Are you posting less or more now?

just collapse thoes threads and thatll keep an abbreviated list of original topics. Themn if you respond you can collapse those also.

hey mame

there always seem to be more people online.... but to me, seems a lot less posting.

There still seems to be quite a bit of venom around about the election too. Can't get into that at all.

Where'd the fun threads go? Maybe I'm justing missing them as they roll of the first page, don't usually check later pages.

mame wrote :



i certainly don't find it easy to keep a thread going now .
under the old a2k , there were threads running on-and-on . many posters would pick up a thread and add interesting thoughts , facts and ideas .
the way i see it , now many threads (posts) are duplicated and repeated .
we used to point out that "thread XXX" is already there .
now i find it difficult to find out if a thread on a certain topic has already been started .

as a matter of fact i've even started to ignore my own , old thread (such as : afghanistan) since the response rate is just about ZERO . i understand that postings to old threads simply don't show up under "new posts" - so a new poster has no idea that a thread already exists .

i wonder why the new a2k no longer has a true overview of the major subjects .
i know there are tags , but they don't seem to appear in any particular order .
when i do go to tags , there is just a hodgepodge of them . i usually don''t even bother to look at them .

considering that for entertainment purposes i now post on word and other games , i probably post just as much - but certainly not with the same purpose of learning and exchanging ideas .

it's supposed to be be more user friendly , i understand , but to me a2k has become a book without a list of chapters and without a proper index (it's somewhat like a book where the index is not in alphabetical order - i wouldn't like that either ) .

still , since i hope i've made some friends , i'll probably stick around - hoping for the re-surrection of pm's .

i'm probably an old dog who won't learn (many) new tricks anymore - but i can still bark on occasion - more like a growl .
hbg

I have a question. Presently there are 745 people online but very few are actually posting. Who's kidding who?

I think PM's ought to be a priority...

but I think maybe getting more people online is what's considered more important.

Shame really - PMing was so much easier than emailing!

This is also how I feel. The old site did a better job of showcasing the topics and the new site feels more fluffy. I also rarely get beyond the first page of titles, even if I have been away a few days. I also would like PM's back and a place that shows who is on-line, who is new and all those other odds and ends. I also wish all the regulars would put their avatars back (hint hint farmerman, Kicky, Ragman etc), My favorite thing about the new site is the ignore feature.

i would GLADLY trade the demise of the "ignore" feature for pm's or even a decent "frontpage" .
i could always do my own "ignore" but find it difficult to construct a frontpage - i've actually wondered if i should try my own alpha bookmarking - but it would take quite a bit of doing to keep it up-to-date .
just waiting ... ...
hbg

a hell of a lot less.

Most times its deliberate. It just seems as though the site is not meant for 'fun' anymore. More geared for news stories and a bit of a stuffed shirt discussion.

new site may mean more naked people.
Im in if that happens.

Being a former technical writer and current photographer, I've found the lack of organization (index and chapter non-structure) a bit apalling and frustrating. If it were a book, I'd never have read past the first few pages.

As for my lack of carrying over my avatar, I just gave up. The space alloted for avatars is far too tiny. Can the overhead of bandwidth be that critical not to allow about 50% more space for avatars?

It's like a pub makeover. Or even a lady.

You make of it what you can.

Ragman, I agree with you about the structure and organization. It is not very alluring. The site needs a better cover to get people to look inside and better structure to keep them around. I also seem to find new people by accident, it seemed easier to spot them before.

I do wish you would do an avatar. It just makes communicating more personal and cozy. I had to trim my boobs and belly to fit, but I did it.

Is this too small for you?

They are working on a cover/home page.
The organization seems beyond simple to me, especially once some of the oldie threads in the different forums are tagged more completely.
In the meantime, look to your left on the Topics page, most of the old forums are there. Sports isn't, so put sports into the Search box. How damn hard is that?
If you want to look up a particular word, like pumpkin, or thanksgiving, put it in the search tags box to the left.

