Upcoming forum changes: investing in our community's future

Mark Ransom said:

jalywol said:

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

Click to expand...

Yes it works well - on a desktop. On my phone it's difficult [...]

Click to expand...

Dale Baskin said:

Hi forum members,

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

Click to expand...

Bill Ferris said:

BryanHL said:

I can understand your motivations for making a change.

However:

It is such a backwards step to go to FLAT VIEW ONLY.

Threaded view is imperative in threads that have lots of responses and where sub-threads about certain points evolve.

With Flat View IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to follow the conversation without wasting heaps of time scrolling up and down trying to work out who replied to what comment. And then there are those that make comments without quoting - to which post were they referring??? With threaded view it is clear. Flat view it just becomes a jumbled mess!!!

Click to expand...

Hi Bryan, I can certainly understand your concern over the default flat view display of XenForo forums. I've been on DPR since 2013 and am personally a fan of the threaded display option here.

That said, I'm a dedicated wildlife and bird photographer. For about 6 months, I've been active on Steve Perry's (the wildlife photog; not the rock vocalist) Backcountry Gallery forum, which is built on the XenForo platform.

It did take some time for me to adjust to a flat view thread display. However, now that I'm used to it, flat view doesn't prevent me from following discussions, their evolution, and staying involved in the topics that interest me. Obviously, I don't speak for anybody other than myself. However, I would encourage you to take Dale's ask to heart: give the new site a try when it goes public, see what you think, and most definitely offer your feedback on the user experience once you've had some time to test drive it.

I'm a co-mod in the Fujifilm X System forum and, along with the other forum moderators and DPR staff, have been exploring and kicking the tires on a test environment version of the new DPR site. I find the overall design, organization, and user interface to be very familiar.

Some of the new features that I like include group chat, more options for filtering displayed messages, and more emoji options when reacting to a message.

I know Dale and the DPR team want to create more platforms for featuring member content. Moderators will have the ability to pin posts atop a forum page. There are also built-in tools on a XenForo site making it easy for a member to peruse recently uploaded images, to react and comment on those images. This is something I really like about the Backcountry Gallery forums and is a feature I believe will add a nice element of member interactivity to the DPR experience.

Bill Ferris said:

When DPR was going to close, I joined one of the new emergent forums. It didn't use Xenforo but was similarly Flat View only. All the users continually complained - "We need Threaded View".

Max image size: Xenforo has a max image size of 1600 x 1600 px. Not being able to view an image in its native size means you just can't see the detail in those really good images. Then you might as well have just used a smartphone. What's the point of having a good capable camera when you can't showcase the quality of your images???

Click to expand...

I can share that the test environment allows much larger images than 1600 x 1600 pixels to be uploaded. I've personally uploaded a 13986 x 4847 pixel JPEG of a stitched pano. The file is 21.3MB in size. I've also test uploaded an 8256 x 5504 JPEG (9.3MB) from a processed Z9 file. The image quality at screen resolution is very good. Viewed at 100%, the images display at about 80% of the quality I see when viewing photos at 100% in LrC.

Bill Ferris said:

The Xenforo maintainers have a really stubborn attitude to this max image size. They speak as if "Who would want more than 1MP"? Well Bill Gates once said "Who needs more than 640KB"? Look at windows now. 16GB minimum.

This may be a gear oriented site but there are still many who like to showcase their results. I am also on a Xenforo site. I find myself sometimes cropping in really tight so that people can see the detail - makes a mockery of composition when you have to cut out most of the background.

I am rather surprised that the decision was made without forum member input. I know there will always be some dissatisfied no matter what choice you make. But I would have thought getting a consensus first would have been the smarter move....

Not happy jan...

Click to expand...

It can be easy to think of Dale, Scott, Mathew and DPR staff only as administrators of the site. As Dale mentioned in a recent post, he was a member long before he joined the professional staff at DPR. Mathew applied for and came to DPR, in part, because of his experience as a member. Working with them on this project, I have come to appreciate their commitment to making DPR better prepared for a future it has the potential to enjoy.

Yes, the first 25+ years for DPR have been remarkable. This site is among the most trusted sources on the web. Digital photography has undergone so much change over the last decade, as have the practitioners of this medium. When Dale says the forums need a new platform to enable new content and user experiences, I believe him. The new site will take some getting used to, but it will also open new doors to how members are able to interact with the site and each other.

I'm gonna make the same ask as Dale. Let's give the new site a chance, test drive it for a bit, and offer candid & constructive feedback on how it can be better. If we come together to help make this migration a success, that will be something we all can take pride in.

