[Closed] Website redesign - Update

Not for me this new mobile version, main bug bears being slower navigation and no zoom but I've at least learnt i can go to Menu and select 'Request desktop site' in Android which I never realised existed...silver lining and all that 😀

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I know this is not the normal channel to report this but you guys really need to stop this rogue advert that keeps taking over!

Due to the suspect pop-ups the site isn't really usable in Chrome on Android.

When using Opera for Android the hamburger menu is unusable.

Speaking of ads and popups. The video banner at the top of the page doesn't mute, or pause. Couldn't read STW at all while listening to my Christmas Carols...

I miss the days when websites were fast, didn't jump around while you were reading and you didn't need three different browsers in order to be able to use all the sites you needed. Its worse than bikes and wheel sizes these days

Its worse than bikes and wheel sizes these days

Steady on, old boy...in the bike industry, they are apparently called 'standards'...out here in the Wilds, it is called 'Survival'...

I miss the days when websites were fast, didn't jump around while you were reading and you didn't need three different browsers in order to be able to use all the sites you needed. Its worse than bikes and wheel sizes these days

What other sites give you issues?

I know there are forums, so click on the drop down menu in the top left. But would new visitors know how to find the forums?. (Old tech: iPad 2, Safari, iOS 9.3.5).

Now it's William Hill spamming Android with a whole screen popup.

I have also been getting the fake Google play pop-up posted by gofasterstripes [i]et al[/i].

Three times in two days (Samsung Galaxy Android 6.0.1).

Two further days of not viewing STW on a phone – no pop-ups.

Please can you add the last poster name and a link to the last post back to the main forum view.

What other sites give you issues?

I do like to check on the progress of threads I have previously posted on. The lack of 'forum activity' link on the mobile versions has made this too tricky to bother so my visitations have significantly reduced.

She says if I'm an idiot and there is another way to do this now I have not spotted not to tell me as I'll get back to my bad ways.

Click the 3 horizontal stripes top left(menu)
Click your forum name(green button)
Click forum activity.

Well one good thing about the update is that it gives encouragement to those who's NY resolution is to spend less time on here 😕

Just been getting a warning message that Firefox would like to use my camera and record audio when opening some threads on here.

Firefox on Android fwiw.

The site keeps freezing on Chrome. Other tabs still working perfectly, but STW can't scroll.

And the lack of zoom on a tablet/phone is hideous.

All good on MacAir/ Safari, just tried it out.

And reiterate iPhone and iPad all good too.

Hi all,

The ad issues are unrelated to the site changes. It's the time of year that's the issue. Let me explain..

In the run up to christmas the demand for advertising increases and the CPM paid (cost per 1000) subsequently increases. This has the positive effect of improving the quality of the ads as only the big and generally respectable ad agencies can afford the higher CPMs. This drives down the instances of the rogue and shitty ads that trigger pop ups and other nasty crap.

Now we are in the post christmas ad slump their are more instances of the crappy low value ads creeping into the system as demand is very low right now. It will pick up again in the next few days and the first couple of weeks in January will be good too.

Now, the other factor at work is the frequency of user visits to the site. The ads work by being capped per user. ie. the high paying ads will be capped so that typically a single user will only see 4 of that particular ad in a 24 hour period. The theory (backed up by good evidence) is that after the 4th impression the chances of that user clicking that ad drops off a cliff.

The effect here is that if you come to the site with a clean browser or without having visited the site for 24 hours then the first ads you will see will be the highest paying and generally highest quality (well behaved) ads. The more pages you visit in that 24 hour period the more of the good inventory you will 'burn through' until you reach the cheaper and less well behaved ads.

When demand is low for advertising you will hit the low quality ads quicker then when demand is high.

All that said, when the rogue ads (and by that I mean the ads that cause pop ups that break the toc's of the networks) then I do my best to track them down and report them to the networks that are supplying them. We work with trusted networks only that have a human being at the other end of my support emails. But it's still impossible to drive them all out for good - it's a constant battle.

Premier users will soon have ads off by default on login - you won't need to go and push a button.... unless you want them on.

And the new site layout is causing the entire ad system to relearn itself and I'm hopeful that as the networks learn what we have done the ad quality will increase and the instances of shit ads will decrease.

