What do you think of your new forums? [Archive]

blobbyh

28-11-07, 15:31

I think the fact that you took the old sites down before redirecting anyone to here - I found my way here purely by accident - is negligent and downright irresponsible in the lead up to exam week.

Rather than slapping yourselves on the back over the new look of the forums, you should all be hanging your heads in shame. Of all weeks, this was NOT the week for you to be messing around with the forums, which was done without adequate prior consultation with your members and fee payers. Many students - especially distance learners - rely on the forums for their sole communication with others and I would now hold you partially liable should any candidates marginally fail next week.

I know there are others - and who knows how many there are? - who have so far been unable to find their way to these new forums - the lack of communication from yourself Anna and the rest of your team is unforgivable and I've now written a formal letter of complaint to the president of the AAT.

Regards,

Robert

blobbyh

28-11-07, 15:44

For anyone interested, this is the text of the letter I've sent;

************************************************** ******

FAO; The current AAT President
C/O ASSOCIATION OF ACCOUNTING TECHNICIANS
140 Aldersgate Street
London
EC1A 4HY

28th November 2007

Ref; AAT website discussion forums

Dear Sirs

I would like to express my intense dissatisfaction regarding the accessibility – or more accurately, the lack of it – of the discussion forums. Having contacted many of my other colleagues from the forums, this increasing disservice is unanimously unacceptable from a professional body such as yourselves and your fee paying students and members deserve far, far better than what we are currently receiving.

I’m sure you’re already acutely aware that the next examinations are now less than a week away and that the discussion forums provide an invaluable tool for students sitting the various subjects. The forums are essential for other members to answer last minute questions or problems, reassure and resolve the fears of candidates and occasionally, provide a little relief from the obvious pre-exam stresses. However, I have now tried logging into the forums several times this morning, only to be met with the extremely unwelcome “webpage cannot be found” text. Not only do we inexplicably have more than one current website - both of which operate on a seemingly arbitrary basis - but they are now also simultaneously inaccessible.

Following on from the disaster of June 2007 when the forums were also unavailable for much of the weekend immediately prior to the exams – apparently due to questionable maintenance being carried out which inadvertently crashed the site – for it to now happen a second time is absolutely outrageous. While I understand that a new version of the forums will be available on 30th November, for it to come at such a crucial time when your fee paying students all require this resource to be fully available and error free, the timing of the new launch is little short of negligent and contemptuous. Although limited statements have been issued by Anna Hillier and the rest of her design team, these have been infrequent and brief, with their quite extraordinary ‘solution’ to simply subscribe to a competing website.

Overall, aren’t students and other members now surely entitled to question both Anna’s and her teams’ general judgement and competence since from painful experience, their ability in handling vital situations such as this one clearly seems in extreme doubt?

Yours faithfully

Robert Howcroft
(Financial Controller)

Anna Hillier

28-11-07, 16:33

Welcome all to your new forums, it's lovely to see you.

Having trouble trying to post a thread, once I'd registered again. Can't seem to find a place to allow access to post replies within the user profiles?

Not sure I understand you correctly Frank, but you can't post replies within a user profile, only within threads. If you'd like to, drop me a PM or an email and I'll try and explain further - or the FAQs (link top right) might be useful.

It would be nice if you could get to this forum via ALL 'forum' links on the main website! Not just through ATonline.

Dean, all forum links on the main website have been updated, not just the ATonline ones. You may need to empty your temporary internet files to get the latest version of the website. If you do find any links we've missed, please let me know - on here, by PM or by email.

you took the old sites down before redirecting anyone to here

Robert, all four of the old forum links now point to this forum, so redirection should be automatic. In the odd case they don't, we've made sure the error page contains redirection to the forums. If you've found something different then please, tell us what url you were using and we'll continue to do everything we can to make the forums accessible to all.

without adequate prior consultation with your members and fee payers

It was precisely because we were listening to what you and other members were saying on our old forums that we acted to bring you these as promptly as possible.

Many students - especially distance learners - rely on the forums for their sole communication with others

Again, it's because we appreciate the importance of the forums to students and especially distance learners that we have done all we possibly can to bring you new forums as promptly as possible. And because we appreciate the value that old posts have for students, we have made the old forums available to search through, in the archive on this site.