Click to expand...

OLEF641 said:

After wading through many of the posts here, it is obvious to me that threading is of paramount importance to many of the users, me being one of them. While I understand the need to migrate from the current system, it is obvious that losing threading will decimate the user base, resulting in a precipitous drop in advertising revenue, ultimately making the site unsustainable.

Please consider placing the transition on hold until the developers at the new software company can actually implement threading, which I believe was mentioned as something that would "eventually" be added. Changing DPReview to something without threading being in place would be a lot like shooting it in a vital area, sending it into extremely critical condition, and hoping it will live long enough in the ICU to eventually attract the user base it needs to survive.

Lynne

Click to expand...

RemoteHorizons said:

In my experience, forums changing their user interface usually coincides with the death of the forum, and I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence.

DPReview has, by far, the nicest forum interface of all of the photography sites and to change it would be a huge mistake.

Please reconsider.

Click to expand...

Ralf B said:

Dale Baskin said:

We recommend reviewing this forum thread first in case your question has already been answered.

Click to expand...

May I recommend you take this thread and try your own recommendation to see

• which search engine performance would be fit-fucntion to actually serve the purpose you recommend us to do? And have that in the new DPR, the current engine fails (at least me).
• which viewing format (flat/threaded/other) would actually enable us to do so?

Why? Thanks to DPR to take this thread byond the usual 149 post limit so now you have a test thread masively challenging the new solution you need to implement for all the good reasons you face.

Good luck.
Cheers,
Ralf

Click to expand...

jjbinx said:

If you can do it, DISABLE threaded view just for this thread and then let’s see how well YOU can work with it.

Or better still, disable threaded view for all of the forums for 48 hours and see how well it goes

Click to expand...

Ralf B said:

Having posted in this thread has resulted in notifications galore, which often show one point for improvement: A single notification informing about multiple responses to a thread leads to only one of these responses when clicking it. Hence, finding the next new response isn't supported by the notification as of now. In a thread as busy as this, that is lost information.

Maybe have separate links to all new responses in a notification about them?
Cheers,
Ralf

Click to expand...

J.K.T. said:

robert1955 said:

J.K.T. said:

Seriously, the example forums were completely useless. The signal to noise ratio is abysmal. I don't see myself wasting my time on such forums. I know what I want to check and if it takes too long to get there, I stop going. I refuse to be told what I'm supposed to be reading.

Click to expand...

How do you “know” what you want to check?

Click to expand...

Three subforums usually. Not interested in the rest. Then the interesting discussions by thread title. Within discussion I can ignore sub-discussions based on threaded view and the first few posts.

Click to expand...

Stig Nygaard said:

Mathew Anderson said:

It's unlimited, though we are thinking of establishing 15000x15000 based on the community's feedback.

Click to expand...

Sounds pretty good. But btw, I have some 16384 × 8192 "equirectangular" (VR/photosphere) images. But I guess it is probably mostly if forum supports displaying that kind in a "interactive 360° viewer" [ or another viewer example ], it could be very relevant to support such sizes.

Click to expand...

Sagittarius said:

jjbinx said:

If you can do it, DISABLE threaded view just for this thread and then let’s see how well YOU can work with it.

Or better still, disable threaded view for all of the forums for 48 hours and see how well it goes

Click to expand...

I do not use threaded view ever (for 20 years) and it goes quite well.

Click to expand...

Dale Baskin said:

RemoteHorizons said:

In my experience, forums changing their user interface usually coincides with the death of the forum, and I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence.

DPReview has, by far, the nicest forum interface of all of the photography sites and to change it would be a huge mistake.

Please reconsider.

Click to expand...

I understand where you’re coming from and know how important the forum’s interface is to the community. I’ve been using DPReview’s forums since the beginning – long before I joined the team – and I’ll be the first to admit I really like the current software too.

That said, the reality is our forum software is a 25-year-old, custom-built, proprietary system. While it has served us well, maintaining it has become increasingly difficult and expensive.

Migrating to XenForo isn’t about change for change’s sake. It’s about giving the forums a reliable, supported foundation for the future that also opens the door to new features we’ve wanted to add for years. If staying on the old system long-term were viable, we would, but it’s not.

I know change can feel disruptive, but part of this move is about ensuring the forums remain healthy long-term. All we ask is that you give the new platform a chance and work with us to improve it. Even after it goes live, we'll continue refining it in response to community feedback. I can't promise we'll be able to implement every suggestion, but we'll do our damnedest.

Click to expand...

