TR Forums

Exceedingly long time lurker here.

Constructive criticism:
- Clicking "Comments %n" at the top of each article only refreshes the page, doesn't jump to comments
- Please for the love of (your chosen) God alter the font size and spacing options: the average reading age of your readers is >>3yrs so please give us more than half a dozen words per line. We don't need giant fonts and massive line spacing. Reading any of the new style articles on a monitor above 8" wide is like watching tennis live at Wimbledon. (head to the left, head to the right)
- Appears comment system is actually worse than all other websites I use (and some are dreadful). Completely and utterly unworkable in current form. This site has only been saved by the great comments (both informative and amusing) that get posted by great commentators. Lose this at your peril.
- A quick perusal round the web at Ryzen 3000 reviews, yours don't show up in Videcardz' review list : https://videocardz.com/81349/amd-ryzen-3000-zen2-review-roundup

Personal perspective:
- I know you probably are not able to say but why was this all done without a trial? Who decided to change everything? I can see it wasn't you guys, so has the site been bought out? Please give some rational reasons behind this. At the moment it just looks like the ants (you guys) are wondering what this giant boot is doing in the middle of your (our?) anthill! Who has stomped all over our beloved TR?
- I fell away from Ars, Anand, Tom's etc all because of poor website changes (and lack of depth articles). Please don't join them in the graveyard!

drfish wrote:

meerkt wrote:

Thanks drfish. How's the design (or shift to WP) expected to help with growth?

The best I can say is to repeat what I was told, it's all about SEO. Apparently the old design had some major shortcomings in that department. Beyond that, there are still some other forces at work and the redesign is simply part of the long term plan. I would have given more care to the short term plan, but all I can do now is adapt and mediate.

I hope the "powers that be" at TR haven't been duped by some "SEO scammer". From what I understand, Google is always trying to stay one step ahead of SEO because SEO undermines their ability to deliver relevant and authentic content. Maybe whatever SEO works for TR now due to the new platform might stop working in the next Google Search update. Is the new platform able to keep up with a moving SEO target? Or is it just a one-time "look you are on the 1st page of search results" thing and then the SEO developer packs up and is never heard from again? In other words, has TR contracted a reputable SEO firm that has been in the industry for a long time?

I think you've nailed it, leor. Not my personal list of priorities, but I can begrudgingly understand them.

What's happening is over the heads of us writers. That said, I've always been motivated by the community, whether that was with old-school F@H stuff, the TR BBQ, or the content I've volunteered for the last few years. It's more than a bit demoralizing, and how the roll out was handled truly sucked, but I'm still in my comfort zone of just trying to help. Fortunately, what's currently an obstacle has the potential to become an asset soon.

There's also a bit of selfishness involved, I want TR to succeed because I frankly don't want to read CPU and GPU reviews from anyone else. Now that Zak's got a handle on using the TR-specific tools that Bruno made, we're setup to produce the content we all want to see as long as it can be funded. Speaking of Zak, he probably took the hardest morale hit of all, send him some kind words if you're so inclined.

Igor_Kavinski wrote:

I hope the "powers that be" at TR haven't been duped by some "SEO scammer". From what I understand, Google is always trying to stay one step ahead of SEO because SEO undermines their ability to deliver relevant and authentic content. Maybe whatever SEO works for TR now due to the new platform might stop working in the next Google Search update. Is the new platform able to keep up with a moving SEO target? Or is it just a one-time "look you are on the 1st page of search results" thing and then the SEO developer packs up and is never heard from again? In other words, has TR contracted a reputable SEO firm that has been in the industry for a long time?

I think we've got closer to a Hanlon's razor situation going on here. Even that might be a little harsh. More like, don't assume incompetence when confusion is to blame - or something.

We know you guys are working hard and thanks for that. TR has been my favourite tech site for a long time.
Site theme has changed multiple times, and I've never liked the change, at first. Then I got used to it and ended up liking it.
But the recent one I can't understand. What was wrong with the previous theme? Why change it so drastically?