Keep reporting any ad issues to us though at tech@... and I'll do my best to fix things. Screen grans always helpful but urls of where they try to take you are better.

I've seen ScreenGrans(.com) - never again 😮

I wish my tablet would remember to request the desktop site, otherwise all good.

How do you request the desktop site? I'd rather this than the crappy version I currently get on the iPhone.

The more pages you visit in that 24 hour period the more of the good inventory you will 'burn through' until you reach the cheaper and less well behaved ads.

When demand is low for advertising you will hit the low quality ads quicker then when demand is high

So we will see less dodgy adds by visiting less. Gotcha!

I'd rather this than the crappy version I currently get on the iPhone.

Version on my iPhone seems pretty good. Text is now a good size and no need to keep zooming in all the time.

Anyway, you can request the Desktop version of any website by holding down the Refresh arrow in Safari (the one on the address bar) - but it is just a "request" and many sites (including STW I think) make a lot of layout/sizing decisions based on the available screen/browser area, not just on what device the browser says it is running on. So in other words, you may see no difference.

Well Scruff.... Yes, that's technically true. If you want to be a bit arsey about it. I could just not bother explaining how things work if you'd prefer.

I don't mean to be arsy, but I would prefer not too have rogue adds as I'm sure you would too.

This morning the rogue add I had was trying to access my camera and microphone. This was over my morning coffee so

will be the highest paying and generally highest quality

Previously I've had an add for "* local *'s near you" adds with full nudity, legs akimbo whilst browsing on my work computer (raised at the time).

Some things are annoying yet understandable - full page massaratti adds for example, whilst some things leave alot to be desired...

Aren't most ads targeted by previous browsing habits...?

and many sites (including STW I think) make a lot of layout/sizing decisions based on the available screen/browser area, not just on what device the browser says it is running on.

Generally speaking, "browser sniffing" is seen as bad practice these days, anyway. Mainly because it constantly changes.

The iPhone version (at least on my little 4 inch iPhone 5 SE) is really good now - a huge improvement over constantly having to zoom in.

I do appreciate that "muscle memory" comes into this, though. I know I spend far too much of my time checking up on STW and my fingers used to just know what to do to navigate around. Things have changed and, regardless of the fact that the change is for the better, change is scary and bad.

I'll get over it. Eventually.

Rachel (who can't possibly be a proper web developer because she doesn't even have a phone with the screen size of a TV from 20 years ago...)

(Tech talk) I was more thinking of media-specific stylesheets rather than browser sniffing but yes both seem to be falling out of favour these days(/tech talk)

GrahamS - so far as I'm aware, STW *is* using media-specific stylesheets...

They are using basic @media queries fairly poorly to be honest, good luck with targeting the right devices accurately with those!

You guys were mentioning that all your efforts were speed related too.. why don't you even have a minification workflow on your production files?

oh and this is horrific by the way..

Alexxx getting banned in 5....4....3....

lolz at the ASCII art, tho.

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Alexxx - in what way are they "poorly used"? How would you use them differently?

Rachel

Ads aren't really a problem for me I'm not a premier member so expect them but it's the fake Google prize winner pop ups that's the problem, I don't get it anywhere but here and it never happened to me prior to the site update

[quote=scruff9252 ]So we will see less dodgy adds by visiting less. Gotcha!

It struck me that Mark was hinting at a rather different way of avoiding dodgy ads:

[quote=Mark ]The effect here is that if you come to the site with a clean browser ... the first ads you will see will be the highest paying and generally highest quality (well behaved) ads.

alexxx - Member

So is anything being done about the rogue pop up adverts on Android? I appreciate the explanation above about what's going on but at the moment I refuse to use the site on my mobile due to the horrible pop ups.

Or is there a workaround? If i use a different browser will that stop it happening?

And good work on the new site, it's far easier to view on mobiles than the old one.

Ads aren't really a problem for me I'm not a premier member so expect them but it's the fake Google prize winner pop ups that's the problem, I don't get it anywhere but here and it never happened to me prior to the site update

As above.

Or is there a workaround? If i use a different browser will that stop it happening?

There is a work around, but if I were to tell you it would result in me getting an arsey email from the powers that be, threatening to ban me from STW.

