After site change, anyone else find themselves with no desire to go on anymore?

trnswrld · Sun Jul 03, 2016 7:22 pm

I am sad to say it, but after the site changed its format I literally have no desire to go on a.net anymore. I used to leave a.net up on my iPhone and would literally go on the site I would say once an hour. Now I am finding that I simply just do not go on here anymore. Honestly, I liked the old site MUCH more. Maybe just a slightly more updated forum layout would have been awesome. I know I am not a paying member so my opinion might not matter much, but I have been an a.net member for as long as I can remember and I ALWAYS looked forward to this site. Now I log on and the redesigned site loads up and I more often than not literally just close a.net

Am I the only that feels this way now?

Ytraveller · Mon Jul 04, 2016 9:20 am

Not me.

See this thread and go through the 28 pages, you will find many people who don't have my opinion. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1335263

WillianBH · Mon Jul 04, 2016 3:58 pm

Feeling the same. Pesky alert messages plus ads... I used to be a first class member.

Now I'm a first class member somewhere else.

I'm trying to delete my account.... I just hope to find out how to do it.

Birdwatching · Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:00 pm

Yes, same here. I used to be a VERY active member back on the old site, for more than 10 years, but ever since the relaunch I have been here maybe 2 or 3 times. The whole thing is SO screwed up, full of ads, and all the special atmosphere of the old site is gone. This will probably be my last post.

pwm2txlhopper · Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:22 pm

Feeling the same. I've been on Airliners.net since 1998, and I hate the new format. I use to visit almost daily, but recently, only once or twice a week.

My biggest smile gripe is just the way the Forums are layed out and displayed. I find it difficult to quickly browse the threads and new topics. There's just something about the design and layout that my brain can't as quickly scroll through the topics/threads to pick out what I want to read and what I don't.

I hate change. Why change something that's essentially been the same for 15+ years and worked fine? I wish the people who run this site would at least have an option you could select for the classic layout. At least in the forums.

speedbored · Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:30 pm

pwm2txlhopper wrote:
My biggest smile gripe is just the way the Forums are layed out and displayed. I find it difficult to quickly browse the threads and new topics. There's just something about the design and layout that my brain can't as quickly scroll through the topics/threads to pick out what I want to read and what I don't.

I hate change. Why change something that's essentially been the same for 15+ years and worked fine? I wish the people who run this site would at least have an option you could select for the classic layout. At least in the forums.

Try this: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1335851 It's far from perfect but it's a massive improvement on the euro-white-space theme.

Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:38 pm

pwm2txlhopper wrote:
I hate change. Why change something that's essentially been the same for 15+ years and worked fine? I wish the people who run this site would at least have an option you could select for the classic layout. At least in the forums.

It didn't work fine, it was severly broken as you can read if you care to read through "Report the bugs here" part 1-8.

It will look classic" as far as the current forum software allows, but it will never be exactly like before

JBo · Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:00 am

pwm2txlhopper wrote:
I hate change. Why change something that's essentially been the same for 15+ years and worked fine?

Because it didn't work fine and was extremely obsolete and out of date relative to today's current technology.

If things didn't change or evolve, we'd still be using Windows 98.

I don't like the color scheme on the new site, but other than that, it's fresh. I bet the forums are more stable from a tech viewpoint, and much easier to manage.

I don't come here as often as I used to mostly because I feel like the quality of the discussion has waned ... no doubt in part to some of the more knowledgable members of our community moving on to other things ... but I still enjoy coming around every so often to read what's newsworthy in the industry.

Revelation · Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:35 am

JBo wrote:
I don't like the color scheme on the new site, but other than that, it's fresh.

Almost no one likes the color scheme, it should have been changed in hours after the site launch if not days, but now it's been weeks.

If you give some credits for some of the 'fresh' things like avatars and different if not improved notification, you have to give demerits for the lack of multi-quote ("qoute selected text"), lack of individually numbered quotes (so you can click on a quote and go to its source), and some of the quirky customizations (IATA code detection and linking, huge set of smilies, etc) we've lost. And for bugs like the often raised issue of getting logged off too quickly. And lots of things that more modern fora have (feedback via like/dislike, embedded you-tube and twitter links detected and format appropriately, etc).

Well at least it understands https:// links, finally. Hurray!

ssteve · Wed Jul 06, 2016 3:08 am

Using sppedbored's patch to make the colors and vertical spacing tolerable, I've been able to use the forum as before.

The big issue for me now is that the forums are dead because most people have not gone to that trouble. So we're waiting for the promised theme update so that we can see if people return.

