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netzach
Martin_Stahl wrote:
netzach wrote:

Okay & thanks for reply.

Unfortunately some of them may have been chess-cheats though ?

people with specific skill sets


Sure, it is possible. That doesn't really impact anything does it?

It might do. Don't you think ?

Was unlooked for & unfortunate.

You have no unease at letting dishonest chess-cheats assist you to design a chess-website Martin ??

chess_kebabs
netzach wrote:
chess_kebabs wrote:
Martin_Stahl wrote:
chess_kebabs wrote:

I couldn't get why the NEW DESIGN FEEDBACK group wasn't Open. Not sure if that setting has been changed since I joined it  but I found it odd that members  needed to apply there and wait, and not be able to give instant feedback. 

Not sure why it remained closed but at least initially erik was looking for people with specific skill sets. The second call, about a month later, for beta testers, was via the site messaging system; I don't know how many people were included or what the selection criteria was. I assumed everyone was invited since I was already part of the group and got it.

Keeping it private at that point might have been to manage a potential influx of bug reports, though that is just a guess on my part. Not sure why it would still be private now.

It might not be still on private, only admins can tell. Doesn't really matter anyway when Erik and staff are answering or writing tickets for bugs/issues reported in the public forums as well.  

Sure & not a big deal either.

When something is improved or redesigned, whether that is an item or an inteface, the soundest approach to use is a staged introduction with every alteration reversible in case of flaws/bugs.

Millions of dollars of spending lie in ashes of projects where this was not done & the new sytem failed to function as design/intent.

Though not the case here & I would have done as chess.com has with a ''suck-it-and-see-approach'' . Implement the thing & iron out difficulties after am only seeking to ensure that anything not working properly will get fixed.

I don't get why the testing period was ended so soon and it went live so fast. I seriously think Erik and staff didn't forsee the extent of problems that would be caused. But I feel they shouldn't have taken that risk and first tried to fix all the bugs reported while in testing mode so that there would have been a much smoother transition and not cause so much 'hysteria'. Also it would have been nice if a newspost was sent out to all chess.com members advising that a change was coming. People don't like change usually, especially when it comes with no warning. And especially more so when that change brings them problems they didn't have before.

shequan
erik wrote:

wow! just logged in to this feverish debate :)

ummm... what questions can i answer that haven't already been answered?

we don't use the same font as facebook (not even close actually). they use lucida, we use trebuchet. 

why did we do this? because it's better, faster, cleaner, and it foundationally allows us to build better in the future. 

is this all sometimes hard for some people to accept or understand? of course. and i'm sorry for that. i wish we could please everyone, but unfortunately we cannot. :(

just be thankful they aren't randomly sending people to the chess.com gulag.

netzach

Well am sure everything will get fixed & I had better not monopolise this forum too much. However for what it's worth here is my opinion:

  • Like:
  1. The minor improvements to playability & clearness of the chess-board itself. Even the audio-clicks !
  2. Progress in chess.com TV & news enterprises.
  • Dislike:
  1. Cluttered  & excessively pictorial layout of home pages with many items located poorly around the page.
  2. Harsh fonts & glaring backgrounds. Site gives me eye-strain now.
  3. Loss of useful features such as Status, User-control of fonts & colours within themes. Let the users do some stuff themselves to personalise their pages ! Including positioning the information panels wherever they want on customisable pages.
  4. Overcomplicated navigation features.
  5. Lack of clarity on current policy towards cheat-detection on the site. Presently is '' cheat, get caught, become anonymous. Open new account re-start that process.'' This is real bad...
SPARTANEMESIS

Where is the "easy" button?  To move on to a real question: is there still a method for looking up a member by name?

DeepGreene
SPARTANEMESIS wrote:

Where is the "easy" button?  To move on to a real question: is there still a method for looking up a member by name?

http://www.chess.com/members/

The search field on the right works for usernames, first names, &/or last names.

Martin_Stahl
netzach wrote:

It might do. Don't you think ?

Was unlooked for & unfortunate.

You have no unease at letting dishonest chess-cheats assist you to design a chess-website Martin ??

Well, chess cheats can be anywhere contributing to anything/everything on the site, so that doesn't mean much. Just because they may cheat at chess (which was not known and/or proven at the time they may have joined) doesn't mean they won't provide useful feedback to a redesign effort.

That said, people in that group assisted in feedback and bug reporting. Some probably gave design advice but the overall design was already done and the primary focus was fixing issues. Really, whether or not someone in that group was banned for cheating is really a strawman and has nothing to do with the actual redesign.

netzach
Martin_Stahl wrote:
netzach wrote:

It might do. Don't you think ?

