Look, I was patient for a long time. But Tested's move to a new site design has been totally fucked since the start. Now, we were told we would be seeing updates that would fix things soon. In fact, I believe changes are supposed to be incoming this week and next. I know that I would very much appreciate some transparency on the progress of fixing the site. You guys majorly dropped the ball on this transition, and I feel that we should know what's going on with the site, kept up to date on fixes. I'm not asking for a live stream explaining all of the cool new things coming because A) fixes are boring and B) that's a waste of time for the Tested crew, but I really wish you guys were more open like GB has always been about updates coming and being in the works, especially when most of their stuff is enhancements/redesigns, not fixing a totally broken site. Own up, tell us what's going on, so we know things are in fact being worked on. If it takes longer than anticipated, fine. But I want to know that there are people working on fixing this sad excuse for a design so the site is actually functional.
Give us a list of priorities that is forward facing, not hidden away in a forum post. Give us estimated time for completing fixes when possible (I understand not everything can be even assumed to be fixed in any particular time frame, but major fixes would be nice). I am of the opinion that when an organization fucks up, they should be totally transparent and forward about what they are doing to fix it, and I feel like the opposite has been happening. It hasn't been kept hidden, but next to nothing has been said other than "hey fixes are coming next week, maybe."
Keep us in the loop so we know what's going on. You owe it to the community. I'm not bitching, but I am saying you guys need to own up to what's going on. I know the engineers were gone working on something else (Hey, maybe not such a smart plan, letting your engineers go off and do something when you are about to completely redesign your site, just sayin') and all that, I know all of the reasons, but regardless of the why, the what is this: the site has been broken, and in plenty of ways unusable. The forum community has been stamped out, already having been somewhat lacking in population. It's not uncommon to see broken shit hang around on even the home page for much too long. We lost half of the meaningful features the site had before the redesign. Tell us where you are, when you expect some progress to occur, stuff like that. I'm a little fed up with waiting, and as much as I love the site, I am hugely disappointed in how this WHOLE THING has been handled. Please dear god learn from your mistakes, and don't let whoever made the silly decisions that ruined significant portions of the site ever make important decisions ever again.
I just lost an enormous post to our janky ass forums, so yeah. We're aware of the problems, we're just as (if not more) frustrated as you guys are.
I apologize if this is curt, but I don't want to write the whole giant post again. Basically, Andy and the guys have been pulled to a bunch of other projects and as a result have missed multiple deadlines. Don't be pissed at them. This isn't their fault either. Since I'd rather not look like a liar or an asshole, I'm not going to say when stuff is coming back until it's actually working or very very close.Here's the short list of fixes:
Profiles are back, but kind of broken. You can see your recent activity on your profile page. Changing some things causes a 500 error. This is on the list of stuff to be fixed
Blog posts are back, but aren't really exposed anywhere. I don't think you can even embed them in the forums.
PMs are working on the staging server, but they need a couple of small fixes
We're changing the notification system. Instead of sending notifications through PMs, the plan is that you'll have a feed-like list of @replies to you, and you'll be able to reply to people from that feed as well. I have no idea when this will happen.
While the new stuff is happening, other people are working on bugs. Andy figured out the 3000 character bug tonight, and that should be fixed relatively soon. I haven't looked at the buglist this week, but some other stuff has already been fixed. The rest will happen as it's fixed, no ETA.
When all this stuff is fixed and the forums, blog posts, notifications, and PMs all work as we'd expect and are reasonably polished, we'll post about them on the homepage. We have a boatload of new users who are just reading posts, and I don't want to push them toward new features that aren't 100%, or they probably won't come back again when they are. 100%
I know you're pissed off and angry, but I really appreciate you sticking with us. This has taken dramatically longer than it should have to get sorted out. It's incredibly frustrating for Norm, Joey, and I. We're spending 10, 12, or 14 hours a day working on this, and I think we're doing some of the best work we've ever done. But the site has been broken for two months and that absolutely sucks.
Thanks for the update Will. I have been enjoying the content so much lately, and it is the only reason I continue to put up with Tested's brokeness over the last few months. I hope it comes together really soon and we can all get back to enjoying what you guys do best!
I gave up with the site long ago, I've subscirbed to the YouTube channel and I read my RSS feed in Google Reader. I only came here to comment on an article and that was painful. Found this forum post by accident. I used to visit Tested on a daily basis before the changes, it's now very rare for me to bother with the site.
I think we're doing some of the best work we've ever done.
So I suppose you didn't set the bar very high to begin with (sorry... I know, lousy joke). Also, that might very well be because you work in a "friendly" environment (as opposed to a defined work environment).
All kidding aside, I don't really think anyone's irked/angry/pissed/bent out of shape... whatever, I guess it would be more impatience to see what you're cooking up.