Revelation · Wed Jul 06, 2016 3:41 am

ssteve wrote:
The big issue for me now is that the forums are dead because most people have not gone to that trouble. So we're waiting for the promised theme update so that we can see if people return.

Imagine a restaurant where the kitchen facilities suck but the customers still enjoy eating there.

Then imagine it shuts down for a day or so.

Afterwords the food's more or less the same but it hurts to look at it for more than a few seconds and the plates are a few meters apart and they're surrounded by tacky ads.

And after every few bites you have to stop and show the staff your ID, and after you do this all the plates have been moved to another table.

And nothing's done about this for weeks.

It's hard to picture customers coming back, isn't it?

I guess I must be starving because I keep coming back, but it's sure lonely in here.

speedbored · Wed Jul 06, 2016 8:01 am

ssteve wrote:
The big issue for me now is that the forums are dead because most people have not gone to that trouble.

Revelation wrote:
but it's sure lonely in here.

I suspect that many people are still here but they are mostly just reading the few posts that are being made, and only posting an occasional reply. I know that's what I am doing now. Just look at the "who is in the forum" stats - there are usually ~20 times as many guests as logged in users.

The logging out issue just makes it too much like hard work to post anything more than an occasional reply. Not expediting a fix for that particular issue seems like commercial madness to me.

EA CO AS · Wed Jul 06, 2016 8:22 am

Revelation wrote:
ssteve wrote:
The big issue for me now is that the forums are dead because most people have not gone to that trouble. So we're waiting for the promised theme update so that we can see if people return.

Imagine a restaurant where the kitchen facilities suck but the customers still enjoy eating there.

Then imagine it shuts down for a day or so.

Afterwords the food's more or less the same but it hurts to look at it for more than a few seconds and the plates are a few meters apart and they're surrounded by tacky ads.

And after every few bites you have to stop and show the staff your ID, and after you do this all the plates have been moved to another table.

And nothing's done about this for weeks.

It's hard to picture customers coming back, isn't it?

I guess I must be starving because I keep coming back, but it's sure lonely in here.

Great analogy !

For those few who say they're enjoying the new site, I have just one question; haven't you noticed that the actual CONTENT from users has declined noticeably? The Civil Aviation forum had one major thing going for it, and that was the willingness of users - including industry professionals - to share their input and opinions on a regular basis.

That has changed drastically. The CONTENT just isn't there anymore, and it's sad.

RobK · Wed Jul 06, 2016 9:40 am

speedbored wrote:
I suspect that many people are still here but they are mostly just reading the few posts that are being made, and only posting an occasional reply. I know that's what I am doing now. Just look at the "who is in the forum" stats - there are usually ~20 times as many guests as logged in users.

The logging out issue just makes it too much like hard work to post anything more than an occasional reply. Not expediting a fix for that particular issue seems like commercial madness to me.

That's exactly it for me. The issue with being logged out after every visit is intensely annoying, further amplified by being forced to the homepage after re-logging instead of taking you to where you were. This gets old real fast and despite promises that "it's being looked into" it's clearly bullshit as a month has gone past and nothing has happened. There's hardly any content to read anyway since the change. It seems that the majority of the prolific posters have abandoned ship and simply given up. I mean, Farnborough is in full swing and usually there'd be a handful of sticky'd threads to discuss events there but no sign of any. I think it's fair to say that this site is done.

speedbored · Wed Jul 06, 2016 9:44 am

RobK wrote:
I mean, Farnborough is in full swing and usually there'd be a handful of sticky'd threads to discuss events there but no sign of any. I think it's fair to say that this site is done.

Actually, Farnborough doesn't start until next Monday

http://www.farnborough.com/

I'm sure there will be some interesting threads about it then.

RobK · Wed Jul 06, 2016 10:17 am

speedbored wrote:
RobK wrote:
I mean, Farnborough is in full swing and usually there'd be a handful of sticky'd threads to discuss events there but no sign of any. I think it's fair to say that this site is done.

Actually, Farnborough doesn't start until next Monday

http://www.farnborough.com/

I'm sure there will be some interesting threads about it then.

My point is that there is usually at least one thread already discussing visitors and the arrivals. That's just one example. There are countless other discussion topics that are either "missing" altogether or just been left to die as people have abandoned ship. I count 22 new posts in the civ av forum since I last visited last night which is nothing in comparison to the old site which would have been on the 2nd page by now.