Others have said it throughout this thread, but I wanted to do some experimenting on my own. I have been playing with font sizes in the CSS, and mannnnnnnnnnn, taking everything down from 17px to 14px makes a HUGE difference for me personally. It's still not too small IMO, and it provides a WAY better experience. Maybe this is something you could focus on bringing up, fish? Not even my specific size example, just the idea of something a bit smaller all around. Maybe knock every font down 2px.

Bigbloke wrote:

- I fell away from Ars, Anand, Tom's etc all because of poor website changes (and lack of depth articles).

Have you visited Anandtech lately? Their articles are still worth checking out and pretty in-depth.

PrincipalSkinner wrote:

We know you guys are working hard and thanks for that. TR has been my favourite tech site for a long time.
Site theme has changed multiple times, and I've never liked the change, at first. Then I got used to it and ended up liking it.
But the recent one I can't understand. What was wrong with the previous theme? Why change it so drastically?

The theme was inextricably linked to the SEO, ads, and in turn the revenue for the site. I hope people are getting this part of it. It's not just a theme change to "change it up!" They are changing it so they can attempt to make TR, sans the subs part of the business, profitable. Just keep that in mind.

drfish wrote:

There's also a bit of selfishness involved, I want TR to succeed because I frankly don't want to read CPU and GPU reviews from anyone else. Now that Zak's got a handle on using the TR-specific tools that Bruno made, we're setup to produce the content we all want to see as long as it can be funded. Speaking of Zak, he probably took the hardest morale hit of all, send him some kind words if you're so inclined.

Tell that mofo to get in here!

DancinJack wrote:

Others have said it throughout this thread, but I wanted to do some experimenting on my own. I have been playing with font sizes in the CSS, and mannnnnnnnnnn, taking everything down from 17px to 14px makes a HUGE difference for me personally. It's still not too small IMO, and it provides a WAY better experience. Maybe this is something you could focus on bringing up, fish? Not even my specific size example, just the idea of something a bit smaller all around. Maybe knock every font down 2px.

This is on my shortlist, but at the top of my short list is a dark theme option. The dev knows about the list in the first post of this thread and has made a number of fixes already. As long as the requests are documented, I'm trying to be respectful and let them go at their own pace. That said, I made a special request for a dark theme because it will be such a crowd pleaser.

Got a new request: please add the ability to edit comments on articles.

Sacrificed a comment to the redesign kraken and noticed that I can only add new comments. I don't really want to flood comments/replies because of messups on my end

superjawes wrote:

Got a new request: please add the ability to edit comments on articles.

Sacrificed a comment to the redesign kraken and noticed that I can only add new comments. I don't really want to flood comments/replies because of messups on my end

Yeah, this particular req has been mentioned before but let me add a +1 to it and add a little more detail. If they do let people edit comments, please make sure they make it like the old phpbb stuff where it SAID someone edited it. I don't think this is a gotcha for people that edit or anything, i just think it's important information for people posting subsequent comments.

Thanks, don't know how I missed that one. Comment edits are critical, heh.

DancinJack wrote:

superjawes wrote:

Got a new request: please add the ability to edit comments on articles.

Sacrificed a comment to the redesign kraken and noticed that I can only add new comments. I don't really want to flood comments/replies because of messups on my end

Yeah, this particular req has been mentioned before but let me add a +1 to it and add a little more detail. If they do let people edit comments, please make sure they make it like the old phpbb stuff where it SAID someone edited it. I don't think this is a gotcha for people that edit or anything, i just think it's important information for people posting subsequent comments.

Also agreed.

And another addition/bug investigation...I tried to repost my sacrificial comment (because I had the foresight to CTRL+A, CTRL+C), but I got a "duplicate comment detected screen" despite that comment not showing up in the thread.

