Jump to content

Feedback to new Curvage


caps0rock

Recommended Posts

Hi There SuperJ

First off - I appreciate all the work you put into this. The website does have a more modern feel to it, and its a change which potentially can be good.

However, I somehow don't like it, and I think there is stuff going on beyond just not liking change. I'm gonna try and see if I can put my disliking in words

1)
- I come to curvage for the forum. Its the only thing I care about. However, the website sends me to some kind of 'home' page, which I don't care about (You started this on the old page, I did not like it there either, but it was OK, it made me look at content that otherwise I would not have looked at.) 
- There is no 'forum' link. Instead I have to navigate to the 'browse' section and find it in a sub-menu 
- When I move my mouse from 'browse' to 'forum' there is a 50% chance that I move it over the 'home' button, making the 'forum' button vanish. Very frustrating. (I know, it should not be a hard task, but honestly, I come here to wank, I am usually in bed with my laptop, so you can imagine my pointing precision is probably kind of sub-optimal

2)
- the website is slow. Its allways slow, but the new layout makes it a problem. In the past, I would click on images, and while they loaded, I would read their descriptions. Waiting for them to load never was much of a hassle. Now the screen turns dark, and I am forced to wait idly while the image loads. This is really annoying.
- the reason why curvage is so interesting, is because women post pictures of themselves, commenting on them, describing them. In the old curvage, reading the comments and looking at the pictures was a single activity (except if you right clicked and opened in new tab). Now I can either read, or look at pictures. I don't like this.
- people often post series of pictures - before/after pictures, or "here is me in 3 poses" pictures or "here are 8 pictures of a chick gaining weight" type stuff. In old curvage, you could often view them all in one view. I liked this, as you could make direct comparisons. Now I am forced to look at one picture at a time.

3) 
- The new layout just made me write my most boring post ever :-(

Anyway, you should probably take some time thinking about how people *actually* use curvage (like: what does the typical person do on this site, in which order, in what time frame?)


aaanyway, hope things will gradually fall in place. hope that some of my comments might help you improve things.

P.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1 Agree to all of this. As it is now, I don't really feel like visiting this page anymore, whereas before, it was my absolute first choice every time it was, you know, "that" time. I feel the last version of curvage was the absolute greatest version and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
1 hour ago, Papaguena said:

+1 Agree to all of this. As it is now, I don't really feel like visiting this page anymore, whereas before, it was my absolute first choice every time it was, you know, "that" time. I feel the last version of curvage was the absolute greatest version and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

There're always some hickups when lifting something to the next level. We need to be patient and help the admin with his work, so we can achieve a curvage we like to come back to. If that's not something to invest some sweat and tears into, what's then... ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I liked the old way of viewing pics better, it was right in with the post and I could see multiples at a time. Now I can't post about a picture I'm looking at because it's either post or view a single pic. Why does the picture viewer have to sit on top of the web page? It completely dominates my screen and negates anything else I try to do. So far the new picture viewer is the only think I don't like. Most everything else looks and feels like an upgrade, it's just retraining to learn to use.

Why is double space standard when I hit enter? It is extremely annoying.

And where are my thumbs up icons? All I get are faces now? No point in searching for an icon if the only 20 I can use are already in the menu.

Also, I like the home page and I'm sure I'll like it more when it's finished and resembles the content of the old one a bit more but if I am using my tablet I need to direct link to the forum because links where I have to hover with a mouse to get to drop just don't work on it. There are many sites out there that do this which makes navigating the web on my tablet really frustrating.

 

Keep up the good work SuperJ I like where it's heading. It's been quite a while since the old girl had a makeover.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I liked being able to look at the user list at the bottom of the forums page and those on my friend list were highlighted if they were online, a feature that I really liked.  I can't tell if it still works that way as I seem to have lost my friend list in the upgrade.  Will that be brought back?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally I don't like new Curvage, because after logging in, I could go to the list of actualized threads I were posting and on the list of other active threads and I could decide which ones I will open and check. Now I have got a huge list of activity, with every new post from every thread, even every plus given to any post... For me this is incredibly incomfortable, specially if I am not everytime here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yay! Big improvement on the navigation bar up top. Cool. Thanks :-)

Any chance anything can be done about the image-loading behavior? 