Btw I tried to get that flag to fit in the my avatar but I couldn't find a good crop point for it. You've done a bit better but you've still got white bits showing round the edges. :lol:

PHX787 · Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:03 pm

Hey .... ive clearly been away from Airliners for way too long....and yeah, i feel like im gonna stay away for longer.

the site isnt what it used to be anymore, and i feel like it's just too commercialized with no direction, and definitely no intimacy anymore, like there was when I joined, a 4 short years ago.

I'll see yall on Youtube, I guess. I'll post trip report vids in the TR section as I've been doing for a while, but other than that, I'm pretty much a ghost on this site these days. if you need me for anything Japan related, HMU on the DMs here; i still occasionally get notifications about those.

See yall, PHX787

kanban · Fri Jul 08, 2016 4:59 pm

On the plus side some of the trolls have disappeared during the revision.. so discussions are bland.

two things I think are off putting for readers
1) the repeating banner on each post that takes up so much space and severely limits the number of posts that can be read at one time
2) the tiny font for the posts coupled with the barely visible links.. I hate having to reset my screen size everytime

On the other side there must be a error because I've stayed logged in for 4 days now..

Dalmd88 · Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:11 pm

The content has suffered. I've been here since 2000 as a member, but have been looking at this site since 1998. Very little is getting added as of late and it is very hard to quickly scan down through the posts to see what topics are being discussed. I tend to walk away quicker. I just don't feel like taking the time to scroll through multiple pages which would have been half a page on the old site.

RobK · Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:16 pm

AirKas1 promised in one of his other posts this week that the forum colour scheme would be returned to the familiar blue by the end of the week. I guess that's another lie then.

airkas1 · Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:59 pm

RobK wrote:
AirKas1 promised in one of his other posts this week that the forum colour scheme would be returned to the familiar blue by the end of the week. I guess that's another lie then.

Which I already wrote an update about a few days ago... viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1335403
Either way, I'm just relaying the info that is given to us.

mariner · Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:31 pm

EA CO AS wrote:
For those few who say they're enjoying the new site, I have just one question; haven't you noticed that the actual CONTENT from users has declined noticeably? The Civil Aviation forum had one major thing going for it, and that was the willingness of users - including industry professionals - to share their input and opinions on a regular basis.

That has changed drastically. The CONTENT just isn't there anymore, and it's sad.

Count me as one of your claimed "few" - the new site works just fine for me. It took me a day or three to get used to it and learn how to use it, and now I'm having as much fun as I ever did.

As to "content" - of the two threads I have bookmarked, one - "NZ Aviation" - is buzzing along nicely, while the other - "Australian Aviation" - has certainly faded. Does that say something about the difference between Kiwis and Aussies?

As always, the site will be what people make it.

mariner

EA CO AS · Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:39 pm

mariner wrote:
EA CO AS wrote:
For those few who say they're enjoying the new site, I have just one question; haven't you noticed that the actual CONTENT from users has declined noticeably? The Civil Aviation forum had one major thing going for it, and that was the willingness of users - including industry professionals - to share their input and opinions on a regular basis.

That has changed drastically. The CONTENT just isn't there anymore, and it's sad.

Count me as one of your claimed "few" - the new site works just fine for me. It took me a day or three to get used to it and learn how to use it, and now I'm having as much fun as I ever did.

As to "content" - of the two threads I have bookmarked, one - "NZ Aviation" - is buzzing along nicely, while the other - "Australian Aviation" - has certainly faded. Does that say something about the difference between Kiwis and Aussies?

As always, the site will be what people make it.

mariner

"....what people make it."

Exactly.

So what happens when the changes made here result in far fewer people here than before? The level and quality of discourse decreases noticeably.

As you've already alluded to seeing.

It's sad.

mariner · Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:47 pm

EA CO AS wrote:
So what happens when the changes made here result in far fewer people here than before? The level and quality of discourse decreases noticeably.

As you've already alluded to seeing.

It's sad.

That's something of a misreading of what I said. The NZ thread is buzzing along. In the case of the Australian thread it may be that not much is happening in Australian aviation.

The comment I made about the difference between Kiwis and Aussies was intended as a joke, to lighten things up, but I guess levity is rare here these days.

mariner

vikkyvik · Mon Jul 11, 2016 2:59 am

RobK wrote:
AirKas1 promised in one of his other posts this week that the forum colour scheme would be returned to the familiar blue by the end of the week. I guess that's another lie then.

Kas is a photo screener. He is not in charge of, or involved with, development on the site. He is going far above and beyond any other crew member in posting updates and keeping us informed of bug fixes, etc.

Don't make the mistake of blaming him for the info provided.

