Welcome to the new whathifi.com!

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

 

[relocated]

I received an Email today assuring me that my particular issues have been escalated to the head of product development, but was unable to give any timescales as to when they may be resolved, if indeed they can!

I assume the Email was from Andy, but sadly it wasn't signed.

I have offered my assistance with any queries that will undoubtedly arise.

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net

What astonishingly awful manners. Yet another sign of the arrogance being displayed, regarding this carbuncle of a site. It seems everyone must be on holiday as direct questions put on here get no reply.

 

[relocated]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

Same thing happening to me BBB. I asked about it many posts ago AND bumped it, but the powers that be have said NOT ONE WORD.

Perhaps we got a sign of what this debacle is doing for the site the other day, when they were 'whoring out' to a Double Glazing comparison site - ON THE NEWS PAGE. You couldn't make it up.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

I usually link straight to the forum page - so many issues highlighted already. I just went to the main page - Oh dear! There needs to be a 'flashing images' warning. APPALING. The web design team should be named, shamed, sacked & sued.

 

[relocated]

I usually link straight to the forum page - so many issues highlighted already. I just went to the main page - Oh dear! There needs to be a 'flashing images' warning. APPALING. The web design team should be named, shamed, sacked & sued.

I have never gone to the home page before, I just automatically go through to the News page. Just had a look at the Home page and it should have a health warning.

Yes I am being serious. If TV companies have to warn people about flashing images, when there is a couple of seconds in a news piece, then god knows what the requirement must be for that Dolby Atmos thing. It must pose a serious risk to anyone susceptable to flashing lights. How dumb are these people at WHF??????

 

[Dave_]

Between the banner ads, ads down the borders, the ads in the middle of every news story/review, the 'native advertising' and the god awful 'promoted stories' at the bottom of the page

This pretty much sums up WHF now...

 

[MrReaper182]

Between the banner ads, ads down the borders, the ads in the middle of every news story/review, the 'native advertising' and the god awful 'promoted stories' at the bottom of the page

This pretty much sums up WHF now...

I only get adds at the top of the page. Anyway people who moan about adds the loudest are the sort of people who would moan the loudest if the adds were taken away and they were made to pay to use the website.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

We understand the need for ads. But it seems they are mostly responsible for the fireworks. My phone shows no ads. My tablet has white space for ads but no adsa once the first page loads. They cant even get the ads right. I was initially supportive of these efforts and had some sympathy for the parents of this new baby. Now? Just frustrated, feeling that we are stuck with a monster, doubtful that we are being listened to. 'Viewing figures' (hits) would be interesting to see!

 

[John Duncan]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

I would fix the spam filtering thing (since I think I currently have the rights to do so, it has come and gone), but when I click on your username it redirects to my own profile :-/

 

[radiorog]

Was just on the article "best of the week", and from there wanted to go to forum, but the index list button on that page wasnt working.

 

[relocated]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

I would fix the spam filtering thing (since I think I currently have the rights to do so, it has come and gone), but when I click on your username it redirects to my own profile :-/

So are you still a Moderator on this site, John?

A difficult one for you to answer, if you are still in the 'Inner Sanctum', but is anyone with any ability or authority actually taking any notice of the problems being highlighted by members? The lack of responses, particularly to direct questions, would appear to show a complete lack of manners; or that the problems are too large and everyone is in hiding. It really is a shameful situation.

 

[tinkywinkydipsylalapo]

but when I click on your username it redirects to my own profile :-/

Which presumably means either a) you are BBB in disguise, or vice versa; or b) this site is even more VSF than we thought.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

It still takes me about 10 minutes to log in, this is my only gripe now but a very annoying one all the same. Thanks

 

[RodhasGibson]

Testing a post on iPhone 5

 

[John Duncan]

Between the banner ads, ads down the borders, the ads in the middle of every news story/review, the 'native advertising' and the god awful 'promoted stories' at the bottom of the page

This pretty much sums up WHF now...

I only get adds at the top of the page. Anyway people who moan about adds the loudest are the sort of people who would moan the loudest if the adds were taken away and they were made to pay to use the website.

I am quoting this as it is the last post I am seeing, whereas I'm sure there were others after it. Which suggests a cacheing problem, as noted previously.

 

[John Duncan]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

I would fix the spam filtering thing (since I think I currently have the rights to do so, it has come and gone), but when I click on your username it redirects to my own profile :-/

So are you still a Moderator on this site, John?