Here's what I tried to post, for reference:

superjawes, to the kraken in the comments wrote:

Teach kids to fear Shenzen I/O as much as you do for free @ Quarter To Three

Well that's super cool. I've only played Opus Magnum, but I catch Zach's "philosophy" when it comes to his "games", and this sounds like a great idea.

In other news-browsing, private City of Heroes servers live on. Like I said months ago, companies NEED to be selling licenses for private servers. They can sell them without any promise of support, and they can set a high price to limit hacking of their IP, but I think you'll still find plenty of small communities hungry to keep old properties alive. It's a little extra income and a ton of community goodwill for minimal investment.

DancinJack wrote:

Cuhulin wrote:

I would like to be supportive. The people working here do a great job and deserve the right to have the site look good to them. However, I can’t help but think “If it ain’t broke...”

The “At a glance” of the home page was so much more informative.

I sincerely hope after all this time and all the changes at TR that people understand that this isn't true. Viewers of the site might have liked it, but CLEARLY TR wasn't making enough money to survive how things were. It quite literally was broke. I hate the new design too, but I think everyone should realize it's all being done so that you have anything to read at http://www.techreport.com at all. Just be patient. Report detailed bugs, detailed feature requests etc. Do your part and maybe it'll end up in a place we can all agree is better than before.

To be a little more clear, and maybe some won't and that's fine, but by detail I mean things like what browser and version are you on? What OS and update are you on? What resolution are you using? Are you signed in? Are you using mobile? etc etc etc. Let's all help as much as possible so we can get to a better place quicker.

So, this post of mine is on page 3 of this thread and I think what happened after it is an important part of TR and should be recognized. I don't think my response was particularly snippy, but I understand how someone could have read it that way. A day or so later I got a PM from Cuhulin thanking me for this post. He/she said they tried to post in the thread but it wasn't showing up at the time (a lot of stuff was in flux at the time) and it just reinforced why the vast majority of us are here in the first place. Unprompted and sincere gratitude from another forum goer as a response instead of getting bent out of shape which easily could have happened IMO.

I know fish and others are trying to emphasize the importance of the community to the new overlords, but I really hope they read this thread and see just how invested some people are in this site. We really want it to stick around and the people, and their suggestions and attitudes, are why it has been a great place for so long.

Anyway, I know we can all be a little stubborn with things like the UI changes and such, but we do mean well and hopefully the decision makers are taking note of it.

Uh oh. I just got a video ad on the front page. Video ads were the reason Anandtech went from a "check daily" site to a "check monthly" site. TR has always been great about avoiding these, though I know it's cost y'all money to do so. I really hope TR will continue to avoid video ads.

juzz86 wrote:

You're doing a fine job from a tough spot mate and it's appreciated, thankyou.

I don't mind the new look so much personally (I actually find the article body far easier to read in this layout), bit generic but you'll fix all that up when you get the keys back.

Stick with it, all good

Get the keys back lol

So if nobody else has already had the idea, you should compare current whois info to cached whois info. That'll give you an idea what's going on.

I'm going to sort of echo what has been said earlier.
If you are going to make a table into an image then make sure your word wrap is correct.
Make it look like a professional publication.
The Ryzen review hurts the eyes.

cmrcmk wrote:

Uh oh. I just got a video ad on the front page. Video ads were the reason Anandtech went from a "check daily" site to a "check monthly" site. TR has always been great about avoiding these, though I know it's cost y'all money to do so. I really hope TR will continue to avoid video ads.

TR has had video ads before, but they aren't supposed to have auto-playing audio. I'm not aware of any changes with our ad partners at this time. I'm seeing less ads if anything.

I think the main point to draw from this entire thread is that we're complaining about the changes because we view them as harmful to the site and that we clearly care about the site's survival. I'm sure it can be worked out to work with the new CMS, but if you can telegraph that sentiment to the overlords who managed this transition (I think I'm being too kind by even implying there was a plan, though) I think we'd all appreciate it. We're all invested in the site, the community, and the survival of both - I'm just amazed that anyone could see this transition and the timing of it as anything but a negative one.

