Exciting changes for Pilots of America (New forum software)

denverpilot said:
I've never seen the pop up on PoA on a mobile browser. Just tried it again and nope. No splash page.

Sounds like those other forums don't know how to disable it, which really is somewhat meaningless to the whether or not to use it here discussion.

Apparently the forums you're searching info from are run by morons? Hehehe.
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In fairness, they only recently added the option to disable it with a configuration. Before, you had to do some manual hacking to disable it.

Many sites have not upgraded. That's the life of the internet, not everyone upgrades. Ultimately, they should have known better and not implemented such a virus-like solution to begin with.

After all, if the people that provided us with the millions of "Enhance your Penis!" ads suddenly came out and gave admins the ability to limit their popups from appearing, we wouldn't have said "Oh thank god, we don't need a popup blocker after all," right?

First impression has come and gone. Tapatalk is garbage.
 
SkyHog said:
In fairness, they only recently added the option to disable it with a configuration. Before, you had to do some manual hacking to disable it.



Many sites have not upgraded. That's the life of the internet, not everyone upgrades. Ultimately, they should have known better and not implemented such a virus-like solution to begin with.



After all, if the people that provided us with the millions of "Enhance your Penis!" ads suddenly came out and gave admins the ability to limit their popups from appearing, we wouldn't have said "Oh thank god, we don't need a popup blocker after all," right?



First impression has come and gone. Tapatalk is garbage.
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So something that's easily turned off makes the modern version of it "garbage"? No. Sorry, that doesn't even meet the basic requirements for logic. Let alone acknowledge the usefulness of any aggregator.

If forums would add NNTP interfaces we could go back to those aggregators. I'm cool with that.

We do have an IETF standard for forum type stuff after all.

Note: You're lamenting the exact reason I hate web browsers for interfaces. Why the hell wouldn't any sane site admin not have allowed it to pop crap up on their users?

Oh yeah, because *most* people who set up forums aren't qualified to run MS Word, let alone a public website.

And the stupid browser happily allows the redirect to the "garbage" page.

PoA hasn't ever had that problem because it is run by non-idiots. So your beef is with the other forum operators, who can't find their ass from a URL, but decided to load up VBulletin on some cheap assed CPanel hosted host and know only how to clicky-clicky their way to automotive forum "success"? Haha.

(I've also noticed the problem you mention, and poor admin skills are rampant on automotive forums. Seriously. They're really bad. But most of them cover the entire site in paid ads too, and you aren't lamenting that??? Never seen so many paid ads as on automotive forums, and frankly... TT helps you AVOID them! Haha.)
 
denverpilot said:
So something that's easily turned off makes the modern version of it "garbage"? No. Sorry, that doesn't even meet the basic requirements for logic. Let alone acknowledge the usefulness of any aggregator.

If forums would add NNTP interfaces we could go back to those aggregators. I'm cool with that.

We do have an IETF standard for forum type stuff after all.

Note: You're lamenting the exact reason I hate web browsers for interfaces. Why the hell wouldn't any sane site admin not have allowed it to pop crap up on their users?

Oh yeah, because *most* people who set up forums aren't qualified to run MS Word, let alone a public website.

And the stupid browser happily allows the redirect to the "garbage" page.

PoA hasn't ever had that problem because it is run by non-idiots. So your beef is with the other forum operators, who can't find their ass from a URL, but decided to load up VBulletin on some cheap assed CPanel hosted host and know only how to clicky-clicky their way to automotive forum "success"? Haha.

(I've also noticed the problem you mention, and poor admin skills are rampant on automotive forums. Seriously. They're really bad. But most of them cover the entire site in paid ads too, and you aren't lamenting that??? Never seen so many paid ads as on automotive forums, and frankly... TT helps you AVOID them! Haha.)
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For what it's worth, to put a fine point on it before we stop derailing the thread, POA Used to have the problem too until we complained to Jesse and he hacked the fix in place.
 
rolivi said:
The fact remains that you have some notion that you can tell ME that the MC can run the forum as they please, but YOU can complain about your precious ignore function that you seem incapable of using without commenting.
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Hmmm...let's see. I first explained to Nick how and why I use the "ignore thread" feature.

Then I offered my understanding of how that feature would morph from the old site to the new and stated "That's not an issue."

Where exactly did I complain?
 
timwinters said:
Now, if I understand what Jason's saying, the "ignore thread" feature will still be there, it's just that threads you had ignored on the old site will reappear on the new site. That's not an issue in my opinion and I likely have more threads on ignore than just about anyone...100's of them.
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This is how I understand it too.
 
Everskyward said:
This is how I understand it too.
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Same here.

One thing I neglected to point out in the analysis of how many users are using it above would be to ask if those are active users or not.