A difficult one for you to answer, if you are still in the 'Inner Sanctum', but is anyone with any ability or authority actually taking any notice of the problems being highlighted by members? The lack of responses, particularly to direct questions, would appear to show a complete lack of manners; or that the problems are too large and everyone is in hiding. It really is a shameful situation.

I am, yes, though my (and the other mods') ability to actually mod has been hampered somewhat since the relaunch. From my point of view the biggest issue is the site's behaviour on mobile, which makes it difficult to post and difficult to moderate, since this is where historically I have done most of both. Having launched a few websites in my time, I do however have an enormous amount of sympathy for the developers and product managers involved, who no doubt have to balance commercial priorities - and I don't mean that in an 'evil' way, all businesses need to make money and cars are a *much* bigger deal than our niche interest - with fixing stuff they know is broken and would love to sort. If it were me though, I would prioritise one thing over all others, and that is to make the site work on mobile. I don't mean 'look alright', I mean work, for it is fundamentally broken right now on all browsers on my iPhone for user generation of content, which is one of the key tenets of the redesign AFAICT. Macspur's (and another, I forget whose) problem with screen reading would be lower down my list as it affects fewer people, unless there was a statutory reason to do so (I don't know if this is the case, it's never been an issue I've come across tbh). Sorry, I mean no disrespect to those facing that problem. As for being part of the 'inner sanctum', I don't think that's been the case for quite some time, though I do still have the odd beer with Mr Clough 🙂

 

[John Duncan]

There were paragraphs in that when I wrote it...

 

[chebby]

Macspur's (and another, I forget whose) problem with screen reading would be lower down my list as it affects fewer people, unless there was a statutory reason to do so (I don't know if this is the case, it's never been an issue I've come across tbh). Sorry, I mean no disrespect to those facing that problem.

It's not your website re-design, so you are blameless, but the degree of respect/disrespect IS the degree to which it's prioritised (or not).

I understand that you have your commercial 'hat' on when talking about the numbers affected (i.e. no advertiser would miss one Macspur but they'd certainly notice a widespread reluctance to use the mobile versions in terms of reduced 'hits') but one person's dilemma does matter to everyone here because we know and like the guy, so the WHF? staff are not going to be able to dodge it without an amount of heat and noise that is disproportionate to it's commercial importance.

 

[John Duncan]

Macspur's (and another, I forget whose) problem with screen reading would be lower down my list as it affects fewer people, unless there was a statutory reason to do so (I don't know if this is the case, it's never been an issue I've come across tbh). Sorry, I mean no disrespect to those facing that problem.

It's not your website re-design, so you are blameless, but the degree of respect/disrespect IS the degree to which it's prioritised (or not).

I understand that you have your commercial 'hat' on when talking about the numbers affected (i.e. no advertiser would miss one Macspur but they'd certainly notice a widespread reluctance to use the mobile versions in terms of reduced 'hits') but one person's dilemma does matter to everyone here because we know and like the guy, so the WHF? staff are not going to be able to dodge it without an amount of heat and noise that is disproportionate to it's commercial importance.

I wrote a long response. I don't know where it is now.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

Seems the only tweaking recently is in making adverts invisible adding the most pleasant flashing / hiccup / jerk effects. One day the developers will look at the unfair, biassed and unreasonable comments from most active forumites. Better now with only one ad which has an innactive link.

A repeated question - whats the difference between unread and acive?

 

[relocated]

Many thanks for your reply, John. I agree one hundred percent with Chebby. The lack of responses, particularly to direct questions, is dreadful bad manners to say the least. Particularly when posts are not destructive but trying to be constructive.

hi

 

[relocated]

I was about to say that this site was running ok on my iPad Mini, but then I suddenly couldn't write any more in my previous post.

 

[Macspur]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

I would fix the spam filtering thing (since I think I currently have the rights to do so, it has come and gone), but when I click on your username it redirects to my own profile :-/

So are you still a Moderator on this site, John?

A difficult one for you to answer, if you are still in the 'Inner Sanctum', but is anyone with any ability or authority actually taking any notice of the problems being highlighted by members? The lack of responses, particularly to direct questions, would appear to show a complete lack of manners; or that the problems are too large and everyone is in hiding. It really is a shameful situation.