Reading between the lines, someone probably wanted to get the SEO changes in place for the release of the new Ryzens (and corresponding review).

Edit: And to (partially) answer the people who are questioning how choice of CMS could make a difference in SEO, you'd be surprised at what search engines take into account. Seemingly inconsequential details like how the CMS formats its URLs can make a difference.

DancinJack wrote:

bitcat70 wrote:

Is there a quick way to get to the front page? Maybe something like at arstechnica.com where scrolling up a little reveals a menu on the top? The new site looks OK but all the white space with a lack of boxes/borders/whatever looks a bit jarring to my eyes. Maybe that's something one gets used to.

Top left of every single page. The TR logo links to the front page.

That's true but if the page is long then there's quite a bit of scrolling back involved. The way arstechnica does it is just neat.

Cuhulin wrote:

Starfalcon wrote:

From all that is written, a designer was hired to modernize the unseen parts mostly. Unfortunately, the designer changed the front-end in a particularly amateurish way, IMO then put up an unfinished product on a most unfortunate day.

It’s Wordpress, so it can be customized - probably to what you, I, and most people seek. For the sake of the community, can they have a little time, if not on the home page - I understand not wanting to see this when you log onto the net - but as something to check on and see if the surgery was successful.

I read all the posts in this thread and I understood something pretty different: this is here to stay. Dr Fish even said the news.x page won't come back.

Of course I will keep coming for some time, even if it's just because is one of my routines, going to news.x to see what's new (now redirected to news )

But from what I understood, they are not going back to our beloved "old" TechReport. Why the old layout interferes with SEO? I don't know. I'm not an expert, although I struggle to understand how layout is related with SEO. It looks like a "this or closing" situation. Of course, for the users, the difference between closing and becoming like any other site is pretty much negligible.

I LOVE THE LOOK OF THE NEW DESIGN. Visiting Tech Report has always been a bit of a battery recharging thing for me because of the informative content but this is just so relaxing and spacious.

bitcat70 wrote:

That's true but if the page is long then there's quite a bit of scrolling back involved. The way arstechnica does it is just neat.

Yup, I like the Ars system as well.

meerkt wrote:

Zeratul wrote:

I should have realized that money was getting tight, as the signs were there in reviews over the last couple years.

There's a thread on topic, but it's half-hidden due to the title and the beginning of the thread. The pertinent stuff starts here:
https://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic ... 8#p1402525

I wholeheartedly disagree with "You're probably not going to see a big post on the front page repeating these words or detailing just how dicey things are for TR and other independent sites out there. "

The diehard forum members may have made it to post 23 of that thread just out of curiosity, but that has to be only a small sliver of TR readers. If things are really that dire, and they want to be supported directly by their readers then their readers need to know. Other sites provide lots of content and survive entirely on user subscriptions. But they also make it clear that's how they run. I'm not sure who the person to talk to is anymore at TR, but a make or break call to arms to subscribe to keep it independent and running should be on the front page, especially for people like me who would pay but need the push to be reminded, usually around new hardware releases when I come to check up on the latest performance/value charts. Tell the community how things are, tell them what's at stake, ask them to contribute if they want to keep TR alive.

Zeratul wrote:

I wholeheartedly disagree with "You're probably not going to see a big post on the front page repeating these words or detailing just how dicey things are for TR and other independent sites out there. "

The diehard forum members may have made it to post 23 of that thread just out of curiosity, but that has to be only a small sliver of TR readers. If things are really that dire, and they want to be supported directly by their readers then their readers need to know. Other sites provide lots of content and survive entirely on user subscriptions. But they also make it clear that's how they run. I'm not sure who the person to talk to is anymore at TR, but a make or break call to arms to subscribe to keep it independent and running should be on the front page, especially for people like me who would pay but need the push to be reminded, usually around new hardware releases when I come to check up on the latest performance/value charts. Tell the community how things are, tell them what's at stake, ask them to contribute if they want to keep TR alive.

