Update the fourth: The patiently awaited forums are now up and ready for all to use. You’ll find more information here. Also, you will need to register to comment on this part of the website as well. (You can register by clicking on the “Register” link in the upper right of this page.) Remember to verify your registration with the e-mail link you’ll be sent after you initially register. And, again, we thank you all for your patience.
Update the third: We want to thank everyone once again for their patience with the migration of our site from the old platform to the new one.
Just as with any home or business remodel, the inevitable delays do strike from time to time, however, our forums are very close to being reinstated and are being tested for user-friendliness right now. We hope to have them up by next week.
Update the second: If you want to have an avatar with your comments (and the soon-to-be launched forums), set up an account with Gravatar, upload the image you want to use, link it to the e-mail you’re registered with on our site, and then wait a bit for the service to update your comments.
Update: We’ve now added comment numbers after each post heading. Also, the question has come up about where to log in. Until the forum area is established, you can simply comment on a given thread for now.
As you’ve no doubt noticed, CBGXtra.com has taken on a new look and feel and, as with nearly any website migration or move, we’re still unpacking the last few boxes and turning on all the lights.
I’ve been assured by our development folks that missing features and the forums will be back soon. In the meantime, have a look around and let us know what you think by commenting on this thread.
So far, we’ve learned that posts made the week of August 1 did not make the migration for some reason and some images have proven difficult to relink with their original posts. Again, we ask your patience while we work on fixing those items.
The Magazine
Brent:
I sincerely hope the rest of those boxes are unpacked soon.
Still missing are:
*The avatars of the registered users
*The post counts of said registered users
*No ability to post images
*The “Non-Comics” section
*Our tag lines
*The emoticons
and some other features from the old website.
This was a great place to hang out and exchange words with fellow comic book readers/collectors. I honestly don’t know what (if anything) was wrong witht the old forum’s format, but the only advantage I see in this new version so far CBG/Krause/F+W Publications has room for my ad space on the right.
Sincerely, Lee Houston, Junior (who has just discovered there is also apparently a space limit when posting!)
There’s more stuff up, especially in the News section, but we’re still missing a variety of things, especially the ability to post new threads.
Let us know when they have everything on line, and we can start seeing if there’s something they missed. Right now, there’s too much missing to get a feel for how much is a change and how much will be coming back.
Mostly, I’m just posting to see what happens right now and let people know we’re watching. I’m getting e-mails from many nervous AMSA posters, so tell them to hurry up.
I think I’m going to be missing my little emoticon guys!
– MSA
Mr. Age…where are you?! Is this some kind of Zero Hour deal???
Ron,
Go to the Columnists “tab” in the black bar at the top of the page and you’ll find Mr. Silver Age’s threads in a pulldown from that.
As Mr. Silver Age notes, the development crew is adding more materials each day. As for avatars, post counts, and forums, those are in the works, but it’ll be a few more days before they’re up and running.
Right now, you can comment on posts and those comments go into a holding pen until approved.
And, pulling the curtain aside a bit, the old forum was still on a DotNetNuke platform, which was proving increasingly creaky and our hosting server was showing similar strains. F+W Media has migrated many of its other sites, including CBGXtra, to a new server and we’re now on a WordPress platform, which should allow us to add new features much more easily than before.
Once the initial dust settles, let us know what you think and what you’d like to see and we’ll see what we can do.
The site is looking great so far. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for missing content!
I’ve been off line for over a month – due to no fault of my own I might add, I finally get my internet connection back and what do I find??? One of my regular websites has changed! I had some stuff I wanted to post here but now I guess I won’t be able to. I wanted to solicit suggestions and comments on a comics related project I’m working on but now I guess that’s out of the question, since the Forums section is gone! The site is a shadow of it’s former self – although it looks “nice”, but it’s not very functional.
As I continue to write in every post, please be patient. We’re putting all the pieces in place as quickly as possible. Forums will be forthcoming. The ability to start new threads will be along soon as well.
Can you give us a timeline for everything to be back?
Our web folks did work with more of the initial content this week and are hoping to have the forums restored in the next week or so. Again, we’ll provide updates as soon as we know more.
well…. so far…so…far. I’m with the poster above who’s been away, and returned to find…so far… anyway, will withhold comments (aint a’got none yet, anyway–) til yer more up and running. But good idea to update, I think. Good luck–.
heh– two things: I guess I mean, not the poster ‘above’ but rather ‘below’ and –
my comments are “awaiting moderation”? Gee gosh– hadn’t thought I’d been so immoderate!
WHOA!! When Brent told me the site was moving to a new server, he didn’t say it was being completely revamped! What a difference a couple weeks make.
So far, my wishes are:
–The site loads faster than the old one.
