Site Announcements

12th Jun '09 by Administrator

57 comments 17263 reads

This is a place for the Stockopedia Admin team to announce the latest site developments and to receive user comments.

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Administrator

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57 comments

promethean

21st Jun '09

We've released some great new Forum features... thanks for your patience this week in waiting for them!

We've deployed the 'Thumb Rater' that has been much requested over the 'Star Rater' that previously caused a few issues. We give it a thumbs up and hope you do too!

The benefits of the down vote can be quickly viewed on the new 'Board Highlights' page, where you have the option to view popular, unpopular or disputed posts at a mouse click. The Active Threads page has been updated to make it more dynamic too. The best feature on these pages is the 'my stocks' option in the drop-down, which just shows you the boards related to stocks that you are watching on your watchlists.

We've also updated the 'My Threads' page which is designed to give you a quick run down of your most visited, and most recently visited threads.

These features are designed to give you a better browsing experience in the forums - we constantly reiterate that we are in a 'beta' development phase - and want to create the site in your best interests... so please keep the feature requests coming and we'll keep incorporating them!

NB - Please note these features are not fully tested - and we'd really appreciate swift Bug Reports via the feedback forms! Many thanks!

SW10Chap

21st Jun '09

Well guys, 'Board Highlights' and 'my stocks' - two great steps forward! So good that I think Board Highlights warrants a position higher in the hierarchy - perhaps even in the top menu. And once the site generates more traffic, the default time period should probably be 24 hours rather than 7 days so that we can see new and interesting things emerging day-by-day.

My Stocks seems to driven by the Watchlist rather than the Portfolio.

Look forward to seeing how the thumbs work - I just need to find a post I can happily apply a thumbs-down to without feeling too guilty!

One technical point - I use a Script blocker (the NoScript add-on for Firefox) and it seems that I now have to enable googleapis.com. Is that correct - presumably that's where some of the new functionality derives from?

Thanks for listening - I'm sure it's been hard work!

SW10

promethean

21st Jun '09

My Stocks seems to driven by the Watchlist rather than the Portfolio.

SW10 - yes you are right... oversight on our part... we'll add the Portfolio Stocks to 'my stocks' first thing tomorrow. Sorry about that!

One technical point - I use a Script blocker (the NoScript add-on for Firefox) and it seems that I now have to enable googleapis.com. Is that correct - presumably that's where some of the new functionality derives from?

Yes - our Javascript (geek stuff!!!) is hosted on Google servers - they are much quicker than ours!

emptyend

22nd Jun '09

We've deployed the 'Thumb Rater' that has been much requested over the 'Star Rater' that previously caused a few issues. We give it a thumbs up and hope you do too!

I just tested this with a thumbs down - and am pleased to see that both the ups and downs are shown separately :-)

Well guys, 'Board Highlights' and 'my stocks' - two great steps forward!

Hear hear :-)

doverbeach

22nd Jun '09

We've released some great new Forum features

My comments. Some of these may not be 'new' but I have only just focussed on them.

The good::

I like the Thumbs - they look smart and feel usable
thanks for promptly sorting out the cacheing problem last night
I like the ability to rate headers and the wizzy 'new' which highlights a new thread
thanks for putting the full stock name in on the active page
I like the way the Forums tab now defaults to the Active page
I love the Board highlights page
the thread headers look cleaner and take up less space without the top contributors box

The doubtful:

having asked for the first two columns to be reversed, I am now clicking on the wrong one! Hopefully this will auto-correct, but if everyone has this problem, maybe the column order was correct before :(
the Your threads tab - doesnt this really belong in the side bar on the left?

The dislike:

the discussion boards - browse pages. I can't see what order the threads are in - reverse date would seem logical to me.
clicking on a sector in the panel on the right of the discussion boards - browse pages - stocks consistently gives a database error

active page WAY too busy. The addition of the thread originator and the longer stock names has made this worse. I think the longer stock names are worth it, but I think the business has to be tackled. Not only is it irritating for regular users, but for newbies there is just too much information! Lets look at the columns:

