What's a good look for the main site?

[Jon]

Yes, you do have control. I can delete all your data if you like. Also, the ip address with Google analytics is anonymised so no one knows who you are.

Edit: Please note that browser settings can help with all cookie related information. In Chrome, just go to Settings and search under cookie. That allows you to block all sites, specific sites etc.

 

[Dreamweaver]

I agree with @Gasman I would use one or other option at the moment it looks incomplete

Mick

 

[Jon]

I emailed the company that supplies the docs, and they said they can't provide legal advice, but that they suggested you use either I or we. So I will edit.

 

[Jon]

Ok, I have updated the Privacy Policy now, and listed every cookie that this site uses. It is a bit of overkill but at least you get full transparency then.

I've followed through on the suggestions of @Gasman and @MickJav. Thanks for both for bringing to my attention that I should replace [Me or We] (etc.) with just Me.

All done. That was painful!

 

[Jon]

I've also edited the Privacy Policy that is linked to on the bottom of this forum page, to include a link to the more detailed Privacy Policy shown on the WordPress portion of the site.

 

[Isaac]

Jon you should really be proud of this site's look ... I was just going to UtterAccess to have a look as it'd been a while since I was there. Now in case any UA fans stumble across this post, forgive my next statement - it is NOT meant to offend anyone. UA's site now looks hideous...I mean absolutely awful - almost worse than I could have even imagined a website might look. It's all blurry and some of the text gets dangerously close to white-on-white....it's like if you go to adjust your computer's ClearType text and if you were to choose the opposite of the sample text you'd like.
Their old website looked good, I thought, but I'm sure this isn't just my "resistance to change" speaking (because I have nothing to do with UA any more), but I was really shocked.
I assume something catastrophic went wrong with their site migration, I cannot imagine the way it looks is what was intended. Am I just crazy in my aesthetic tastes??
Edit..I just saw it on Mobile view and it looked significantly better. I'm using Chrome on windows 10 for the primary view.

 

[Jon]

Thanks @Isaac. Glad you like the look of it here. I just popped over to UtterAccess and see they have now made the switchover. The previous designed looked dated, a bit like the vBulletin forum here looked rather dated before the switchover. However, I am not a fan of their new look. I think I preferred the old. While it looks a little more modern, it just looks too bland for me and I understand what you mean by the text being too light.

Prior to their new version, I was a little nervous. What if it looks much better than what we got over here at AWF? I am not worried anymore. What is of bigger concern is how the mighty Google will treat forums such as this one and UA in the future. How will the algo rank our posts? It is a common enemy (and benefactor) that both sites face.

To be objective, I think you can split the site into Content, Form and Functionality. Content on UA is good, Form is (IMHO) not so good, and Functionality will always fall short of a regularly updated forum software. I believe that they went a proprietary route. This can help you customise, but you just cannot compete Functionality-wise with a team of developers and plugin creators that a commercial software offers.

I am curious on the objective opinions (or subjective!) of those who frequent the UA site. Is the new design what you thought it would be? Better? Worse? Regular users may have different views to those who are taking a casual look, like myself.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

FWIW, I don't care for their new look as it looks too much like a continuous mash of white, i.e. it's bland. What seems odd is that if you follow links to posts on UA that were posted some time ago, they all seem to point to the same introductory page. If that's because I'm not a UA member, then they must have changed their policy because I've been able to read content there before.

 

[Jon]

Do you have an example link?

 

[Deleted member 147267]

Not at present, but if I come across one, I will post it unless someone beats me to it. You can also Google just about any Access topic and look for a UA result and follow the link. Some of them I followed were from using that method, some were from forums such as M$, MrExcel and of course, AWF. Also, anyone reading this could post one if/when they come across one.