I would wait for your letter to reach the President before responding, but since you've made it public, allow me to address these points here, too:

we inexplicably have more than one current website

I've no idea what you mean by this. We have one website.

apparently due to questionable maintenance being carried out which inadvertently crashed the site

I posted a full explanation of the reasons behind the site crashing in June. I specifically pointed out that we had never and would never carry out site maintenance at such a busy time.

for it to now happen a second time is absolutely outrageous

There is no second time. Nothing's happened.

limited statements have been issued by Anna Hillier and the rest of her design team

My team have been working extremely hard on launching these forums. My project leader Simon posted a message on the old forums to reassure users that everything was on track.

their quite extraordinary ‘solution’ to simply subscribe to a competing website

It is an extraordinary solution, isn't it? Extraordinary and brilliant. And it was suggested to me by one of our old forum members, who cc'd Baggybooks, among others, when he cleverly suggested it. We wanted students - and other members - to have an alternative.

members now surely entitled to question both Anna’s and her teams’ general judgement and competence

Question mine all you like. My team are committed, well qualified professionals who work extremely hard for you and your fellow members and who don't deserve your ire.

blobbyh

28-11-07, 17:27

Thank you for your reply Anna,

While I don't intend this to detract into a public slanging match, I will clarify the further points you've raised;

1) There have actually been two Forums running side by side for the past few weeks which I'm sure other users will happily confirm. This was not an imaginary situation but 100% truth and the two were commonly referred to as the 'real' one while the other was nicknamed the 'phantom' or 'ghost' forum. Users had to be logged into both to ensure all posts and PM's were read. This was a fact well known to all the regular forum users so I'm completely astonished that the site administrators were unaware of the existence of these TWO simultaneous forums.

2) The new forum wasn't due to launch until November 30th so it was a bit surprising to log on today and constantly see the 'webpage not available' nor was any mention made of the date being brought forward. Yes, we saw the message from Simon Smith but once again he posted it on the relatively empty 'real' forum while neglecting to also double post it on the more popular 'phantom' forum. I even PM'd Simon Smith alerting him to this fact which should have brought his attention to the first point as above.

3) When I said the "extraordinary solution" over recommending the competing forum, it wasn't intended as a complement and should not be taken as such. My ana*ogy at the time was that it was tantamount to Macdonalds sending their customers over to Burger King because their ovens had broken down. Don't you think it could be a PR disaster that many of those people you sent away might not come back?

4) However they occurred, the first time the forums were unavailable was back in June as you pointed out. Since there was no formal announcement this week regarding the early Forums transfers, how were we to know todays situation was only temporary? Therefore I believe I fairly counted this as the second major crash.

5) We are ALL professionals on this website - this isn't IMDB - so it seems we'll have to disagree on this point, where you believe we've been receiving a professional website all along while some of us may beg to differ otherwise.

Early indicators are that the new site does indeed look much better than the other one but I maintain that the communication and transfer could have been handled much better than they were.

Regards,

Robert

jackie

28-11-07, 17:29

Hi,
I am a distance learner sitting the PEV, PCR and DFS next week and I am more than a little dismayed at the change being done so close to the exams, I would have preferred the change over to have taken place two weeks later. I was familiar with the old layout and could navigate my way around quickly, hence at lunchtime today, when I went on the forum to look at a thread regarding DFS and found the new forum layout I was totally lost and did not have time to try to work it all out to find what I was looking for:mad2:
So close to the exams I am sure that most of us would prefer to spend as much time as possible revising and not trying to work out the new layout.
Jackie

Nich

28-11-07, 17:42

I am also a distant leaner, looking for information from other members. I tried to log onto the forums today and i kept getting 'page cannot be displayed' it did not re-direct me to the new forums. I agree with Jackie that rather that try to find my way around a new forum, the old layout was very clear and easy and would have been much better being lauched after the exams next week. I do think the launch of the new forums, however good they maybe would have waited until after the exams.

Dean

28-11-07, 17:48

Anna, thanks for your reply. I didn't realise I had to 'delete' anything. I've now deleted everything I can find and I still get the same problem?

I don't confess to be an IT guru - hence being an accountant. So, in my own defence can you tell me where you posted the instructions to access the new forum?

The latest communication regarding the forum; wasn't it meant to be set live in 2 days time? While it's nice to be prompt - it's also nice to be informed!

