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Community Feedback: New Forum Software Is Live!

6136 Views 104 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  WakkoWarner
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We are excited to announce that we are live on our new forum platform!

It’s been a long time coming. Let’s face it. Sometimes older forum technology lags behind other parts of the internet. Although seeing the same format for a long time is comforting, the member experience shouldn’t include dealing with outdated, unsafe, slow software.

The transition to a new platform will never be 100% smooth but the days of dealing with out of date forum software are over. We have teams dedicated to building a world-class community for you. The development has been steady with regular software releases since May 2019. Asking members for feedback and coming up with ideas for improvement is what we want.

Speed and Reliability Are Key
No one should have to wait for information. This site has been built to be much faster and more reliable, period.

New Homepage Experience
Our algorithm will serve a personal customized feed based on your prior engagement with content on the site. If you’ve liked and or commented, or are following certain topics that are of interest to you, similar content will appear at the top of the homepage.

Search
We have introduced new search algorithms, powered by an industry-leading AI platform, to help you find information faster. We plan to roll out new features to continue improving search, and to power many additional areas of the forum.

Due to the volume of content, our search platform may take some time to complete indexing over the first few days after migrating. During this process, you may see a limited number of posts until indexing has been completed. We appreciate your patience.

Finding Your Way Around
We have made the design clean and simple to use. Near the upper right-hand corner of the community, you will see navigation icons.

The first icon is for what’s new on the site.

Clicking on it, by default, will take you to new unread posts. On that page, you can click on additional tabs as well, such as Popular, if you prefer to view active topics.

Clicking the list icon next to “NEW” will bring you to the full forum listing.

Clicking your avatar will give you a drop-down menu for all things related to your account.

You can also navigate more by clicking the 3 vertical dots.

Dark Mode
We have introduced Dark Mode. One of our favorite features allows you to access the site with a power-saving, and easier on the eyes dark mode. You can access it in the drop-down menu under the 3 vertical dots.

Save Bookmarks
Now you can save your favorite discussion threads and posts! Bookmarks are a handy way to remember and easily find great content or stuff you want to read later.

We also wanted to make it easier for new users to understand the lingo of forums. We have cleaned up various language to more commonly recognized phrases including:
  • Following - Thread subscriptions, and Watched are now known as Following
  • Conversations - Private Messages or PMs are now conversations and can be accessed from the user avatar drop-down in the main navigation
  • Showcase - Showcase is designed for users to "showcase" items/projects through the use of uploaded images, text descriptions and custom content categories. It’s a way to visually and textually provide detailed information on the content you wish to share. The showcase would be similar to a catalog, whereas the gallery would be like a photo album. It can be accessed from the drop-down menu with the 3 dots.
Take a tour and look around! Check out the Help section for some quick FAQs about the new platform.

Please keep all feedback, questions, concerns, requests for help, etc. regarding the new platform right here in this Feedback thread. This will help us make sure not to miss a request for help and also let us pass along your thoughts to our Product team. The Admins and I will be here to help along the way taking note of your comments.

- Community Management Team
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When you start typing in the search box, it will ask you if you want to search the entire site, forum, or discussion.

Thank you! I totally missed that
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Thank you! I totally missed that
You are most welcome!
I'm really kind of bummed about the chat feature. I think that was hands down the best aspect of the previous site. I've been a member of numerous forums over the past 20+ years or so, and AS had been the only forum with chat right there on the forum home page which made it easy to chat, even if just a waving or peeling wheel smilie.
IMO no chat should have been a deal breaker for the upgrade.
Well see, there you go then...
Thanks, I hate it.
I'm having trouble when I want to edit a comment and less often when backtracking while typing the original.
Could be my laptop as it's often not updated on it's own what cha ma nots.
The blinking bar (representing where you're wanting to type) likes to only show up at the beginning or end of comment and refuses to go anywhere in between (I'm using the finger control pad on a lap top, not a mouse or touch screen.) If I accidently didn't put a space in between the 1st & 2nd word in the original comment, I have to erase the whole comment ALL the way to the 1st word to put the space there and then re-type the whole thing
.
It's also happened a few times on original comments (not editing after posting.)
If I want to back track to add an apostrophe, capitalize, add a space or correct misspelling - I can only erase all the way to that spot and type it all over. This happens less often than when editing but did happen when typing this comment.

I did try refresh and it could totally be on my end. Did it happen to anyone else?
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I'm having trouble when I want to edit a comment and less often when backtracking while typing the original.
Could be my laptop as it's often not updated on it's own what cha ma nots.
The blinking bar (representing where you're wanting to type) likes to only show up at the beginning or end of comment and refuses to go anywhere in between (I'm using the finger control pad on a lap top, not a mouse or touch screen.) If I accidently didn't put a space in between the 1st & 2nd word in the original comment, I have to erase the whole comment ALL the way to the 1st word to put the space there and then re-type the whole thing
.
It's also happened a few times on original comments (not editing after posting.)
If I want to back track to add an apostrophe, capitalize, add a space or correct misspelling - I can only erase all the way to that spot and type it all over. This happens less often than when editing but did happen when typing this comment.

