Site Issues, Updates, Changes, and Feedback Thread

[PeterSt]

10 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Can you condense the issue into a couple sentences?

My attempt with the question to Jud to improve my Dutch a little :

When the vieuwport is made so small that some setting thinks that the ads better be removed, they are removed indeed but not replaced with text. It is now "white" instead.

When no ads are shown in the first place because people pay to have them removed, we must imagine the ads to be there after all - at least the technical system thinks they are (as per your own explanation, Chris). The difference with the previous situation above : nobody understands because they never see/saw ads - only unnecessary white space.

 

Additionally but this is not related : When the screen is dragged overly wide on the ride side, there is no issue at the right hand side to be seen (but have the ads visible). Instead the white space is emerging linearly at the left hand side. Well, almost linearly, because what emerges at the left hand side, also emerges at the right hand side of the ads. Here it does.

 

[Jud]

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

@PeterSt @Jud Yes, when the viewport size changes, so does the layout. most people stick with a fairly similar viewport size while browsing. 

Can you condense the issue into a couple sentences? I'm working on a few things right now, to get Google to like us again, and my head is spinning.

Hi Chris. It's not the viewport size changing.  It's that certain people are paradoxically seeing shorter lines when their horizontal viewports are larger.

The paradox appears only for paid members.  When the horizontal viewport is wide enough to "show ads" on the right of the screen, even though a paying member is not seeing ads, the text length shortens to allow space for the (nonexistent) ads.  Narrowing the viewport to move the nonexistent "ads" to the bottom of the screen will then allow the text lines to be longer.

(When I say the paradox "appears," I mean that people viewing the screen who aren't paid members see the ads moving around, so the text shortening or getting longer depending on where the ads are is quite understandable.)

[Superdad]

Are CA’s daily digests of "followed topics” (aka subscribed threads) going out?  Yesterday afternoon I reset the notification prefs for all 900 of the threads the system had record of my being subscribed to—setting them for daily digest notification (except for a few I went back to and asked for immediate notification).  Previously the dailies would arrive in my e-mail box at 9:00 p.m. (PST).  But I did not receive any "digests" last night.

 

 

Separately, and I know this is a business choice on Chris' part, and something I gave him an earful about a couple of years ago:

To me it does not make sense that paid members don't see the ads--and don't even have (AFAIK) the option to turn them on.  This puts supporting CA with membership dues at odds with advertisers--who want the eyeballs of those most dedicated members.

Personally, I let my membership lapse just so I could see the ads (without having to log off).  And as a manufacturer who plans to soon start advertising (can't believe we got this far without ANY ads), it bothers me to think that my ads will not reach paid CA members.  Chris' excuse was that very few people have paid membership.  But but we know that at least everyone who posts a For Sale item in that section is a paid member.

End of rant.  I know Chris has much more pressing matters.  Sorry for the divergence...

 

--Alex C.

 

P.S.  Really liking the wider width today!    The emoticon library needs some fun audio/computer related choices.  Anyone up for designing a few?  Skip the headphone emoticons though...

[sdolezalek]

For some reason the "white space" issue on my screen seems even more severe than most (particularly as I'm not seeing the ads):

This is on a 27 inch monitor with 2560x1440 resolution (I figured if I was going to get an expensive CUDA card for HQPlayer, I might as well also get the graphical benefits with the audio ones.

[speavler]

very snappy response time.  but why is everything so whitewashed?

[Jud]

19 minutes ago, sdolezalek said:

For some reason the "white space" issue on my screen seems even more severe than most (particularly as I'm not seeing the ads):

This is on a 27 inch monitor with 2560x1440 resolution (I figured if I was going to get an expensive CUDA card for HQPlayer, I might as well also get the graphical benefits with the audio ones.

Narrow your window gradually until your text lines lengthen (really).

[Jud]

22 minutes ago, Superdad said:

To me it does not make sense that paid members don't see the ads--and don't even have (AFAIK) the option to turn them on.  This puts supporting CA with membership dues at odds with advertisers--who want the eyeballs of those most dedicated members.

Having the option is OK.  (And by the way, Alex and Chris, there is a field of research called "choice architecture" which will tell you that unless you have people opt *out* of receiving ads rather than opt *in*, you will get very, very low uptake.  So if it's an opt-out, be sure it's very apparent.)

But I'll certainly be among those opting out.  These days unless you use something to block ads (browser extension or whatever), you will see advertising for audio equipment (and anything else you've ever indicated a liking for) *everywhere*, including news sites I track for work.  These ads frequently make pages load more slowly, and frankly, it's the visual equivalent of having to walk past hucksters yammering at you for hours per day.  Not having them on a page is cause for a heartfelt sigh of relief.  Chris and many other app and website developers know exactly what they are doing when they offer freedom from ads as one of the primary benefits of paid usage/membership.

Friendly suggestion: I know you've read it already, but if you haven't done so yet, it may be a good idea to re-read the sections of Jason Stoddard's online book about the founding and first years of Schiit Audio regarding where marketing/advertising dollars are best spent.  I'm not a marketer, but what he said impressed me as making some sense.

[daverich4]

21 hours ago, Melvin said:

Found this to work quite nicely by hovering over the symbol:

This does not work on an iPad/iPhone which means it's no longer possible to participate in a really active thread such as this one on a mobile device without spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I left off. Also, on my iPad Air2 the page is larger than the screen which means that when I scroll, the page moves left and right in the window as well as up and down depending on how straight I scroll.

[Melvin]

11 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

This does not work on an iPad/iPhone which means it's no longer possible to participate in a really active thread such as this one on a mobile device without spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I left off. Also, on my iPad Air2 the page is larger than the screen which means that when I scroll, the page moves left and right in the window as well as up and down depending on how straight I scroll.