On another note, you mentioned you were taking time in getting the 'right' forum software for us as users... for what I do know about forums, can you restore my confidence by confirming you have adequate security to maintain this forum? I say this because it's the most commonly used software going and by recollection the most hacked! Perhaps Chris can also confirm?

I'm afraid i'm with the students on this one - I feel for you all!

Regards

Dean

Baggybooks

28-11-07, 17:59

If I click on aat logo on top left, it takes me to the AAT site, but if I go from there to the student page, to the forums, it goes nowhere.

As that is how most students will be searching for their forum, could you not put a link to this place?

Anna Hillier

28-11-07, 18:51

Robert, there were two instances - three for a while - of the old forums running, yes. Forgive me, I thought you said sites. We have one site, always have, and now, thankfully, we have one instance of the discussion forums. There was no crash, your access problems are likely to be due to your internet settings.

The situation you're seeing on /students, Baggybooks, is definitely because of your internet settings: either delete your internet files or try a hard refresh - Ctrl + F5 - and you'll see that all the links work.

Dean, I appreciate that the advice I've given above is on the techie side, but it's the nature of the internet that whenever we publish something new, if your internet settings are set to pick up a new version of any site you view only now and then, you won't see the latest version of any site for ages. The Ctrl + F5 advice is easier and should work. If it doesn't, drop me an email and I'll give you a call.

Jackie and Nich, the old forums are all still available, in the archive, in exactly the same layout they were in before. They're searchable. The reason we wanted to go live with the new forums before the exams - and why we've gone live as early as we possibly could - is because we wanted to provide you and all our other student members with as much support as possible: the old forums, and the ability to post/ask questions/discuss revision etc on the new forums. I hope you find you can do that, and that you get the support here that you need.

Yazi

28-11-07, 18:53

Hi

I got into the forums using the aat.ork.uk site via members page and their discussion forum which is working, but the students one is not working.

Yas

Yazi

28-11-07, 18:57

thats aat.org.uk

not ork

Anna Hillier

28-11-07, 19:12

Hi Yazi.
Shame, I like 'ork'. Have you tried the Ctrl + F5 hard refresh? It may be necessary to delete your internet files - if you're using internet explorer you do that by clicking on Tools and then selecting Internet Options. Then you select Delete temporary files.
Let me know if this doesn't work.

Dean

28-11-07, 19:32

Dean, I appreciate that the advice I've given above is on the techie side, but it's the nature of the internet that whenever we publish something new, if your internet settings are set to pick up a new version of any site you view only now and then, you won't see the latest version of any site for ages. The Ctrl + F5 advice is easier and should work. If it doesn't, drop me an email and I'll give you a call.

Still doesn't work for me :(

Regards

Dean

Anna Hillier

28-11-07, 19:32

I'm sorry to hear that Dean.

Could you please tell me exactly which links aren't working? Either here or by PM or by email?

Dean

28-11-07, 19:41

Anna, it must be me as Yazi above said he can access the forums through the members area. I always go through the members pages on the main site and none of the forum links are working for me.

I'll keep trying.

Regards

Dean

Bluewednesday

28-11-07, 19:42

I like the new forums! Are we able to get the post tally's across or have we lost them?

Anna Hillier

28-11-07, 19:42

Hello Bluewednesday,
I'm so glad you like the new forums. We love them, they're a world away from the old ones.

We removed the post tally option because the number of posts a member has is often taken to be a measure of seniority or status - even though this is based purely on the number, not the content, of the posts. What we're really pleased to introduce instead is the option to recognise other members' helpful/interesting/good posts by clicking on the little 'rep' (for reputation) tag at the bottom of each post.

Simon Smith

28-11-07, 19:47

On another note, you mentioned you were taking time in getting the 'right' forum software for us as users... for what I do know about forums, can you restore my confidence by confirming you have adequate security to maintain this forum? I say this because it's the most commonly used software going and by recollection the most hacked! Perhaps Chris can also confirm?

Dean,

vBulletin in it's current state is now a very secure piece of forum software. The developers are quick to release patches if any issues do arise around security but these forums are safe from several common PHP hacking methods compared to open source software such as PHPBB which has been severely compromised in the past (although it too is very secure these days) and Jforum (our previous forum software).

Protection of our members' information is very important to us, which why we spent the time making sure the safest forum solution was chosen.

