forum

[Russ]

It's not just the forum being slow , it's bloody awful Pete.
It's so messy, I'm on a model railway forum rmweb.co.uk which is modern but very easy to use.
Have a look and see if we could have something similar

[Sussex Pete]

Please don't go on the defensive and listen.

Something is not working we have all given it a good try before posting. I have used it on tablet/smartphone and PC and I just don't find the forum easy to use on any of them. It is slow, clunky and confusing.

I disagree that the old software was not capable of displaying the pages correctly it just needed a more fluid template skin.

Please don't take my post the wrong way, I was listening (reading!) and just trying to explain why we have taken the steps we have regarding the club web site.

As I don't see anything like the problems you, and the others on this thread, have been describing, I was wondering if there may be something in the way your ISP is handling the web page. If you are using a Windows computer, could you please run the program "cmd.exe" and in the window that is displayed type in the command tracert www.maestro.org.uk. A series of results will show, eventually indicating either a successful connection to the website, or it will timeout with a series of asterixs. Could you then please post a screenshot of the result. It may not help at all, but at least it could rule out one possible cause of your issues.

Also in answer to Russ' point about manually registering members, the issue is that joining the forum has no relationship to the club membership. If the forum database is not updated with club membership details, then that forum member does not have access - indeed does not even see - the club members section. And yes there are quite a few club members who are also on the forum.

[Russ]

I find this forum seems to behave differently every time I visit.
With the old one I used to read most posts ,this one just seems like hassle.
I know being a membership secretary is a thankless task but there can't be too many members that need to be manually registered.
I'll be honest with you I'm really not sure about renewing my membership, as it doesn't do anything anymore
* Forum is useless
* Monstro is now yearly
* Spares have gone
Can someone let me know what £18 does subsidise a stand at big car show I'm normally too busy to attend

[Beaker]

And just as I tried to post I get this

[Beaker]

Please don't go on the defensive and listen.

Something is not working we have all given it a good try before posting. I have used it on tablet/smartphone and PC and I just don't find the forum easy to use on any of them. It is slow, clunky and confusing.

I disagree that the old software was not capable of displaying the pages correctly it just needed a more fluid template skin.

[Beaker]

Please don't go on the defensive and listen.

Something is not working we have all given it a good try before posting. I have used it on tablet/smartphone and PC and I just don't find the forum easy to use on any of them. It is slow, clunky and confusing.

I disagree that the old software was not capable of displaying the pages correctly it just needed a more fluid template skin.

[Sussex Pete]

Can we not just downgrade the forum again? There was a reason why all major forum stuck at version 3 of vbulletin. It just appears not to be fit for purpose.

https://www.avforums.com/threads/vbu...letin.1855705/

One of the main reasons we, as the committee, wanted to upgrade the club's web pages was to integrate the membership database. With the old version, members who had joined the forum, had to be manually updated with the corresponding details - a time consuming task when I was aware of the link! Carrying out this integration was not possible with V3 so we had to look to upgrade to the current version for this feature. It is still not a straightforward task, but we are moving in that direction.

Also, the old version was not capable of displaying the forum pages correctly if it was viewed on a tablet or smartphone, something the current version has built in. In this respect we are trying to keep abreast of how users today maybe viewing our web pages and to show that we are as up to date as possible.

Finally as Jean indicated, the criticisms of V4 in your link have not been updated in over 2 years and it even reported that V5 had not been tested (so how can the reviewer criticise it?) and had little take up (probably due to it being fairly new at the time of publication). A lot can happen in that time in the world of IT in that time - some of it good, some of it debatable - coupled with the old adage of not being able to please all the people all of the time.

[Jeanius!]

Your link is also over 2 years old at which point I would have agreed that an update to v5 would not have been sensible.

I would, however, have still suggested a move away from v3 to v4.

v5 has now been a public stable release for 3 years, so perfectly viable.

[Jeanius!]

I disagree. Version 3 was a massively outdated version of the software and no longer updated.

The biggest issue is security, and using a 12+ year old piece of software is never going to give you peace of mind - indeed a vulnerability was found on this very site using the old version.

[Beaker]

Can we not just downgrade the forum again? There was a reason why all major forum stuck at version 3 of vbulletin. It just appears not to be fit for purpose.

https://www.avforums.com/threads/vbu...letin.1855705/

[Jeanius!]

Can you give me more info on the PM system issues? Perhaps send me a screen print of what is happening and on which browser you're using? I can then raise it with vBulletin.

Can you let me know of any server errors you received and what you were doing at the time?

[The Express Valeter]

The PM system doesn't work properly at all. I find you can't start another line, it just puts strange symbols in the text and when the recipient gets the PM the text is all over the place.

[carfix]

I have given it a few weeks now but I have to agree with Russ.

In addition, I find the "private messaging" function particularly confusing with many PM's just disappearing!

[Russ]

I find it very slow and I really struggle to find my way around it.
The old one was fine to me

[BIGDAVE]

yes ive not conviced either i liked the other pages