@dbraud
Do you have any answers to our questions about improvements and when they might be coming? Things like post numbers, dates and times, tiny font on blinding white background, stuff like that? In two months, we have yet to get answers on those issues and many more.
If the answer is “We have no intention of ever fixing any of that” then please have the guts to say so. I’m beginning to suspect we’re being played for fools.
@LasMa We have setup an official thread for posting updates that are being delivered: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/1621735-official-cc-forum-updates-thread.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/1621735-official-cc-forum-updates-thread.html</a>
You may find it helpful to bookmark that thread. It will keep you notified of the latest updates to the forum.
We have setup the current consolidated thread for feedback from users. We will be continuing to monitor this thread and setting internal priorities for issue resolution.
If you need immediate assistance for an issue you are encountering with login etc. please email <a href="mailto:admin@collegeconfidential.com">admin@collegeconfidential.com</a> for support.
@dbraud:
You have missed the point of why quoting and/or post numbers are needed.
Quoting and using post numbers are not to address a specific reply at a specific person, they are to provide context to what is in your reply, which is after all going to the thread for everyone to see, not just that specific person. @user is a nice feature, but it in no way replaces the need for quoting or using post numbers.
Also, it is very common to have replying more than once to a thread. Simply specifying @user does nothing to tell me which of my replies you might be replying to - that is what quoting and post numbers are for.
I wonder sometimes how much time the developers have actually spent participating in large, active boards such as CC.
Mods: I’d like to emphasize that on many of these threads, there are <em>conversations</em> taking place, not simply one-off replies to a specific question. That is part of why we find post #s important. It gives context to what we are writing about.
I also use these threads as resources when I am making decisions in other parts of my life – recipes, travel, clothes, medical issues, etc. (All of which, I will add, have shown up at pop-up ads for which CC gets PAID.) It is a real pain to only be able to search over a 12-month window and pointless to have to look in 12-month increments, esp. when I am looking for a phrase or single word that may point me in the right direction. For example, a CCer posted about her experience at a B&B in Ireland and we went there as well. Incredible experience. But now I can’t remember who it was, when the poster made that suggestion, or on which travel thread it took place. Would love to be able to thank her and add my own feedback!
@dbraud I have had the Updates thread bookmarked since the day it was posted. There is nothing there about the questions I asked, as I’m sure you know.
So – again – when might we get some response about the issues we’ve been asking about for two months now?
@notrichenough In regards to your post: <a href=“***OFFICIAL THREAD TO REPORT PROBLEMS OR MAKE COMMENTS ABOUT NEW CC SITE - #123 by notrichenough - College Confidential Community - College Confidential Forums”>***OFFICIAL THREAD TO REPORT PROBLEMS OR MAKE COMMENTS ABOUT NEW CC SITE - #123 by notrichenough - College Confidential Community - College Confidential Forums;
Thanks for the feedback.
Another current work around might be to reference the direct link to a post you are referencing. If you right click the timestamp of a post, you can select copy link location. This is a direct link to a post in the forum. You can then paste that in a new message for reference.
Post Numbers…if we get those, I will stop complaining about the new format. I promise.
@dbraud I will take your non-answer to my first question, and your non-reply to my second, to mean “Never.”
I give up. You just lost another customer.
Hi, @bjdkin. I can assure you the changes have nothing to do with trying to generate more pageviews. We’re focused on improved member experience, and we recognize that some of the changes haven’t been universally welcomed. In particular, we are aware that the subscription experience needs to be reworked. We had problems with members getting hundreds of emails along with the lack of ability to subscribe to a single forum. Subscribing to super-busy forums is a problem to throttle, but for smaller forums it is a desirable feature.
bjdkin, what do you think the optimal frequency would be for forum updates? Daily? Whenever new threads are started? New posts are added to existing threads? Would one notification until you returned to the site be enough? (That would avoid a flood of updates.) One of the challenges is coming up with a solution that works for forums generating many new posts and threads per hour as well as those that might get just a few posts per day. (Thread subscriptions can have the same issue.)
