Hey you guys! Feedback on Bow 2.0 in general

[holly 12044xp 1]

Hi everyone, just wanted to say I’ve been checking the site every hour since it went down, just to check it was back.

I AM NOT AN ADDICT, how dare you!

i wanted to say that the site looks great – the functionality overall is top notch and it works lovely on mobile and tablet devices – I love that – thank you 🙂

I’ve even made a project and am super-excited about working and managing my hobby on that vein – it’s a lovely feature that no other site (particularly forum driven sites) haven’t got near yet.

My only real comment or feedback (which doesn’t fit Warrens other boards yet) is about personality. Not colours! but I can’t help feel the main site header and other UI elements are quite generic/bootstrappy – do you have a plan to add the flavour and feel back in as the site develops and once you are happy with the functionality in real-life? I know you guys are working super hard to make the site work, and work well, but are you going to start adding your unique personality?

[limburger 21672xp 0]

Only once every hour ?

Definitely not an addict.

The default banner is a bit gray, but I wonder if it is linked to the personal banner feature in the profile as that happens to be similar colour.

Let’s test the features that exist first and worry about colours a bit later.

Bug detector initiated … *scanning* … *scanning* …

[bobcockayne 20723xp 1]

As the guy was heard to say on going past the 15th floor on jumping out of a 30 storied building , ‘So far so good@.

[levarius 3275xp 0]

Awesome work folks,

Thought I’d give you a heads up on the display on mobile for the games section, the text overlaps. Such a small detail in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter.

 

Also one bug is that when typing a comment on the forum on mobile, you can’t scroll left to right to see all of what you are typing (the edges get cut off)

 

[portcullisParticipant 6725xp 1]

First instance impression without really having a proper look ’round: I’m going to be spending a lot more time here (and that’s not a bad thing)

[lordofuzkulak 6332xp 0]

I’m sorry to say I’m not a fan of the new design; compared to the old one I find it ugly, but I think that’s because it’s been optimised for mobile viewing and I generally hate the mobile version of websites and always switch to the desktop version when that’s an option.

 

On the plus side, the comment boxes here are superior with the formatting buttons on the top.  Also I haven’t fully explored the site yet so there’s probably other features that will compensate for the aesthetics.

[mageParticipant 20596xp 1]

Iv been checking it but not as frequently as you, kudos!

[iceeagle85Participant 4967xp 0]

I too really don’t like the new design for me the old one was “cleaner” and “tidier”.

I do like that if I’m looking at an article and then log in to comment I stay at that article instead of going to my page (or whatever that was on the old site), that is defintely an improvement.

And am I remembering it wrong or is there really more white space between the end of an article and the beginning of the comment section?

[ludovicParticipant 558xp 0]

You guys are getting rated a c+ on https://observatory.mozilla.org/analyze/www.beastsofwar.com whihc is nice but with a bit more work you could get a b- (just read the instructions on the results page).

 

For email you should set the dekim record as you guys are using google :

[ludo@Oulanl bin]$ dig beastsofwar.com TXT

; <<>> DiG 9.11.3-RedHat-9.11.3-6.fc28 <<>> beastsofwar.com TXT
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 17118
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1280
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;beastsofwar.com. IN TXT

;; ANSWER SECTION:
beastsofwar.com. 300 IN TXT “v=spf1 include:_spf.interdns.co.uk mx a ptr ~all”

;; Query time: 198 msec
;; SERVER: 10.22.72.136#53(10.22.72.136)
;; WHEN: jeu. mai 24 21:20:44 CEST 2018
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 105

[ludo@Oulanl bin]$ dig beastsofwar.com MX

; <<>> DiG 9.11.3-RedHat-9.11.3-6.fc28 <<>> beastsofwar.com MX
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 25092
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1280
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;beastsofwar.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
beastsofwar.com. 300 IN MX 20 aspmx5.googlemail.com.
beastsofwar.com. 300 IN MX 0 aspmx.l.google.com.
beastsofwar.com. 300 IN MX 20 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
beastsofwar.com. 300 IN MX 20 aspmx4.googlemail.com.
beastsofwar.com. 300 IN MX 20 aspmx2.googlemail.com.

