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Srsly_Bro
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Re: Something's different...

Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:24 pm

drfish wrote:
We've done what we can. I'm not freaking out because I know why the dev hasn't made any other moves yet (it's logical, but it's not my information to share). However, except for that, I'm in the same boat as the rest of you, waiting to see if what we all want will be implemented. Just chugging along for now.


Area your in denial, anger or depression phase?
 
haakon_k
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Re: Something's different...

Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:42 pm

drfish wrote:
We've done what we can. I'm not freaking out because I know why the dev hasn't made any other moves yet (it's logical, but it's not my information to share). However, except for that, I'm in the same boat as the rest of you, waiting to see if what we all want will be implemented. Just chugging along for now.


Hey man, i'm sooo tempted to salute you with summ paraphrasing from old D.Adams, but since that would not be also for the mates, I'd rather insert a random humoristic quote here;

"I said I would stop it with the sexual innuendos, but it's hard - so hard!"

It's not totally random though, taken from another great website, ' T-Shirt hell - where all the bad T-shirts go... ' Check it out, it will make your day if you haven't already been there, some really good and naughty ones there indeed !

"Slavery gets s**t done" w/ graphic of the pyramids

Let's talk about potassium ...K

Many more true gems, sorry for derailing
 
notfred
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Re: Something's different...

Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:40 pm

So there are 2 separate things being discussed in this thread:

1) The new site look.
Yes, it sucks. The thing is every new site look always sucks at first. Then some time down the line when there is another makeover everyone always wants to go back to the one they said sucked when it first rolled out. Yes, there have been somethings that have been monstrously bad in this makeover, but at least some of them have been addressed. I'm not too concerned about this, it will get better with time and we will grow used to it.

2) The lack of intros from the new owners, and that horrificly tone-deaf piece from Renee.
TR up until now has been run by geeks for geeks. Given what I've Googled of the new owners and their lack of intros, I'm worried that TR is now owned by some marketing slimeballs who are viewing us as cattle to make them rich. I've held off posting this for the past week hoping to be proven wrong, but I'm not seeing anything to dissuade me from that view. I'm extremely concerned about this. I thought those interview questions that Fish posted would have made for a perfect intro. Even a piece saying that yes they were the new owners but that they were going to be hands off with regards to the content and the regular contributors were going to continue posting articles would have been nice.
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: Something's different...

Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:29 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
There's a great version of that on Get Your YaYas Out.

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of news and 'views. ;)
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Twittering away the day at @TVsBen
 
Yan
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Re: Something's different...

Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:23 pm

notfred wrote:
2) The lack of intros from the new owners, and that horrificly tone-deaf piece from Renee.

At least Renee has stopped posting, which is progress, I think.

(I don't want to be too harsh on her, and in fact I defended her in a way, but she obviously didn't understand the audience.)
 
fyo
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 4:25 am

Somewhat tangental to the whole complaints and venting of anger and frustration...

It's clear that the current group of readers isn't anywhere near enough to enable Tech Report to stay afloat, let alone grow. Realistically, turning the site into one big click-bait machine would be more profitable.

What can be done to grow the readership? I know we're all dying to know what the new owners have planned, but in a vacuum, we might as well speculate on that as keep voicing the same complaints. Oddly, this abrupt change-over to the site has significantly increased my "engagement" with the site: Although I've checked TR (there is no dash in the tech report, damnit! except there was! and it still redirects if you include www prefix!) almost daily since late '99, this post marks just my 51st on the forums. Sure, there have been the odd article comments, but I'm pretty much a full-on lurker.

But lurkers like me, and even subscribers like many of those posting in this thread, aren't enough. Not nearly.

Really, the site needs more content. But without a sufficient reader base, that's a big ask. I saw at very close hand how Tom's and Anandtech grew and there's a reason I visit those sites once or twice a year and TR daily. Many of us old-timers here have seen how many of the new sites have grown and the things they have done to enable that growth and I for one am thrilled that TR hasn't gone down that road.

But TR is an established site with a (very small) core group of readers. How do you change ANYTHING without pissing off everyone who currently loves TR? What will it take to attract a new (and probably younger, let's face it) audience? Preferably something that won't drive away the rest of us?

I really don't have any answers other than platitudes like "organic growth", "content first", "more content", "reader engagement", blah blah blah. Worthless.

And, although I may have skipped a page or two in this thread by accident, I haven't seen any bright ideas here, either.

So, regardless of what the owners actually wind up doing, what does "the community" want moving forward? (While realizing that a requirement is "moving forward".)
 
Wesmo
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:55 am

I really, really, really detest the sudden redesign. What's wrong with a phased rollout where you have the old site and new site running simultaneously until all features are migrated over?

I've struggled to read news posts and articles due to this redesign, let alone the comments and their weird wrapping formatting. I'm sure more refinement of the new WordPress template could of and should of been competed before publishing.