@LasMa, we’ve got a long list of fixes and improvements (including under-the-hood technical issues). Nothing is off the table yet, though we are making those issues that affect large numbers of members higher priority. So far, a lot of the effort has gone into things like fixing the server errors, login quirks, and getting the mobile app functional. Not sexy stuff, but essential. The pace will probably be slower than either of us would like, but hang in there! 
<a href=“That%20would%20avoid%20a%20flood%20of%20updates.”>quote</a>
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The mail programs I use - gmail and Outlook - have the ability to group emails that have the same title, so you only see them as one email until you expand the group, and you can delete them all with one click. I think most email programs work this way now.
So simply changing the subjects of the notification emails to not have a user name in there, eliminates the flood problem. This is how it worked on the old board. It is a PITA to have to filter through 50 emails when they all come from only a couple of threads.
As for your priorities - I certainly understand why you want to work on major things like login issues first. But there is some extremely low-hanging fruit which would take very little time to implement that would greatly improve some aspects of the user experience here:
<li>Squeeze out some white space. I did this in a couple hours monkeying with CSS. You should be able to do it even faster. I’ve posted my mods here.</li>
<li>Put full dates back in the posts. The data is already there in the tooltip, very little extra work would be required.</li>
<li>Disable auto-save of drafts. These things are a PITA.</li>
<li>Fix the email subjects.</li>
<li>Un-flame all the flamed threads. They are meaningless and just confuse people - when a thread has 7 replies and the last response was 6 months ago, but has a flame… it’s a joke. Pin them if they are that important.</li>
<li>Etc.</li>
These things are high visibility and would take almost no time to implement. And it would make things nicer around here.
@CountingDown The search is limited to 1,000 results for performance.
Here is a basic search for your query: <a href=“Search results for '' - College Confidential Forums”>Search results for '' - College Confidential Forums;
In general if you can refine your search down, by adding which category or time range, you will have a better chance of finding what you are looking for.
Here is an example filtered down to the parents forum but with no date range to get as many results as possible: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search?adv=1&search=Ireland+b%26b&title=&author=&cat=506&tags=&discussion_d=1&comment_c=1&within=1+day&date=”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search?adv=1&search=Ireland+b%26b&title=&author=&cat=506&tags=&discussion_d=1&comment_c=1&within=1+day&date=</a>
One other option is to perform a bit of a google search from our search bar at the top of the forum. Enter your search terms and click the down icon next to the search button and select “Search Entire Site”, then click the search button. Your result will look like this: <a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/search_results.htm?cx=013579521852154800353%3Avvp1k6kluvq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=ireland+b%26b”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/search_results.htm?cx=013579521852154800353%3Avvp1k6kluvq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=ireland+b%26b</a>
@Roger_Dooley, since the change 99.9 percent of all the people on this board have been asking for a few things.
post numbers
the glaringly white background
being able to delete PM
These are not sexy either. These are standard things one finds on very message board on the planet except this one.
I doubt this is brain surgery.
As a user I only go to my bookmarked threads because it is a PITA to go to Parent Forum or Cafe. Too many stickied threads cluttering up the board - along with the stupid flames. It’s all very distracting. Also the lack background colors makes all the thread topics bleed into one another.
You changed the format for whatever reason and made CC much less user friendly. You all seem not to get that - even in the face of the members telling you it is so.
No. We don’t want to have to always post a link to someone’s comment, when we respond. (Same as CC doesn’t want us posting lengthy quotes.)
I’ve been using the time stamp- eg, dbraud, your 3:45 post. But after midnight, these stamps are altered to the date. So if I refer to thumper’s post on March 3 at 958pm, how does everyone else find that? Do we have to go to her profile, try her Threads and her Replies, page down to find March 3 and then float over each instance to see which one was 958pm?