I would like to 'support' STW by 'allowing' ads in my browser, but until the rogue pop up issue is addressed I'm afraid it's no can do.

Jut don't go out one night a year - there's £15 to spend on a P and not having to worry about any more ad problems. 🙄

I bailed about 3/4 of the way though it and haven't been back since.

I bailed on the first page of the digital signup simply because I didn't know how I was going to be paying and couldn't be bothered to fill out all the info to find out. If there was a paypal subscribe button then I would have subscribed there and then.
On that first page there's no clues as to whether it's paypal, direct debit, credit/debit card etc.

Jut don't go out one night a year - there's £15 to spend on a P and not having to worry about any more ad problems

Or just make puppy dog eyes at a P member, and hopefully they'll take pity on you and give you a month of P as a gift 😀

andytheadequate,

You are a subscriber. You can turn ads off in your premier settings.

That will shortly be the default setting for subscribers

The rogue ads were appearing way before Christmas...strangely exactly the same time.as the new site...if the ad networks are relearning then they have failed to provide those high quality ads from the start.
I'm visiting the site about 4 times a day...and each visit (apart from this one so far) has had a rogue ad...
I don't understand how the ads work, it has been several years since I was last involves in digital ads, but I'm pretty sure things aren't working properly.
Given a fair amount of visiting is done on mobiles (and a fair amount is on Android), then it would make sense to get the stuff that generates income working properly.
Saying that, I'm still liking the new design, works much better than the old one...the ads are an on-going battle but I'm sure it'll get sorted in the future...

If you are visiting 4 times a day then you are definitely going to be seeing the low CPM inventory at the moment.

I'm not saying the rogue ads were not there before Xmas I'm saying they are more likely to be seen now the demand has dropped.

There is a reason we coordinated our mobile theme launch with that drop in demand and I guess it's understandable that you would therefor draw an incorrect correlation between the two.

Mark, that's a bit cryptic - have you fixed the spammy pop up ads or not? If you are telling me they are there by design and not a defect them "I'm oot".

Thanks, I've found the option to turn off ads now.

@allthegear - I am a premier member, i just didnt know of the option as the ads had never bothered me before. And I don't think many people would see that as a good reason to become a premier member. 'Pay us money so we don't spam your phone with shitty adverts that make your phone look like it has a virus' is hardly the greatest of sales pitches.

So you timed the launch of the new look at the same time as you expected poorer quality ads to be served? Was this an intentional decision to get more testing done?

Given how much noise is coming about these rogue ads, it seems odd that you have intentionally timed something big to happen with an increase in junk ads.

I need to have a trawl back but I was sure we were told that the ads were carefully selected previously...has that changed with the advent of tailored ads and has allowed the rogue stuff to appear.

I'm slightly gutted (but also relieved) that I've not seen any of the naked stuff.

Suspect like most people I'll stop using the site as often...Won't make any impact on any ad revenue, just 1 person but it should help reduce the redirects (for me)...

In Firefox / Chrome / Android, all forum links are appearing as white at the moment? Topic titles, user profile links, report post links etc..

All the hyperlinks are not visible now on my laptop using chrome and W10.
I can see thread content etc but not the titles on the forum home page.

glad its not just me..

And text as well if in quotes I think. Imossible to read as white on white. Ok on iPad but unreadable on windows phone

And text as well if in quotes I think. Imossible to read as white on white. Ok on iPad but unreadable on windows phone

Just checking 😉

🙂 and back again...

Is there any way of switching back to desktop view from a mobile? Most websites have a link the bottom of the page or something. I like the forum but not keen on how the home page looks
Cheers,
Keith

What phone/browser are you using? On chrome (in Android), if you click the 3. Buttons in top right corner, you can scroll down and select Request desktop site and it will load.
It isn't permanent (as far as I can tell) but it works.

DickBarton - Member
What phone/browser are you using? On chrome (in Android), if you click the 3. Buttons in top right corner, you can scroll down and select Request desktop site and it will load.
It isn't permanent (as far as I can tell) but it works.

