OT: TMF satisfaction poll

[PucksFool]

How satisfied are you with the new TMF boards now that we are a few weeks in?

• Very satisfied
• Somewhat satisfied
• Indifferent - pants option
• Somewhat dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied

[Goofyhoofy]

Isn’t it great? The new software is doing better than LizTruss!

Of course the people of Britain can get rid of Liz Truss if they want.

[bjurasz]

I still don’t find ANYTHING about the old board’s software that is better than what we have now.

[WendyBG]

The new software is missing functions that I used every day.

1. Best Of. I used this to find posts in the flow of METAR that were off-topic (especially political) since they tended to elicit a lot of emotions and recs. I also used Best Of to find especially interesting posts on boards I don’t usually frequent.

2. Chronological sorting of threads. I want to see new threads in the order that they were posted, not old threads that have a new post added to the end. I want to be able to consolidate threads, not have the new posts scattered and disorganized.

Wendy

[Leap1]

Wendy,

I am not popular. Or my brand of the truth is not popular. I am not stuck in an ideology that was all lies from day one.

The features some people are missing entertained a popularity contest. Very often the content was really bad. Sometimes the content was good. It was all very repetitive.

The main thing for the fool, old walruses were not good marketing towards the millennials.

[Goofyhoofy]

@bjurasz

I still don’t find ANYTHING about the old board’s software that is better than what we have now.

1. No “Best Of” list.
2. The ability to find valued posters among the chaff without having to scroll through everything.
3. Boards were called “boards”. Posts were called “posts.”
4. Mungofitch gone.
5. Inability to order threads in chronological order.
6. Inability to use anything but “whole thread” mode.
7. Can’t send private e-mails to posters.
8. No “saved for later reply.”
9. Confusing jumble of threads presented each time.
10. No message counts.
11. “My posts” doesn’t show recs, so no indication of engagement.
12. And so on.

[HaltCatchFire]

Change for the better:

1. Ability to edit posts.
2. Ability to add graphics and web page previews inline.
3. Compose in Markdown (which I use every day for work) vs. HTML.

Change for the worse:

1. Inability to sort message chronologically.
2. Inability to view posts in threaded mode, so I can browse by number of recs vs. scrolling through everything.
3. Losing valued members like Mungofitch. That’s a catastrophe. There are likely others.

None of this is a deal breaker for me, but I do find I spend a lot less time here than I used to.

Regards,

– HCF

[rainphakir]

@Goofyhoofy

No “saved for later reply.”

There’s a hack for that = Bookmark the post/topic

How to bookmark, and then find your bookmark:

At the bottom of the target post, click the ellipsis (…), which will expand some icon/symbol options, then, click the bookmark banner thingy.

Later, when you’re ready to review, ponder, and reply, click your Avatar, select the bookmark banner thingy from the symbols/icons on the right side (I’m on a mobile… on a computer these might be elsewhere?).
You’ll get a list of topics/posts you’ve bookmarked… much like the old “save for later Reply”.

ralph
?

[5761796E65]

@WendyBG

Chronological sorting of threads. I want to see new threads in the order that they were posted, not old threads that have a new post added to the end.

I found a URL parameter to do this. Just add “?order=created” to the end of a Category URL like: Macro Economic Trends and Risks - Motley Fool Community

I’m trying to understand how useful it is. How would you notice replies to an older thread? Would you scroll back weeks or months just in case a reply had been made?

[Raylight]

It’s useful. Switching between latest and created gives you pretty good access to both new posts and older ones with new activity. But I do wonder… does anyone with authority read these things? Noticed it’s been two weeks since I first posted about this:

Unthreaded View

Thanks for taking your time to look into this! I did a quick search on Discourse and found lots of requests and questions regarding created date. I found a way to sort topics by creation date. Sort by latest and append ?order=created to the URL. Seem like a created date column could be added via theme (it’s in the HTML and shown on mouse-over). Haven’t looked into it, though.

…and have brought this solution up several times. I mean, people are asking for it and all that’s needed to make this user friendly is a button.

I’ve now found a decent solution for “Best of”. Haven’t found the time to write a how to about it yet.

[Leap1]

The old timers popularity contests were the worst. No really content, some chest beating. Time to move over for new investors. I am really interested in seeing millennials come in here and add to the content quality.

[ImAGolfer]

@Goofyhoofy

**
1**. Boards were called “boards”. Posts were called “posts.”**

@Goofyhoofy

• Confusing jumble of threads presented each time.
  *** No message counts.**

**

I hear ya bro. Glad someone else noticed. Cheers.

[mschmit]

@Leap1

I am really interested in seeing millennials come in here and add to the content quality.

[Leap1]

Mike,

I will leave the hot air to others. I am sure the next crowd coming in want to hear it. Just insist they hear it.

[TucsonBones]

@Goofyhoofy

The new software is doing better than LizTruss!

British news outlets opined that her time in office might not out outlast the shelf life of lettuce.

[inparadise]

Along with many already mentioned, I really miss “ignore thread.” No matter how often I scroll down to the bottom to eliminate the current thread, it pops back up again as soon as a new post is made on that thread.

[albaby1]

@Leap1

I am sure the next crowd coming in want to hear it.

There’s no “next crowd.”

The freemium boards (are they still freemium?) are being maintained as a courtesy to the folks who still spend time here. But message boards as a medium, however modernized, are not really something that appeal to users other than us old-timey folks who “grew up” with them on the internet. Message boards thrived in a world before social media platforms; they’re not built to pull younger users away from other places.

TMF isn’t promoting these boards in any of their other content. They’re not making any visible effort to get more folks to use them. You can track the number of users of the boards - it’s tiny, and it’s not really growing. And there’s no indication that TMF is going to do anything to change that.

This isn’t the beginning of a renewal of the TMF boards. It’s just a way of allowing them to continue diminishing on their own, as users gradually fall away.

[inparadise]

@albaby1

This isn’t the beginning of a renewal of the TMF boards. It’s just a way of allowing them to continue diminishing on their own, as users gradually fall away.

Then why spend the money to make the change?

[LifeOfDreamer]

I can do gifs now…

[albaby1]

@inparadise

Then why spend the money to make the change?

They needed to make the change for the premium boards no matter what. So I suspect there’s very little additional marginal cost to porting the free boards over, once you’re already doing that for the premium boards.

There might even be enough active free-board users that also pay for TMF’s premium/subscription content (mostly on Saul’s board, I expect) that it’s worth the modest cost to not take their board away. But I suspect it’s just that once the decision was made to upgrade the pay boards, adding in the free boards was basically a trivial additional expense.