;; Query time: 263 msec
;; SERVER: 10.22.72.136#53(10.22.72.136)
;; WHEN: jeu. mai 24 21:20:59 CEST 2018
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 178

[ludo@Oulanl bin]$

see https://support.google.com/a/answer/174124?hl=en

[144artist 25544xp 1]

So far I have been enjoying the new format.  Still getting lost here and there but it will be like an old neighborhood in no time.  Still not finding WAYPN right away but I’m sure my navigation skills will improve.  Always entertaining to discover new things.

[lawnor 25928xp 0]

I’m still getting used to the new site, but looking forward to putting it through its paces.  One thing I’d like to see changed is on the front page.  Each of the sections only shows the most recent 3 entries per section.  Any chance we can get a link in each to expand that back a lot further so it’s not so easy to miss content?  Also, I was a big fan of the combined feed nature of the old front page.  I like to keep on top of BoW by woirking through the timeline in order, especially when I’ve been forced to miss out on a few weeks of content because stupid “real life” has gotten in the way.  Maybe this will happen automatically once more content appears, or maybe my habbits just need to change, or maybe its all there somewhere and I’ve not founf it yet?

(proof reading this message before posting suggests an automatic spell checker might be nice too!)

[yoshiParticipant 3197xp 0]

Maybe I just havent found it but I really miss a condensed news section or the option therefor.

As of now news are displayed split into several rows which are quite far apart and contain just 4 items.

Since I always used BoW as news site too and check the site several times a day for new snippets I would love it if I could access news items  quicker.

[darkdanegan 21470xp 1]

I think the front page will look a lot more enticing once the grey “welcome to 2.0” block is gone.  There’ll be a lot more colour and content in your face without scrolling.

Have to say the new Projects feature is sublime!!

[yoshiParticipant 3197xp 0]

Okay, okay. I see how it works and it works great for me. Entering a news item I have the all the news stacked on the right side.

Kisses : *

[davehawes 7768xp 0]

The Good:

I have to say the projects system is great, the editor for posting content is pretty fantastic. I can’t overstate how much of a huge improvement this is. Someway to link posts in forums in an embedded way would be very nice. If I was going to make a tweak, it would be to integrate comments directly into the blog feed page. It’s that one extra click deep to go to an article you can already read in order to be able to comment. I think this might discourage comments a little.

I am really loving the games section as well, though I am seeing some odd things in there, but I am sure it will get tidied up in curation as we go.

I love the banner image stuff as well, very nice.

 

Some feedback on what I’d suggest changing:

The forums, I miss seeing the top recent thread activity across all the forum hubs on one page. It’s a bit fiddlier to check out all the recent posts now, opening a tab for each thread.

I am not clear on how the notification stuff works now, I’ve ticked lots of bells, follows and subscription buttons, but still only getting a few notifications through. Might be just not as much content is flowing right now, but on the old site, it was not uncommon for my inbox to be filled at the end of every day with forum notifications. A little treasure trove to browse through at the end of each day! I’ll keep at it though, might be that just comes with more usage.

I’m not a fan of how content tracking backwards through time is now shown on the homepage, but the big categorised grid is the thing twitch does as well, and it’s the same reason I stopped subscribing to Shield of Tomorrow on twitch, because despite being a story driven show it was almost impossible to watch it in chronological order. I might just be an old fogey who doesn’t get how the kids like to browse content these days. A nice linear list from newest to oldest somewhere would be great, but I can understand I might be in the minority on this one.

Also I miss forum signatures, but that is a very minor point.

Conclusion:

Hope that doesn’t come across too negative, because overall I think it is a big improvement, and I look forward to seeing how it grows in the coming weeks and months.

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