ATS 2010 Updates Thread - #(UPDATE Nov. 10)#

reply to post by schrodingers dog


I agree. I like the look/design, but the functionality has become greatly slowed down. The biggest problem for me is that there is just way too much going on.

When I visit the recent posts page, I seem to only bother looking at the first few lines of threads, as scrolling down the page would lead me into a trip similar to that of DXM.

The old gray/brown website used to give a cool, calm, relaxing persona. But now with puke greens, Windows 7 Backgrounds and bright yellow text, it just shouts CHAOS!!

reply to post by Common Good


I get where your coming from.

From a business standpiont however, there are far more visitors than members, even far less of those members who are posting. I think the percentage is just a tad above 50.

Now, MOST of the new aditions to ATS, believe it or not, were member suggestions from various different threads. Lets remember this change is not only for us, but for ATS' visibility among the mainstream internet.

According to what I've been told by little blue birds, ATS is trying to become the first independant Main Stream HONEST media firm.

Unfortunetly there's some conformity required in order to attain those goals. Also from the business standpoint, the money coming to ATS via ads is mostly due to the ammount of visitors we have.

Bill showed us ( early in this thread) some of the stats for non members, right down to how many pages they went through and how long they stayed on the site with different pages etc..

The results were astounding, minor changes ( that we don't like) are making incredible differences in the level of daily traffic at ATS.

I do understand how we might feel like we are getting the short end of the stick, but I'm sure that once ATS is fully layed out, that they will start refining the process, making things even better.

So just sit back and wait, the Staff have ALWAYS since I've been here made changes on things that WE vocalized were not good. Afterall we the contributors are the only ones who they can get feedback from. ( other than the statistical side I mentioned earlier)

I have my issues with some of the design, as we all do, but I am optimistic that they will fix those things. I work in IT, and something like this is a ridiculous endeavor, it's not going to be perfect right off the bat.

The old ATS took almost 10 years to get to the point it was, I don't think it will take nearly as long for 2010 to be like that, but some time I would assume.

Just my thoughts.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Being a member, the biggest issue I have had so far was with the members' only areas. It seems some of the stronger objections lately come from members about the changes to the members' areas. Should members have more say about the content of members' areas than visitors, who won't see them and if they were never members, never have seen them and if they perish before becoming members, never will?

reply to post by EnlightenUp


That's a great point.

I do know that some of the design changes for member specific areas were made based on suggestions from those threads which I'm too lazy to go through and find at the moment.

The short answer is yes, I would figure that since we are the only ones seeing them, that perhaps we should have a bit more input on the changes. Although this is business after all.

Then again, you can't do a redesign and only change half the site, or else it defeats the purpose.

But as I stated earlier, this is daunting task, once that Bill I'm sure has lost most of his hair over lol

Once the dust settles I'm sure well get back to normal and there will be some nice announcements in regards to member demands abou the new 2010 ats.

~Keeper

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
It seems that the foundation of the new layout, which replaces every page content from mainly horizontal view to narrow and vertical is disproportionately targeted to the users on the above devices/platforms to the detriment of the majority.

I'm not understanding this... what was it about the previous format you felt was... "horizontal."

Also, while the future of alternative-device access was and is an increased consideration, it's certainly not taking priority, and the current design was locked-in long before I saw it on a tablet.

Much of the design considerations were the result of deep mining of the data available to us in our analytics, such a screen size, connection speed, CSS compliance etc. (in fact, most of the pages use far less HTML to display).

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I have been on the other side myself and understand the "daunting" aspect. Judging from the site, I'll hazard a guess that a huge amount of the code goes to supports members' participation over that of visitors.

ETA: I've never seen an iPad. I must need to prove myself worthy to be graced by its presence.

Originally posted by Matyas
Well, I think no matter how flashy it gets it will never have the good content it once did.

Agreed, this place is turning to [SNIP] in my opinion. I've been a lurker for longer than I have been a member, but the content of this place has rapidly gone downhill and it seems like the owners have forgotten about content and are to focussed on the business/commercial/money side of the place. I am not an enemy of change, I just feel that these new changes are tacky and not what the board needs...

Mod Edit: Profanity/Circumvention Of Censors – Please Review This Link.

reply to post by Common Good


nine-eyed-eel, is that you?

MyATS has gone back to the old version?

Just a heads up...

The "members tool" menu seems to hang (refuses to open) every so often for me. Clicking on "recent posts" and letting the page reload has been enough to resolve it for me, but it is happening a few times a day.

IE 8.0.6001.18702

reply to post by Esoteric Teacher


?

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Bill, I am not having a go and I am not computer savy enough to have an in depth conversation on the matter.

It is simply from one member's pov that the new layout avails less information per page thus I have to do at least twice as much scrolling to see the same amount I used to. The RP reference with screen shot I made in my previous post is one example, the layout of the new 'myats' page where there were multiple columns and smaller text is another. The 'firehose' format has its advantages, but with such large fonts and without some color to differentiate forums, those advantages, at least in this dog's opinion, are overshadowed.

And for the life of me I cannot understand why the 'discussion board' button is needed on the menu bar when clicking on the 'forums' header achieves the same result? Perhaps it will become clear when further features are rolled out, but for now the DB header is redundant and merits the consideration to be replaced with a 'myats' button.

All these aren't massive deals on their own SO, but like I said, at least on my end, the physical act of browsing and navigating through the site has become more difficult, mainly because less content is visible on every page.

reply to post by KingKongBongoBong


That is great, wish mine would go back to the old version. Oops mine did go back to the old version, hope it stays.

Originally posted by AussieNutter

Originally posted by Matyas
Well, I think no matter how flashy it gets it will never have the good content it once did.

it seems like the owners have forgotten about content and are to focussed on the business/commercial/money side of the place.

Funny you mention that since the ATS content is member driven, not staff driven.
Be the change you wish to see. Want better content? Bring better content.

REMINDER: This thread is NOT to complain about banned members! Keep to the topic: ATS 2010 Updates

reply to post by KingKongBongoBong


Member list can be found under MEMBER TOOLS, ACCOUNT SETTINGS and its on the left side menu.

Originally posted by KingKongBongoBong
MyATS has gone back to the old version?

Yes. There are some changes in the works.

nevermind