column	comment	suggestion
subject	needed! especially where a thread title is unhelpful not sure this is in the right place (see above) - somehow it needs to appear less prominent not sure 'subject' is the right word - it makes it sound too important hence people click on this rather than on the title the colour variation to show if the link has been clicked on is unhelpful - makes the whole page look random. I can't see why this is needed at al	grey the column out to de-emphasise ? change the heading 'Subject' to 'Stock/Theme' lose the colour variation
Title	I think the colour variation here if the link has been clicked makes more sense. However this is effectively replicating the 'unread posts' information, which is more informative because it gives you the number. So in the interests of making the page less busy, I think it should go	lose the colour variation
Author	Although I think this is more interesting than who last posted, to my mind this is cluttering up the page and way too prominent.	de-emphasise it by moving it further to the right and possibly grey it out.
Replies	This and the stock title are the most importnat columns on the page. This is not coming across. I think they need to be next to each other and everything else greyed out. I like the 'new' to highlight a new thread, but once I have read it it isn't New any more.	re-order columns make the 'New' disappear after it has been read.
Last reply by	This is not very interesting, is occupying way too much space and the details of the date time make it really crowded. No one cares what time a post was made the day before yesterday! I also dont think who made the last post is interesting. If someone is watching the page minute by minute, perhaps it may save them a click through, but in that case they probably want to read anything on a thread anyway. And if someone isnt watching closely, then as soon as there is more than one new post then the info about who the last one is from is useless	posts simplify the date/time stamp a lot delete the who by name grey column out?
sentiment	you know my views on this. Not only is the data pretty much garbage but having to click on the sentiment to post is IMO very odd - potentially confusing and offputting for newbies.	please could it be an option not to display it? could there be a simple 'post' button as an alternative to the 'click on sentiment to post'

the Network tab - please could this remember the previous filter selection? I NEVER want to know what people are doing with their funds.
the word Gurus is still there! I agree with previous comments that this should 'age' so people that aren't active shouldn't be on the list no matter how many followers they have
the main site tabs. There are too many of them, and they are in the wrong order. Index is v boring - move this to be an option in the Help tab. Wiki - this is never going to be more interesteing or more used than Forums - swap their order. Why aren't Charts in this list - they are much more interesting that some of the others! I don't like the word 'fund' it sounds to me like unit trust news, not fantasy portfolio, obviously you need a snappy title but perhaps someone else can think of one? I think the Investors should be renamed as it suggests that these are the people who own S'pedia - Users or Posters would be clearer. The Invite could be removed and put into the Users/Posters/Investors tab. The Blog could disappear and go under Help or indeed just die!
could we lose the "Join the debate at the web's most innovative financial forum" box? It's just clutter :(

I still think the book-marking facility is useless. Every browser has this sort of facility. Getting rid of this will help simplify lots of pages. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you should. For new users coming there is a confusing lot of alternatives for them to find stuff - bookmarking seems the least useful hence get rid of it!

I am sorry there are more dislikes than likes. That is because the likes are snappier! Overall this feels like a BIG improvement guys, well done.

As there are so many ideas here, if people agree with 1 in particular (or disagree) perhaps you could post on it, so then the Thumbs Up / Down could usefully help test the waters?

doverbeach

22nd Jun '09

I think all the threads in Meta discussion should be moved to this Site Announcements section. KISS

emptyend

22nd Jun '09

In reply to doverbeach (post #5)

Hi db,

I've commented on various of these points already via "Help us improve this page! " and agree many of your presentational glitch comments

Dealing with others:

the Your threads tab - doesnt this really belong in the side bar on the left?

Yes - but probably as well and not instead of.

Re the "author" of threads:

de-emphasise it by moving it further to the right and possibly grey it out.

i think it might be better to move it left and combine with the thread title box (right justifying the author info). As it stands it is easily confused with the author of the latest post - but I'm sure this will be sorted out one way or another. Another alternative would be to present the author information via mousing over the thread title?

Re "last reply...by" I think this is actually very useful and use it a lot. It would be disappointing to click on a thread showing +1 and then find that the new post was by someone whose comments aren't usually useful. It does need work on the formatting though.

the Network tab - please could this remember the previous filter selection? I NEVER want to know what people are doing with their funds.

the word Gurus is still there! I agree with previous comments that this should 'age' so people that aren't active shouldn't be on the list no matter how many followers they have

the main site tabs. There are too many of them, and they are in the wrong order. Index is v boring - move this to be an option in the Help tab. Wiki - this is never going to be more interesteing or more used than Forums - swap their order. Why aren't Charts in this list - they are much more interesting that some of the others! I don't like the word 'fund' it sounds to me like unit trust news, not fantasy portfolio, obviously you need a snappy title but perhaps someone else can think of one? I think the Investors should be renamed as it suggests that these are the people who own S'pedia - Users or Posters would be clearer. The Invite could be removed and put into the Users/Posters/Investors tab.