For me, between the politics threads and the endless bellyaching, there is a degree of ennui.

Well, I chose large just now for my avatar. Looks like they all show up large.
You want to see a portrait, click on people's screen names.

Good to know. I look forward to it.

The political threads got to be a bit much, but they also kept things lively. I'm waiting to see what will be the next dominating force.

Why don't we file a petition to have an equivalent forum style like the old one
and everyone who agrees signs their name underneath. If the majority wants
the old design or something equivalent, then it should be done.

It definitely is a lot more work here, from tagging, using emoticons and other
BBCodes to finding topics and sub categories and so on. I am scrolling
way too much here. We have less amenities like private messages and search functions and no sub categories we can see at a glance. Except for the ignore
feature, we the user have gained far less from this switch over than the
computer geeks who love tagging.

The new design is not user friendly - period!

way less here...for awhile now...

PMs are also coming at some point, and I think email updates are arriving more immediately. I get this by following the blog, see the bottom of the page. I admit I preferred when that was at the top right with the chubby hamster.

If I go to the frontpage, and I look at the left of the screen where it says "popular tags", I see this list:

# politics
# english
# humor
# human interest stories
# computers
# relationships
# news
# original writing
# science and math
# international news
# spirituality and religion
# philosophy and debate
# health
# music
# trivia and word games
# languages
# riddles
# food and drink
# movies
# internet

How is this different from the forum listing on the old site? It's pretty much the same labels.



On the front page everyone can choose what they want to see. Look at the blue bar at the top, just under "able2know - All Topics". It says "Topic age", and then you can choose Day, Week, Month, Year or All Time. If you click on Day, you will only see topics that were started today. If you click Week, you will only see topics that were started this week. If you click All Time, you will see all topics started ever.

At the right of the same blue bar, you see a drop-down menu. Set it to "New Posts", and you see the threads that were last posted to. Set it to "New Topics", and you see the threads that were last started. Etcetera.

People have a lot more freedom of choice now in how they want to experience the site. The flip side of that is that there's less of a common experience - as in, everyone sees and notices the same things and can talk about it together. It's kind of like the history of TV. In the old days, you had just two stations, and the next day at work everyone talked about the same show. Now, with the networks and satellite and digital and whatnot, you can watch just about anything you want -- but yeah, you dont have that cosiness of being in it all together anymore.

-----------------

That said, I've gotten kinda impatient about people still complaining about basic stuff that, I'm sorry, takes about 5 mins to figure out. And I know not everyone is a tech whizz or anything, I wouldnt expect anyone to be, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the options in the blue bar that I mentioned above, for example. It's been months since they've been there, they take 5 or 10 mins to try out, and they've been explained in a dozen threads. So what's the deal with this kind of thing?

I can kinda empathise cause I dont like change much myself, in general. Certainly not in my personal life. But I mean, Able2know hadnt changed or modernised at all for, like, five years. Look at the CNN or the BBC or the, I dunno, Amazon or Walmart site, they look nothing like they did five years ago either, and they've got new features and functions and lay-outs all the time - and yet you all use sites like those, right? Is it because A2K is more like a personal home, and so change feels more invasive?

Geez. you too? How much harder is it to get an emoticon now than it was before when you had to press (I forget what button, but not the quick reply) and pick one to the left? The emoticon button is right there on the only reply page.

The search functions are just about better now - and will get better with more tagging. I can look up the word spinach and find three specific threads. I can use a phrase at the a2k googler at the top of the page and usually find it. The searching is going to be infinitely better.

This is not a majority rules site. The new format is much more accommodating in reach than the old one ever could be - Robert explained all that. They seem to be listening about tweaks. Aach, I'm no apologist, I just like the plasticity of the new format, and I think the home page/whatever they'll call it, the grid thing they've talked about, and the pms and the email updates for those who want them will help.