I am, yes, though my (and the other mods') ability to actually mod has been hampered somewhat since the relaunch. From my point of view the biggest issue is the site's behaviour on mobile, which makes it difficult to post and difficult to moderate, since this is where historically I have done most of both. Having launched a few websites in my time, I do however have an enormous amount of sympathy for the developers and product managers involved, who no doubt have to balance commercial priorities - and I don't mean that in an 'evil' way, all businesses need to make money and cars are a *much* bigger deal than our niche interest - with fixing stuff they know is broken and would love to sort. If it were me though, I would prioritise one thing over all others, and that is to make the site work on mobile. I don't mean 'look alright', I mean work, for it is fundamentally broken right now on all browsers on my iPhone for user generation of content, which is one of the key tenets of the redesign AFAICT. Macspur's (and another, I forget whose) problem with screen reading would be lower down my list as it affects fewer people, unless there was a statutory reason to do so (I don't know if this is the case, it's never been an issue I've come across tbh). Sorry, I mean no disrespect to those facing that problem. As for being part of the 'inner sanctum', I don't think that's been the case for quite some time, though I do still have the odd beer with Mr Clough 🙂

I feel for those poor devils not being able to use the WHF site on their mobile devices, but I bet they have full access and functionality on their PC's... I have neither!

As for statutory rights, I have previously mentioned the DDA.

Mr Duncan, you may not have meant to come across as arrogant and disrespectful, but you did!

Mac

 

[pixa]

Nowadays web accessibility should underpin all website design and development. Web design teams should know and understand this by now, it's nothing new. Companys have a legal obligation to provide access to the disabled for a pelethora of reasons.

More info here

Sorry to hear that some folks are having problems. Looking at this site I would imagine it is one of very many

 

[John Duncan]

I'm triggering the spam filter for the first time ever, which is pretty annoying. I do hope the fixes are on the way, because there's a lot of people getting fed up with trying to post, and failing.

There were things about the old site that weren't great, and I can see how some things have improved, but it's just so slow, and such hard work to post these days.

I would fix the spam filtering thing (since I think I currently have the rights to do so, it has come and gone), but when I click on your username it redirects to my own profile :-/

So are you still a Moderator on this site, John?

A difficult one for you to answer, if you are still in the 'Inner Sanctum', but is anyone with any ability or authority actually taking any notice of the problems being highlighted by members? The lack of responses, particularly to direct questions, would appear to show a complete lack of manners; or that the problems are too large and everyone is in hiding. It really is a shameful situation.

I am, yes, though my (and the other mods') ability to actually mod has been hampered somewhat since the relaunch. From my point of view the biggest issue is the site's behaviour on mobile, which makes it difficult to post and difficult to moderate, since this is where historically I have done most of both. Having launched a few websites in my time, I do however have an enormous amount of sympathy for the developers and product managers involved, who no doubt have to balance commercial priorities - and I don't mean that in an 'evil' way, all businesses need to make money and cars are a *much* bigger deal than our niche interest - with fixing stuff they know is broken and would love to sort. If it were me though, I would prioritise one thing over all others, and that is to make the site work on mobile. I don't mean 'look alright', I mean work, for it is fundamentally broken right now on all browsers on my iPhone for user generation of content, which is one of the key tenets of the redesign AFAICT. Macspur's (and another, I forget whose) problem with screen reading would be lower down my list as it affects fewer people, unless there was a statutory reason to do so (I don't know if this is the case, it's never been an issue I've come across tbh). Sorry, I mean no disrespect to those facing that problem. As for being part of the 'inner sanctum', I don't think that's been the case for quite some time, though I do still have the odd beer with Mr Clough 🙂

I feel for those poor devils not being able to use the WHF site on their mobile devices, but I bet they have full access and functionality on their PC's... I have neither!

As for statutory rights, I have previously mentioned the DDA.

Mr Duncan, you may not have meant to come across as arrogant and disrespectful, but you did!

Mac

I had hoped to be neither. My point (though not expressly put) was that the ability to post on mobile could be fixed in about five minutes, which might shut a large number of people up so that the developers could concentrate on the thornier problem of providing accessibility, which might take somewhat longer. As I've said, I'm not that up on what the DDA requires, but a cursory glance suggests that this website does have a statutory responsibility, yes. That still doesn't change my mind about my statement above though. Of course, this is all moot as it's none of my business.