It has become very difficult to navigate the WS forum:
- it is difficult to find - somewhere at the bottom of the main page. I suggest to link the word "FORUM" there.
- it is impossible to go up to the board from a thread
- there is no overview in a thread
- it took me some time to find the way to start a new thread about this
- ...
It is now almost just as bad as the Couchsurfing forum. I do not understand this. There are many standard solutions. Some of those are probably open source and free. And otherwise it should be easy to buy or license the software.
I wonder if this is intentional. You can see that the site’s leadership is much more active on the WS Facebook page than on the forum of their own site. Maybe they like FB, don’t see this forum as very important, and are trying to bury it.
Perhaps you are right. It's been a week since the new site launched and we've had 7 0r 8 threads reporting bugs and problems (some with multiple reports) and I've yet to see an official response from anyone at WS.
Chris, I tend to focus more on member communication than other board members, who have other tasks which they specialize in. This is why I have more of a presence in the forums and Facebook than the other board members. Tech is not my specialty, which is why I trust Seth and other tech saavy people with the technical upgrade.
The actual goal is to make the forums friendlier than Facebook. It is the long term goal to make the website the MAIN go-to place for members. We would much rather have members communicate through the main website. Eventually, the Facebook group will be more of a teaser, or link, to the forums.
true. ws management is leavibg the site rot .
the new version of symphony had a change in parameters, so the mangled notifications.
BeWelcome use the same platform and after 5 hours of the first bug report it was fixed.
without external paid contractors.
Well it seems they kissed goodbye to that option.
it is bad, but it is true cycle forum! Enjoy it!
My donation dollars at work. What was wrong with the previous website and why couldn't those issues be addressed first ?
The previous website had problems handling the increased load. Messages did not reach hosts or cyclists, so something needed to be done. But I do not understand why this should affect the forums. The design is supposed to be "responsive", but it does not look good on my desktop (too wide). It is even worse on my phone: in portrait mode some content is past the right margin.
on mobile you must select the option 'ask desktop site' to have an acceptable page.
charactets may be snall, but at keast you may zoom in and see the page in a tolerable way.
the distinction between mobile and desktom have no reason and have the only purpose to give work to lazy programners that have no idea about performance requirements.
Last Saturday Warmshowers switched over to the new user interface. As coincidence would have it, my job switched its interface on the same day. I am sure that this multi-billion dollar corporation had more money to put into its new interface than Warmshowers, but in the end, it has had its share of bugs. It happens.
The team behind the Warmshowers upgrade is working on correcting the problems. The goal here is a better system, one that is more user friendly and brings the community closer together. Please be patient. And continue to open your doors and/or enjoy your ride!
https://youtu.be/vy8U15sFom0
I must raise my voice in agreement with OP. There really should be a link to the forums in the navbar at the top of the page. After all, this is the only place to create and foster a community beyond the relationship between host and guest.
it is not casual that either one had their share of bugs, as did a third site that did the move one day later.
the library they all used is the same and in the last version has changed some parameter from optional to required and changed the default for them.
programmers that relied on them got the bad surprise, and even more users.
this is what happen with closed source programs, when user cannot supply fixes.
about building a community, forum is the first place when people go. You may host people once a week, bit you will go on the forum a couple times a day, the easier the access to forum, the more active is.
another option would be to make a second site, forum.warmshower.org that has as homepage theforum and all functions are targeted to forun use, with just ling to the hospitality features, that is the complement of current one.
"another option would be to make a second site, forum.warmshower.org that has as homepage theforum and all functions are targeted to forun use,"
Yes, that may be the best solution, does not need compromises in interface design. And it could be an almost off-the-shelf solution. The only thing would be to couple the member accounts in a way that is secure.
PS: the software did not show the text as quoted (only the editor does). I had to put in quotation marks.
different site dors not meant different database.
you use the same server that acvording the different sites serves different links and menues.
actually both sites would have the same functions, only change would be the path you follow to reach it.
I cannot find "new topic" button :)
Indeed, that is one of the stupid problems here. Go to https://www.warmshowers.org/forum/posts then choose a subforum, for example https://www.warmshowers.org/forums/general/website-help-and-support
Then you first need to scroll down a bit!! Then one can find the button to start a new topic here. It is really insane.
Thanks, yes is not quite intuitive. It will discourage some users.
This weekend's new revision fixed the problem. Now there is a link to the Forum in the top line.
Good!
it is really better :)
good to know WS "web creator " could listen to his member / user
As amazing WS is as a whole, as frustrating is the forum on the website. I am looking for a travel compagnion on my trip in India. To start I DO NOT find the option to post a new text even after an hour of searching and usually I'm not too bad doing that kind of stuff. At least it's a first for me not being able to do something like this. Also there is no possibility to filter or search with key words. If there is anything that WS can do better, I believe this is what it might be.....
I agree. What one should do is first navigate to a forum page. You cannot get there from this page, which is insane of course. But here is the link: https://www.warmshowers.org/forums/general/website-help-and-support
When you found the right forum, you need to go _almost_ all the way down to find the button "New topic". Also this is poor design.
Yes, the continued absence of a breadcrumb trail, a staple of forum navigation, is one of the great mysteries of this site.
For those too young (or too old) to remember, it used to be this easy to get around the forums:
https://i.imgur.com/qbszip2.png