Dean

28-11-07, 19:54

Dean

28-11-07, 19:55

Dean,

vBulletin in it's current state is now a very secure piece of forum software. The developers are quick to release patches if any issues do arise around security but these forums are safe from several common PHP hacking methods compared to open source software such as PHPBB which has been severely compromised in the past (although it to is very secure these days) and Jforum (our previous forum software).

Protection of our members' information is very important to us, which why we spent the time making sure the safest forum solution was chosen.

Thank you for your reply Simon. That's reassuring.

Regards

Dean

Yazi

28-11-07, 19:56

Dean

I am a "she"

And Anna

I tried the F5 at home and this does not do anything.
I managed to log in via the members forums at work and the same at home. But both comps would not go through via the students link.
Deleted files now as you said but still does not work.

Yas

Simon Smith

28-11-07, 20:11

Sounds interesting. Can we have a list of functions and features of the new forums?

Regards

Dean

There is a comprehensive list of features over at the vBulletin site, you can find that by clicking here (http://www.vbulletin.com/features.php).

But to summarise:

There are many different customisation options available to you in the 'User control panel'.

A new calendar system which allows you to add events to your own private calendar and also view shared events on the AAT calendar.

The user reputation system can be used by clicking the 'Rep' icon under each post. This allows you to approve of a users' post if you think it has been useful and ranking is gained through this method, rather then post count.

Far more intelligent searching system, ability to attach items to the board (such as jpeg images), thread rating, listing of all the new posts and a much better text editor for making posts.

From our side of the fence it's also far, far easier to maintain these boards and make sure everything runs smoothly.

peugeot

28-11-07, 20:27

I think the forums are fine. I think once we all get used to the new layout there won't be a problem.

peugeot

28-11-07, 20:49

Hi Robert,

I've read your letter to the President! It was me that recommended that the AAT should redirect students to the Accountancy Students website where they have a dedicated AAT section. You should therefore remove this from your letter as I take responsibility for that recommendation.

Best regards
Steve

blobbyh

28-11-07, 20:50

Dear Anna and her team,

Forgive my paddy earlier, I was a little miffed that you transferred the forums without properly informing people and leaving us in the dark - which I still don't think you did but never mind! My letter to the AAT president - whilst written wasn't actually posted - and nor will it ever be since writing it down got it largely off my chest!

I do like the extra functionality of the new forums and appreciate that they're still very much a work-in-progress, plus we now have the valuable facility of being able to easily locate ours and others previous posts unlike before. The rep function - whilst also being a useful addition - is so innocuous that it's likely to go relatively unused.

Best regards,

Robert

blobbyh

28-11-07, 21:06

It was me that recommended that the AAT should redirect students to the Accountancy Students website where they have a dedicated AAT section. You should therefore remove this from your letter as I take responsibility for that recommendation.

Hello Steve, I'd already gathered it was you anyway but are you now denying you didn't receive a hit fee for every AAT student you managed to steal away from here?! :ohmy:

If I owned a very expensive Macdonalds franchise but you, as one of my valued but occasional customers preferred Burger King, I still don't think I could endorse you sending people over there even if my ovens had broken down!

:thumbup1:

Dean

28-11-07, 21:06

Ah ha! Cracked it! :thumbup:

blobbyh

28-11-07, 21:20

I like the new forums! Are we able to get the post tally's across or have we lost them?

Shame we can't have the post counts though I understand why...

... but once you have more than ten posts, the "new" is dropped from your forum status tag and you become just... "member". So when Hellen hits the first millenium (I can never spell that word) sometime next week, I wonder what she'll become?! Personally, I'd like titles like "Legendary" and "Grand Wizard" but that's just me...

Hope that made your evening, Annette?!

shaxxa

29-11-07, 00:10

:001_smile:So far, so good!!
Not had a problem so far and I like the look of the new forums.

Sharon

Jan

29-11-07, 00:21

I can find the archive thread, but the latest posts appear to be from early November - not a lot of use if a student posted a question yesterday!

Must be something I'm doing wrong -I've tried the F5. Also now I am in post reply mode I can see more replies, perhaps I didn't scroll down enough ?

Can't find the quotation marks - but I'm sure with a little effort we'll get used to it.

Robert - Millennium - but I had to spell check it!!

