Welcome to the new whathifi.com!

[tinkywinkydipsylalapo]

The first part of any news story is what is known in the trade as a standfirst, which is why it appears in italics to differentiate it from the main body copy – it's meant to be a summary of the story as a whole.

Thank you for that professional insight. Of course, if it did reliably appear in italics in all browsers, rather than just looking like body text as it does on some thanks to your weird fonts system on this new site, the confusion may not have arisen.

 

[whiskywheels]

The site looks ridiculous, and many functions either don't work or are missing altogether. The old one was well designed, functional, and a pleasure to use.

Most amateur websites I've seen are better than this. Who on earth decided to get rid of a perfectly good website, and replace it with something as bad as this?

 

[Joe Cox]

The site looks ridiculous, and many functions either don't work or are missing altogether. The old one was well designed, functional, and a pleasure to use.

Most amateur websites I've seen are better than this. Who on earth decided to get rid of a perfectly good website, and replace it with something as bad as this?

Sorry you think that. Which functions are missing or not working? Then we can look to fix/add them. Thanks.

 

[Sliced Bread]

I think What Hi-Fi are aware of the problems now & why not give them time to sort them, 10 years ago the only users were laptop & desk users now people are using everything from a phone to a 27" display - I'm sure they wanted the site to be an improvement & not to annoy people.

Andy IMO has taken more flak than I would have, (if he has a cat it will have had a really bad week) give them some time now to sort through the problems. Most of those who have left will return at some point I'm sure ~

Which is why more robust testing should have been done before release. As has been said, it takes a disproportionate amount of effort and resources to put something right when it gets botched in the first place.

Andy has taken the flak because he has the job/position that requires him to take responsibility. We, as yet, don't know who is responsible for this debacle and who signed off on it, but they should do the honourable thing and 'fall on their sword'. However I won't be holding my breath on that one.

Disagree entirely...Entirely!

Andy has done a stand up job, both with the last site and with helping people with queries on the forum.

He and the team must have worked incredibly hard to get the WebSite up and running, and yes, while it does have a few issues it also has potential.

He has listened…with patience to every concern, and like he says they have a list of issues they are working through. As someone who works in IT, I can tell you that these things take time.

I think what he and the team need now is some space.

 

[relocated]

The site looks ridiculous, and many functions either don't work or are missing altogether. The old one was well designed, functional, and a pleasure to use.

Most amateur websites I've seen are better than this. Who on earth decided to get rid of a perfectly good website, and replace it with something as bad as this?

Sorry you think that. Which functions are missing or not working? Then we can look to fix/add them. Thanks.

In the quiet of your response perhaps I could give an indicator of people's frustrations.

I went into the Search box in the red headliner and typed in 'Samsung 55 tv'and hey presto 40+ tvs came up with One 'Best Buy' noted. Click on the Best Buy tab and nothing about the presumably Samsung 55" tv that should appear there. Just a general blurb about tvs, televisions that is.

The pages are loading quicker now and accessing Forums is quicker until you click on Active Topics and then there is a long wait before that info comes up and then an equally long wait before the chosen topic comes up. In this day of instant gratification and minimal attention span, that isn't going to cut it but hopefully will be/is being worked on.

Incidentally the completely pointless banner - Your comment has been posted - stil keeps showing at the top of the page; when you see your comment posted right before your eyes.

Hopefully I have been of assistance.

Edit:

Oh! and I've just used the 'Search the site' box down in the bottom grey banner and typed in 'Panasonic'. This produced a Home - Panasonic page with 1185 Products, 170 News and ONE Best Buys[???????]. Guess what happens when you click on the one Best Buy, yes you guessed right. The same useless page that the Samsung 55 tv search came up with.

You guys have the emails of us members. So how about you email those of us that want to be constructive and [who have the time] to then get a contact number, speak to them, get them to use the site while you talk to them. Who knows you might get to the heart of various problems and then sort them out.

 

[Marsbardark]

I think What Hi-Fi are aware of the problems now & why not give them time to sort them, 10 years ago the only users were laptop & desk users now people are using everything from a phone to a 27" display - I'm sure they wanted the site to be an improvement & not to annoy people.

Andy IMO has taken more flak than I would have, (if he has a cat it will have had a really bad week) give them some time now to sort through the problems. Most of those who have left will return at some point I'm sure ~

Which is why more robust testing should have been done before release. As has been said, it takes a disproportionate amount of effort and resources to put something right when it gets botched in the first place.

Andy has taken the flak because he has the job/position that requires him to take responsibility. We, as yet, don't know who is responsible for this debacle and who signed off on it, but they should do the honourable thing and 'fall on their sword'. However I won't be holding my breath on that one.

