
Assuming we keep the ability to like a post, could we also get a thumb down?

i rather like the way reddit does this: you start with 1, others can up/downvote you and the tally is shown.

dpr initially had the down as well, but that did not play well
 
Hi Dale,

Thank you for the update. All sounds very promising. Delighted to see, if I am correct, that DPR is not adopting a subscription model.

I have one question. Will our profiles, including our listed gear and forum activity history, be retained?

I have one observation. I am a change management partitioner (using Prosci/ADKAR) and advise companies on digital transformation programmes. 70% of digital transformation programme fail to deliver all their objectives. There are a number of reasons, but let me cite one. The proposed digital transformation programme does not get buy-in from users.

This can be overcome by making users aware of why the changes are being proposed, what the changes will entail and how users can use the new system proficiently. I think your post covers the why well, some of the what, but not yet how we can use the new system/user interface proficiently. Will you be providing a guide or will it be left to us to fathom it out?

Again, thanks for your helpful update and the best of luck getting it launched and implemented. I will continue to enjoy forum discussions and gear reviews.
 
I can't wade through 7 pages of posts to find if this has already been asked, but why did you choose Xenoforums? There are free forums such as My BB which have everything this forum has, can do threaded view, is extremely easy to customise and has a load of people who know how to use it.

So what made you go for that quite expensive one?

Alan

PS - I am not against a move to a more modern forum experience, but I feel that what you chose may be limiting.
 
jalywol said:
The more I am reading about this change, the more it feels like a big mistake.

When DPR announced its closure a few years ago, a bunch of alternative sites went up. None of them had threaded views, and I am sure a few were generated/hosted by the folks you've hired to manage the new DPR.

I used a few of them for some months, and yes, the photo display options were indeed very good...but without threading, it became impossible to follow things once they were a few pages in.

I found my interest waned in keeping up with them after that, and, fortunately, DPR re-emerged, and I continued/resumed posting here.

I'm sorry, guys, but you really, really, should have made threading the single most important factor in choosing a company to design the website revision.

Promises like "oh we may do that later" are empty. By the time, and if, they are able to get around to that, folks like me will have moved on, and you will lose a whole lot more than you will gain.

But, you know, it's clearly a done deal, so it will be what it will be. I just wish there was a way I could download my entire gallery so I could actually save it, as once it's gone from here it will be gone, and I am very bummed about that.

-J
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one by one is the only way atm, all my 300 images got deleted a few months back but i have all the originals anyway so no biggy.
 
Dale Baskin said:
Hi forum members,

We're going to be making some upgrades to the forums and wanted to share the details with you first, before announcing them on the homepage.

What’s changing, and why

Our online community has always been at the heart of what we do. We know how important it is to have a place to connect to discuss cameras and photography, and we recognize our responsibility as stewards of these forums. That’s why we’ve made it a priority to commit more resources to our forums and community over the past year.

This investment has included hiring a dedicated Community Manager, increased participation in the forums by our Editorial team, and featuring more member-driven content on our homepage.

Now, we’re taking the next big step: upgrading the forum software itself. Our current system has served us well for over 25 years, but it’s time for an upgrade that will lay the groundwork for the future, including a modern photo sharing system, a unified mobile experience, and many other improvements that will make the forums even better for the years ahead.

Here’s some of what you can expect
  • A new photo sharing and gallery system to share your photos with other community members and browse their work.
  • Consolidated activity feeds showing the latest posts, trending discussions, and popular content across all forums in unified views.
  • A mobile-responsive design – no more switching between different mobile and desktop versions of the forums.
  • Improved direct messaging, including group chats, to connect privately with other members.
  • Enhanced profile pages to showcase your photography, gear, and interests.
  • Customizable notifications to stay updated on topics and conversations more easily.
  • Thread pinning and highlighting for better visibility of timely or informative discussions.
  • New post sharing options for referencing and responding to posts of interest.
These improvements will make it easier to connect, share your work, and participate in discussions, with additional features planned for the future.

How we’re making this happen

To make these improvements possible, we’ll be migrating the forums to a modern community platform called XenForo. While this means a change behind the scenes, the move enables us to introduce features and updates we’ve wanted to make for a long time, and will allow the forums to continue to grow and adapt as the internet evolves. This will replace our current, aging, proprietary forum software, which is increasingly difficult to modernize and maintain.

We’ve also worked with our team of volunteer moderators to prepare for this change so the new platform continues to reflect what makes our community special.

What to expect

All current forum discussions will be carried over, and your history will stay intact. To complete the transition, the forums will briefly enter read-only mode for at least a day; we’ll announce the exact timing and expected read-only window as we get closer so you can plan accordingly.