Anyway, just wanted to post that. To answer the original question, I'm not posting much at all right now, and I'm not uploading photos at all. Not reading the forums much or looking at photos much. Basically just skimming the few threads related to the site upgrade.

Many reasons for that, and I'm not really going to blame anyone. It's my own choice whether I spend time on here or not. So if I don't like the changes, I won't spend time here. It is what it is.

kulverstukas · Mon Jul 11, 2016 10:23 am

vikkyvik wrote:

... I'm not posting much at all right now, and I'm not uploading photos at all. Not reading the forums much or looking at photos much. Basically just skimming the few threads related to the site upgrade.

+1 (and now this site deserves such kind of language :twisted:

)

vikkyvik wrote:
So if I don't like the changes, I won't spend time here. It is what it is.

And this is the best way to bury site fast.

Mcmax · Tue Jul 12, 2016 2:48 am

EA CO AS wrote:
Exactly.

So what happens when the changes made here result in far fewer people here than before? The level and quality of discourse decreases noticeably.

As you've already alluded to seeing.

It's sad.

To reiterate what someone said earlier, I used to check A.net several times a day. Now, I'm lucky if I check it once every few days. The things that bug me the most with the new site:

Oh well, things change. I'm not abandoning A.net--yet--but it's lost a lot of its fun. (Although it's nice they changed the color back to blue today. That white background was awful.)

--Max

vikkyvik · Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:09 am

kulverstukas wrote:
vikkyvik wrote: So if I don't like the changes, I won't spend time here. It is what it is.And this is the best way to bury site fast.

To be clear, that's not my intent. I hope the site continues on, actually. I just may not visit or participate as much. Who knows.

zululima · Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:09 am

I have been gone since day one of the latest "upgrade". It was so godawful I decided to boycott until Demand Media hired some competent designers. They have made the site simply unusable. Not just ugly, but broken, muddled, and the least intuitive website I have ever seen. The truth is that the old site, even before DM did their first "upgrade", was obsolete. What it did have, however, was great "bones" and could have been transformed into something excellent. There were things that no other forum had, that were outstanding, and should have been kept, and improved upon. Instead, they discarded all of that and tried to appeal to "modern sensibilities" by copying every hipster-twat website and app of the past two years (eg. the entire site is a waste of physical space that demands an ass-load of scrolling) and came away with this awful, hard to navigate, cancerous to behold, broken piece of garbage. I came back today to see the "major fix" that some are fawning over, only to find nothing but a few forum fixes. Basics such as my profile and photo album are a flaming wreck. What was once my #1-go-to website, I now hope fails entirely, because without basic functionality, there is nothing here for me to do or enjoy. Be a smart rat; leave this sinking ship while you can. Don't invest any more time or effort in helping DM make money. They don't deserve it.

Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:37 am

zululima wrote:

What is broken with the profile and photo albums?
And maybe you could provide some constructive feedback that helps improve the site rather that just stating it's crap?

airkas1 · Tue Jul 12, 2016 9:29 am

Mcmax wrote:
* The little flag indicating where someone was allegedly from is gone. That little flag was very helpful to me in determining any potential bias of the user in their comments. Now, it's nearly impossible to get insight as to why a poster might have said what they said.
* On the mobile version, the thread titles aren't hyphenated or justified--they just run from one line to the other, often splitting words. This drives me nuts.

Hi Max,

I've put your suggestions on the list, thanks.

kulverstukas · Tue Jul 12, 2016 10:37 am

vikkyvik wrote:
kulverstukas wrote:
vikkyvik wrote: So if I don't like the changes, I won't spend time here. It is what it is.And this is the best way to bury site fast.

To be clear, that's not my intent. I hope the site continues on, actually. I just may not visit or participate as much. Who knows.

I don't want to bury A.net too but it's beyond mine or your control. And when I see people happily jumping in main complain thread about blue is back just reminds me old joke about A Rabbi and A Goat. As an example of developers quality just look at this reply box which is still black on white despite "blue is back". So I'm sorry but it's just another $17 skin not "three weeks hard work of developers".

I think that developers and management which decided on this rebuild clearly see what they done (at least by sharp drop of traffic dependent income), so changes will be made to some level when balance between what they are ready to spend and what community is compelled to accept will be reached. For me this margin is not at the forums but at level of improvement DM is ready to make to photo viewer engine. Unfortunately, when me and couple other photographers complain about dull and soft look of resized photos, especially prominent on the main page, crew answered with "what are you talking about" look.

airkas1 · Tue Jul 12, 2016 10:43 am

kulverstukas wrote:
Unfortunately, when me and couple other photographers complain about dull and soft look of resized photos, especially prominent on the main page, crew answered with "what are you talking about" look.