I did try refresh and it could totally be on my end. Did it happen to anyone else?
I have not experienced this issue. Which browser are you using? Is it updated?

- Cricket
Using Bing, and I'm rarely updated on anything.
Prolly just on my end, I figured I'd ask if it happened to anyone else (just in case it did.)
Not a complaint per se. Just wondered.
I think it's happened on my phone as well (with google), which is also rarely updated.
I suck at the computer so - most times it's me.

Thanks for responding and we're slowly getting used to the site.
Does your computer have arrow keys to navigate the cursor to where you want it?
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Does your computer have arrow keys to navigate the cursor to where you want it?
🎯That works like a charm.
I'd never had to play with those buttons before and if I did it was long ago.
That's why we call you 'Super Moderator' Big_kid
I notice there is no private messages system either huh? That really sucks since I had info in the messages that I need.
I notice there is no private messages system either huh? That really sucks since I had info in the messages that I need.
Click on your avatar in the top right, go down to conversations.
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How hard would it be to make 'What year is your van ?' a required field when joining?
Create user name, password, what year is your van, what email address do you want to use.
That'd square away the most common problem on here right off the bat.

There's easily over 2,000 comments asking a poster what year their van is.
1,000 comments asking the poster to add that info to their profile.
300 comments telling the poster how to add that info, 50 of them with a link.
Pretty sure it's more than that and fans are running full blast somewhere to store those avoidable exchanges.

Could possibly send out an email to current members to fill in that box.
Just like the 'Updates to user agreement' emails we get from elsewhere.
Some send an email just to see if you're still active.
Hi...I've been a poster at Astrosafari for some time and I find the new format to be confusing compared to the old forum. Although it's not a big deal, I don't particularly appreciate being regarded as a newbie after having accumulated several hundred posts in the old forum.
Who's regarding you as a newbie?

This is the place to vent your frustrations if you'd like - Community Feedback: New Forum Software Is Live!
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How hard would it be to make 'What year is your van ?' a required field when joining?
Create user name, password, what year is your van, what email address do you want to use.
That'd square away the most common problem on here right off the bat.
Although the option is certainly available and should be encouraged, (we can make a sticky) it will not be a REQUIREMENT.

For those who are not sure how to add the information to your profile, please see the following.

In the upper right-hand corner of the site, click on your avatar and scroll down to select Account Settings.
Font Screenshot Software Gadget Electronic device

Scroll down to Vehicle Details and enter your vehicle information.
Sky Font Darkness Circle Magenta

When you are done, scroll down to the bottom and click Save.

- Cricket
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Hi...I've been a poster at Astrosafari for some time and I find the new format to be confusing compared to the old forum. Although it's not a big deal, I don't particularly appreciate being regarded as a newbie after having accumulated several hundred posts in the old forum.
Are you referring to the Trophies?

- Cricket
Although the option is certainly available and should be encouraged, (we can make a sticky) it will not be a REQUIREMENT.- Cricket
The forum once strongly encouraged searching for already existing posts covering your problems, which was good before Facebook Astro groups became popular.
On FB they get answers fast and plenty of them, typically it's piss poor advice but they can't tell the difference.
Now days folks just want to pop in and get an answer.
It's hard to give a long, detailed, answer for every new member that doesn't want to search.
We can no longer tell them to search because they'll just go back to FB.
By not telling them to search, hits for key words are so numerous that searching becomes pointless (except for stickies.)
There's not much that we can do about that except roll with it and make more stickies.

All that said, FB users are asked to answer a few questions before joining any group.
Those questions weed out bots and scammers who try to join EVERY group just to spam it.
It'd be no big deal to ask new members what year their van is, a few questions are normal.

*Year wouldn't have to be 100% required by adding 2 options.
'Don't yet own a van' would actually be great for knowing what's up with those questions.
'Prefer not to say' for people with privacy issues and what not.

Many Auto Parts Store websites won't even show a car part's price without 'Check to see if this fits your vehicle.'
A forum where people are asking advice for their van can / should require giving a year.

Would it be hard to do or not?
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STICKY'S DON'T REALLY WORK much for newbies.
(except for us to point them too)
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Those questions weed out bots and scammers who try to join EVERY group just to spam it.
We have special tools that help weed out the spammers.

- Cricket
On FB they get answers fast and plenty of them, typically it's piss poor advice but they can't tell the difference.
ROFL, I won't comment further on that ;)
We can no longer tell them to search because they'll just go back to FB.
Isn't FB THE internet? LOL
All that said, FB users are asked to answer a few questions before joining any group.
I really wish people would put the pertinent information in their signatures or profiles, AND in the first post of their threads. But can't even get them to use the search box so I think that is going to be an uphill battle.
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