Or if we find March 3 in this thread, and find each of her posts on that day, we still have to float over each date to see which is which 958. So we want post numbers.
I have this thread bookmarked, but not the updates one. So, since updates is no longer at the top of Latest Posts, I have to page through to find it, to bookmark it. (It’s not on the first 3 pages.) I can search by “moody,” assuming I remember it’s him, not someone else. Oh, but when I use the search box, all it brings up are where other posters wrote “moody,” not what he actually wrote.
So, of course, I have to go to advanced search. I put “moody” in Author, hit enter- and the space goes blank (because you can only hit the icon for this, not hit enter.) Ugh. I retype “moody” and uh-oh, a whole list pops up of user-ids that start with “moody”- and I don’t know which one he is.
My post is 4:58. I just posted it and it appears after one by Roger at 4:17.
Okay, so it looks like no one posted after Roger at 417. Except me. Oops, yes, 3 others did- I have to hit Refresh to see theirs. Ugh.
And, now most of this is also sitting in Drafts, as someone mentioned above. Not only that, half my words are still filling my Reply box at the bottom the thread- still waiting, I guess, for me to post.
And this is only me, one poster, telling her experience with the lack of smoothness.
I don’t need a reply, just want you to see. I get that you are dealing with lots on your to-do list.
Um. You’re kidding, right?
Look at my post count. Can you imagine someone saying hey @romani, can you respond to your “post”? There are threads where we have hundreds of posts (the ACA thread comes to mind). I understand the no quote button. Truly. But this is the first and only forum I’ve ever been on that didn’t have freaking post numbers! That’s a staple of forums!
It’s very, very clear that the people who are working on this site have no actual experience being or posting on this site.
If the point is not page clicks, then bring back more than 15 posts (?) or whatever per page.
Honestly, I’m so sad that after nearly 10 years on here, we’re losing our community. I hope someone makes a new forum for us so that we can keep our community running.
As some of you have requested, I’ve just posted a quick update to let you guys know about some fixes that are coming up soon. Please rest assured that we have not gone silent and that the tech team is working really hard behind the scene. As said, we will continue to share these updates whenever relevant. Thanks!
<a href=“*** OFFICIAL CC FORUM UPDATES THREAD *** - #4 by CC_Sorin - College Confidential Community - College Confidential Forums”>*** OFFICIAL CC FORUM UPDATES THREAD *** - #4 by CC_Sorin - College Confidential Community - College Confidential Forums;
It is glaringly obvious that the “powers that be” do not know, or do not care, about what features make a forum functional. If those changes will never be made, just say so.
Thanks for the reply Roger Dooley. I do appreciate the response regarding subscribing to sub-forums. Although, it still doesn’t answer as to why someone just can’t add a column to the forums to show when the most recent posts in the sub-forums have been made. This would accomplish nearly the same thing and you don’t have to figure out how to fix what others haven’t liked about the subscriptions. Not being able to see the latest posts in sub-forums to me, speaks directly to the functionality of the fourms, and I would think, would be a priority.
The longer this issue goes without aeing addressed, the more it appears that there is something to the page views theory. I also find it interesting that I (and others) have asked about this functionality many times…yet the only time I have received a response was when I brought up CC getting revenue from page views. Incidentally, I don’t begrudge CC from having revenue sources–just wanted to point out that if this was the case, it seems counterproductive, as I am more likely to click on the various colleges if I know there are new posts. (Which is why adding the "most recent’ column to the fourms, such as top CC universities would be helpful).
I was onboard and patient with the changes in the beginning, but after 2 months I have lost faith and am quickly losing interest in CC. Have still been visiting occassionally, but am finding the forums to be less useful as each day passes.
<em>shakes head sadly</em>
All of a sudden, this morning, I can only see the mobile view. I don’t have the app and I want the web view on my ipad. How can I fix this?
Got logged out again this morning. Refreshed and OK.
You guys really ruined a good thing. Congrats.