Feedback from me

[steffib]

There's a big difference between New Posts and how Active Topics used to work - Active Topics was clustered by form and topic, new Posts just shows all topics with new messages, which means a significant loss of information, at least given the way I use Bhuz.

[antimony]

Yup, works the same way for me too.

It's not sorted by forum, but you can see in the right-hand column which forum each post is in. Other than that, the function is identical from my perspective. What feature is missing that was there before?

[tamrahennatx]

Originally Posted by joanneraks

I'm really sorry but I just absolutely hate the new site. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it and due to the overwhelming visual things going on, tribe (which I used to consider a mess) seems soothing to my eyes now. I normally don't say things so bluntly, but my reaction here is pretty strong. Hate it. I doubt if I'll be bhuzzing much. Too bad, I was really starting to like bhuz. It's been my main source of dance interaction since moving to such an isolated place. Sniff. My number one complaint is the visual chaos. My second complaint is the "function" chaos. Way too much to do. My third complaint is an echo of others: It wasn't very fun to log on to my profile and find out I was an "unprofessional" "cabaret" dancer that had no friends, and that everyone would now know when I was online and whose profile I had visited (like a dating site - creepy).

To say something positive, I do appreciate the desire for improvement and all of the hard work that people have gone to. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I think the intention to improve is a good one. I just liked it how it was before and I'm terribly dissappointed.

You can set your profile preferences to "invisible" - then you won't show up as online, and usually in vBulletin, it won't show your recent activities to anyone other than a mod or admin.

As for the rest, are you a slow-adapter? If so, give it some time, and it may not seem so bad.

I'm very familiar with a vBulletin interface, so the change is really no big deal for me (although there are features in use here I've never seen before) - I like discovering the new features, and I simply don't use the ones I'm not interested in.

And no one really believes that you have no friends.

[danielabellydance]

I'm not feeling the new MySpace-like profile stuff either. Why does every forum site now have something that showcases who my friends are?? I go on theknot.com for wedding planning, and they just did a similar overhaul - redid our simple bios to turn them into Myspace-like pages with friends and blogs and photo albums...why? I don't understand why all forum sites try to be like myspace. If I wanted a myspace page, I'd just go there...

I also am very sad about the loss of Active Topics. New Posts is very unorganized being that it is not separated by topic, and makes it super hard to just do a quick glance at the posts that might interest you (for instance, I was never interested in the Fan forums on the old bhuz, and with Active Topics I could just scroll past them, usually on to the Swap Meet forum, which was where my main interest was.....)

I'm sure I'll get used to the new bhuz, and I appreciate all the work that has gone into it. I'm not even going to email Rosey about the 100+ posts of mine that are missing because I don't want to bother her with that...I know she has more important things to worry about than feeding my posting-ego. I'm just kind of sad that many internet forums seem to be going in the "look how many friends I have, I'm so popular" vein since the popularity of myspace has exploded...it seems so high-school.

[outi]

Originally Posted by joanneraks

Oh, and thanks for replying to my mysteriously disappearing post!

That what happens when you say you HATE the new look !::eek: The post mysteriously disappears.

[Monica]

I am going to give myself time to get used to the new site.

But after popping on and off in between projects today, there are two things I'll mention. Mostly I think I will miss the 'all forums' button that was on top of active posts--it took you to an area where you could see a list of responses to topics, and was easy to refresh and peruse to see if anything I was interested in or taking part in was being discussed.

I also don't love the bio pages, namely the part with all the friends and the 'who has looked at me' thing. I liked the focus on talk and on the topics (rather than personalities) that the old bhuz sort of forced us to have. But I understand that is not very cool on da web these days (hey, I still love the med-dance list, so there ya go!).

M.

[tamrahennatx]

The soft yellow background is great!

[tamrahennatx]

The stars are cursor-sensitive!

*is easily amused*

[aasiyah]

guys , how come i cant get to the my bhuz/my account thing , even when im logged in?

i log in ...everything is fine, but when i click on that it keeps saying i must be logged in to use that function. im starting to pull my hair out.

[aasiyah]

oh and rosey, i think the stars/snowflakes on the banner ( and the banner in general) are my FAVORITE things on the new site, theyre SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pretty, thanks for all of your hard work

[zafirah]

Originally Posted by tamrahennatx

I'm having trouble discerning the difference between "Active Topics" and "New Posts". They seem to serve the same purpose for me.

1) Active topics was organised by forum. As a science minded individual, I liked the feeling of 'structure'. New posts has it in order of when posted. e.g. I don't think I could off hand just see every new swap meet post in one nice group together.

2) Active topics showed all the topics on the same page which also gave a feeling of being able to see the 'whole bhuz' at any one time. Whereas new posts only displays a limited number (10?). I feel dissorientated not being able to have that overview of the 'whole bhuz' at any one time. I feel like I could easily miss threads now.

3) Active topics had many more settings. You could set it anything from last 5 min to last week ? or even month, not jsut since your alst visit. So if you visted once then went away and came back and still wanted to see everything since the night before you could. Whereas new posts would only show you what is new since you logged off 5 min ago. I liked to have it set on 'anything in the last hour' in the background all day. Which brings me on to . .