Well, on an iPhone or iPad you simply tap on the symbol. 

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

It's just a measure of how much Chris likes you.

I wouldn't doubt it one bit. Of course Chris says he doesn't know what the "reputation score" means!!??

[The Computer Audiophile]

21 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

This does not work on an iPad/iPhone which means it's no longer possible to participate in a really active thread such as this one on a mobile device without spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I left off. Also, on my iPad Air2 the page is larger than the screen which means that when I scroll, the page moves left and right in the window as well as up and down depending on how straight I scroll.

Please pinch the entire screen and it will resize to your iPad so you don't have to see the right-left issue.

[Jud]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I wouldn't doubt it one bit. Of course Chris says he doesn't know what the "reputation score" means!!??

George, as Chris I'm sure knows now, all of your "likes" and "thanks" minus all of your "dislikes" were imported here as that number.  Now, with the new site, every time someone clicks the green "up" arrow it adds to that number, and every time someone clicks the red "down" arrow it subtracts from it.

To the extent it reflects being helpful, good; to the extent it reflects other folks' agreement or disagreement on some of the frequently debated topics we can all think of, well, that's what it reflects.  I don't suppose it's going to make a lot of difference to anyone's credibility.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, sdolezalek said:

For some reason the "white space" issue on my screen seems even more severe than most (particularly as I'm not seeing the ads):

This is on a 27 inch monitor with 2560x1440 resolution (I figured if I was going to get an expensive CUDA card for HQPlayer, I might as well also get the graphical benefits with the audio ones.

Surely it would be ridiculous to widen the screen so much that an entire paragraph can be seen on a single line. Yes that's all the way on the continuum from wide to skinny. Also ridiculous is a thin design that is so thin as to have one word per line. 

We must find a happy medium. Can you find a site that works perfectly for you and post a link?

[The Computer Audiophile]

49 minutes ago, Jud said:

Narrow your window gradually until your text lines lengthen (really).

It's part of the responsive design. it assumes you are on a mobile or tablet when you resize to such a narrow window. Then it removes some content and places banners below. 

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Surely it would be ridiculous to widen the screen so much that an entire paragraph can be seen on a single line. Yes that's all the way on the continuum from wide to skinny. Also ridiculous is a thin design that is so thin as to have one word per line. 

We must find a happy medium. Can you find a site that works perfectly for you and post a link?

Chris: It's being caused by ad positioning, for paid members who don't see ads.  When the viewport is wide enough that ads can be positioned on the right, even the paid members' text shortens.

Is there a way to have the ads "shown" for paid members at the bottom to allow maximum text width?

Edit: I wonder whether that last suggestion would result in a lot of blank space to scroll through at the bottom of each page....  I feel your pain, Chris!  (Luckily for me, not as much as you do.)

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Chris: It's being caused by ad positioning, for paid members who don't see ads.  When the viewport is wide enough that ads can be positioned on the right, even the paid members' text shortens.

Is there a way to have the ads "shown" for paid members at the bottom to allow maximum text width?

Hi Jud - I originally had this exact design. But, as I posted to jhwalker, there is a screen reflow annoyance that happens. 

How about this, I'll re-enable this aspect and you guys can help me with feedback?

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Jud - I originally had this exact design. But, as I posted to jhwalker, there is a screen reflow annoyance that happens. 

How about this, I'll re-enable this aspect and you guys can help me with feedback?

You really want *more* feedback from a thousand amateur web page designers? 

Edit: But yes, more than happy to try to help out.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

You really want *more* feedback from a thousand amateur web page designers? 

Ha!

I just enabled this. You may need to refresh your browser to take advantage of the size.

Notice the reflow issue.

[Jud]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ha!

I just enabled this. You may need to refresh your browser to take advantage of the size.

Notice the reflow issue.

The reflow is pretty much unnoticeable here for me, as (1) I'm on a fast connection, and (2) It happens at the same time as I'm being taken to my previous position in a thread, so I perceive both as part of the same thing.  No annoyance so far.  I'll retest at home.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

The reflow is pretty much unnoticeable here for me, as (1) I'm on a fast connection, and (2) It happens at the same time as I'm being taken to my previous position in a thread, so I perceive both as part of the same thing.  No annoyance so far.  I'll retest at home.

Ok, good. 

There's one more smaller issue. The top two articles on the home page have the number of comments cut off unless a page resize is manually done by the user. Not the end of the world though.

What do you think of the size without the sidebar to the right? Is this what you had in mind?

[austinpop]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

The reflow is pretty much unnoticeable here for me, as (1) I'm on a fast connection, and (2) It happens at the same time as I'm being taken to my previous position in a thread, so I perceive both as part of the same thing.  No annoyance so far.  I'll retest at home.

Same here. Reflow is barely noticeable on desktop monitor 1920x1080.

[PeterSt]

No difference to be seen here. No reflow either, that I can see,

Additionally I don't see how that is related. I'd say : read my last post above, and Jud's post right under it.

[SWL3600]

Any idea when CA will be back on Tapatalk?

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

What do you think of the size without the sidebar to the right?

Is that side bar supposed to be gone now ? I still see it.

We must be talking about different things.

Home page and articles ? ... how are they related ? OK, I am thick.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, PeterSt said:

Is that side bar supposed to be gone now ? I still see it.

We must be talking about different things.

Home page and articles ? ... how are they related ? OK, I am thick.

I removed what's called the sidebar for user who've purchase a CA All Access Pass. 

screen reflow effects all pages, including home page.