April Forum Updates

[Hugh Jaynus]

Thanks! Now if only we could get no stash or dynamic sizing stash.

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Just wanted to add in here as well that...

1) We changed the size of the sidebar in order to pay the rent. The old sidebar was a different size than the rest of our site, so we'd have to create a new set of ad everytime we got a new ad partner. Big workload for our team and something we needed to address for workload's sake. But we don't want just ads in that column and thus threw the Stash stuff in there just to make the connection to other user-generated content on the site. If you'd rather we just put the content feed from the homepage, I'm sure that's something we could consider instead. That would at least be popping up with new stuff more often. See example:



2) Sticky top nav bar was put in to maintain consistency with the rest of the site. I agree that the black bar is more useful there, and I have wanted the ability to quickly skip around the sub forums like that. Let us know if this is useful to you, as it's pretty centric to the forums.

3) Stash pop-up was pulled early on. Sorry about that, it was annoying.

4) With regards to the shit look on the mobile (non-Tapatalk) version of the site, unfortunately the mobile forums are not a responsive design and thus look like shit on most mobile phones. That'd be a bigger project we don't have the bandwidth for presently, although if that's your complaint, I'd highly suggest downloading the Tapatalk app for the forums and view that way:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tgr-...479373849?mt=8

*We're not sure why the TGR Forums app does not currently show up in Google Play. We are investigating, though, and Android users can view the forums through the Tapatalk app on the Google Play store in the meantime:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...activity&hl=en

doesn't have the same browsing/participated/etc. functionality but will show threads in a timeline fashion and show some relevant notifications.

[PNWbrit]

We changed the size of the sidebar in order to pay the rent..

There are hardly any ads on the site that I can see other than for your own stuff.

The side bar seems to only have oversized links to your own "content"

So you're saying more ads are coming in that oversized side bar?

If you're relying on a forum that previously upped and left powdermag in a little more than an afternoon (after some new web admin started upsetting people) to pay your rent by side bar ads you're probably fucked?

[WaistDeepGroomers]

There are hardly any ads on the site that I can see other than for your own stuff.

The side bar seems to only have oversized links to your own "content"

So you're saying more ads are coming in that oversized side bar?

If you're relying on a forum that previously upped and left powdermag in a little more than an afternoon (after some new web admin started upsetting people) to pay your rent by side bar ads you're probably fucked?

Not right now, spring is usually pretty light but certainly fall/winter we are stronger on the advertiser side and see a bigger diversity of ads across the site. You're not going to see any more ads than you see now. The sidebar now displays only user-generated content (aside from the "popular now" widget), but could, if people would prefer, display our general homepage content feed, which would have a mix of user-generated, stuff put together by our contributors, as well as what our in-house staff (including me) put together.

I would not say the impression that we're relying on these forums and the advertising around them to pay the rent is accurate, and I know that impression has been passed around in the forums before. Ad sales are focused more on the main site end of the things. But the sidebar move was made so we don't have to generate another set of ads for the forum side.

[stuckathuntermtn]

You haven't made it better, there's still an inch of a 23.5" monitor that gets taken up by that white bullshit when you scroll. I'm sure it's great on a smaller, lower def laptop screen. The side bar isn't too big on my screen, and I just ignore it anyway, but the whole thing looks rather incongruous. WTF are you doing that you can't just restore a previous version? Fucking Wix even has a change history now.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Look at this forum.

[PNWbrit]

I would not say the impression that we're relying on these forums and the advertising around them to pay the rent is accurate, and I know that impression has been passed around in the forums before. Ad sales are focused more on the main site end of the things. But the sidebar move was made so we don't have to generate another set of ads for the forum side.

So get rid of the forum sidebar?

[summit]

I'm OK with it now... but I'm selfish.

The stash thing on the right I just ignore. It's a waste but not a problem... at least at 1920x1080... but at 1280x720 or 1024x768 it makes the site basically unusable taking up 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen. Anything below 1440x900 or 1280x1024 is really irritating. Basically, based on current average resolutions of internet users, your design is still highly irritating to unusable for ~50% of users.

If your design doesn't look stellar at 1366x768, you are fucking up. That is the average res these days.

[adrenalated]

What Summit said.

Since I'm feeling nice at the moment, I'll even help you out, since I assume you guys all use big fucking monitors for video editing and things probably look fine to you.

Here is what your site looks like on 1920x1080. This is the res I'm running on brand new 23.5" monitors. It looks OK; the sidebar takes up a fairly large amount of real estate, but it's totally usable.


Here is the site on 1366x768, which as Summit said, is the average resolution. This is what my, and I'd imagine most, laptops run on. Now the sidebar is taking up a large amount of space and would pretty irritating.


