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

reply to post by wayno


You have a good attitude. I like it.

You also have more stars than you do posts. Can you honestly say that doesn't please you just a tiny bit?

Well, I have not had that many issues with the social networking feature (friends), but since the 2010 update I have been. At least two people that I know for a fact have added me are not showing up in my profile, under "friends" link, but when I go to their profiles, it does show that they have added me under THEIR profiles. Fortunately I was informed by these members in PM, otherwise I never would have known, because clicking on one's profile and then clicking friends is about the only other way to know who has added you. So there appears to be a problem.

The system was setup to PM you when a foe or rival adds you as such, but will not PM you when a friend adds you? Now that is just bass ackwards! I don't give two rats about who "rivals" me. I care much more about who has friended me. I really wish this would change, but at a minimum, a better way to see who has friended you has been needed for a long time- every since the implementation of social networking. Right now we are forced to read down these long lists, and try to pick out who the new friend is. We can do better than this.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5537f0d966ed.jpg[/atsimg]


Mr SO, can we pwease have our BTS smileys back.







C'mon SO, you know you can't resist the power of the cute wittle kitten face.

Is anybody unable to upload pictures to there ATS media account? I only seems to be able to upload things to my "personal upload" section but not under the regular location??

I go to "My media" - "Upload new media" and all I get is a screen saying:

Upload Media - Step 1
General Information
Sharing Options
Terms

And in the right corner a selection button saying "Choose Options"

But that only make the line "Toggle various options such as privacy, embedding, comments and ratings." appear and disappear. No further options, nothing to click..... Am I scr*wing things up again??

Peace

I frequently access ats from my phone and that profile/messages/my threads bar on the left has a tendency to try to be on the screen no matter what. When reading threads that means that it frequently covers up part of the posts. Don't know if there's any way to fix it, but it's definitely annoying. Any chance of getting it to quit doing that SO?

reply to post by FortAnthem


If you remember the BB Code for the BTS Smilys they are still there I think.

Originally posted by Jenna
Any chance of getting it to quit doing that SO?

For now your best bet is to use the mobile site: m.abovetopsecret.com
Relatively soon, we'll be rolling out a more advanced mobile website with full-ATS features... along with apps for iOS and Android.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I do sometimes, I'm just so used to the full site that the mobile version just isn't that appealing in comparison. I can be patient and wait for the updated mobile stuff though.

Originally posted by whatukno
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

If you remember the BB Code for the BTS Smilys they are still there I think.

Yeah but, they used to all be right there in convenient button form so I didn't have to remember the BB code or look them up on Loam's BB code thread.

Having just the plain old bland ATS smileys takes some of the fun away from posting in BTS. If you have to go through all that work to post one of the old BTS smileys, it takes away from the spontinaity of the BTS posting experience.

:bnghd:

Just curious Skeptic Overlord...
when editing our own posts, is it possible to have the time limit actually be at 4 hours like it says, instead of the 2 hours it is?

If not, can you simply tell us that we actually have 2 instead of the four it says we do?

Nothing like noticing a mistake 2 hours and ten minutes later and have it tell me my "4 hour window expired". Having a computer outright lie to me sticks in my craw....

Hello,

I just wanted to note how well the site is functioning these days ... I know you've been getting a lot of grief, including at times from myself, but it must be said that personal aesthetic preferences aside, the actual site performance, bug fixes from the previous version, additional user tools and functions, speed, etc, are all vastly improved and have significantly enhanced the browsing experience. Considering the old 'issues thread' is no more, the fact that in my observation there have been relatively few BBQ threads on the subject of code issues would seem to confirm that the above is indeed the case for most ATS members.

I realize that it is still a work in progress and that bugs will pop up here and there but considering the massive amount of work that must have gone into the redesign I simply wanted to say 'thank you' ... if nothing else for the sake of fairness and to balance out previous 'curse yous.'

Visually the new layout is still a bit of a challenge for those like myself who suffer from Symmetricity Compulsive Disorder that the previous layout appeased, but as the memory of the pre-2010 layout fades so does the relative psychological trauma.

Anyhoot, seriously .... thanks!

Just noticed a cool feature, the link to all the threads that you have subscribed to and the ability to delete the ones you no longer want plus tweaking your memory on threads you may have forgotten.

Thanks

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
I just wanted to note how well the site is functioning these days

All performance data is trending up since early September.

Average pages-per-visit are up, especially when considering only pages with content (threads).

Average time on site is also up, rather significantly.

Abandonment of the site home (users who hit the page, then click nothing) is dramatically down, and below 10% for first-time visitors.

Utilization of the top-topics, hot-topics, and new-topics pages are up dramatically, over 300% in some cases.

The improved (more efficient, smaller, etc.) HTML has increased the Google index to over 750,000 distinct pages (was under 500,000 for ATS and 50,000 for BTS before the redesign).

Daily traffic is also trending up nicely, with Quantcast dropping from just over 2,000 to 1,842 in the period after the redesign started.