BryanHL said:

Mathew Anderson said:

It would likely have split into multiple separate actual topic threads long ago in that view, instead of remaining as a growing conglomerate here.

Click to expand...

With all due respect Mathew, yes there will be those with consideration / comprehension who create new threads but there are many who just blaze away and reply to the original. Those are the very posts that Threaded View make it easy to ignore. But even then, you will have heaps of new threads, all relating in some way to the original, but are separate...

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Click to expand...

MarkJ59 said:

RemoteHorizons said:

In my experience, forums changing their user interface usually coincides with the death of the forum, and I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence.

DPReview has, by far, the nicest forum interface of all of the photography sites and to change it would be a huge mistake.

Please reconsider.

Click to expand...

They aren’t going to reconsider. The forum is clearly not important to them, and they have calculated that it isn’t important to the majority of site users.

Click to expand...

Mathew Anderson said:

Ozzie SD said:

Perhaps the wrong way:

Hey forum members ... surprise! We are changing the forum you have been using for 25 years to something completely different. We think you might like it!

Perhaps the right way:

Helle forum members! We are thinking about making changes to our forum. As our dear forum users and therefore clients, we would like you to think with us and get involved! We are very curious about your input! Should we make changes to our forum and if so, what would you like to see different? What do you like about the current style and usability? And what could be better? How can we improve your experience? Please provide us your input and together we will lift this forum to a new and better level for the next coming 25 years.

But hey ... who am I to say ...

Click to expand...

Hi Ozzie!

The forum update is just the surface announcement. As you get a chance to use it yourselves, we will be continuing to take feedback and adjusting what we can, just like you are suggesting here. It's important to us that we're working with you on this as much as possible.

We plan to have a dedicated section in the update exactly for this purpose, to gather first impressions, general feedback, and issues and concerns.

If you have had an interest in the past to improve the current forums in some way, please feel free to voice it. Now that you know what software the forums are moving to, we can work with you to adjust as much as possible in advance as well.

Click to expand...

Mathew Anderson said:

BryanHL said:

Mathew Anderson said:

It would likely have split into multiple separate actual topic threads long ago in that view, instead of remaining as a growing conglomerate here.

Click to expand...

With all due respect Mathew, yes there will be those with consideration / comprehension who create new threads but there are many who just blaze away and reply to the original. Those are the very posts that Threaded View make it easy to ignore. But even then, you will have heaps of new threads, all relating in some way to the original, but are separate...

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Click to expand...

You make a valid point!

Click to expand...

mfinley said:

jjbinx said:

mfinley said:

Ozzie SD said:

Really, you have statistics about the age of the forum users?

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm surprised you have never seen them, they show up periodically. But what's your point?

You don't believe the membership skewers widely toward 60 and older?

Click to expand...

I doubt that a new forum/site user experience will change that - attract younger viewers and participants.

Click to expand...

I don't believe I said that, but I did say that the demographic skewers 60 and older. You still haven't answered if this is new news to you.

mfinley said:

The real issue is that non smartphone photography will die with its users (us). Switching to a more social media-like interface won’t do anything other than to cause a good % of current DOR users to reduce their participation or to drop away completely.

Click to expand...

Actually, from what I've read, the fastest growing demographic for non-smart phone photography are people under 30 years old.

The entire photography industry is aware there is no future without attracting new younger customers, and a few broken eggs today is considered acceptable if those changes ultimately result in increasing numbers tomorrow.

What I think people might not be understanding is DPR's main reason to change the forums is financial. Of course they were sold by the vendor that this would also be an improvement for the users. And this thread was to announce this and I'm guessing they got a much different response than they were expecting. This is probably the first time the new team is getting an idea of just how contentious the membership here is.

I hope you all get the threaded feature included in the new software but I believe this will only be a possibility if there is somehow an option for it, as I don't believe DPR is going to back out of their switch to this new vendor because its a financial decision.

Click to expand...

MAC said:

Sagittarius said:

jjbinx said:

If you can do it, DISABLE threaded view just for this thread and then let’s see how well YOU can work with it.

Or better still, disable threaded view for all of the forums for 48 hours and see how well it goes

Click to expand...

I do not use threaded view ever (for 20 years) and it goes quite well.

Click to expand...

Well, the voting thread shows up to 60% of the community is looking at leaving over this.

They seem to have already sunk their future on this change.

I wonder if they've alerted the parent company on potential substantial loss of site hits and revenue

If it were my company, I'd tell the new site developers that until we have threaded view, we're not implementing, versus telling us they've asked that it be a future option - well future implementation doesn't generate site hits and revenues needed now.

Click to expand...