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Re: Where’s everybody gone?
anyone know why, after I submit a post I always end up looking at washdoctors profile? Nothing against Ade, mind!
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
I have absolutely no idea, I always see the post I just made unless I click away, which I usually do.
K.
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
I think I got it, If I click on the screen after posting to “view my submitted message” the position of the curser is above washdoctors name on the list of moderators. Its best no to click as the submitted meassage appears anyway.
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
Phidom wrote:At the risk of going “on topic” I was away in Hungary buying a house there. I’m back for a short while before I start moving my goods & chattels (not sure how you distinguish between a good and a chattel but they will all be taken in the same van anyway) over there and getting my cottage in Scotland ready to rent out.
Sorry to hear you’re giving the game up Phidom, cant say I blame you though, not sure how long there is left in it around here either 🙁
So sick of trying to make a living repairing things that really aren’t made to be repaired any more…soul destroying really 😥Anyway, all the best for your new life in Hungary! 🙂
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
All i can say is well done ken on a great looking site , much faster much eaiser to use , so come on kids stop wingering about change , we all have to change with the times , abit like getting a new digital megga , now what is that reading mean lol not were the needle goes . get used to it 🙂
Sorry iff of topic , but we did loose helo he said its gone crap but i dare say he will be back …Re: Where’s everybody gone?
loopey wrote:
Sorry iff of topic , but we did loose helo he said its gone crap but i dare say he will be back …❓ Robs last post was on the 27th of April so just over a week ago, looking back at all of his posts for the past couple of months I cannot see anywhere that he has said ‘its gone crap’ 😕
Mind you, if my favourite team had been stuffed 5-0 by Stoke in a cup semi I think I would have gone into a deep depression as well. 😉
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
Well exactly 2 months has passed is by since I started this thread and I can only speak as I find in that all the old regulars have either gone or more likely, I suspect, can’t get on with the new website. All very flash and with many new features, true, but all the same it’s lost its charm, ease of use, its all fashioned friendliness I reckon.
I class it now more of a functional site than a friendly meeting place. It’s all there if you have the patience and time to mess with it. The search facility is a major gripe for me I must confess. I’m sure it’s just down to me not pressing the right buttons (story of my life but hey. :D)
But the trade in general has now has long since peaked and lots of guys have been made redundant or retired, which goes some way toward explaining the demise. Coupled with the dramatic downturn in repair work across all products and brands. The Internet is the major contributor toward that fact. Providing easy solutions for folks solving their white goods problems without the need to phone their local repair shop.
It’s everyone for themselves these days and technology marches onward for better and for worse in equal proportion. UKW is just keeping keeping pace and going with the flow….que cera….!
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
Agreed that the forum is a lot less easy to use (and busy) than before. I know it’s being worked on but the biggest problem is not being able to search for basic things like “Bosch” as it omits them.
The forum was a really useful tool to have as an archive of those difficult problems we all get occasionally. Now all those thousands of pages of knowledge is effectively inaccessible.
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
It’s the same with any site, it cycles and changes, content, members, active posters etc.
Sorta like evolution, nothing stays the same forever. If it does, it withers and dies out just like the dinosaurs not that I’m implying anything. Really, I’m actually not.
So some of the older members may well have moved on to whatever, got fed up, prefer watching Top Gear repeats on Dave or whatever else but there’s equally some very good and active new members as well lest you forget.
Many village pubs are charming too, they’re closing down at a phenomenal rate. Charming just doesn’t cut it I’m afraid.
The search we’re doing something very funky with but, it’s a while away. The big problem is that, while it works to a degree, I would agree that it’s pretty pants at times. But most forum searches are and we’re all to accustomed to Google et all’s pretty accurate results.
Although I don’t think it’s so much people repairing themselves is any more or less of an issue than ever it was, of course it always will be for repairers, but I suspect that has more to do with the “£100 to repair it, £200 to replace it… I’m off to Currys” mentality than anything else. That to me is more of an issue and, if you listen to spares suppliers, they’ll tell you that the price of spares relational to replacement is an issue just as repairers tell you it’s the cost of a repair versus replacement.
K.
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
Martin wrote:Well exactly 2 months has passed is by since I started this thread and I can only speak as I find in that all the old regulars have either gone or more likely, I suspect, can’t get on with the new website. All very flash and with many new features, true, but all the same it’s lost its charm, ease of use, its all fashioned friendliness I reckon.