While not every feature could be carried over, the vast majority will remain, and many long-requested improvements will finally become a reality. Similar to moving into a new house, some things may look slightly different at first, but we expect you’ll find yourself feeling at home in no time.

How you can help

We appreciate that changes can raise questions and concerns. Your feedback is crucial: please share your questions by replying below so we can address them in a comprehensive FAQ. We recommend reviewing this forum thread first in case your question has already been answered.

Thank you for making DPReview the vibrant community it is. We’re committed to ensuring these forums remain the best place on the internet to discuss cameras and photography, now and into the future.

Dale
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Thank you! Finally doing away with this rather primitive format :) Change is good.
 
Stan Disbrow said:
Hi,

We will lose many folks with the loss of threaded mode.

i ignore many, what I call rabbit holes, using it. And also participate in as many as I ignore while not following the main thread further.

Threaded mode also means less quoting is required to separate posts which are in different subthreads. That makes for much easier reading.

There is another forum, one created when this site was shutting down. And they have trouble gaining users. My own lack of participation is due to there being no threaded mode.

Stan
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The other site understands the importance of a threaded view and I'm sure they wish their chosen platform supports it - to the extent that they have been exploring ways of hacking it. I only visit that site occasionally, and they still don't have it which suggests it is not easy to implement in natively flat software.
 
robert1955 said:
BryanHL said:
Stan Disbrow said:
Hi,

We will lose many folks with the loss of threaded mode.

i ignore many, what I call rabbit holes, using it. And also participate in as many as I ignore while not following the main thread further.
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Threaded View is invaluable in this regard. Flat view makes conversations impossible to follow once there are more than 20 or so posts.
robert1955 said:
Threaded mode also means less quoting is required to separate posts which are in different subthreads. That makes for much easier reading.
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Yes. With Threaded View there is not so much need to quote. The context is in the parent post.

However with Flat view and the relatively large proportion of posters who don't quote, it becomes impossible to know which post they are referring to. And the thread quickly becomes a jumbled mess.
robert1955 said:
There is another forum, one created when this site was shutting down. And they have trouble gaining users. My own lack of participation is due to there being no threaded mode.
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they lost momentum when it became clear that dpr wasn’t going to close. They try to find another niche, more photography less gear oriented, which apparently isnt that much of a draw.

also, at times it became a resurrection of the Off topic forum we had here.
robert1955 said:
Yes and that will keep them with a small core base until they make the change. But the decision was made to stick with the chosen forum software.

To me, Flat View equates to Flat Earthers. First there were the Bulletin Boards - Flat View only. Then some developers came up with Threaded View and everyone was happy.
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wow, you are a very tolerant person it seems
robert1955 said:
Now there are these weird ideas that we know better and they throw out the good stuff and revert to the dinosaur age. I just don't get it...
robert1955 said:
Stan
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I don’t use threaded and rarely have a problem following a conversation. And navigation is far easier
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I find both threaded and flat useful in their place. Threaded view gives you a clean overview of the discussions and all the sub discussions that take place within large threads and makes it easy to follow the sub discussions and see new posts within them. The drawback is you have to do a lot of clicking to open posts. Which is where flat view works best: you can scan through a collection of posts quickly without constant clicking. On the negative side, in a large thread a linear posting order flat view becomes incomprehensible if the thread divides into sub discussions or where people start responding to much earlier posts without quoting the earlier post. There are good reasons for a dual flat/threaded approach. It's no accident that a tree structure is a very common way of organising complex data.
 
robert1955 said:
Mathew Anderson said:
BluesJake said:
Please retain the ability to edit your own post, at least for a little while, like you can today.

If we cannot correct our own posts it's inconvenient to message a moderator asking for assistance.

Thanks
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Understandable! I like to edit my own posts too. This is the default setting at the moment, though it may come with a time limit on editing.

Is it done differently elsewhere that you've seen?
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At present it is time limited, but also editing is no longer possible once a post has been replied to. I like that latter part.
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I don't because I am prone to writing long posts that need several revisions before they say what I meant. And DPR does not have a pre-post preview/edit function that allows refining the words. We have to rely on posting to live, reviewing, editing and reposting. And that process get killed if someone gets a reply in too quickly.
 
Dale Baskin said:
Krummj said:
So far I’ve yet to see a single person cheer the removal of threaded view. At best, some are so indifferent they aren’t reading this thread and not bothering to post.
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Would it surprise you to learn that more than half of DPReview forum users use flat view as their primary forum view?