Disagree entirely...Entirely!

Andy has done a stand up job, both with the last site and with helping people with queries on the forum.

He and the team must have worked incredibly hard to get the WebSite up and running, and yes, while it does have a few issues it also has potential.

He has listened…with patience to every concern, and like he says they have a list of issues they are working through. As someone who works in IT, I can tell you that these things take time.

I think what he and the team need now is some space.

The problem is its far worse than it was before.

The old site was one of the best I used (spam trigger aside!), members are just bemused at the changes. Nobody can say it is improvement after 12 months of work.

 

[Joe Cox]

I went into the Search box in the red headliner and typed in 'Samsung 55 tv'and hey presto 40+ tvs came up with One 'Best Buy' noted. Click on the Best Buy tab and nothing about the presumably Samsung 55" tv that should appear there. Just a general blurb about tvs, televisions that is.

The 40+ TVs you get are Samsung 55in TVs, so we would presume that's what you were looking for? On the old site of course you would have got next to nothing, probably!

The 'one Best Buy' is our Televisions Best Buys page. Click on that one result and you will see ALL of our Best Buy TVs. Is that not what you're after?

And on the topic of search, if you know the product you are looking for, our Search now actually works - which it didn't on the old site!

Oh! and I've just used the 'Search the site' box down in the bottom grey banner and typed in 'Panasonic'. This produced a Home - Panasonic page with 1185 Products, 170 News and ONE Best Buys[???????]. Guess what happens when you click on the one Best Buy, yes you guessed right. The same useless page that the Samsung 55 tv search came up with.

That 'useless' page is our Best Buys TVs page. You need to click on the search result to see all of our Best Buy TVs.

 

[James Fortune]

Which functions are missing or not working? Then we can look to fix/add them. Thanks.

Dear Joe, I have detailed a number of howling bugs and omissions on this website in my message near the bottom of page 22. I went into each one in detail yet have had NO COMMENT whatsoever neither on here nor privately as to whether anyone to do with this site has read them let alone do anything about them. By what you have just said, you, clearly, haven't read my message either.

It's very disappointing. :-(

 

[Joe Cox]

Hello James. Thanks for your feedback, will have a look now.

 

[relocated]

I went into the Search box in the red headliner and typed in 'Samsung 55 tv'and hey presto 40+ tvs came up with One 'Best Buy' noted. Click on the Best Buy tab and nothing about the presumably Samsung 55" tv that should appear there. Just a general blurb about tvs, televisions that is.

The 40+ TVs you get are Samsung 55in TVs, so we would presume that's what you were looking for? On the old site of course you would have got next to nothing, probably!

The 'one Best Buy' is our Televisions Best Buys page. Click on that one result and you will see ALL of our Best Buy TVs. Is that not what you're after?

And on the topic of search, if you know the product you are looking for, our Search now actually works - which it didn't on the old site!

Oh! and I've just used the 'Search the site' box down in the bottom grey banner and typed in 'Panasonic'. This produced a Home - Panasonic page with 1185 Products, 170 News and ONE Best Buys[???????]. Guess what happens when you click on the one Best Buy, yes you guessed right. The same useless page that the Samsung 55 tv search came up with.

That 'useless' page is our Best Buys TVs page. You need to click on the search result to see all of our Best Buy TVs.

Prompt response, excellent. I'm not looking for anything. As the person you were replying to wasn't responding I thought I would randomly have a search which was one thing he was complaining of. I would expect that if there is ONE Best Buy Samsung 55"TV and I click through on the Best Buy tab then that ONE tv will be presented to me. Because it didn't I gave up, just like droves of your members are doing on the site as a whole.

Now the Panasonic thing. I've just checked what I wrote because you don't appear to have read what I wrote. To save you the trouble of looking back - I wrote in the word Panasonic, no TV, nothing else. The site returned 1185products, blah blah news items and ONE Best Buy. So 1185 Panasonic products have returned JUST ONE Best Buy, are you seriously telling me that is correct????????

Any comment about the completely pointless[?] "Your comment has been posted"banner at the top of the page.

I'm trying to help you guys out here. You could at least read what people are telling you to try and get this mess sorted out. Now why has this suddenly gone to oversized text??????

 

[Joe Cox]

Click Products, click Home Cinema, drop down Product Types, click Home Cinema Amplifiers

Where is the very valuable BUDGET, MIDRANGE, HIGH END systems listings? Gone? I really hope not.

You can instead select 'Tested at price' to sort all the amps by price, which is more accurate than we had on the old site. Sorry you miss the systems listings. Will put on the list of potential additional features.