Comparing number that use a feature to total users is fairly close to meaningless since there are tons of inactive users.

Probably applies well to any feature actually.

Nick has had his rant about TT misuse on the Internet at large (and I don't disagree with him but PoA doesn't misuse the tool nor annoy non-participating users with it)... and I'd be interested in how many active folks use it. The casual "I show up once a month or less" folks probably don't use it at all. Not sure if that data is available from the plugin or not.

When Jason said about 100 people use the thread ignore thing my first thought was, "Well that's just about everyone who's active..." But that's an assumption.
 
I will say that I use Tapatalk on the iPhone. I may have used the thread ignore feature once or twice in the past. I would probably use is more if I was not a mod. I have never used the member ignore feature.
 
John221us said:
I use Tapatalk for mobile and would like to vote to keep it.
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Try the beta site in a browser on your device. The old site was really bad. The new site scales itself to a smaller format and works much better. Even though I use Tapatalk now, I wouldn't mind that much if it went away; at least not as much as I would have with the old site.
 
denverpilot said:
Same here.

One thing I neglected to point out in the analysis of how many users are using it above would be to ask if those are active users or not.

Comparing number that use a feature to total users is fairly close to meaningless since there are tons of inactive users.

Probably applies well to any feature actually.

Nick has had his rant about TT misuse on the Internet at large (and I don't disagree with him but PoA doesn't misuse the tool nor annoy non-participating users with it)... and I'd be interested in how many active folks use it. The casual "I show up once a month or less" folks probably don't use it at all. Not sure if that data is available from the plugin or not.

When Jason said about 100 people use the thread ignore thing my first thought was, "Well that's just about everyone who's active..." But that's an assumption.
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You are off by a very high margin. We have multiple thousands of registered users that have been active on the site in the last month. Close to 90,000 if you count unregistered users (visitors). We served over 1.15 Million pages views in the last month. I think you're drastically miscalculating our activity.
 
jason said:
You are off by a very high margin. We have multiple thousands of registered users that have been active on the site in the last month. Close to 90,000 if you count unregistered users (visitors). We served over 1.15 Million pages views in the last month. I think you're drastically miscalculating our activity.
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Probably. I just guessed. Didn't even try to estimate it. (Easier to read the logs! Heh.)

I don't see *posts* by 90,000 people in the last month was my point. The tools are only utilized by those *posting regularly* I would think.

*Readers* don't care, I assume. But maybe they do...? If the lurkers are lurking via TT, I guess. Or lurkers are the heavy users of the "ignore thread" feature.

Does that make more sense? I wasn't demeaning the overall traffic level. I was wondering out loud if non-posters care about these features.

Maybe a better way to state it is that there are content creators here and content consumers here and the UI each use may naturally be different...

Dunno. Just a thought. Maybe not a reasonable one. Just one I'd look at in the logs... If I had time. Volunteer websites are such a time suck it may not be worth it.

Ahh there's the words I'm looking for in Web guy terms: "Is the goal of the site interaction or page views?"

Sorry it takes a while to form the thoughts on a Friday night. Haha. Gotta go feed the doggies. :)
 
Everskyward said:
Try the beta site in a browser on your device. The old site was really bad. The new site scales itself to a smaller format and works much better. Even though I use Tapatalk now, I wouldn't mind that much if it went away; at least not as much as I would have with the old site.
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It is better. I do like the feature on Tapatalk that shows on participated threads. Also, I have a few forums I follow on TT, so like Denver said, the consolidation thing.
 
How much work is it for the admins to add Tapatalk support?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
dans2992 said:
How much work is it for the admins to add Tapatalk support?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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It's not an extraordinary effort but it requires (by far) more ongoing maintenance that any other part of the software install.

Again, maintenance isn't the only variable. It's the overall experience of using the software vs good native mobile support. We don't have a lot of control over the ways that they try to corral our user base into their ecosystem.
 
If the auto pop up was disabled, those who want to use TT could use it, and nobody else would be bothered by it....


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I don't use Tapatalk on any forums. Don't feel the need for an extra layer of interface. I just keep a browser window open for each nice, it's a whole click and I know where I am and what I'll be reading.

For the Omniscient, if I accidentally close Safari, I just hit the icon and there are my dozen-odd windows again, no, they are not all forums, I also have some blogs and genuine website up, and they change from time to time. Still, they all repopulate when I open it.

For the desktop, Tapatalk is needed even less. It's somewhat more difficult to reopen all pages in Explorer, but that's system design for you. If I reboot the durn thing then hit Explorer, it kindly offers to restart the last session, and there are my winders.