–Every time we comment we don’t have to type in our name and email. (If we’re already members, it would be grand to have that pre-filled in, like the comments section of other fansites I belong to.)
–PLEASE keep the dark type on the white background! I loved that on the old site. I notice this one has *gray* text for some reason, but at least it’s still more readable than the too-common white-on-black or blue-on-cream or whatever. This IS about communication!
–Please also try to limit the amount of Flash, Java and other memory-hogs. Not only does it come off amateurish but it can really make loading and navigation suck. (Great piece on this at WebPagesThatSuck.com.
Examples: http://tinyurl.com/23lxwxg and http://www.ssoutdooradventures.com. Compare the two loading times while you’re at it–assuming the latter ever does load–it didn’t for me!)
–Speaking of links, it would be wonderful to have the site figure out when links are posted using either “http” and “www.” or whatever and automatically add the link like Facebook and Yahoo do (if not doing so already; I’ll find out once this posts). Even better, like all the other fan forums, let us click on a button that allows us to insert a link or photo. Sharing convention pics and comic covers/art was a strong feature of the other site.
Otherwise, I think this is better designed than the former site for navigation and user-interaction.
As Brent has noted, no sense commenting on Forum and other attributes that have not yet made the migration.
Thanks and I wish you the *best* in getting things up to snuff soon. Please LMK if and how I can help.
Best,
Mike
BTW, for my new family site, I use Kunana for my forums and so far it works wonderfully. Very user friendly.
Oops! Sorry, that’s Kunena…(No “edit” button yet!)
Okay, we still do not have:
*The Non-Comics discussion thread, where stuff like Doctor Who was reviewed.
*Our avatars and personal post counts.
*The ability to start a topic.
*The editing feature mentioned above/below, (the new post order is throwing me off)
*The emoticons.
*The lack of image posting.
Hopefully all this will be worked out in time.
Sincerely,
Lee Houston, Junior
Not to put too fine a point on it, but why weren’t the Forums the *first* thing to make the migration? Isn’t that pretty much where all the web traffic was going?
The old platform was, indeed, an all-forums format so, technically, we did migrate forums.
It’s keeping some of the old forums as true forums on this new platform that’s taking time.
DotNetNuke-based material doesn’t always fit cleanly into WordPress-based modules.
I’m waiting for word from our development team as to when forums will be up and functional.
Lord, grant me patience, and I want it right now!
–your pal, Hoy
Thanks for the clarification, I wondered what was going on when I visited the site a few days ago — I thought you had scrapped the forums in favor of just blogs. Glad to know the forums will be back (eventually)!
Okay, it took some doing to get registered, but that seems to be working, although the avatar only appears on recent posts forward and not in the archives.
Yet why do we have to go through an outside system to begin with?
Meanwhile, any estimate before the rest of what we’re missing (tag lines and post counts of registered users, emotioncons, image posting, and the ablility to initiate new topics) will return?
Gravatar was the best choice for restoring avatars at this time. If there’s a better choice down the road, we’ll let you know.
As for the other items, I don’t have an estimate. All I know is that the development team is working diligently on them and we’ll update you when they’re ready.
When the forums return, will the content within them return as well? I had been updating the Big Boy comic search in Longbox Menifesto for about 3-4 years now and it was the only place where I kept this data. We had confirmed all ‘western’ Big Boy giveaways and had been building up the list of ‘eastern’ copies (had some more scans of them to post), and still trying to confirm the issue when it stopped (I say issue #155).
So, I hope all this information and scans have not been lost to history.
Well, Ray, as you can see here, the listings are still available, even though the comments are now in reversed order, a side effect of the migration.
As soon as the forums are up and running, you can start a new forum post which links to the old threads.
Brent:
Once all the “problems” are fixed, will we regain:
*Our status as registered users from the old system
*The post counts of registered users
*The ability to post images
*The ability to start threads again, and
*The emoticons?
The ability to post images will be available and there will be a much nicer user interface for it when everything’s complete.
Registered users will be able to start new threads in the forums area.
I’m still checking into the status of the emoticons.
And, we’re working on getting all the registered users from the old system migrated to the new system.
That’s the good news. Now for the bad news:
Because of some of the challenges we encountered during the migration, the forums will be starting fresh, meaning that all old forum posts (which became threads and thread comments on the new site) will not count towards your overall total. We wish that that wasn’t the case, but there was simply no way around it.
It’s possible that, after testing the new registration and log-in system (which will have you logged in both the forums and the main website area for comments), users can modify their user name and add a number to reflect their old forum post count. Again, we’ll let you know how that all turns out soon.
One final note for those of you following our suggestion to use Gravatar to reinstate your avatar: Please make sure the image you choose is “G” rated or it won’t make it over.