Was unlooked for & unfortunate.

You have no unease at letting dishonest chess-cheats assist you to design a chess-website Martin ??

Well, chess cheats can be anywhere contributing to anything/everything on the site, so that doesn't mean much. Just because they may cheat at chess (which was not known and/or proven at the time they may have joined) doesn't mean they won't provide useful feedback to a redesign effort.

That said, people in that group assisted in feedback and bug reporting. Some probably gave design advice but the overall design was already done and the primary focus was fixing issues. Really, whether or not someone in that group was banned for cheating is really a strawman and has nothing to do with the actual redesign.

What a shame..

Martin_Stahl
chess_kebabs wrote:

I don't get why the testing period was ended so soon and it went live so fast. I seriously think Erik and staff didn't forsee the extent of problems that would be caused. But I feel they shouldn't have taken that risk and first tried to fix all the bugs reported while in testing mode so that there would have been a much smoother transition and not cause so much 'hysteria'. Also it would have been nice if a newspost was sent out to all chess.com members advising that a change was coming. People don't like change usually, especially when it comes with no warning. And especially more so when that change brings them problems they didn't have before.

Well, it wasn't a news post but erik did give a heads up back at the end of November, in addition to the calls for testers. Agree that it probably needed another month or two of testing.

gambit-man

looking at that heads up, there were complaints about it from the start. admittedly the screenshot doesn't look so bad, but that particular screenshot  is one of the more favourable ones.

incidentally, i have posed the same question twice now in this forum, with no meaningful answer from anyone, and the issue has not been addressed

Martin_Stahl
gambit-man wrote:

incidentally, i have posed the same question twice now in this forum, with no meaningful answer from anyone, and the issue has not been addressed

Are you talking about the post new topic button in groups problem you mentioned a few pages back? I haven't seen that issue in any of the groups I'm part of. If it is an intermittent issue and only impacting a small number of people/groups that might be why you haven't seen anything posted in reply. I know I didn't post initially since could not recreate the issue.

You might post what browser/version you are using and what groups you are seeing it in.

SPARTANEMESIS
DeepGreene wrote:
SPARTANEMESIS wrote:

Where is the "easy" button?  To move on to a real question: is there still a method for looking up a member by name?

http://www.chess.com/members/

The search field on the right works for usernames, first names, &/or last names.

Thanks for the answer DeepGreene.  And many thanks to you and the rest of the chess.com team who deserve credit for all the aspects that make this such a great chess site. 

gambit-man

i'm using Chrome 17.0.963.83 m

the group is my OTB club group http://www.chess.com/groups/home/badgers-brook-chess-club

i cannot create a new forum topic unless i am in a different topic.

i have barely used the site since the changes, due to the difficulties i have in finding my way around, so it might also be the case in other groups.

Some people just don't like change, i can handle that. but some people have great difficulty in dealing with changes

Martin_Stahl

OK, can you create a new topic in the Cheating forum? Or do you have the problem there too? I would join that group listed and test but I don't want to intrude.

gambit-man

i just visited the cheating forum for the first time since the changeover, and the same applies there, can't post a new topic unless i'm in another topic

Martin_Stahl

To clarify, do you see the Post New Topic button or is it missing altogether? I'll get on Chrome later but I'm thinking it might be something on your side or I wold think erik might have noticed by now (since he uses Chrome too) if there was a problem.

You might try clearing your cache and it looks like the newer version might be 18.x; might update if you can in case the clear cache doesn't work. Wouldn't think your version would be old enough to have bugs though.

gambit-man

it's not there.

AFAIK, chrome updates itself whenever there is a new version...

Martin_Stahl
gambit-man wrote:

it's not there.

AFAIK, chrome updates itself whenever there is a new version...

Yeah, I also think it is supposed to update automatically. Just don't have it on the machine I'm on now and their site shows 18.x as the stable version; I assumed that would be the most recent one.

gambit-man

cache cleared, a couple of other things (group photo albums, calendar) have returned (although i hadn't realised they'd gone), but still no post new topic button

gambit-man

erik has now been in contact with me, he says the problem is gonna be fixed in the next build next week.

another annoying thing...

when passing the mouse over links, the information from those links appear in little pop-up boxes. Why? hovering over those links should be needed, just passing over them causes unnecessary delays when trying to move the mouse from one part of the screen to another. if i want to look over those details, i'm fairly sure i could manage to hover for half a second.

man, i really do hate this new look Yell

BTW, since clearing cache, site runs slower still Cry