Jan

PS I logged on at lunch time at work- via members as students just came up unavailable, now at home and got straight on OK.

peugeot

29-11-07, 09:37

Jan,

If you click on the "Last Posting" heading at the top of the column it should rearrange the threads in date order.

Best wishes
Steve

Dean

29-11-07, 10:05

The student forums really need to be spilt into their own levels. Is this possible?

Regards

Dean

Anna Hillier

29-11-07, 10:13

Yes, we can add whatever subforums you like. We decided to start with fewer forums and add new ones as needed, so that we avoid having the virtual equivalent of a party spread over too many rooms.

At the moment there are only seven threads in the Student discussion forum. We want the forums to be as simple and easy to navigate as possible, so as soon as it gets a bit busier in there we'll create subforums as required and move threads (leaving redirects so you can find them easily).

Cullen

29-11-07, 11:02

I am looking forward to using the new forums. I like the Forum teams active and lively defense of the hysterical criticism. I liked seeing their responses published for all the forum users to see.
Good on you Anna and Simon.

Anna Hillier

29-11-07, 11:34

I can find the archive thread, but the latest posts appear to be from early November - not a lot of use if a student posted a question yesterday!

There was indeed a (necessary) gap between our copying the old forums and the publication of the new ones. We advised people during this time to post on accountancy.students.co.uk because we knew - you'd told us - that posting on our old forums was beset with problems. The level of activity on the students' area of the old forums during November was very low, so this is unlikely to apply to many people, but: any students who posted a question on the old forums during November and who need to access the answers they were given before next week's exams, please email or PM me as soon as you can, including details of the post, and we'll email you the responses.

Can't find the quotation marks - but I'm sure with a little effort we'll get used to it.

There's a Quote button at the bottom right hand side of every post - just click.

blobbyh

29-11-07, 13:19

Hello Anna,

Just been visting the closed forums and noticed that the obscenity filters are maybe set a little too high! Since we're coming up to exam time, it's likely we're going to get people asking about passmarks! That's p-a-s-s-m-a-r-k-s!

Also, yesterday I found I couldn't write the word analogy as in a-n-a-l-o-g-y!

When I click preview for this message they look okay so I guess I'll have to click submit to see if the above words are still thrown out or not! :ohmy:

EDIT; looks like they're okay now - sorry!

Ben

29-11-07, 13:31

I looked at the archive and the last posting is 8 Nov 07 in descending order.
How do we get to see discussion topics from 8 Nov onwards. May be I am missing a link.
I think a lot of work has been done to make the new forum better but I am not convinced it has achieved the object.

Anna Hillier

29-11-07, 13:33

We are still tweaking the obscenity filters. If you find you can't post a word, email or PM me and I'll add it to the list.

Anna Hillier

29-11-07, 13:35

Baggybooks

29-11-07, 13:54

Shame we can't have the post counts though I understand why...

... but once you have more than ten posts, the "new" is dropped from your forum status tag and you become just... "member". So when Hellen hits the first millenium (I can never spell that word) sometime next week, I wonder what she'll become?! Personally, I'd like titles like "Legendary" and "Grand Wizard" but that's just me...

Hope that made your evening, Annette?!

I agree with the counters not being transferred. The number of posts is irrelevant. Personally, I enjoyed my banter about the size of Farmer G's cucumbers, but it was of little help to any AAT students or members...

As my new career has taken off, I am saying farewell to the AAT.

Those that want to stay in touch are doing so, those that don't - good luck.

blobbyh

29-11-07, 14:11

Does this mean I can now go out my front door safely Hellen without having to look for you lurking in the bushes? :crying:

purplegirl

29-11-07, 14:17

I tried about 7 times yesterday to get to the forums, but each time it brought up page not found. Today, after reading this, I did the hard refresh and still the page is not found.
This is the page I'm linking from http://www.aat.org.uk/students/display/store3/item35899/

Also, when I finally saw the small notice on the home page linking to the new forum, I did not realise I had to re-register! It would be a bl**dy brilliant idea if you put this under the link!!!

I don't think you should wait to put in the sub-forums for the 3 levels, as not everyone makes it clear in their posts what level they are refering to.

purplegirl

29-11-07, 14:19

Having trouble trying to post a thread, once I'd registered again. Can't seem to find a place to allow access to post replies within the user profiles?