Doesn't appear on an IPad Air 2 with Safari. In fact the whole css on the iPad is utterly comical. Fonts go from tiny on the forum view, to stupid large on the topic, with quotes being a variety of sizes. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to fix that style sheet. I'd be embarrassed if one of my devs had done it, and there's no way it would have been released to live.

There is no good reason for a mobile view on a full size iPad. It's perfectly capable of rending normal websites.

I'd be embarrassed if one of my devs had done it, and there's no way it would have been released to live.

I remember thinking the wages offered for a php dev for STW in a recent advert were way too low for a business based on an online platform. Bloke's probably doing his best with what he knows but it's clear where this business needs to invest.

Apologies if this has been pointed out. I tried to view subscription prices, but the boxes with the value/description are blank. This is the case for Windows 8 phone, iOS Safari, and Android.

Still really disliking the forum on mobile; it's not simply niggles for me, I just find it crap..

However the main page is brilliant - great work there.

As I said it's not the ads that's the problem it's the fake youve won a prize virus pages popping up instead of the actual page you clicked on

They are actually ads, just badly behaved ads and they appear on other sites as well. I saw the same pop up on a doctors website today. Doesn't mean that they aren't annoying though

DickBarton - Member

So you timed the launch of the new look at the same time as you expected poorer quality ads to be served? Was this an intentional decision to get more testing done?

Given how much noise is coming about these rogue ads, it seems odd that you have intentionally timed something big to happen with an increase in junk ads.

Reading between the lines, they timed the new site launch (and bugs) to correspond with a low ad demand/revenue period. They did this as there is less financial impact now than during times with more normal advertising demand and higher ad rates.

An unintended consequence of this are more lower quality ads slipping through as Mark explained...

One thing I have noticed is that the mobile version with the new ad placements is sucking a lot more of my data allowance than it used to. Probably due to the amount of ads that are videos rather than just static. Also getting the 'You've won!' fake Google ad every 3/4th page too. All on Chrome.

Reading between the lines, if it was launched when night quality ads were in abundance they would have made more money (due to volume of visits (and potential clicks)) and the users wouldn't have been subjected to such a poor experience and blame it on the redesign...pros and cons to each decision, but even with hindsight...ye cannae polish a turd.

Has someone just increased the default font size? I'm sure long thread titles had more characters showing earlier today.

They seem to have sorted out THE MASSIVE ****ING TEXT SIZE FOR PAGES AT THE BOTTOM now though...

We could have a competition: can you recognise the thread title from the first three wor...

Is it website redesign update?

Fonts are awfy small when writing post...iPad mini

iPad mini what age? what iOS? etc etc.

It's *really* useful to give as much info as you can when describing an issue.

You might find it useful to visit [url= http://whatsmybrowser.org ]whatsmybrowser.org[/url] and paste the link it provides along with the problem you are having. A screenshot is really useful, too!

Rachel (hopefully being helpful - if not I'll just shut up)

^^^^^ 2 week old iPad mini2 with Chrome 55

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Samsung A3/Android 6/Chrome

View as above, usability has gone even worse.

At least I'm spending a lot less time on here!

Just because some of your members need a magnifying glass to read doesn't mean everyone does!

At least it still works on desktop (albeit with masses of white space!)

I still want to be able to pinch zoom.

The text is fine but when people post pics it's ncie to be able to zoom before offering advice.

[quote=orangeboy ]I still want to be able to pinch zoom. If pinch zoom was the default (other than being available as a browser option) then the default text size could be made smaller again.

Feels a bit Fisher Price

Turning on zoom on my iPhone just gives my an anoying magnified box that can be moved round permantly there for every phone screen.

What I mean is text and zoom functions were fine before the update and now not so fine

And why can't I view the desktop site on my phone. The request desktop drop down does nothing

Only 2 topics listed 8n the front page now too.

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My Iphone 5s on the latest software is the same as posted by scotroutes above, can't see full thread titles, can't select the latest post etc.

Also, pictures are often chopped on the right hand side when in threads.

It's actually getting worse. I actually prefer the old desktop site on mobile. It was trash to get around, and looked terrible, but at least the limited functionality was there.

See last poster? Nope.
Badly truncated topics? Yup.
Go to last post? Nope.
Click to last page? Nope, but how about page 5 for no reason.
Turning device to landscape mode improve things? Nope.

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