I class it now more of a functional site than a friendly meeting place. It’s all there if you have the patience and time to mess with it. The search facility is a major gripe for me I must confess. I’m sure it’s just down to me not pressing the right buttons (story of my life but hey. :D)
But the trade in general has now has long since peaked and lots of guys have been made redundant or retired, which goes some way toward explaining the demise. Coupled with the dramatic downturn in repair work across all products and brands. The Internet is the major contributor toward that fact. Providing easy solutions for folks solving their white goods problems without the need to phone their local repair shop.
It’s everyone for themselves these days and technology marches onward for better and for worse in equal proportion. UKW is just keeping keeping pace and going with the flow….que cera….!
I agree Martin, the new layout has ruined a smooth running, easy to use site IMO, I simply cant get on with it either 😥Kinda feels like another nail in the coffin of the independent repairer to be honest, the buzzing site I joined just four years ago has changed beyond recognition and thats a real shame.
The format change is a big part of it but i think we all noticed a decline in trade activity last year too, if we’re all doing less work we’ve less to bitch and gossip about I imagine!
The threadworn argument about whats responsible has been gone over many, many times on these pages but theres no doubt in my mind that the main reason is the simple fact that fewer and fewer people even consider repairing white goods these
days.
Static or falling white goods prices versus ever increasing average incomes was only ever going to end where we are now 🙁With all of us facing spiralling costs to keep a Business afloat while struggling with declining incomes this part of UKW is likely to get quiter still in the coming years.
I do miss the old days 😥
Re: Where’s everybody gone?
So, since this has come up again ( :rolls: ) I’m gonna make it very, totally and, abundantly crystal clear.
There is no way back to the old forums.
Deal with it.
Am I annoyed about the cr4p being given because of the format change, you bet I am. I got SO much stick about the old ones being out of date, didn’t have this feature, didn’t have that feature but… when we change it and up date it, what do I get? More cr4p about “we don’t like this, were’s this person, that person?” oh the logical conclusion of course if you want to spin it that way is that they didn’t like the new layout.
Well, so much for that theory.
The stats bear out the truth.
New sign ups, risen.
Post count, trade, risen.
Post count, public, risen.
So for the few that aren’t happy, sorry, I really am that you might not like the format. Sorry that the search function doesn’t meet your expectation. Sorry that it is plainly not possible to please all the people all the time.
I’m really, really sorry that we’re forced to actually move with the times, change, adapt and evolve but, that’s just the way it is. And, I’m very happy to report, that is the way it will always be.
In 2000 I started a mailing list. There were complaints, several about the mere existence of such a thing.
In 2003 I moved it all to a web based platform. There were complaints about that as it wasn’t email.
In 2004 we revamped the site and there were complaints about that too.
In 2007-ish complaints started about the limitations of the site as it was.
From 2004-2011 there was criticisms about the site search facility being rubbish.
In 2011 we upgraded after a LOT of work to accomplish it. There’s been complaints about that as well.
The search function still isn’t what I or anyone else ideally wants, get that, trying to do something about it. But, if you think for a minute that demanding, having a sly dig or just slagging it off is going to motivate me, think again. I don’t respond well to much beyond a polite request, to which I’ll usually bend over backwards to help with.
I had already been looking at the options on this and, whilst it’s important and I acknowledge the need, I don’t have the ability to tap my magic wand on the desk three times and have Sooty solve the problem. Aside from which, we need to get to grips with the new platform ourselves and just what can and can’t be done with it.
And, since there’s effectively two of us that can actually do anything about it and we both have day jobs, you can imagine the time constraints placed on us to do anything at all.
So, here’s the deal, if you don’t like the format well, there’s really not much I can do because we’re sticking with it. Get used to it, leave, do what you will but the format isn’t changing. End of that conversation.
As for the search, there’s things that can and, will, be done.
It is going to cost me money to implement and that gives me two issues.
One: It has to work for the site and be right. It has to work for both trade AND public.
Two: There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
If you honestly think, given my view of technology and it’s use, that I’m sat here thinking “we’re done” you’re so far wrong you’re not on this planet. My take is that it should always favour the users regardless of the technology or format, it should be easy and intuitive to use and live with. Probably I’ll never be completely 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} happy with any solution but I’d far rather that and be working on a better solution than jumping into something that’s less than ideal and be having to live with it just because I’d invested the time and money into that singular solution.
So your options are, deal with it. Leave. Bear with it until we find ways to make it better.
That’s it.
Blunt, to the point and completely honest about where we are.
If your’e that unhappy, to be completely blunt, go find another site that offers you what you get here and use that instead.
K.
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