Don't worry Frank, I'm not a tecchie and even I understood what you meant, whereas Anna missed your point completely.
Frank would like a setting in his profile to alert him when someone replies to a post he makes.
If this already exists, please show him where.
:thumbup1:

Simon Smith

29-11-07, 14:47

Don't worry Frank, I'm not a tecchie and even I understood what you meant, whereas Anna missed your point completely.
Frank would like a setting in his profile to alert him when someone replies to a post he makes.
If this already exists, please show him where.
:thumbup1:

If you are referring to Thread Subscriptions then this is entirely possible. Click the Thread Tools drop down menu at the top of a thread and choose Subscribe to this Thread.

You will be notified by Email or via your Profile, your choice.

purple19m

29-11-07, 18:51

Nice to see the new forum, just a few points from me:

1) I think it should of been done a week or two AFTER the exams.

It may of been a good idea if you had done a poll where members could have voted if they would have peferred the change to have taken place before or after the exams! And i think it would have been after personally.

2) I think we definately need sub folders for different levels and this should be done ASAP.

:001_smile:

peugeot

29-11-07, 19:31

I think there's an argument both ways here. I can see why people would have preferred the change AFTER the exams - but the old forums didn't work properly at all. A student could post a question tomorrow and it might not have appeared until Tuesday, by which time the student could have sat the exam.

At least this weekend (which I think will be the busiest weekend for exam style queries) the forums will be working properly i.e. questions will appear on one forum and one forum only and queries will be answered. There are also the links to the old forums available.

No I'm not on commission with the AAT:001_tongue: I think a bit of slack needs to be cut with the IT department now. We've ranted for the last year and a bit about the forums not working correctly and I think whilst sub-forums are a good idea, at least those of you who have exams next week do have a forum where you can at least be sure your question will appear and will be answered if there is someone around to answer it for you.

best wishes
Steve

Anna Hillier

30-11-07, 02:01

Nice to see the new forum, just a few points from me:

t may of been a good idea if you had done a poll where members could have voted if they would have peferred the change to have taken place before or after the exams!

I appreciate your point, Purple, but we couldn't have done a poll on the old forums - they didn't work. We took a decision based on the feedback and knowledge we had, and lots of students were saying they wanted new forums as soon as possible. But we've archived the old ones - without changing the format or structure - so that you now have the best of both worlds.

2) I think we definately need sub folders for different levels and this should be done ASAP.

OK, we now have subforums for each level. Please let us know if you see a thread in the wrong place. See #37 in this thread for the reasons why we started off with a simpler format.

Gianni

30-11-07, 11:31

I think these forums are a lot better. You'll find that most web sites that have a forum uses this software as well, so a billion people can't be wrong. :laugh:

blobbyh

30-11-07, 13:03

I think opening the poll at the top of the page was a little too early. Many people coming here for the first time will be a little shocked and possibly vote in the poll subjectively (i.e. passionately) rather than objectively (clear minded). Votes are being cast based on the person's initial frustration of not knowing where they are or even upon how difficult it was to get here in the first place rather than based on their fair assessment of the actual forum itself which will probably come later.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I initially voted the forum as poor without giving it a fair chance but now that I have, I think it's actually pretty good.

:thumbup1:

purplegirl

30-11-07, 13:15

OK, we now have subforums for each level. Please let us know if you see a thread in the wrong place. See #37 in this thread for the reasons why we started off with a simpler format.

There is a thread on PEV in the Foundation sub-forum. This should be Technician.
Edit: I've found 2, and have reported them both using the report button.

CJC

30-11-07, 13:28

Well, obviously it's a definite improvement on the old forums. Just the ability to have newest posts appear at the start of a thread gets my vote.

My main quibble would be with the decision not to replicate the perfectly adequate and familiar structure from the old forums.

And I'm with Robert, the changeover was handled poorly. It surely wouldn't have taken much to put a note on the Students page to the effect that the upgrade was taking place and getting just a 404 not found page on clicking the links is a poor show indeed. As has been noted, choosing to do this just before the exams was not a good idea either.

vBulletin is pretty secure. I'm sure everyone takes the sensible precaution of not using the same user name and password that they use for their online banking :cool:

Jan

30-11-07, 13:37

I waited till I got more used to the new layout before voting. Mind you I've just typed most of this in the "report" mode before I realised :blushing: Unfortunately most people are too quick to criticise, but slower to compliment (and this isn't directed at anybody in particular, just a general observation).