It says there is ONE Best Buy! Really? In the whole range of 472 amps?!!!

Click on the Best Buys (1) tab

You are taken to a page with nothing on it other than a description of what an amplifier is. Oh dear. :-(

That's not one Best Buy product - that's a preview of our Best Buys AV amps page. Click on the one listing and you're taken to our Best Buys page for amps. Make sense?

OK, let's try it another way.

Click Best Buys on the top red ribbon, click Home Cinema, click Home Cinema Amplifiers (no Product Types drop down this time - one click saved)

There are FOUR Best Buys this time! But no prices and a ludacrous waste of space when each one could be a single line and a small photo ... and a price.

Our old Best Buys page had far less information on, were far less flexible and looked even worse! We can update these pages so expect them to improve but they are never going to duplicate the entire review - it's meant to be an at-a-glance list of products.

Click on the picture - nothing, click on the name - nothing, you have to click on the words "full review" to get any details on the product ... and the price. It is standard for at least the photo and the product name to be "hot" - able to take you to the product description/review.

Agreed - noted.

 

[relocated]

I went into the Search box in the red headliner and typed in 'Samsung 55 tv'and hey presto 40+ tvs came up with One 'Best Buy' noted. Click on the Best Buy tab and nothing about the presumably Samsung 55" tv that should appear there. Just a general blurb about tvs, televisions that is.

The 40+ TVs you get are Samsung 55in TVs, so we would presume that's what you were looking for? On the old site of course you would have got next to nothing, probably!

The 'one Best Buy' is our Televisions Best Buys page. Click on that one result and you will see ALL of our Best Buy TVs. Is that not what you're after?

And on the topic of search, if you know the product you are looking for, our Search now actually works - which it didn't on the old site!

Oh! and I've just used the 'Search the site' box down in the bottom grey banner and typed in 'Panasonic'. This produced a Home - Panasonic page with 1185 Products, 170 News and ONE Best Buys[???????]. Guess what happens when you click on the one Best Buy, yes you guessed right. The same useless page that the Samsung 55 tv search came up with.

That 'useless' page is our Best Buys TVs page. You need to click on the search result to see all of our Best Buy TVs.

No it isn't. It is your TVs, best in certain size categories. So an Awards page for Best 22", Best 32"etc., etc. Which, incidentally, has NO 55" Samsung best buy tv AT ALL. Just a Panasonic 55, which is one of four Best Tvs when your Panasonic product search came up with just ONE Best Buy Panasonic products.

Now do you understand how broken your website is? I am not criticising for the sake of it, or taking my bat home, never to return, as some are saying. IAM TRYING TO HELP YOU PEOPLE TRY TO GET AN UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR HOPELESS CHANGES TO THIS SITE.

 

[robinkiddy]

I know u r all busy. Sorry. Can (I) robinkidderminster have a password sent to me please.

Why does the login box go almost black? It does not scroll either.

Pinch zoom would be useful - can we know which aspects (problems) u r looking into?

What IS the diff between 'new & updated posts' and 'active posts' and whats wrong with latest, new or unread posts? Neither of these buttons actually show my unread or latest posts.

Many thanks

eg this post is in 'active' but not in new & updated ????

 

[Joe Cox]

Prompt response, excellent. I'm not looking for anything. As the person you were replying to wasn't responding I thought I would randomly have a search which was one thing he was complaining of. I would expect that if there is ONE Best Buy Samsung 55"TV and I click through on the Best Buy tab then that ONE tv will be presented to me.

You did a search for Samsung 55in TVs. So you get Samsung 55in TVs returned as results. And the Best Buys page for TVs.

I wrote in the word Panasonic, no TV, nothing else. The site returned 1185products, blah blah news items and ONE Best Buy. So 1185 Panasonic products have returned JUST ONE Best Buy, are you seriously telling me that is correct????????

I think that's because Panasonic only has one Best Buy product. Panasonic has a Best Buy TVs page, so you get the Best Buy TVs page in your search results. Panasonic has no other Best Buy products so no other Best Buy pages are returned. Hope that makes sense.

Any comment about the completely pointless[?] "Your comment has been posted"banner at the top of the page.

I'm trying to help you guys out here. You could at least read what people are telling you to try and get this mess sorted out. Now why has this suddenly gone to oversized text??????

I hadn't noticed the banner, maybe when I post this...

Text size is jumping around for me, too. Obviously the issue has been logged. At least it doesn't publish in weird sizes but we'll fix as soon as we can.