I hope the ui guy/gal takes into account the fact that the old layout worked really well for us, the target audience.
 
drfish
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:55 am

Srsly_Bro wrote:
drfish wrote:
We've done what we can. I'm not freaking out because I know why the dev hasn't made any other moves yet (it's logical, but it's not my information to share). However, except for that, I'm in the same boat as the rest of you, waiting to see if what we all want will be implemented. Just chugging along for now.


Area your in denial, anger or depression phase?


Yes.
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:55 am

BTW, I noticed Jeff & Adam are still listed as TR Staff in the phpBB Team. Also, is Kevin still around? I assume askfranklin is part of the new ownership?
https://techreport.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=team
 
Duct Tape Dude
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 7:20 am

Stupid question: how do I get to the next page of a multi-page story?

https://techreport.com/review/34642/off ... -reviewed/
 
Srsly_Bro
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:02 am

Duct Tape Dude wrote:
Stupid question: how do I get to the next page of a multi-page story?

https://techreport.com/review/34642/off ... -reviewed/


Keep scrolling until your fingers bleed. Then, you have made it. I personally have not been to the second page. Let me know if it's as lonely as I've been told.
 
DancinJack
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:10 am

https://techreport.com/category/review/page/2/

All the old cover images being borked can't be good for SEO.
i7 6700K - Z170 - 16GiB DDR4 - GTX 1080 - 512GB SSD - 256GB SSD - 500GB SSD - 3TB HDD- 27" IPS G-sync - Win10 Pro x64 - Ubuntu/Mint x64 :: 2015 13" rMBP Sierra :: Canon EOS 80D/Sony RX100
 
fyo
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:14 am

Duct Tape Dude wrote:
Stupid question: how do I get to the next page of a multi-page story?

https://techreport.com/review/34642/off ... -reviewed/


Does that story have a second page? If you look at a story that does have multiple pages, like the recent Ryzen 3700X and 3900X review, the pagination is located some random distance down the page, above the comments and "You May Also Like" bit.
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:37 am

fyo wrote:
Duct Tape Dude wrote:
Stupid question: how do I get to the next page of a multi-page story?
https://techreport.com/review/34642/off ... -reviewed/

Does that story have a second page? If you look at a story that does have multiple pages, like the recent Ryzen 3700X and 3900X review, the pagination is located some random distance down the page, above the comments and "You May Also Like" bit.

It should. Something is broken. Even manually putting in the /2/ at the end doesn't trigger it.
 
Sargent Duck
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:50 am

Since the redesign, I've switched my home page to the forums so that I get taken here directly, bypassing that horrible front page. I visited the front page daily to see if there were any positive changes but having seen no progress, daily turned into every 2 days and now it's going on 3 days between visits. I do visit that tone deaf post by Renee to read what others have said, but other than that... I have no desire to visit the home page in its current iteration,

Honestly though, if Renee just made a simple change to set the background color to TR blue, it would at LEAST look a little like TR.

Seriously. Changing the background color from white to TR blue is 1 line of basic html that they teach on the first day. Unless Wordpress doesn't allow background color changes...
No matter how bad the new homepage sucks or how bungled the new management is...

To all the original writers/contributors and volunteers, please know that I have nothing but the deepest love for you and the work you've done.
 
drfish
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:28 am

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
BTW, I noticed Jeff & Adam are still listed as TR Staff in the phpBB Team. Also, is Kevin still around? I assume askfranklin is part of the new ownership?
https://techreport.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=team


Pfft, details... :) askfranklin is with the new guys, but please don't bug him, he's pretty busy already.

DancinJack wrote:
https://techreport.com/category/review/page/2/

All the old cover images being borked can't be good for SEO.


It's on the list.
 
DancinJack
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:34 am

Sargent Duck wrote:
Since the redesign, I've switched my home page to the forums so that I get taken here directly, bypassing that horrible front page. I visited the front page daily to see if there were any positive changes but having seen no progress, daily turned into every 2 days and now it's going on 3 days between visits. I do visit that tone deaf post by Renee to read what others have said, but other than that... I have no desire to visit the home page in its current iteration,

Honestly though, if Renee just made a simple change to set the background color to TR blue, it would at LEAST look a little like TR.

Seriously. Changing the background color from white to TR blue is 1 line of basic html that they teach on the first day. Unless Wordpress doesn't allow background color changes...

Listen, I get that it is frustrating, but it's quite literally NOT that easy. Sure, inputting a hex code to change the color of the background is a single line of code but that's not how websites work. What happens if a font is a similar blue? Or it has too little contrast? Hyperlink colors? are images transparent?

There are so many details that can go into changing a background color. I hope they're working on it, but it's not as simple as most people think it is. Maybe WP has a "suggested scheme" based on your BG color, but if that were the case I'd imagine they'd already have looked into it.