4) Active topics could be set to refresh at intervals between 1 min up to . .a few hours?

So there is quite a lot of difference!!

Z

[rosey]

Originally Posted by aasiyah

guys , how come i cant get to the my bhuz/my account thing , even when im logged in?

i log in ...everything is fine, but when i click on that it keeps saying i must be logged in to use that function. im starting to pull my hair out.

See the stickeys in the Announcements and Problems sections for how to work-around the issue.

[rosey]

Originally Posted by tamrahennatx

The soft yellow background is great!

That is due to some soft prodding by Zumerad.

[heinakuu]

I like everything else exept the stars/snowflakes. They make me to get of the place and at least to put them out of my sight.

I kindly and very politely ask, if they could be removed, if not now but some later stage.

Otherwise, I am jumping here and there to test the new features.

[steffib]

There are some nice functions - I think that being able to upload pictures is nice. That makes life easier.

OK, things that could be better, apart from the "Active Topics" (major strike against the new forum that this is gone): Overall, and especially on the first page, there is a lot of overstimulation - I'd prefer things simple. There are many different fonts, falling blinky stars, popups, lots of things to pick from - I seriously had more than once the reaction of saying "Hey, calm down there." to my screen ;-) I'd think that a bit more serenity would be better. Kinda like a good dancer - who sometimes just stops.

Same with those new smileys, to give an example - I am sure that a lot of thought and effort went into this, and I bet that many people will disagree. But - it feels like overstimulation to me. Again, makes me want to tune down the visual volume.

Overall, I'd prefer a bit more of the feel I get when entering a Yoga studio - calm and quiet, simple. I understand that the software is in part responsible for that - but I am sure that there are ways of tweaking settings to make it feel a bit more calm.

Concrete suggestion: Turn off the falling stars. The pics behind are pretty, and I'd much prefer seeing them without my eyes hurting. I'd also change the font of "Belly Dance Central" in the banner, to match what's used elsewhere - and maybe even the font color to make this all more smooth and eye-pleasing. And, with a nod to the advertisers - the forum window is apparently fixed width - on my monitor, the sidebar ads are only half visible (no, I am not complaining about that - but if I were an advertiser, I would, and as a Bhuz regular, I'd rather not have an advertiser pull out.)

[bul_bul_ksa]

I agree with Rosey, it's uncool to hammer away at a team that have tried to anticipate a community's needs prior to opening the new site and also to respond quickly to the concerns and questions of it's users. Plus, the board is free to users.

Nothing in life ever stays the same, it's doesn't hurt anyone's feelings to adapt to change in a gracious manner.

[steffib]

Well, I can honestly say - I don't like the new look at all. There are two ways of dealing with that - shutting up and moving away, to other free forums (like Tribe or Orientaldancer, which seems based on the same software), or expressing what I think is a change that I don't consider an improvement. While the second may not be fun to hear for the admins - I consider it the better course of action in a very much community-based website. I lost functionality that I considered unique to Bhuz and valued highly, and I lost a calmness in appearance that I valued high, and instead gained a look and feel that feels way too busy. I am sure many others disagree (which is quite obvious considering a topic with people asking for more smileys, a movement that makes me scratch my head in disbelief).

[antimony]

steffi, Rosey has been very open to constructive criticism. I don't think it's an issue at all to say something like, "thanks for all of your hard work, would it be possible to modify x, y, and z to make the site more user-friendly?"

I just know if I were Rosey, I would interpret some of the harsher messages as, "I don't care how hard you worked or why you had to do it, but you ruined Bhuz, and you suck!" I'm sure that's not what people meant, but you know how it is with words on a screen.

Personally, the old Bhuz drove me up a wall. The login issue was a pain in the neck, and I'm active on about 5 forums on the web, and 4 of them worked in a really similar way, and Bhuz worked really differently. I am very happy to see Bhuz have simmilar functionality to all of the other forums I use. It streamlines the experience for me quite a lot.

[kina]

Originally Posted by antimony

Personally, the old Bhuz drove me up a wall. The login issue was a pain in the neck, and I'm active on about 5 forums on the web, and 4 of them worked in a really similar way, and Bhuz worked really differently. I am very happy to see Bhuz have simmilar functionality to all of the other forums I use. It streamlines the experience for me quite a lot.

But there are people who don't use those other forums because they run that way. I don't like orientaldancer.net (sorry). I do post on tribe, but it's not a real joy and I don't do it very often.

Bhuz was actually the only online community that I really valued and now it's gotten rid of all the things that made it unique and special.

The COMMUNITY piece of it is still there, but frankly, getting rid of what makes you unique and blending in isn't what made bhuz the "biggest" or "most active" forum on the web, a lot of it was ease of use. It was about content, the knowledgethar was concentrated. Avatars etc, while some people like them, are really not what bhuz was about.

And if it's the same as other forums, why then have bhuz at all?

[steffib]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by antimony

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I just know if I were Rosey, I would interpret some of the harsher messages as, "I don't care how hard you worked or why you had to do it, but you ruined Bhuz, and you suck!" I'm sure that's not what people meant, but you know how it is with words on a screen.