- I only saw you post that, not also 'a couple of others'(?).
- You were hard to understand, which is why I replied that I didn't get it.
- Post examples then, in stead of just the remark. Makes things a lot easier.

kulverstukas · Tue Jul 12, 2016 11:27 am

I refer to five top photos which rotates on main page. What can be much clear? You can however answer that you don't see any wrong with them.

airkas1 · Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:03 pm

kulverstukas wrote:
I refer to five top photos which rotates on main page. What can be much clear? You can however answer that you don't see any wrong with them.

I will investigate.

kulverstukas · Tue Jul 12, 2016 2:02 pm

Thanks, Kas.

EPA001 · Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:10 pm

With the blue color back in place, and quite some issues solved now, I guess life will go back to normal regarding the use of www.airliners.net.

rugger · Wed Jul 13, 2016 1:11 am

This is an improvement at least as far as the visualization goes.....maybe there is hope yet.

dev0null0 · Wed Jul 13, 2016 1:36 pm

At first I felt the same. Took me a while to understand where all the features had gone.
But now I've found most of them, I'm ok.
I'd absolutely recommend to let a gifted designer review the start page though.
Really comes across like a kids wordpress blog now.

airkas1 · Thu Jul 14, 2016 5:30 am

airkas1 wrote:
kulverstukas wrote:
I refer to five top photos which rotates on main page. What can be much clear? You can however answer that you don't see any wrong with them.

I will investigate.

Alex,

I just noticed the following item listed on our fix-list:
Image quality of the "Top Photo" on the main page. The stretching of the photo to make it fit the frame lowers the quality which is not a good first impression when visiting the site (LINE 34 DUP)

This was entered by a crew members. Does that confirm things for you?
It's marked as high priority, but I don't know what LINE 34 DUP means (this was added by a developer I think).

Thu Jul 14, 2016 6:35 am

Line 34 DUP means it's a duplicate issue that can also be found on line line 34 in the spreadsheet Kas

airkas1 · Thu Jul 14, 2016 6:38 am

JohnKrist wrote:
Line 34 DUP means it's a duplicate issue that can also be found on line line 34 in the spreadsheet Kas

LOL. So I see...

kulverstukas · Thu Jul 14, 2016 7:37 am

Thanks guys. Also seems a lot of problems with incompatibilty of site and IE11

ezola · Tue Aug 02, 2016 5:04 am

removed

kulverstukas · Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:35 am

airkas1 wrote:
airkas1 wrote:
kulverstukas wrote:
I refer to five top photos which rotates on main page. What can be much clear? You can however answer that you don't see any wrong with them.

I will investigate.

Alex,

I just noticed the following item listed on our fix-list:
Image quality of the "Top Photo" on the main page. The stretching of the photo to make it fit the frame lowers the quality which is not a good first impression when visiting the site (LINE 34 DUP)

This was entered by a crew members. Does that confirm things for you?
It's marked as high priority, but I don't know what LINE 34 DUP means (this was added by a developer I think).

So wrong framing and awful resizing of top photos is now repaired by just removing large top photo view from the main page. Great solution guys, continue this way and make Anet great again.

mh330fc · Wed Aug 03, 2016 5:48 am

I hate the new site. Adds all over. No option for small pictures to view quicker. I used to be a first class member too. That was great as there was no adds. The new site is slow. I used to visit the site a few times daily. I was very active. Now, the site is an irritation. Slow, adds, difficult to browse quickly. I now prefer to google the pictures I like instead of using airliners.net to search photos.
This is so disappointing as I loved this site.

airkas1 · Wed Aug 03, 2016 7:30 am

kulverstukas wrote:
So wrong framing and awful resizing of top photos is now repaired by just removing large top photo view from the main page. Great solution guys, continue this way and make Anet great again.

No offense, but...

kulverstukas · Wed Aug 03, 2016 11:24 am

A man goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?"
The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you." The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week." A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "We cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy." The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week."

A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there's no goat -- only the nine of us."

airkas1 · Wed Aug 03, 2016 11:47 am

.. Can you please just reply in normal words in stead of making those quotes the whole time? It's a lot easier and less time consuming to read and understand what you're trying to say. I still don't really know what you meant now.

lesfalls · Fri Aug 05, 2016 11:45 am

I like the new site a lot. The only thing I miss is that it used to show where every member was from and now it isn't there anymore.

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