I hope things are finally on their way. I have to say though I think the old format of all posts appearing in the thread sequentially from top (oldest) to bottom (newest) in one continuous string – as opposed to direct replies to specific posts – was really good and I have a sinking feeling from what I’m seeing here that this will no longer be the case. If I may, I would like to cast my vote for keeping that system. It made things very easy to read and felt like we were all equal parts of the discussion. Please don’t let this go away.
Thanks!
Andy
P.S. Also please let’s keep the “edit” function so we can change or amend our posts if necessary.
Brent:
Out of curiousity, does that sound fair?
You and Mister Silver Age both had over 3000 posts before the format change.
I and a few others were no slouches on this forum with over 1000 posts each.
Just asking…
It was, as I’ve written, a limitation of the migration process.
Look at it as an opportunity for those who registered later to have an equal opportunity to match our post numbers and incentive to make more posts on our parts to stay ahead of them.
I’m torn on the new on top/new on bottom format. It was a pain to have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find something new, or even go onto the second page. But it might be even more confusing to have to scroll halfway down and then read back up if there are multiple new posts–and then scroll to the bottom anyway to post a comment. So I’d probably say the descending order format of the old site was better, although that may not matter if they have no control over it. But I’m sure I can get used to either.
It would be nice to have an indicator when we reach a Forum as to which threads have new messages since our last visit. It also would be good if the Posted On line had a field for the LAST comment made as well as (or instead of) the first one, so we’d have a date and poster to note the end of the thread.
Another thing I hope won’t get lost in the shuffle, assuming it’s possible to do still, is to provide e-mail alerts when new comments are posted in a Forum or replies are posted for a thread we replied to. That was really handy for me, especially in Forums that didn’t get a lot of regular traffic, not that there were many of those, of course.
It would be cool to get the emoticons back, as I expected they were gone for food and I don’t see how they’d be used on the listing right now. I had to fill those in many times, especially as any editing to the first post eliminated the emoticon from the listing. But they dressed up that opening list and added a goofy charm. And we’re big on goofy charm in AMSA.
Needless to say, I’m hoping we retain the editing function. I don’t see my typos until I actually post a message most of the time.
The loss of post totals doesn’t bother me personally. I know I had a lot but I have no idea how many. They mattered to me if someone’s count was in single digits, indicating they’d either just joined or just come out from lurking, and I wanted to welcome them and encourage more posts. After that, I didn’t pay much attention to any one’s total. I’m sure that regular posters will quickly pull out from the pack again, and I’m hoping they’re hanging in there and will be ready to go when the site finally gets going again. I know I’ve got a few threads to post, and the beauty of the AMSA Forum is that they aren’t getting any less timely!
– MSA
I do agree with Andy that the capability to reply to a specific message, instead of just posting a new comment, could get confusing really quick and make people miss comments. It’s good in that threads that range far afield over many topics (hi, AMSA posters!) can keep straight what’s going on, but having to scan through the entire thread to find individual replies wouldn’t work for most people.
OTOH, once people realize their replies are getting lost downstream and that they only good way to ensure they’re read and get responses is to post a new Reply rather than a response to a message, that might not be a problem.
– MSA
And is there any way to change the clock? Some sites allow you to adjust it for your own location. I never found that function on the old site, if it existed, and I don’t know WHAT time the site was on, but it wasn’t mine, that’s for sure.
It would be nice in that it would indicate how long ago a post was made (whereas as it was, I could only tell the length of time between two posts). And really, as it is now, it doesn’t seem useful to have the site based on the time zone where the Titanic went down.
– MSA
“THE only good way,” not “THEY only good way.” I really need that editing function back.
– MSA
So, if I reply here, does it go to the bottom of the replies, or does it stick to the bottom of this reply? Just checking.
– MSA
It goes to the bottom of the replies, no matter which interior reply I reply to. Well, that’s not all that handy. So were I a poster here–and my count is going up pretty quickly here, I must say–I think I would avoid that interior Reply button.
BTW, I also see that if you put a site address into that “Website” line on the Reply template, it links my avatar and User Name to that site. I suppose that’s handy somehow–click on mine right now and you’ll go to the AMSA Forum–but mostly for those who used to add those tag lines on their signatures.
– MSA
How thin do you think this column of type will get if I keep replying to the initial message over and over? Will it start breaking up long words and then go to single letters?
Gosh, beta-testing the CBG site can be so much fun when Brent no longer gets to approve my messages before I post!
– MSA
Did I really say in that first post “gone for FOOD?” Maybe the emoticons did get hungry, but I meant “gone for GOOD.” I just wanted to mention that.