Another "Not Needed" vote for Tapatalk. I do find their whole-screen ads annoying, but I find ALL full-screen ads annoying . . .
 
jason said:
It's not an extraordinary effort but it requires (by far) more ongoing maintenance that any other part of the software install.

Again, maintenance isn't the only variable. It's the overall experience of using the software vs good native mobile support. We don't have a lot of control over the ways that they try to corral our user base into their ecosystem.
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I honestly don't feel "corralled". I made the choice to use Tapatalk and like Denver, I ponied up for the paid version a long time ago. I don't use it exclusively, but there are some features that are very convenient. I realize that there are some on this board that really hate TT, but that is there choice to make. It appears that it is possible to make the TT ad go away for those that don't use it. I am just saying, if it isn't a big deal, my vote is to keep the option around for those of us who like the flexibility.
Thanks,
John
 
Another vote for keeping TapaTalk supported for mobile.

A great, easy to use interface that probably gets 90% of my POA browsing.

Without TapaTalk, I likely won't access POA on a mobile device.

The browsers on my iPhone and iPad are some of the least used apps I have.

There is a reason "there's an app for that" means a much better experience.

I could use Google Maps in a browser or in a standalone app. Guess how I use it? Yep, the standalone app..

Same for Twitter. And about 30 other apps.

Save TapaTalk.
 
Death to tapatalk !

Beta site looks good on the blackberry browser. I noticed the spin-zone is back.
 
I also vote for tapatalk. Very helpful tool for accessing multiple forums, notifications, etc.... I would lose a lot of PoA time without it.
 
Vote to keep Tapatalk, easier to access POA


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.
 
weilke said:
Death to tapatalk !

Beta site looks good on the blackberry browser. I noticed the spin-zone is back.
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Where do you see the SZ? I just tested with your permissions and can't see anything (as you).
 
weilke said:
4th thread from the top in hangartalk.
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That was a thread (sticky) on the main board about the Spin Zone, started in 2006. It has since been locked.

Look at the thread listing in Hangar Talk on this (the old) board. It's there. We need to do some cleanup before migrating.
 
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flhrci said:
I like the new site but the color scheme/font is a little harder to read on the 40 inch LCD tv. Its brighter for sure. Wouldn't mind seeing the same color scheme from vBulletin carried over.

David
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What he said. It's also harder to read on my 24" monitor. Not enough contrast between the text and the background.

Also the "latest" preview text is smaller and much harder to read. My old eyes, even with glasses on are going to get tired of looking at this new layout and colors.

O vote for increasing the text contrast and enlarging and expanding the preview text.

Thanks for maintaining a great site!

Gary
 
Are they going to fix the non-square avatar bug?
 
I happen to be a giant fan of the return of one of the best features PoA had - and it only took about 10 years to bring it back!!

I can't wait for the cutover.
 
eman1200 said:
I also vote for tapatalk. Very helpful tool for accessing multiple forums, notifications, etc.... I would lose a lot of PoA time without it.
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Agreed.

Does Tapatalk have ads? I paid for it a long time ago, so I see no ads.
 
I use TapaTalk on my iPad. I use the web interface on my computer more. I did buy TT "HD" some years ago.

The only feature of TT I'd miss is the ability to mark everything "read". And it's no biggie if it goes away. I haven't tried the beta on my iPad yet (just haven't had time).

John
 
jsstevens said:
I use TapaTalk on my iPad. I use the web interface on my computer more. I did buy TT "HD" some years ago.

The only feature of TT I'd miss is the ability to mark everything "read". And it's no biggie if it goes away. I haven't tried the beta on my iPad yet (just haven't had time).

John
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There is a link that does that now (on this site) and one that does it on the new one.
 
jason said:
There is a link that does that now (on this site) and one that does it on the new one.
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Nice. Then I don't care if TT goes away. Thanks for the heads up.

John
 
The new mobile site works very well on my BlackBerry, and I heard good reports from people using iPhones. I don't think losing TT is a big deal.
 
SkyHog said:
I happen to be a giant fan of the return of one of the best features PoA had - and it only took about 10 years to bring it back!!

I can't wait for the cutover.
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For those of us who haven't been around that long, what feature did we miss? And he's, I've spent some time in the beta site, the biggest changes I saw were:
  • Colors are different
  • Quoted text is much smaller
  • Date & time of post are at the bottom of each post, small enough that they are useless for reference
It'll be nice, though, to pick up reading a thread where I left off.
 
I think one of the best features is the way it handles photos. You can even drag them from your desktop, and they are resized to fit the screen so no scrolling to see huge images.
 
Everskyward said:
I think one of the best features is the way it handles photos. You can even drag them from your desktop, and they are resized to fit the screen so no scrolling to see huge images.
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That is a good feature. Reading on an iPad in Safari, that is the most annoying thing..
 
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