And here it is on 1280x1024. This is what I was running as of one month ago, so I'm guessing a lot of people are still in this realm. Notice the sidebar takes up a full 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen? And that members here pretty unanimously are annoyed by it? Yeah, that's fucking up.


I get what you're saying about not creating two sets of ads. So, I'd suggest that you get rid of the fucking sidebar entirely. Have a horizontal banner ad at the top like you already do, then put another horizontal banner ad below the posts (like, after the Quick Reply box?). Then you still have your ads, you can reuse existing art, and we all still see them when we scroll down to reply to psots. Well, I won't because I use adblocker, but most people will.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Google Analytics can tell you resolution people are using when they visit your site. Use it.

[Swine]

Not right now, spring is usually pretty light but certainly fall/winter we are stronger on the advertiser side and see a bigger diversity of ads across the site. You're not going to see any more ads than you see now. The sidebar now displays only user-generated content (aside from the "popular now" widget), but could, if people would prefer, display our general homepage content feed, which would have a mix of user-generated, stuff put together by our contributors, as well as what our in-house staff (including me) put together.

So, the side bar DOES NOTHING for ad revenue, and no one wants it. If we want to see homepage feed, we'll go to the homepage. ergo, get rid of the side bar - the forum looks like absolute shit on my laptop, and as adrenalated said do another banner at the bottom or whatever, or don't - doesn't affect me; who doesn't use adblocker these days?

[neck beard]

I'd rather not have to have dead white space....

I can understand that.

[You should see the dead white space surrounding the content after I adblocked everything else on the wildsnow page.]

[skifishbum]

ms poojar just left you a stash bro
freedung 4 dungfree
sweet updates bro
failboat specialist to admin
stat

[PNWbrit]

I can understand that.

[You should see the dead white space surrounding the content after I adblocked everything else on the wildsnow page.]

I don't mind Lou funding his site with ads.

He's not in the business of selling exstream movies.

[jgb@etree]

Page loads are very very slow. Looks like a Typekit connectivity issue, but Adobe isn't currently aware of any issues.

http://status.typekit.com/

[neck beard]

I don't mind Lou funding his site with ads.

He's not in the business of selling exstream movies.

I don't like extreme movies at all, but yet I still choose to visit tgr. Same seems to apply to yourself. It is tgr's right to run their business with the stash bar. We can all choose to take it or leave it. Life will go on.

Wildsnow was a dogs breakfast mess of ads and clutter. And other irritating attributes.

[zartagen]

I haven't looked at the forum on a computer in a week, so Idk exactly how its gonna look, but floating headers suck. They suck on the main site, they suck everywhere else. If I scroll back up, 99% of the time it is to read something slightly up the page. A dropdown bar is distracting and covers up what I probably scrolled up to read. Home key gets me to the top just fine.

[angrysasquatch]

I'm pretty alright with the new changes now. Sidebar stories sometimes take their time loading up which is a bit annoying to have progress bars zipping along for something I don't need to look at every page, but meh. The black drop down bar, I might never get into the habit of using but it would be nice if it dropped down after a more substantial movement back up the page, instead of popping back down on the first scroll upward.

[BmillsSkier]

Hey Dunfee,

How come there's no epic story about how the readable space of the forums has been jacked to shit thanks to these updates in the "Popular This Week:" segment of the new rad sidebar?

Is it in my Stash and I just overlooked it?

[Danno]

I just got on my computer at home for the first time in a while (1280x1024) and it is noticeably bad.

[BmillsSkier]

Hey Dunfee,

How come there's no epic story about how the readable space of the forums has been jacked to shit thanks to these updates in the "Popular This Week:" segment of the new rad sidebar?

Is it in my Stash and I just overlooked it?

Follow up for Mr Dunfee:

Why, if you insist on having a floating navigation bar at the top do you not list the Padded Room? Shit, you don't even list Ask TGR. Is that to dissuade us from asking you stuff? Half assed shit my man.

[Tye 1on]

Follow up for Mr Dunfee:

Why, if you insist on having a floating navigation bar at the top do you not list the Padded Room? Shit, you don't even list Ask TGR. Is that to dissuade us from asking you stuff? Half assed shit my man.

Ask TGR is on there, but it's the last one and i had to scroll the menu list down to get to it. PolyAss isn't there either.

[MakersTeleMark]

Ask TGR is on there, but it's the last one and i had to scroll the menu list down to get to it. PolyAss isn't there either.

Maybe because they are one and the same?

[stuckathuntermtn]

The upper bar doesn't seem to float much anymore. Thank you.
eta: At least not when you scroll down.

[WaistDeepGroomers]

Follow up for Mr Dunfee:

Why, if you insist on having a floating navigation bar at the top do you not list the Padded Room? Shit, you don't even list Ask TGR. Is that to dissuade us from asking you stuff? Half assed shit my man.

I see Padded Room but no PollyAss or Ask TGR. I'll ask Brenna.