 

[Jon]

@Micron I've just checked and you are right, it redirects. I predict they will get hit with a drop in traffic. It could potentially be significant. We have a database of 301 redirects so that previous incoming links go to the correct posts. Because they have changed their url structure, those links will not go to the correct place. This could be a grave mistake. Only time will tell for sure. Google is a black box of tricks, but incoming links going to the wrong place is a poor user experience and it would make sense to discount the power of those links.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

All that I, and perhaps tens of thousands of people can do is close the page after a few moments. That can't bode well for UA.
One amazing thing I've noticed about AWF is that when you follow an email link, it takes you to that post regardless of how many were added after. Thus you can pick up where you left off.

Also, if you click from the New Posts list, it goes to the last page, which is also great. Access Forums.net does not do that. You have to click on the page number below the post, otherwise you'll go to the first post on page one of what could be 20 pages.

 

[Jon]

Yes, you are right. High bounce rate. I didn't think of that. It is another metric that Google uses to determine how useful a site is. In fact, when I Googled Utter Access, I found it quick tricky to find links to their site. Try it yourself to see if it has changed.

I think you contradicted yourself in your post above, referring to AWF being different to Access World Forums.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

Yes, corrected now!

 

[Jon]

The more I think about it, the more I believe they have destroyed their site. The whole link think has got to be very bad news. My belief is that Google will deindex most of the irrelevant links, which in this case is nearly all their links. They will be viewed as having a high bounce rate, since people are not getting the answer they searched for. So, they plummet in the rankings. Consequently, all those hard earned links will go bye-byes.

If it was me, I would scrap the new site and revert back to the old. But human nature being what it is, people want to plough on. It is the sunk-cost fallacy. "All that effort, no way am I going to give up now. Even if it kills me (or my site!)."

 

[Deleted member 147267]

What I can't understand is how they aren't aware of what happened and what the likely effect will be. At the very least surely some member must've reported all the broken links by now? There must be hundreds of thousands if not more - all seemingly broken. In that case I'd have expected an emergency response but the situation has existed from day one.

 

[Isaac]

My guess is that there is little-to-no reporting of the problem because most of the regular users probably access content from within the site. Where they work correctly. There is no reporting from the anonymous Google User who no longer lands on the correct page. That said, I did read some threads from their equivalent of Site news where, they recognized a variety of issues and are working on them--doubtless a natural result of trying to roll their own, I'm sure it's harder to coordinate everything in at least some ways.

My biggest shock is just the look. Despite the long list of supposed benefits that are to be realized that people publish to their users before a major site overhaul, surely a large % of the focus ends up being on the general 'look'. And it looks absolutely awful compared to before.

Probably making such a statement is something UA members would naturally be shy to do. I don't have to be shy about it, because I am a persona non grata there.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

I've never been a member. You'd think that by now some member would have followed an external link to UA by now and reported it. Perhaps they have and it's being worked on. Perhaps if you're a member you go direct to the post and they don't notice the problem. I agree that the look is awful.

 

[Isaac]

Occasionally I've become frustrated with a site's (where I am a member) internal search feature, and gone to Google to try to find a thread, instead. But not very often.

For me, apps and sites just change too often, I guess I am getting old ... Change is more annoying to me in most cases. There was a time a few years ago when Chase bank website would change so often it was different every time I logged in. Seemed like the programmers were just flipping coins to try something new! But everyone has to do it, to keep up with everyone's expectations, which are generated because everyone is doing it ........

 

[Gasman]

FWIW, I don't care for their new look as it looks too much like a continuous mash of white, i.e. it's bland. What seems odd is that if you follow links to posts on UA that were posted some time ago, they all seem to point to the same introductory page. If that's because I'm not a UA member, then they must have changed their policy because I've been able to read content there before.

I've managed to look at a post from March 2004.

UtterAccess.com

www.utteraccess.com

I then searched for the thread title on Google and found it a few posts down the page. Clicking that link took me to the same post.?
I then logged out and repeated the process with same result.
However even when logged in, the link took me to the thread but as a non logged in user.?