I initially thought the timing was bad, but at least students know they can get a reply to their questions - its not going to get lost in space. As Steve says this weekend will no doubt be busy - that will be the real test.

Anna's team have taken on board suggestions and put them in place already. So :thumbup: from me, as there isn't a pat on the back smiley!!

Simon Smith

30-11-07, 13:53

We wanted to provide a working, stable forum for all of the users prior to and after the exams, this was a top priority.

As many you have noted, it is important to make sure threads are appearing and answers are posted that everyone can see regardless of their chosen URL to access the forum.

I'm certainly glad to hear some of you are settling in to the new surroundings, your feedback is always being read and considered so please don't hesitate to point things out.

claudialowe

30-11-07, 17:02

Please can I make a very trivial request - and that is for a

"you are a star" smilie.

There are loads of times when someone has helped me out of a particularly blonde moment and I want to say you're a star.

Claudia

CJC

30-11-07, 17:46

One thing that's starting to irritate me is the width of the forums, even on my laptop it's resulting in lines that are way too long for comfort. Twelve words is widely regarded as the optimum readable line length but often they're getting to be more than twenty. Any chance of sticking some margins in?

Bluewednesday

30-11-07, 19:57

I'm not ashamed to admit that I initially voted the forum as poor without giving it a fair chance but now that I have, I think it's actually pretty good.

:thumbup1:

Maybe there should be a public apology as there was a public complaint!! :001_tt2:

Just seen it was already done - well done Blobby

acky2106

01-12-07, 14:31

ally

02-12-07, 22:17

We'd love to hear your feedback: you can post here or take part in the poll above - or both.

I actually like the new forums. I registered and posted my question within about 5 mins!

Now i can get back to revision!!

Ally

Anna Hillier

03-12-07, 13:07

Anna, i have to say i am in total agreement with Robert over his earliercomments. May i ask for information purposes, are you and the AAT Web team happy with the way the new forum has been implemented with rebards to both time and efficiency? It is now too late too change things for this exam sitting but will the Web team take on board the comments made in this discussion, do you think this may of been a learning curve?

Hi Acky2106, thanks for your feedback. Yes, we certainly do take your, and others', comments on board.

You ask if me and my team are happy with the way the new forum's been implemented. It's difficult for us to say that we're happy if you're not, because we want to provide a service that pleases you, but considering the project's constraints, I am happy with the implementation. Vbulletin's widely used and fairly standard but that doesn't make it simple to implement in our website (it runs in a different language to our site, so my team had to do a lot of work to get the forums (php) to run happily alongside the website (java)). We decided this work was worthwhile because we believe these are the best forums we can offer you. We couldn't release the new forums any earlier and so had a straight choice between launching a few days before exams week or waiting until afterwards. I felt it would be insupportable to leave students without a working forum when we could bring them a new and functioning forum in time for the exams.

You ask if this has been a learning curve, and we will analyse the forums project - using all the feedback we've had - to make sure we've learnt all we can from the experience. We do this with every major project to make sure we're doing all we can to meet your needs now and in the future.

CJC

03-12-07, 16:04

I like the new forums, especially now we can make things a bit narrower - those long lines of text were really hard to read. However, along with others, I do think there are lessons to be learned with regard to managing the change over. Moreover, they are pretty much the same lessons that didn't seemed to get learned from the site redesign a while ago. There are documented best practices for these sorts of projects - I would place keeping users informed, maintaining the old service until things are ready and setting up a beta site for user testing before rolling out the changes on the live site pretty high on the list for next time. The timing of the change to coincide with the exams could probably have been better thought through too.

From recent experience, I know that dealing with legacy software can be problematic and by and large the change wasn't too painful. It's nice to have modern forum software and I'm expecting things to work much more smoothly that did with the old system. Onwards and upwards.

Any cool mods in the pipeline? I'm sure there's must be a Flash Chat mod for vBulletin, a links mod would be good too.

I's also like to see HTML being allowed in the forums so it would be possible to format T-accounts etc. Presumably, as with most forum software, you can allow a limited set of HTML to keep things safe - ie. no nasties in <script> tags.