 

[Joe Cox]

I went into the Search box in the red headliner and typed in 'Samsung 55 tv'and hey presto 40+ tvs came up with One 'Best Buy' noted. Click on the Best Buy tab and nothing about the presumably Samsung 55" tv that should appear there. Just a general blurb about tvs, televisions that is.

The 40+ TVs you get are Samsung 55in TVs, so we would presume that's what you were looking for? On the old site of course you would have got next to nothing, probably!

The 'one Best Buy' is our Televisions Best Buys page. Click on that one result and you will see ALL of our Best Buy TVs. Is that not what you're after?

And on the topic of search, if you know the product you are looking for, our Search now actually works - which it didn't on the old site!

Oh! and I've just used the 'Search the site' box down in the bottom grey banner and typed in 'Panasonic'. This produced a Home - Panasonic page with 1185 Products, 170 News and ONE Best Buys[???????]. Guess what happens when you click on the one Best Buy, yes you guessed right. The same useless page that the Samsung 55 tv search came up with.

That 'useless' page is our Best Buys TVs page. You need to click on the search result to see all of our Best Buy TVs.

No it isn't. It is your TVs, best in certain size categories. So an Awards page for Best 22", Best 32"etc., etc. Which, incidentally, has NO 55" Samsung best buy tv AT ALL. Just a Panasonic 55, which is one of four Best Tvs when your Panasonic product search came up with just ONE Best Buy Panasonic products.

Now do you understand how broken your website is? I am not criticising for the sake of it, or taking my bat home, never to return, as some are saying. IAM TRYING TO HELP YOU PEOPLE TRY TO GET AN UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR HOPELESS CHANGES TO THIS SITE.

We've never had a guaranteed Best Buy for every single size... You're asking for things we've never had now! That's nothing 'broken', it's just something you want us to do which we don't! I can't help thinking you're rather looking for problems now

 

[relocated]

Prompt response, excellent. I'm not looking for anything. As the person you were replying to wasn't responding I thought I would randomly have a search which was one thing he was complaining of. I would expect that if there is ONE Best Buy Samsung 55"TV and I click through on the Best Buy tab then that ONE tv will be presented to me.

You did a search for Samsung 55in TVs. So you get Samsung 55in TVs returned as results. And the Best Buys page for TVs.

I wrote in the word Panasonic, no TV, nothing else. The site returned 1185products, blah blah news items and ONE Best Buy. So 1185 Panasonic products have returned JUST ONE Best Buy, are you seriously telling me that is correct????????

I think that's because Panasonic only has one Best Buy product. Panasonic has a Best Buy TVs page, so you get the Best Buy TVs page in your search results. Panasonic has no other Best Buy products so no other Best Buy pages are returned. Hope that makes sense.

Any comment about the completely pointless[?] "Your comment has been posted"banner at the top of the page.

I'm trying to help you guys out here. You could at least read what people are telling you to try and get this mess sorted out. Now why has this suddenly gone to oversized text??????

I hadn't noticed the banner, maybe when I post this...

Text size is jumping around for me, too. Obviously the issue has been logged. At least it doesn't publish in weird sizes but we'll fix as soon as we can.

I'm sorry for having to say this because you are replying promptly and putting yourself in the firing line.

DO YOU NOT REALISE HOW RIDICULOUS YOU ARE MAKING YOURSELF LOOK? You actually think that out of nearly 1200 Panasonic products, they have only managed to get themselves ONE Best Buy acknowledgement????????????

This is beyond a joke.

 

[Andy Clough]

I know u r all busy. Sorry. Can (I) robinkidderminster have a password sent to me please.

Many thanks

You have email.

 

[relocated]

We've never had a guaranteed Best Buy for every single size... You're asking for things we've never had now! That's nothing 'broken', it's just something you want us to do which we don't! I can't help thinking you're rather looking for problems now

[/quote]

You clearly haven't a clue, do you? Lets hope your advertisers are not reading this. Especially Panasonic, who, according to you have only ever managed one Best Buy acknowledgement in 1185 products.

I couldn't make it up.

 

[Joe Cox]

You clearly haven't a clue, do you? Lets hope your advertisers are not reading this. Especially Panasonic, who, according to you have only ever managed one Best Buy acknowledgement in 1185 products.

I couldn't make it up.

Sorry, you're misunderstanding. That's all the Panasonic products in our database. We haven't tested anywhere near all of them! There are Panasonic products on our Best Buy TVs page but not on any other Best Buy pages. Understand?

 

[relocated]

You clearly haven't a clue, do you? Lets hope your advertisers are not reading this. Especially Panasonic, who, according to you have only ever managed one Best Buy acknowledgement in 1185 products.

I couldn't make it up.