Btw. re-reading my original post, it comes across a lot harsher than I intended, I hope you were able to also see it as constructive feedback, not just pure moaning and complaining. I do appreciate the work you put in to make sure this forum exists in the first place. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@caps0rock

I've been meaning to reply to this thread. The only reason I haven't is because I recognize that you took time to put actual effort into your post and it deserves a decent reply.  Your post does not strike me as offensive or a personal attack etc. I actually really appreciate you taking the time to put thought into constructive feedback. 

A little background as I think you will appreciate it. Curvage was using old 2007 technology. (SMF) which didn't have  any wiggle room left for modernization (at least not without a significant struggle) For more than a year, myself and the other moderators have been discussing plans for how to evolve Curvage. We all aligned to the path that we have now started with this recent transition. 

Why Evolve? For more than a Decade curvage and it's predecessors have been among the leading resources for Curvy girl & fat Celeb related content. Recently technology has shifted in several significant ways. Some examples include people moving from a desktop to a mobile platform, expecting real time interactions (AJAX), and more social interactions with their media outlets. Let's be honest, forums are and always were for discussion. They worked out great in 2004 when Luke decided Fat Celebs would be a forum because frankly at the time there wasn't really any better way to manage and organize content. 

Now that's it's 2016, People really do expect more from a site like this. Similar sites have stepped in to fill the void but we do not want Curvage replaced. One thing is certain and that is that I would be doing a massive disservice to this community to sit back and allow Curvage to fade into the background.  Curvage will not become a "relic" on my watch! 

Now let's consider the challenge. I have 2 distinct groups with very different expectations. Firstly there is a large group of Vintage Curvage users who have been here for ever. They are used to the old setup and I need to make sure I meet their expectations. Clearly this is an important group for Curvage. So any upgrades need to happen in a way that doesn't disturb their Eco system too much.  

With respect to the aforementioned I also need make this site appealing to new members and allow them to find things they expect and to feel like they understand this site. We need new members to exist. 

It's quite a challenge to appeal to those 2 groups simultaneously. 

Okay, so here we are starting in a new direction and you have feedback. Allow me to address 

 

I admit that there is lots to do. I had a choice though to leave the site closed while I build up the ultimate site or just do the minimum required that would allow me to get this open as soon as possible. I chose the latter. 

1. Good suggestions, forums has been moved to top level. 

2. Slow.. It was. But it's much faster now and already working something to make it even faster. Curvage will have the best service in the business, all while being totally free.

 As far as the picture loading thing. That's another thing that gets complicated. I will elaborate.  Now that curvage supports mobile the old setup of enlarging the image inline would mean that mobile people never see a high resolution image as it would be limited by the screen size. Another option is just make really big thumbnails so there is really no need to click it open except for the REALLY interesting photos. This would mean pages would be slower to load as the images would have larger files sizes. Then there is light box, or highslide. ( I am not happy with any solution right now. ) I agree with you though that it can certainly be better and I am working through it. 

3. Stop being boring! LOL

Again, thank you for the feedback. I am doing what I can to continue making adjustments to this site.  I hope you will find it a comfortable place to hang out again soon. 

Please feel free to leave more feedback, It does help. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
On 8.1.2016 at 1:48 AM, SuperJ707 said:

[...] As far as the picture loading thing. That's another thing that gets complicated. I will elaborate.  Now that curvage supports mobile the old setup of enlarging the image inline would mean that mobile people never see a high resolution image as it would be limited by the screen size. Another option is just make really big thumbnails so there is really no need to click it open except for the REALLY interesting photos. This would mean pages would be slower to load as the images would have larger files sizes. Then there is light box, or highslide. ( I am not happy with any solution right now. ) I agree with you though that it can certainly be better and I am working through it. [...]

I'm using this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/thumbnail-zoom-plus/

You just hover your mouse over the thumbnail and the enlarged pic pops up. Works really fine for me! :wub:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, caps0rock said:

Interesting, sometimes pictures open inline, sometimes full-screen. can't figure it out. looks like quotes open in-line, while original posts upon full-screen unless I refresh a page ... but thats just a guess.

I am still playing around with it.  I am changing things as we speak. No worries, I know what it's supposed to do. It will be to your liking soon. Thank you again

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure if this has been brought up, but the biggest issue for me is the new gallery. I much prefer the old way where you could see the latest picture update from each thread without having to actually comb through each thread looking to see if there is new content. The new gallery is just a mess. There's hardly any organization. The old way was separated by subforum, so if I only wanted to see the latest pictures from "women of curvage" without having to navigate through pics of random people like how it is with the new gallery, or having to go through each and every thread and look through dozens of pages to see if there is a new update.

