The Important Announcement:
This coming Sunday night (unless Wimbledon goes over to Monday) our forum will be offline for up to 9 hours beginning at 9 p.m. (Pacific) - Midnight (Eastern) for a major upgrade. It may not take me that long, but I want that block of time just in case.
More Info for the Curious:
The plan to move into the completely different new software in January is still on the calendar. That hasn't changed. But, in an effort to find a middle ground that will help us connect more with social media sites, reach more people, and improve our membership numbers, without completely rewriting what TAT is, I'm going to upgrade our forum to the newest version of our forum software.
This will allow us to use this possible alternative for several months, which will give me the opportunity to see if our numbers and new member activity improve.
This forum upgrade, unlike the complete TAT-overhaul on the calendar for January, will allow us to keep all member accounts, all forums, all threads, all posts, all blogs, etc. But, it will also:
Allow members to login using their Facebook accounts.
Allow members to post to FB while posting to our forum.
Allow members to be active in our forum community without leaving FB.
Allow TAT to offer a customized and dedicated mobile app available from the Apple Store and the Android Marketplace.
It will allow the TAT Community to be "more than just another tennis forum", which is where I want to take it.
This upgrade doesn't do everything I want it to... the complete rewrite scheduled for January does much more. But, after 8 years of doing things the way we do them, I'm weighing the effect a drastic change would have on you all against the possible benefits of a complete rewrite.
If you want to stay aware of the changes that will take place once this upgrade is done this coming weekend, keep an eye on this thread, as I'll be posting more details as the week progresses leading up to this coming Sunday.
That's really unfortunate... Go to the first new post is the only way how I read TAT (or any other forum)! How would it be possible to keep track otherwise???
Ugh...really? That's almost exclusively how I go to read threads...will that option still be there in the User CP?
I also exclusively use the "first unread post" to read threads.
...
Kirk, I know you're working hard on all these improvements and we all appreciate it. Please forgive us in advance for any lapses into "Eighty Year Old Enraged At Any Changes." The temptation is sweet.
Will we still be able to see when the last time we visited the site?
Yep.
Originally Posted by ptmcmahon
Ugh...really? That's almost exclusively how I go to read threads...will that option still be there in the User CP?
Originally Posted by suliso
That's really unfortunate... Go to the first new post is the only way how I read TAT (or any other forum)! How would it be possible to keep track otherwise???
Originally Posted by Charlie02123
I also exclusively use the "first unread post" to read threads.
...
Kirk, I know you're working hard on all these improvements and we all appreciate it. Please forgive us in advance for any lapses into "Eighty Year Old Enraged At Any Changes." The temptation is sweet.
I hear you. Unless I have to find a thread that I know is here, just buried, I use the "first new post" almost exclusively to read our forums. We're the only forum I've ever belonged to that even has that feature.
This is literally one of the biggest reasons we're still using old forum software; the functionality of our RPBs.
There are other ways to follow specific threads and keep up on discussions we're interested in. We've just never used them because of the way our RPBs work.
I've already talked to a developer about creating an RPB system, like the one we have here, for the new software that we may go to in January. It's expensive, but it can be done.
::
Thanks for your last remark, Charlie. I completely understand.
After using this forum software for so many years I'd have thought I knew it backwards and forwards. But while researching the "First unread post" issue I discovered that the links on the main forum display page under the heading "Last Post" actually link to the First unread post.
I've always used the RPBs and never really paid any attention to anything else. This column only lists the newest updated thread in a particular forum, whereas the RPBs list multiple new threads in the same forum. But it's still something that we can use if necessary.
Current tables (used mainly for contest scoring) will no longer appear in their respective posts. The information will still be there, but the part of our forum that translates that table code will no longer be available. The author will need to click "edit" in order to see it. I'll be taking screen-shots of the most recent contest score tables in case there's a need to see them in the future.
This only applies to score tables that are posted directly on the forum. Score tables created for our Prediction Challenge (and most recently the Wimbledon Suicide Pool) will not change. Those all link to separate web pages and nothing will change as far as they're concerned.
Creating tables in the upgraded forum will be much MUCH easier than the way we're doing them now. This should be a welcome addition for our contest administrators.
A few major differences between our current forum version and the new version coming next weekend:
Awards will not be shown in members posts/profiles. They may need to be kept on a separate dedicated page.
We'll still have RPBs, but the "Go to first new post" options will no longer be available.
Both of these might be returned at a later date, but will not be available immediately following the upgrade.
Originally Posted by ptmcmahon
Ugh...really? That's almost exclusively how I go to read threads...will that option still be there in the User CP?
Originally Posted by suliso
That's really unfortunate... Go to the first new post is the only way how I read TAT (or any other forum)! How would it be possible to keep track otherwise???
Originally Posted by Charlie02123
I also exclusively use the "first unread post" to read threads.
...
Kirk, I know you're working hard on all these improvements and we all appreciate it. Please forgive us in advance for any lapses into "Eighty Year Old Enraged At Any Changes." The temptation is sweet.
Originally Posted by Kirkus
I've been working on this "first unread post" project all day. I'm a little blurry-eyed.
I'm working on a solution, but there's a lot I don't know about coding, so we'll just have to see how it goes.
I do know how important this is.
Because I love you guys and because I know how much the RPBs are used, especially the "first unread post" feature, I've been working on it for the past 2 1/2 days.
And I got it!! We'll have fully functioning RPBs, including "first unread post" links after the upgrade (assuming the upgrade here goes as well the tests I've been doing on my test site).
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Originally Posted by Kirkus
and because I know how much the RPBs are used, especially the "first unread post" feature, I've been working on it for the past 2 1/2 days.
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