– MSA
Well now, this is interesting. My last two posts won’t allow me to Reply to them. I have to go back up and Reply to the third-previous one, and it posts in a column in line with the earlier Replies.
So that answers that one-letter-per-line question. And since Replying to any of the above comments now puts that comment at the bottom of a queue of random replies to any of these messages, I think the interior Reply function is probably something they might want to even consider deleting altogether to avoid confusion.
– MSA
Mr. Silver Age wrote: Gosh, beta-testing the CBG site can be so much fun when Brent no longer gets to approve my messages before I post!
I reply: Hey!
But, thanks for doing some beta-testing for us, sir.
And I have also asked about the sort order of the comments. The clock setting is next. On the old site, we were on Pacific time from some reason. (I believe it was where the host server was located.)
The time now is somewhere over the Atlantic in a time zone with no land mass in it, as far as I can figure, but maybe that’s just a default. It’d be nice to be able to set it to our preferred time zone, if that’s an option. It seemed off by more than just Pacific Time before, but maybe I just stopped looking.
And I had to back up six replies to be able Reply to this message, which doesn’t seem too useful. Nor can I reply to any of my earlier insightful comments spefically, they just end up down here in the swamp. I’d get rid of that feature, personally, or else we’ll end up with a web of posts within posts if a thread gets really convoluted or tangential (hi, AMSA posters!)
– MSA
I really need that editing function back, too.
– MSA
<> >>Did that last line of text appear? I’m looking to see what works for quoting from older messages, as Brent did in his last Reply post.<< >Or this one?<
Are there four sets of text above this? And is it at the bottom of the Reply Swamp even though I Replied to the first Reply? Just checking.
– MSA
Okay then. Anything inside close-brackets won’t print, as before. In fact, the double close-brackets didn’t even show up, whereas the single ones did, albeit without the sentence inside.
But open brackets still work fine. So if you’re quoting part of a previous comment, it’s best to use one or two open-brackets.
And my message DID go into the Reply Swamp, but it is wider than previous Replies to the last Reply, and I can now Reply to it. Yep, that could get pretty confusing, I think.
– MSA
AMSA fans can now go read my latest column on The Fashionable Batman, which Brent has posted to my Forum. You can get there by clicking on my face!
I’ve sent him the additional images that I promised we’d upload in the printed article (not realizing THIS would be going on when the time came), and it should look pretty nice when they’re added in–and all in color.
– MSA
Technically, you have to click on my name to get there. I could’ve sworn the avatar accessed it too, but apparently not.
Let’s hope this is the beginning of getting things back to normal soon, or at least as that word applies around here.
– MSA
It would be helpful if threads had a link we can click on to jump to the newest post in a thread.
On the plus side, it looks like they listened to our musings on revising the order of posts, so the last one is at the bottom. I think that is the best option, especially since otherwise the first reply is disconnected from the initial post. Not everything always flows off that initial post so it is that critical, and it’s better to keep the flow top to bottom, read the last one and them have the Reply box there. Thanks!
>On the plus side, it looks like they listened to our musings on revising the order of posts, so the last one is at the bottom. I think that is the best option, especially since otherwise the first reply is disconnected from the initial post. Not everything always flows off that initial post so it is that critical, and it’s better to keep the flow top to bottom, read the last one and them have the Reply box there.<
Amen to that, brother! I really feel that having the replies just come after whatever the previous post was is a much better way. I never felt at all bad about having to go to the end and in fact sometimes it was good to glance at what came before because as Mr. Age points out, things could go in many directions. And in fact that was one of the great things about the AMSAF! And again, I think the linear aspect of it made it seem more like a communal discussion with everyone having a part – rather than a series of isolated dialogues.
One other thing that I think we need to hold onto was the listing of who started the thread and who was the last post. It makes it clear in scanning the list what's been going on. I would also say that I often click on other forums just because I see that someone I know has posted there so I would say it's also a good way to get a little cross fertilization.
I have to say in hindsight that the way the forums were put together in the past were actually pretty useful. I have nothing against a little aesthetic renewal now and then but at the same time, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Andy
OK, an additional group of updates since Update the fourth at the top (and some of this information will repeat in a couple of other threads so that I get the message out):
You don’t have to register to view content in the forums, but you do have to register to post in the forums or reply to a forum post.
We’re adding a forum area for forumites to post questions for our columnists and that should be up very shortly.
And, yes, we’ve also noticed that site, especially the forums area, is slow today (Tuesday, Sept. 7). Best theory is that everyone’s back at work after a three-day weekend and Internet traffic is way up, causing the slowdown. We’ll keep an eye on it.
Okay, I jumped through all the hoops to get an avatar put up, but it shows up so tiny. I should have gone with Ant-Man instead of Giant-Man.
–your pal, Hoy