This is kind of hard to explain with no pictures, but unfortunately I can't find any pictures of the old gallery. The best I can do to show is the attached picture. I think you understand what I'm talking about.

 

curvage.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, foxmccloud1 said:

Not sure if this has been brought up, but the biggest issue for me is the new gallery. I much prefer the old way where you could see the latest picture update from each thread without having to actually comb through each thread looking to see if there is new content. The new gallery is just a mess. There's hardly any organization. The old way was separated by subforum, so if I only wanted to see the latest pictures from "women of curvage" without having to navigate through pics of random people like how it is with the new gallery, or having to go through each and every thread and look through dozens of pages to see if there is a new update.

This is kind of hard to explain with no pictures, but unfortunately I can't find any pictures of the old gallery. The best I can do to show is the attached picture. I think you understand what I'm talking about.

 

curvage.png1

yes I remember that page full well. Here I've attached a screen shot of it. Believe me, that page took me a month to build on the old site. I can't forget it LOL

I am well aware of it's absence in this new environment. I am all over trying to come up with a clean solution to all the clever little picture previews that used to be scattered around this place.

Make no mistake about Gallery though.. it's NOT the same thing as the old "pictures" tab. The pictures tab on the old site was merely thumbnail links to threads in the forums with new images. The Gallery has nothing to do with forum images. Gallery is it's own picture posting application apart from the forums. It's something we've never had before here. Many younger members do not understand how to post pictures in threaded forums. Thus they will have better luck using Gallery. It better meets their expectations. Also Gallery is better suited for organizing collections of pictures. Basically a DataBase (if you will) of images.

Forums however still support picture posting and I will work on getting better picture previews up.

forum pictures page..JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just noticed another detail (nothing important, just figure I'll keep updating things I notice, in case you want this type of input). if i click an image on the 'recent status' updates, it navigates to that image (feels like you've just left curvage - like if you right click and say "open image in new tab"). somehow that is not the behavior i'd expect. I was expecting it to either enlarge inline, or link me to a gallery or thread or wherever the content was posted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, caps0rock said:

just noticed another detail (nothing important, just figure I'll keep updating things I notice, in case you want this type of input). if i click an image on the 'recent status' updates, it navigates to that image (feels like you've just left curvage - like if you right click and say "open image in new tab"). somehow that is not the behavior i'd expect. I was expecting it to either enlarge inline, or link me to a gallery or thread or wherever the content was posted.

I'm looking into fixing that. The home page is just getting started. I want to continue to improve it. I really appreciate the feedback, I'm not just saying that either. I really want curvage to continue being a fantastic site. It's difficult to do without feedback. Thank you!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On January 9, 2016 at 2:29 PM, foxmccloud1 said:

Not sure if this has been brought up, but the biggest issue for me is the new gallery. I much prefer the old way where you could see the latest picture update from each thread without having to actually comb through each thread looking to see if there is new content. The new gallery is just a mess. There's hardly any organization. The old way was separated by subforum, so if I only wanted to see the latest pictures from "women of curvage" without having to navigate through pics of random people like how it is with the new gallery, or having to go through each and every thread and look through dozens of pages to see if there is a new update.

This is kind of hard to explain with no pictures, but unfortunately I can't find any pictures of the old gallery. The best I can do to show is the attached picture. I think you understand what I'm talking about.

 

curvage.png  1

So I looked into bringing back the "forum" pictures page but found it to be confusing now that there is a gallery. So I went with (something we also had before) recent pictures on the home page and a recent pictures bar at the bottom of the pictures forums. Check for them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, engineermeister said:

One thought SuperJ, is that you used to be able to go straight to new posts in a thread rather than just going to the latest page of it and scrolling down to try and find them. Is that feature still there (and I just haven't found it!) or was it scrapped?

Just click on the circle (or star, if you've posted there before) at the left of the thread's title. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/15/2016 at 9:53 AM, SuperJ707 said:

So I looked into bringing back the "forum" pictures page but found it to be confusing now that there is a gallery. So I went with (something we also had before) recent pictures on the home page and a recent pictures bar at the bottom of the pictures forums. Check for them

Thanks. I see them. Is there a way to show the author of the thread under the thread title?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.