I realize that doesn't help if you're a threaded view person (I am, too, by the way). However, it's possible those users don't feel as compelled to jump into the conversation about threaded view.
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Do you have stats about how many people switch back and forth between threaded and flat?
 
DavidMillier said:
DavidMillier said:
At present it is time limited, but also editing is no longer possible once a post has been replied to. I like that latter part.
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I don't because I am prone to writing long posts that need several revisions before they say what I meant. And DPR does not have a pre-post preview/edit function that allows refining the words. We have to rely on posting to live, reviewing, editing and reposting. And that process get killed if someone gets a reply in too quickly.
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Ok, I get what you need. But wouldn’t a preview/edit function work better, and be very useful in general?
 
robert1955 said:
DavidMillier said:
robert1955 said:
At present it is time limited, but also editing is no longer possible once a post has been replied to. I like that latter part.
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I don't because I am prone to writing long posts that need several revisions before they say what I meant. And DPR does not have a pre-post preview/edit function that allows refining the words. We have to rely on posting to live, reviewing, editing and reposting. And that process get killed if someone gets a reply in too quickly.
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Ok, I get what you need. But wouldn’t a preview/edit function work better, and be very useful in general?
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Yes.
 
DavidMillier said:
DavidMillier said:
...
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I don't because I am prone to writing long posts that need several revisions before they say what I meant. And DPR does not have a pre-post preview/edit function that allows refining the words. We have to rely on posting to live, reviewing, editing and reposting. And that process get killed if someone gets a reply in too quickly.
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If I want to write a long post, I do it in Notepad first; I can review it, edit it, do further research, adapt, amend as often as needed. Only when I am fully convinced I have written what I want to say do I then post it by copy and paste.

Of course if it is just a short post like this one, then I type straight into the thread any pistakes I mske get postid rongly and I jist hav to accipt it :-D
 
  • A mobile-responsive design – no more switching between different mobile and desktop versions of the forums.
That bullet item has me concerned. Many of the websites that I no longer visit tailored their viewing experience to smartphones with huge tiles. Gone were the compact representations that got a lot of information on a page taking advantage of the desktop experience. As those websites morphed into a smartphone web app, I unsubscribed and stopped visiting. I am hoping that the changes coming do no repeat this behavior.
 
robert1955 said:
Assuming we keep the ability to like a post, could we also get a thumb down?
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Please no! That creates a negative vibe. Down voting responses discourages people to take part in discussions. There totally is no need to tell someone their reply is not appreciated. Everyone who replies does their best.
robert1955 said:
i rather like the way reddit does this: you start with 1, others can up/downvote you and the tally is shown.

dpr initially had the down as well, but that did not play well
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Dale said:

"I want to emphasize that our switch to a new platform is not about change for its own sake or chasing a "shiny new object." Our current forum software is 25 years old and has become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain. We have a real sustainability issue to consider, and we are doing the best we can with the resources available."

Dale, this a valid consideration, but you are missing the point.

The point you are not addressing (perhaps are not aware of) is that by making all the changes for us, you bypassed all users. Therefore, whether or not your explanation makes sense does not matter anymore. Look at all the replies. That is because users don't feel heard!

You presented this as "hooray, surprise, new forum and you can decide!" but that is not the truth. There is nothing left for us to decide. Crucial decisions have already been made.

Do you take the community serious? If yes, put this project on hold for a few weeks and start a new discussion with the forum members. If no, continue and loose members.

About a lack of threaded view. I just enabled flat view on my mobile phone for this thread just to remind me what it is like. It is horrible. I only see a few posts instead of a complete overview. I have to navigate through 14 pages to see all replies. I can't see who responds to who or when the response was made. If this is the future, then definitely I will loose interest in visiting DPReview forums.

Please reconsider.
 
WilyKit said:
jalywol said:
Ap0ll0n said:
Fantastic news! It would be good to limit how much of a reply is being copied as it makes subsequent replies hard to get to. Right now it's all or nothing so a smart solution in between would be great.
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I just select and delete all but the last couple of replies when I'm replying to a long thread. Takes a second. Works well.

-J
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and much longer than that with a smartphone, if it works at all.
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Thank you, I was going to reply the same.
 
jalywol said:
Ap0ll0n said:
Fantastic news! It would be good to limit how much of a reply is being copied as it makes subsequent replies hard to get to. Right now it's all or nothing so a smart solution in between would be great.
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I just select and delete all but the last couple of replies when I'm replying to a long thread. Takes a second. Works well.

-J
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If it does, why not turn that into an automated rule then? Like an upper limit of most recent replies to keep by (your) default.
 
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