"What have you done to my beloved forum?!" - Page 12  

Originally Posted by MikeDT 


I think China likes to operate it's own ad networks, and certain ad networks from outside the PRC are blocked or slowed down. e.g. Google's AdSense and DoubleClick. Probably the same with some tracking and usage networks. I did try using a proxy as well to view SF, but it didn't seem to make much difference.

However all is not bad, I found a good way to browse and post on SF with phones and tablets, Opera Mini. http://www.opera.com/mobile/ Works on Android, Blackberry, iOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Java. Opera's servers compress and process complex webpages rendering them suitable for viewing on a mobile device using the Opera Mini client. Seems to work just fine with SF2.0, loads quick as well. Great for anyone with a limited 3G data allowance, because Opera Mini is only downloading a highly compressed version of the site.

About the CPU hogging and the long loading times, I think I solved this as well. I have Ghostery for Chrome, this shows what third-party ad and tracking networks a site uses. So I could possibly see what was causing the hangups. It showed Facebook, Google Adsense, Google Analytics and Quantcast. I know Facebook is unreachable here, if one tries to access Facebook.com directly, the browser will just sit there repeatedly sending requests to a server which is not there. Some of Google's non-Chinese services are blocked or can be very slow.

So I've added the domains for these sites into my hosts file, along with a few others like DoubleClick, Comscore and Omniture. This means that any browser on my computer will get an immediate 'Not found.', instead of fruitlessly trying to access a third-party site it can't get to. Doing this seems to have improved quite a few sites for me, although these where not as bad as SF.

There is another thing which I've observed with some websites, not because they're blocked, is that they'll ignore HTTP requests from Chinese IP addresses. Presumably because of security concerns, botnet DDoS attacks, hacking, much of which seems to originate from China. So what happens the browser appears to be loading a page, but will just sit there repeatedly sending HTTP requests and eventually gives up after a couple of minutes.

Done the same on my UMPC/Netbook hosts file and SF appears to be usable on there, although it's not perfect, there is still much horizontal scrolling here.

Of course I'm no longer being tracked by any of these peeps anywhere,

Originally Posted by LA Guy 

Yeah, that was the point. I agree that the graphics could be tightened up. I think that the first thing we will do is to decrease the length of the descriptions, which are pretty wordy and which we often wrote in jest. Then we'll look at layout issues.

Originally Posted by Uncontrol 

Because they are. Not bragging at all -- my site is incomparable to SF in terms of scale or content -- but compare my threadlisting to the one here:

http://harajuju.net/Forum-Style-and-Fashion

The one on SF right now is just hard to read; it confuses your eyes trying to find the relevant information.

Originally Posted by sellahi22 

Uncontrol posted an example of a good forum layout which allows you to see what's going on in a forum without scrolling. You guys should change the SF forum view to look like this:

Originally Posted by LA Guy 

We will tighten up the graphics, but, with all due respect to Uncontrol, because I am sure that he is proud of his forum, that is not a good example of good use of vertical and horizontal space. On a maximized view, I can see 2 forums, that's it. And the titles and descriptions are not particularly information rich, either.

Originally Posted by Brianpore 

IMO below is all the info you need. I know all the other info is "helpful" and the pictures are nice, but you can have those as a rollover  / hover over if you really want. It gives the buyers the best opportunity to browse though a lot of posts quickly (like the old forum which most people liked) and if they see one they want to get some more info on, all they do is put the mouse on it. If they like it then they click it. There is way too much scrolling in the forums right now.

Originally Posted by sellahi22 

Brianpore, that's an awesome mockup. That's exactly how the threadlisting should appear, in B&S, in the regular forums, and in search results.

Originally Posted by davesmith 

Quote:

as awesome as it is, it's not going to be implemented unfortunately. the pictures and other stuff are staying. BUT i am sure B&S will return to the days of old very shortly.

Originally Posted by viccollz 

I love SF.... I used to love SF
I know this does not help but I seriously needed to protest against the changes to SF, especially to B&S

The B&S is now seriously awful... Trying to make it look (and work like ebay - paid listing) is ridiculous! If I wanted ebay, I would have gone to ebay...

SF B&S used to be a niche 'product' that other commercial websites simply can't compete with... now it is just an inferior ebay.

Even worst, where was the consultation or at least a warning for this change? Nil... just a change imposed top-down on users and members of the SF community.

I thank the moderators and administrators/owners of the site for the good times and you guys have done a great job until very recently.... I also don't question your intentions with the change but know that we are also part of the SF community and deserve some say over changes this drastic.

Originally Posted by cioni2k 

The reviews (while I understand their purpose to bring in new google traffic) are laughable and clutter the entire experience. Who needs to read a review of board shorts, a tie, or a dress shirt? It doesn't translate to the SF experience at all.

Originally Posted by LA Guy 


I need to clear up a misconception. There was a "sandbox" version of this new system that started in March of this year, and went on until a few days before the new system was actually implemented. Over 120 users were in the sandbox system. Over 40 of these were invited specifically to review the B&S system. The B&S system was the newest part of the system, and even with consultation with many sellers, we knew that it would have to be adjusted the most. It is not possible to put everything to a poll test, but a lot of people were consulted in the development of the new system.

That said, changes to B&S are coming very soon. We want a system that is useful and reasonably familiar to new users, most of whom are used to interfaces very different from forum technology, which is very old, but responsive to the needs of existing sellers and buyers, who are used to, and like, the old VB system. I think that Spoo and I, in consultation with a lot of MC members (where the bulk of the action takes place in B&S, and were most of the problems in the old system were occurring, have made something that will do both.

Though I cannot make you do so, I hope that you will stay around to see the forum evolve.

Originally Posted by LA Guy 

hehe. Thanks for figuring these things out. tbh, we never really even thought about readers in China (no offense,) or about the unique issues there. Sorry for the oversight.

Cheers,

Fok.