Informal feedback from forum operators (from a site specific to forum admins we frequent) is mixed, as people most-familiar with a traditional forum/board layout (vBulliten, phpBB, IPboard, etc.) tend to be initially confused.

However... similarly informal feedback from Internet industry pros (I belong to Internet Oldtimers) is unanimously positive as a big "step forward" for a user-friendly approach to text-based UGC... especially for those who rarely if ever visit a traditionally structure forum.



Still to come:

1) New log-in page with user-defined session management. (soon)

2) A new "zeitgeist" page (soon)

3) Granular site search (we're actually hiring a firm to roll-out a custom solution) (2-3 months)

3) A suite of new features based on the custom search (3-4 months)

4) Apps for Android and iOS to provide a unique look at ATS content, and full access to all site features for logged-in members (3-4 months)

5) More video productions focused on ATS content (ongoing)

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Informal feedback from forum operators (from a site specific to forum admins we frequent) is mixed, as people most-familiar with a traditional forum/board layout (vBulliten, phpBB, IPboard, etc.) tend to be initially confused.

However... similarly informal feedback from Internet industry pros (I belong to Internet Oldtimers) is unanimously positive as a big "step forward" for a user-friendly approach to text-based UGC... especially for those who rarely if ever visit a traditionally structure forum.

Those reactions are interesting and telling as they likely mirror the initial reactions of us ATS members.

Looking back on it, it dawns on me that the belief in this vision must have been unwavering for the risk was substantial. What you have in fact done, is let go of the traditional forum paradigm and ventured in what are unchartered waters for a UGC. To my knowledge no other forum of this size has ever undertaken such a fundamental leap with a member base this large. Most businesses will not take such risks, they wait to align themselves with the pace of their respective industries, risking little and therefore gaining/losing relatively little.

If nothing else, outside of personal preferences, that is worthy of the highest commendation and respect. It seems that 'playing it safe' is not in your constitution. You are changing a culture in midstream ... I imagine that numbers now validating this venture must be a huge relief and provide well earned sense of accomplishment.

Now let's talk Karmanomics ...

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
It seems that 'playing it safe' is not in your constitution.

-heh-

Leaving a well-paying job (2006) as the SVP of the digital department of a well-regarded NYC office of an international advertising agency conglomerate, with a portfolio of industry accolades and success, to focus full-time on a conspiracy theory discussion board certainly wasn't the "safe bet."

You are changing a culture in midstream

I wouldn't go so far as to say that... perhaps upgrading the culture's entire town square.

Since 1998, I've been using this statement at various times: "The Internet culture is one of collaboration, driven by the ethics of sharing." It's something in which I have a very strong belief, and have spoken at a few Internet advertising industry events about that concept.

Forums/boards represent some of the most valuable online content; groups of people with intersecting interests exchanging their shared knowledge to discover new ideas that fill the gaps of mainstream media. But nearly every such "forum/board" is structured in a way that new visitors must work hard to discover what the members feel is an important subject... if it's even discovered at all.

Everything we've done here (and the 2010 redesign is the latest iteration of the evolution) is focused on ensuring that we're making it easy to share the culture of collaboration that exists on ATS. Otherwise... what's the point?

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Good to see some of the facts and figures! Every so often I check the statistics page but its good to lay it out like you did. Very positive, I wish you had a method of monitoring quality of posts though! I had that discussion at work today when talking about Kaizen and 5S principles, 'How do we measure quality across the business?', very hard to do.

First I have heard mention of the Zeitgeist page, that has intrigued me. I am not 'in the know' with regards to IT to say the least, but I have seen a lot of people referring to HTML5, online editing such as Google Wave, google Docs, Microsoft are doing it now as well i think.

A forum like this would be amazing with group collaboration, and more direct interfacing. I'm glad you continue to push the boundaries, hope more opportunities arise soon.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Too bad you can't star people on this forum, because I would star you on this last post of yours. It is great to get an insight into the mind of the wizard behind the curtain.

Speaking of stats ... whether one goes by 'pid' or post count in the forum stats page, we're almost at 10,000,000.

That's a lot.

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Any "Post ID's" not represented in the main tally are posts sitting in the trash-bin.

Yes. Ten million posts is a pretty big deal, especially when you consider our policy against drive-by, short, or otherwise pointless posts.

Once again just want to thank ATS Staff on the good job they have done implementing the new site design and features. Overall I feel the new design is much nicer looking and generally easier to use. Well done.

The only major headache I am having is with the Custom Title. With the old system, you could have more than one word per line and the second line would start successfully on the next line (Custom line 1, Custom line 2). With the new Custom Line feature, I cannot get the 2nd line to start on a new line. I've tried a few different tags but it still doesn't seem to work.

Just to be clear, an example of what I want is as follows:
"Web Designer
Creator Of Music"

Presently, this would come up as follows:
"Web Designer Creator
Of Music"