Freedomain Radio

The new board structure is a step backwards. I thought a few days of getting used to would change my feelings, but it hasn't - not even a little. I find it uninviting and difficult to navigate. The whole thing is just irritating.

For one, it seems sterile. So sterile that we should be discussing things in 0's and 1's. Whereas the old board had some gaudy colours and donator icons, that gave it personality and a sense of place. Even the blue seems like a shade of gray amid the lack of colours. The new board is so organized that you have to strain to find what you're looking for. While a great idea, the index page falls short of making the boards easier to navigate. It tries to pack too much information into too small a space.

Those are my main complaints.

Having said that, I do appreciate all of the hardwork that you put into this, Bill. I have a feeling that people on FDR fear giving any kind of negative feedback (I do - how does one give negative feedback without becoming marginally abusive?) I feel VERY strongly about this change. I think we can do a better job.

I have some good and bad feedback about the boards.

Good - It looks much cleaner. The fonts are better. Looks more professional. I generally think the appearance is better than previously.

Bad - It seems less like a message "board" than before. What I mean is that the old layout was a table containing all the main categories and sub categories. Everything was visible. It was a simple two click process to get to your desired thread. (One click on the topic heading and then another click on the actual post) To sum it up, it was easy to navigate.

Currently it takes 3 clicks, which may not seem like a big deal, but i find it really breaks things up because i can't just see ALL the categories on the main board, but rather navigate two screens to reach the actual posts.

Maybe i'm missing something, but that is what I'm finding. Perhaps there should be two styles of navigation or something?

Yes, I was thinking more along the lines of a hybrid style...

If you have a suggestion for a specific feature or option, we could try to implement it.

I'm pretty happy with the new layout.  I find the facebook-style feeds to be very usable.

Perhaps it could be improved by moving the "Browse Discussions" section into the "Home" tab?  That would make navigation faster.

Hmmmm, I think specifically that if all of the sub-categories were visible in the "Browse Discussions" section, rather than having to click on the "more..." option, that would be cool.

Greg Gauthier:

If you have a suggestion for a specific feature or option, we could try to implement it.

Original authors next to topic, number of views.  Also, the PM system is scaled back quite a bit compared to the old one, you can't edit or quote for some reason.

Definitely original authors next to topic, as Nate said. That would be spiffy.

I dunno what happened, but this is WAAAY better! Friggin AWESOME. I love it!

Thanks

Greg Gauthier:

If you have a suggestion for a specific feature or option, we could try to implement it.

Kudos!  The ability to give people + points for good points, and - points for bad points.  And perhaps even a filter that allows you to filter out people with too many - points!

What about the original author of a post and number of views?

Also, the PM system is still broken, whenever messages go to the next page, you cannot get to the next page.

Nathan:

What about the original author of a post and number of views?

 

I think that would be cool, too!

The forums look awesome now!!!!!!

I think the forum is much better now. I'm very glad you got rid of all of the frames. They made it really difficult to navigate

There use to be rss podcast feed in the donator podcasts section.  So I could subscribe to the donator podcasts in iTunes using the feed and they would update accordingly.  But there's not here on the new site and my feeds have stopped updating for some reason.  It would be great if we could get these back.

Thanks!