Sorry, you're misunderstanding. That's all the Panasonic products in our database. We haven't tested anywhere near all of them! There are Panasonic products on our Best Buy TVs page but not on any other Best Buy pages. Understand?

No Joe I'm not misunderstanding.

So Panasonic have achieved NO Best Buy acknowledgements other than in TVs, where ACCORDING TO YOU [and in the search I have previously described to you] they have achieved one????????

Give it up for pitys sake.

If you are the marker for the grade of people that made this new website and who are tasked with sorting it out then the WHF website is screwed.

Congratulations, I'm not one to give up on something, but, with you and your ill informed ridiculous statements, that's what I'm going to do now. Give up and let you people stew in your own mess.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I still keep losing posts, I am now on 12792 where previously on 12820! I can't post new topics still and it keeps freezing while posting, I have to edit my posts 3 or 4 times. I am going on holiday next week so hopefully it will be looking good when I am back. Cheers!

 

[Series1boy]

You clearly haven't a clue, do you? Lets hope your advertisers are not reading this. Especially Panasonic, who, according to you have only ever managed one Best Buy acknowledgement in 1185 products.

I couldn't make it up.

Sorry, you're misunderstanding. That's all the Panasonic products in our database. We haven't tested anywhere near all of them! There are Panasonic products on our Best Buy TVs page but not on any other Best Buy pages. Understand?

No Joe I'm not misunderstanding.

So Panasonic have achieved NO Best Buy acknowledgements other than in TVs, where ACCORDING TO YOU [and in the search I have previously described to you] they have achieved one????????

Give it up for pitys sake.

If you are the marker for the grade of people that made this new website and who are tasked with sorting it out then the WHF website is screwed.

Congratulations, I'm not one to give up on something, but, with you and your ill informed ridiculous statements, that's what I'm going to do now. Give up and let you people stew in your own mess.

It's only a website. It's new and will be fixed in time, chill out and don't blow a vessel. There is no need to be nasty; constructive comments is the way forward ...

 

[iQ Speakers]

We've never had a guaranteed Best Buy for every single size... You're asking for things we've never had now! That's nothing 'broken', it's just something you want us to do which we don't! I can't help thinking you're rather looking for problems now

You clearly haven't a clue, do you? Lets hope your advertisers are not reading this. Especially Panasonic, who, according to you have only ever managed one Best Buy acknowledgement in 1185 products.

I couldn't make it up.

I have just done both your searchs and Best Buy (1) gives me the same general Television page as you.

Not what i asked for, keep strong you are correct.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

You clearly haven't a clue, do you? Lets hope your advertisers are not reading this. Especially Panasonic, who, according to you have only ever managed one Best Buy acknowledgement in 1185 products.

I couldn't make it up.

Sorry, you're misunderstanding. That's all the Panasonic products in our database. We haven't tested anywhere near all of them! There are Panasonic products on our Best Buy TVs page but not on any other Best Buy pages. Understand?

No Joe I'm not misunderstanding.

So Panasonic have achieved NO Best Buy acknowledgements other than in TVs, where ACCORDING TO YOU [and in the search I have previously described to you] they have achieved one????????

Give it up for pitys sake.

If you are the marker for the grade of people that made this new website and who are tasked with sorting it out then the WHF website is screwed.

Congratulations, I'm not one to give up on something, but, with you and your ill informed ridiculous statements, that's what I'm going to do now. Give up and let you people stew in your own mess.

It's only a website. It's new and will be fixed in time, chill out and don't blow a vessel. There is no need to be nasty; constructive comments is the way forward ...

agreed. It will just take time by the looks of it.

 

[chebby]

Is it really too late to re-instate the old website?

Yes?

Good.

I am catching up on my reading (especially some of the Kindle books I bought on my iPad), I am also catching up on some of the paperbacks i've bought in the last few months.

I've even been cooking today (home made Cornish pasties) and for the last few days the temptation to come here at all has begun to diminish.

I've been planning a 5 day break in early September for the wife and I.

I have dug out my (almost unused) new Fujifilm X20 camera and got both batteries charged up and have been out practicing with it.

The site is now virtually unusable on an iPhone 5, semi-unusable on the iPad Mini and just sad to contemplate on a laptop or PC.

It's not just the long, long list of problems and bugs (which I doubt will ever all be fixed) but the general dumbing down. (I'm sure you'll protest this last point but I am convinced this is what is happening/has happened.)

I could try other hi-fi forums but they are, on past experience, mostly snakepits. Besides, I am getting into getting out of here a lot more and enjoying it.

I'm not flouncing out in a huff, but please leave things exactly as they are so I don't get tempted to visit as often as I used to.

It's good for me.