Everyone just cool your jets. You can change the background color yourselves in CSS if you hate it THAT much. You'll have to do it every visit, but maybe it'll be enough for some of you for now.
i7 6700K - Z170 - 16GiB DDR4 - GTX 1080 - 512GB SSD - 256GB SSD - 500GB SSD - 3TB HDD- 27" IPS G-sync - Win10 Pro x64 - Ubuntu/Mint x64 :: 2015 13" rMBP Sierra :: Canon EOS 80D/Sony RX100
 
Buub
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:36 am

Not sure why this changed on the forums, but for the last week or so, whenever I try to Mark forums read, I get this error message:
AJAX error

Something went wrong with the request and the server returned an invalid reply.


It appears that it still does what it's supposed to do, but the error message is disconcerting.
 
DancinJack
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:39 am

Buub wrote:
Not sure why this changed on the forums, but for the last week or so, whenever I try to Mark forums read, I get this error message:
AJAX error

Something went wrong with the request and the server returned an invalid reply.


It appears that it still does what it's supposed to do, but the error message is disconcerting.

It's been brough up in the thread a few times now. They are aware.
i7 6700K - Z170 - 16GiB DDR4 - GTX 1080 - 512GB SSD - 256GB SSD - 500GB SSD - 3TB HDD- 27" IPS G-sync - Win10 Pro x64 - Ubuntu/Mint x64 :: 2015 13" rMBP Sierra :: Canon EOS 80D/Sony RX100
 
Srsly_Bro
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:31 pm

I haven't seen ronch, ssk, chuck, auxy, or the several other people I normally see posting. Hopefully all my bros are still here.
 
Redocbew
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:37 pm

ronch is probably at their car dealership dealing with the remnants of another unfortunate mammal.
Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and you won't hear them coming.
 
Mr Bill
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:43 pm

Grrrr, the biggest difference I see beside everything you have all groused about is that my gold subscription has been lost in transition, translation, or whatever.
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rutra80
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 2:07 pm

Image
Looks like TR was acquired by some 3rd world elbonians who don't even seem to care bout milking remains of the brand...
 
Srsly_Bro
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 4:05 pm

Redocbew wrote:
ronch is probably at their car dealership dealing with the remnants of another unfortunate mammal.


Lmao. I would like to spend one day with ronch. Just one. It could be a reality show, IDC.
 
Chrispy_
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:18 pm

notfred wrote:
2) The lack of intros from the new owners, and that horrificly tone-deaf piece from Renee.
TR up until now has been run by geeks for geeks. Given what I've Googled of the new owners and their lack of intros, I'm worried that TR is now owned by some marketing slimeballs who are viewing us as cattle to make them rich. I've held off posting this for the past week hoping to be proven wrong, but I'm not seeing anything to dissuade me from that view. I'm extremely concerned about this. I thought those interview questions that Fish posted would have made for a perfect intro. Even a piece saying that yes they were the new owners but that they were going to be hands off with regards to the content and the regular contributors were going to continue posting articles would have been nice.


Quoting for emphasis; It has been ten days now.
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
Waco
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Re: Something's different...

Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:40 pm

The login prompt on the forums is busted on Chrome mobile. If you try to enter a username or password the prompt goes away like you're tapping behind it.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
Xolore
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Re: Something's different...

Wed Jul 17, 2019 12:24 am

DancinJack wrote:
You can change the background color yourselves in CSS if you hate it THAT much. You'll have to do it every visit, but maybe it'll be enough for some of you for now.


There's plenty of plugins that can apply custom css to individual sites. I'm using one called stylish. I even tried sharing my crummy css code I've pieced together if people are curious. I think the css can be pulled straight from that link if people prefer a different solution. I think some browsers may even have direct support for user styles.
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: Something's different...

Wed Jul 17, 2019 6:53 am

Waco wrote:
The login prompt on the forums is busted on Chrome mobile. If you try to enter a username or password the prompt goes away like you're tapping behind it.

Mine's been doing that for awhile on Safari mobile. If the password doesn't autofill when I hit shortcut, I refresh and then everything is hunky-dory.
 
DancinJack
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Re: Something's different...

Wed Jul 17, 2019 7:01 am

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
Waco wrote:
The login prompt on the forums is busted on Chrome mobile. If you try to enter a username or password the prompt goes away like you're tapping behind it.

Mine's been doing that for awhile on Safari mobile. If the password doesn't autofill when I hit shortcut, I refresh and then everything is hunky-dory.

Same (Chrome on Android 9/Q) and it's been happening for a couple months now.
i7 6700K - Z170 - 16GiB DDR4 - GTX 1080 - 512GB SSD - 256GB SSD - 500GB SSD - 3TB HDD- 27" IPS G-sync - Win10 Pro x64 - Ubuntu/Mint x64 :: 2015 13" rMBP Sierra :: Canon EOS 80D/Sony RX100
 
Waco
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Re: Something's different...

Wed Jul 17, 2019 7:46 am

DancinJack wrote:
Same (Chrome on Android 9/Q) and it's been happening for a couple months now.

Hm, interesting. I guess I hadn't been logged out on my phone in so long I hadn't noticed that.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.

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