Forum Upgrades - June 2008

[hareshmandani]

Originally Posted by sarvshwet

also i faced a lot of problems logging in today...
had to finally reset my password to get access.....

A lot of people including me also faced the same problem.

[nikhilkulk]

I know this change has come out of the blue and when least expected by anyone (including me). So probably it has surprised many. And as seen by posts above protests have been lodged and rightly so. I too do not like a few of the features included.

But I would like to give these changes some time to mature and only then take a stand whether they are having any value addition to the core of the forum or are in fact just proving to a nuisance that we could do without. I am sure if found the later it wont take long for the features to be rolled back by the HQ.

As of I now I would like everyone to approach these changes with a open mindset without any biases and evaluate them. Lets keep a close eye on them and keep providing feedback on a timely basis to the HQ. And only after that is done lets take a stand on whether we want these features or they can be done without.

PS: If you see anyone abusing the new features kindly report it asap. We don't want the features to get a bad name because of a few ignorant souls

[pagalguy]

Chop - gotcha. The notification thing should be brought back. We lost a couple of things in the launch. Now need to go hunt and get them back. Thanks for reminding

Originally Posted by chop suey

guy i noticed that the feature called PG notification (cant remember the exact name ) which we had below the shoutbox window has been replaced by 'PaGaLGuY.com - The Everything of MBA, CAT 2008, GMAT, XAT, IIM Statistics'

a> the PG notification thing that we had where in u could track all the latest happening on PG like upcoming meets, new contest n their deadlines n stuff was a very useful feature n should be brought back...or is it that it has been put somewhere i cant find

b> the data is 'PaGaLGuY.com - The Everything of MBA, CAT 2008, GMAT, XAT, IIM Statistics' is redundant as it is already being displayed on the top against my profile pic on the same page

[pagalguy]

Grondie,

Good to hear from you - my thoughts on this are um.. a bit more docile

We had to upgrade the forum because a newer version was released and all the features you see are part & parcel of the new forum except for the fb style status messages.

Which means - very soon if you are on a vBulletin forum you will see the profile changes et al. So I think we were thrust a little bit on that side. I added the fb status for fun. If people feel it is distracting or useless, we will remove it. Not a big deal at all.

We are not devoting our time to create functions like orkut or fb, but the underlying software used are maturing to look like, so err.. um.. nothing I can do.. but yes, if people do feel that we need a more plain jane thing, we may remove all the features. Deleting functions is easier

As nikhil says, see if this is a good iteration. See if the features are of help, see if it helps you connect better, else we can always roll back specific features. The old profile had to be updated because it became a security risk and we had to use the one that came with vB which is what you are seeing now.

In this iteration we also have photo albums - but if no one uses it we will just shut it down across the site.

I do apologize for the lack of communication on this one. We had to get this done asap because we are working on a couple of major projects which needed us to get to the latest version of vbulletin without any delay to ensure there are no future incompatibilities.

Originally Posted by grondmaster

Well...

I'm off the forum for close on to two & a half days (when I'm otherwise perennially online) and here I find a lot of changes have taken place.

My two pennies on the changes themselves, and not any technical errors - those will come later.

We are presently complaining of the loss of quality in posts and the average membership. I am getting 'fraandship' requests on PM every now and then. We are also talking about making some veteran members some sort of community leaders or mods to get this under control. On the other hand, as I enlist below, we are also encouraging such behavior. PaGaLGuY.com is not Facebook or MySpace or Orkut. These are pureplay community building websites. PG has a core competency of creating a community of MBA Aspirants - which it already has done so successfully - and helping them out. The present changes are not reflecting these facts. A 'Social Community' does not address any facet of the MBA story that PG has come to represent. Effectively, it is just an extra addon to the main forum. I personally feel that these changes are not helping the MBA aspirants directly. Any change done to the forum must first reflect support to MBA aspirants. If they do anything more than that, welcome. but firstly, help. The site is presently looking nearly like a hodgepodge of Orkut & Facebook with PG's colour template.

Please do not misunderstand my outburst. The PGHQ and the people who work there have spent some thought behind this, but this post reflects what I personally think. I believe that if required we can start off another section that can be devoted to purely community building - the MBA part left aside. But the forum should not be changed to become another Orkut.

Regards,
Grondmaster

[pagalguy]

Even I did.. we're checking it out

Originally Posted by hareshmandani

A lot of people including me also faced the same problem.

[pagalguy]

I just added a couple of features I thought people would be comfortable with. That said, lets see how it goes for a couple of days - else we remove the features/bugs/whatever

As I said to grondie, the new version of vB comes with a lot of these features and at some point most forums will get there.

Originally Posted by puneet

totally agree with grondmaster. This is something i didn't expect from PG as they have always innovated new things & features for the benefit of the members by doing it 'insanely different'.
Using ideas from social networking sites and incorporating them with a twist maybe useful in what im assuming and I maybe wrong.... is a certain direction PG is going but speaking as a member who has seen a lot over here , this wasn't expected and the surprising thing is , there wasn't anything remotely hinting about this or asking the members about these changes before implementing which has been done in the past.

well as long the forum aspect remains the core of PG , i am happy & welcome & wish PG all the best in whatever they are trying to achieve from the changes & additions.

[swagatsinha]

Another thing that has gone missing is the friend list and profile comments. Though getting them again is not going to be a particularly earth-shattering effort on the part of the users, is there a chance that they might come back by themselves?

[pagalguy]

Originally Posted by swagatsinha

Another thing that has gone missing is the friend list and profile comments. Though getting them again is not going to be a particularly earth-shattering effort on the part of the users, is there a chance that they might come back by themselves?

You can get your friendslist again, you can check nikhil's first post in this thread on instructions. The comments we can't . We tried, but couldn't find a way to move it over to the new system

[nikhilkulk]

Originally Posted by nikhilkulk

1. There should be an option available to search 'groaned' posts as it was available earlier

Well this feature hasn't been added back yet, but you can try the following link for finding out groaned posts:

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/post_groan.php?do=findgroans&u=27390

Substitute the number in bold with the user number of the user you are interested in.

And if you don't know how to locate the user numbers just click on any user name and the number displayed in the profile link is the member no of that particular user
For example the link to my profile page is :
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/members/nikhilkulk-27390.html and hence my member number is 27390

Enjoy

[sarvshwet]

in the quick links there are two gaps:
one b/w edit signature and edit options
which if clicked on takes to edit your details page

and other b/w suscribed thread and whos online
which takes to my profile....

so either these spaces should be removed of else there should be text associated with it