I agree with you, I wanted to make the plea but it wasn't my choice to make. Other plans were already afoot, the details of which I was informed of later. Not much longer now and the curtain will be lifted and I can stop talking so circuitously.

rechicero wrote:

Cuhulin wrote:

Starfalcon wrote:

From all that is written, a designer was hired to modernize the unseen parts mostly. Unfortunately, the designer changed the front-end in a particularly amateurish way, IMO then put up an unfinished product on a most unfortunate day.

It’s Wordpress, so it can be customized - probably to what you, I, and most people seek. For the sake of the community, can they have a little time, if not on the home page - I understand not wanting to see this when you log onto the net - but as something to check on and see if the surgery was successful.

I read all the posts in this thread and I understood something pretty different: this is here to stay. Dr Fish even said the news.x page won't come back.

Of course I will keep coming for some time, even if it's just because is one of my routines, going to news.x to see what's new (now redirected to news )

But from what I understood, they are not going back to our beloved "old" TechReport. Why the old layout interferes with SEO? I don't know. I'm not an expert, although I struggle to understand how layout is related with SEO. It looks like a "this or closing" situation. Of course, for the users, the difference between closing and becoming like any other site is pretty much negligible.

Things probably are not as bad as you suggest, on the interface side at least. While everything you said about this being a one way street are probably correct, there is no reason why the new wordpress site could not be customized to look and work an awful lot like the old news.x.

drfish wrote:

Zeratul wrote:

I wholeheartedly disagree with "You're probably not going to see a big post on the front page repeating these words or detailing just how dicey things are for TR and other independent sites out there. "

The diehard forum members may have made it to post 23 of that thread just out of curiosity, but that has to be only a small sliver of TR readers. If things are really that dire, and they want to be supported directly by their readers then their readers need to know. Other sites provide lots of content and survive entirely on user subscriptions. But they also make it clear that's how they run. I'm not sure who the person to talk to is anymore at TR, but a make or break call to arms to subscribe to keep it independent and running should be on the front page, especially for people like me who would pay but need the push to be reminded, usually around new hardware releases when I come to check up on the latest performance/value charts. Tell the community how things are, tell them what's at stake, ask them to contribute if they want to keep TR alive.

I agree with you, I wanted to make the plea but it wasn't my choice to make. Other plans were already afoot, the details of which I was informed of later. Not much longer now and the curtain will be lifted and I can stop talking so circuitously.

Whoever is making the decisions at the top really needs to start keeping you informed. Too often you're the only one communicating what is happening with TR, and it feels like what happens is often a surprise even to you.
Be it whatever the mysterious TR future plans are and keeping this a secret so readers aren't informed of how dire things are to springing the new UI design out before you expected in a decidedly haphazard and incomplete manner.
I can't see how the secrecy from even TR's contributors is helping things.

I like the change a lot (wasn't ever super huge on the last layout) but I do have one big complaint - no clear "next" button in articles, having to click the page number instead

Just a pain in the ass with f-ed up wrists.

derFunkenstein wrote:

juzz86 wrote:

You're doing a fine job from a tough spot mate and it's appreciated, thankyou.

I don't mind the new look so much personally (I actually find the article body far easier to read in this layout), bit generic but you'll fix all that up when you get the keys back.

Stick with it, all good

Get the keys back lol

So if nobody else has already had the idea, you should compare current whois info to cached whois info. That'll give you an idea what's going on.

My Google-fu must suck eggs. I can't find anything useful that way. Only thing I found was that techreport.com was updated in April to a different privacy protection outfit to the one used back in 2016! Don't worry I wasn't going to blurt out any sensitive data, even if I could find anything!!!!