@will: Well, that sucks that the Top Mens' time have been spread thin. I hope that they can get the fixes out. I'm just glad that you did make an update on the situation.
Look, I was patient for a long time. But Tested's move to a new site design has been totally fucked since the start. Now, we were told we would be seeing updates that would fix things soon. In fact, I believe changes are supposed to be incoming this week and next. I know that I would very much appreciate some transparency on the progress of fixing the site. You guys majorly dropped the ball on this transition, and I feel that we should know what's going on with the site, kept up to date on fixes. I'm not asking for a live stream explaining all of the cool new things coming because A) fixes are boring and B) that's a waste of time for the Tested crew, but I really wish you guys were more open like GB has always been about updates coming and being in the works, especially when most of their stuff is enhancements/redesigns, not fixing a totally broken site. Own up, tell us what's going on, so we know things are in fact being worked on. If it takes longer than anticipated, fine. But I want to know that there are people working on fixing this sad excuse for a design so the site is actually functional.
Give us a list of priorities that is forward facing, not hidden away in a forum post. Give us estimated time for completing fixes when possible (I understand not everything can be even assumed to be fixed in any particular time frame, but major fixes would be nice). I am of the opinion that when an organization fucks up, they should be totally transparent and forward about what they are doing to fix it, and I feel like the opposite has been happening. It hasn't been kept hidden, but next to nothing has been said other than "hey fixes are coming next week, maybe."
Keep us in the loop so we know what's going on. You owe it to the community. I'm not bitching, but I am saying you guys need to own up to what's going on. I know the engineers were gone working on something else (Hey, maybe not such a smart plan, letting your engineers go off and do something when you are about to completely redesign your site, just sayin') and all that, I know all of the reasons, but regardless of the why, the what is this: the site has been broken, and in plenty of ways unusable. The forum community has been stamped out, already having been somewhat lacking in population. It's not uncommon to see broken shit hang around on even the home page for much too long. We lost half of the meaningful features the site had before the redesign. Tell us where you are, when you expect some progress to occur, stuff like that. I'm a little fed up with waiting, and as much as I love the site, I am hugely disappointed in how this WHOLE THING has been handled. Please dear god learn from your mistakes, and don't let whoever made the silly decisions that ruined significant portions of the site ever make important decisions ever again.
I just lost an enormous post to our janky ass forums, so yeah. We're aware of the problems, we're just as (if not more) frustrated as you guys are.
I apologize if this is curt, but I don't want to write the whole giant post again. Basically, Andy and the guys have been pulled to a bunch of other projects and as a result have missed multiple deadlines. Don't be pissed at them. This isn't their fault either. Since I'd rather not look like a liar or an asshole, I'm not going to say when stuff is coming back until it's actually working or very very close.Here's the short list of fixes:
When all this stuff is fixed and the forums, blog posts, notifications, and PMs all work as we'd expect and are reasonably polished, we'll post about them on the homepage. We have a boatload of new users who are just reading posts, and I don't want to push them toward new features that aren't 100%, or they probably won't come back again when they are. 100%
I know you're pissed off and angry, but I really appreciate you sticking with us. This has taken dramatically longer than it should have to get sorted out. It's incredibly frustrating for Norm, Joey, and I. We're spending 10, 12, or 14 hours a day working on this, and I think we're doing some of the best work we've ever done. But the site has been broken for two months and that absolutely sucks.
Thanks for the update, Will. Frustrations aside, I think the community consensus would land on "take your time, do it right."
@markusespar: Yes I am on that side.
Thanks for the update Will. I have been enjoying the content so much lately, and it is the only reason I continue to put up with Tested's brokeness over the last few months. I hope it comes together really soon and we can all get back to enjoying what you guys do best!
I gave up with the site long ago, I've subscirbed to the YouTube channel and I read my RSS feed in Google Reader. I only came here to comment on an article and that was painful. Found this forum post by accident. I used to visit Tested on a daily basis before the changes, it's now very rare for me to bother with the site.
@will said:
So I suppose you didn't set the bar very high to begin with (sorry... I know, lousy joke). Also, that might very well be because you work in a "friendly" environment (as opposed to a defined work environment).
All kidding aside, I don't really think anyone's irked/angry/pissed/bent out of shape... whatever, I guess it would be more impatience to see what you're cooking up.
@will: Well, that sucks that the Top Mens' time have been spread thin. I hope that they can get the fixes out. I'm just glad that you did make an update on the situation.
@will: Is one of the priorities making it possible to log into the site when it's sized for iOS Safari?
@Foggen said:
Yes, the header is changing slightly when the PMs go out. You'll be able to log in with a smaller browser width then.
@gpbmike said:
Confirmed, I did this earlier.
Hey guys, we've added PMs back to the site. Thank the top men for their work on this. I know I'm excited to have the functionality back :)
Awesome to see the PMs back. Whats next on the agenda anything specific?