New Forum Feedback - Part II

Thanks for posting this information Peter.

I understand that Hoop.la want our feedback, but isn't that the point of this thread, ie, collect everything here, have someone at Naim (Richard ?) parse the comments and then summarize it all for Hoopla. But if a bunch of us start providing feedback directly to Hoopla (and I know it's very tempting), I can see it quickly turning into a real mess, for both parties.

Jan

The way the Multi Quote function works successfully on other forums is quite simple:

You select with the plus sign as many post as you want to quote within a given thread (irrespective of the page they're on). When your done you press Reply and all your quotes are nicely lined up in the pop up box in the order you selected them with the plus signs. In other words you could quote a post from page 3 first and have it followed by a post from page 2 if you so desire.

In addition,

it would be nice if you had the option to highlight parts of each post that you wanted, instead of having to copy entire posts only to have to edit them down.

Not essential, but as I said, a nice option.

Cheers

Don

I started that thread to express my own opinion on what was happening. I don't think it will be at all productive to turn it into yet another rammy. No point in yet another unfocussed repetitive stream of complaints. There are facilities on that site to raise issues and ask questions but whether Paul would like us to go in that direction is another matter. Maybe it's better to leave him to slog it out with them. Might be interesting to get his opinion.
It would all be much simpler if we had a list of known issues and what had been done or was going to be done about them as I originally suggested quite some time ago. This is the norm and the more I see of this crowd's practices the more I question their competence.

Incidentally I see they're now asking an individual from this board how the quote system should work. Unbelievable. I hope Paul has seen this. It's not the way to go about it.

I've just loadeed IE9 on SWMBO's Lap top , so thoght I'd have a look here, on it.

Interestingly?, when I back page from a read thread it shows it as being read, my other rig doesn't.

I must say it looks fine so far.


Edit is OK.

It would be nice to have a 'FORUMS' button, and thread title at the bottom   of the page too.


This setup is Win Vista Pro / IE9,

Any issues should be reported either here or directly to Naim.  Members taking up issues directly with Hoop-La, while no doubt done with the best of intentions, will, at best cause confusion, and at worst, end up causing merry havoc.

Naim Marketing collate the data from this thread as well as any other issues or suggestions reported to them and then they report this to Hoop-La.  As for me, I also contribute to this process, although I am more directly involved in trying to sort out some of the background bits you don't get to see, but which (should) make administrating and moderating the forum a bit easier.  Right now it's a bit of a struggle, but progress is being made and Hoop-La are, bit by bit, sorting the bugs and developing the tools that are needed...

For the last two days I was only able to view the forum from my iPad. I've gotten used to not being able to quote, view the menu bar or easily post pics, but now even reply does not work for me any more.

Do other iPad users have the same experience? 

Reply works for me, using my ipad Alain

Thanks, wonder why it stopped working for me.

Richard,
How on earth has this situation come about? Did somebody just assume that all the features we used to have would still be there? Was there no spec drawn up? It's not just that a few features have accidentally been omitted. They're having to implement from scratch proper search and quote functions. I don't understand how you've got yourselves into this mess.

The quote button in the bottom right hand corner of a post now works in both Safari and Firefox. However the quote in the Post Reply form doesn't work in either Safari or Firefox.  Previously it worked in Firefox but not Safari.

Jeremy

I'm not sure if there is general awareness of how web projects get done here in Silicon Valley. Because so much of the actual coding is contracted the work does take some time to schedule if it is to be done at reasonably low cost and the code itself may not be re-usable or readily maintained.

The reply button seems to be working for me again in Opera however the widgets still haven't shown their face yet

Post Reply working here too on Win7 in Opera but also no widgets!

Jeremy,
I'd accept that if we were asking for some outrageously unusual functionality but to be lacking a quote and search, features that every other board on the web possesses, is just plain weird. You're surely not suggesting that these have to be custom written each time.

When you replace your (Ford/BMW/Merc/Whatever) car with a newer model, you expect the new model to build on the strengthes of the old model and possibly incorporate new developments that have been properly designed and tested. Occasionally things go tits up - eg RR Trent 900 engines on Virgin A380s and a few Honda re-calls. But generally things go fairly well.

As customers, we don't expect to have to start from scratch with a new functional spec, nor do we expect to have to accept a prototype, nor do we expect to have to provide feedback whilst a bespoke design is developed and implented. Such a process would be intollerable and detract from the funtionality/usability of the product (A380/car/forum).

I'm sure Naim enterd into a deal with Hoop.la in good faith, (just as you would for a new car) assuming that the new forum would be fully functional and at least as good as the old forum. Having visited the Hoop.la site, I wouldn't recommend them to anybody. Naim have my symathies.

Cheers

Don

As a software professional with over 30 years experience as both a customer and a supplier, I would say that you do not enter into an IT procurement in good faith. You DO  enter with an agreed specification, development, test, acceptance and delivery plans. Either Naim have been niave in the extreme or Hoop.la are taking them for an almighty ride. And as for the assetion that "the code itself may not be re-usable or readily maintained" I'm appalled! Code that cannot be maintained should never ever find its way into a 'product' (I use the term very loosely regarding this forum) - this shows a complete lack of understanding of even the most basic IT development principles. It is no wonder this forum is struggling.

Davidge, my point exactly.

Unfortunately it appears as an amateurish attempt, and really that is an insult to amateurs.

I'm sure the bid went "can you please provide a new forum that looks flash ,but only has minimal functionality". 

Assuming that's happened then they succeeded in spades.

The only way I can make anything vaguely sensible out of this is if Hoop La told Naim the old Eve platform was no longer going to be supported, and that Naim would have to move to this version. They would have Naim over a barrel as the thought of migrating the historic forum to another developers software would be truly daunting for Naim.

Doesn't explain why Naim accepted moving to such a poor platform with out thoroughly testing it first, unless they were given a ludicrous brickewall deadline for the move.

Or it was cheap.................

 Free is beginning to look expensive IMO.

Buy cheap buy twice as an illustrious member was fond of saying. He's certainly right in this case.

Ok, problem solved, sort of.

When the new forum launched I would get the reply box opening up on my iPad wherever I was on the page when I pressed reply (as it should IMHO). Now for some reason the reply box opens at the top of the page but without guiding me there. So if I'm on the bottom of the page and press reply it looks like nothing is happening, once I scroll all the way up to the top of the page I will find the reply box there. Oh well.

Hi everyone, I just posted a new topic in the forum at 20:32 UK time, and it appears on the forum at 12:32 as being posted at 12:32. In the same way , the latest posts I can see are marked from today at 12: 34, etc. Is it normal, or is it that I should change something in my settings? Thanks for your help Arnaud