I agree 100% with those points.

I still think the book-marking facility is useless.

It might be as things stand - but if on this page http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/my_threads the "most visited" box was replaced by all threads on stocks (or more general topics) where one had previously bookmarked a thread then you could swiftly get to a solution that effectively enabled one to have a "favourites" page that included everything that one had previously noted might be of some value?

rgds

doverbeach

22nd Jun '09

wow, I have just noticed that the 'replies' is set to zero when you have posted the last reply - that's great! It's so irritating to have to click on a thread to get rid of it, but I felt it was too trivial to ask for :)

Administrator

22nd Jun '09

In reply to doverbeach (post #6)

Great comments. Just on this General Topic point, we have actually now deleted the Site Announcements topic and moved that Stockopedia Blog thread (renamed to Site Announcements) into Site Orientation so this is the latest General Topics list: http://www.stockopedia.com/general

We are still musing over whether to collapse the other Meta Discussions topics (e.g. Forum Guidelines) into Site Orientation too....

The Investor's Blog has been moved into a new area called (for the time being at least) Stockpicker's Corner intended to house "Best of" type meta-threads - http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/threads/Stockpickers%27%20Corner

promethean

22nd Jun '09

db - thanks for the feedback.

Ok re. Clutter - We've tried to add everything you've requested on that page! - i.e. the title, and the author, column order... in aiming to please we seem to have caused displeasure! :-)

Regarding column order - it may make more sense if all the links on that row link directly to the forum in question, and not the topic overview ? Would that help?

The name of who last posted is to my mind, much more informative than who the 'author' is - I will always read certain individual's posts over others. I believe that you want to view the author because there are certain individuals forums that you want to avoid. Having a column dedicated to this seems a little senseless... we are thinking of extending the 'filtered' feature so that if you have filtered/ignored someone, then you won't see their forums/threads in any lists... that would solve this issue no? I'd suggest we revert to what was before, and remove the 'author' completely.

re. colour variation - I hadn't noticed that personally, and it's certainly not something we've designed. It's probably a browser setting on your side - but we can over-ride those defaults, so I'll make a feature request.

re. Bookmarking - I agree with you, and we'll be deprecating this feature in due course. We'd like to replace it with a 'favourite's page, but haven't settled on the design... more in due course.

re. Lots of dislikes - keep them coming!!! It's how we'll improve the site!

doverbeach

22nd Jun '09

In reply to emptyend (post #7)

Another alternative would be to present the author information via mousing over the thread title?

I like that idea a lot! De-clutters but the info is accessible if people want.

Perhaps it could be extended to getting rid of the date/time of last post (and even poster?) and mouseover Replies for that as well?

promethean

22nd Jun '09

ee - I love the mouseover idea... db - do you think that's a good compromise... ?

alano20

22nd Jun '09

In reply to doverbeach (post #5)

Agree with most of your points: here are the few exceptions.

Column - author:- after a day or two is this really interesting or important? The header is there If you really want to know who started it. My choice would be to drop it completely.

Column - Last reply by:- I find this very useful now, and ieven more in the future when I may have time to read only a few of the by-then many posts. My choice - keep it and give it a bit more space (now that author has gone:) .

Main site tabs - I find I use Forum mostly. As it is now in the middle, it is easy to find. To show how much I look at the others I did not realise there was a Wiki tab beside it for the first few days until someone commented on it. I don't think moving it will help much.

alano20

emptyend

22nd Jun '09

In reply to doverbeach (post #11)

Another alternative would be to present the author information via mousing over the thread title?

I like that idea a lot! De-clutters but the info is accessible if people want.

Perhaps it could be extended to getting rid of the date/time of last post (and even poster?) and mouseover Replies for that as well?

Date/time of last post is pretty redundant now we have got the new posts being flagged via the "+1". I'd still very much want to know who authored a thread before I look at it (or reply on it!). Remember the reason that I stopped posting elsewhere was because I no longer trusted the way the site was being moderated - and, in the same vein, there may well be posters on here whose threads I may wish to avoid posting on (so it is useful to have the author/moderator's name accessible before one clicks on that thread!!!) Hence I disagree with alano20's comment on that point.

emptyend

1st Jan '70

ps.....On the "last reply....by" column, the use of the time of the last post as a link to the thread is a good one (and perhaps argues for keeping the time on display) - but it would be more useful if the link opened (all??) the new posts when the link was clicked on, for those of us who use the "hide all" default option.

Incidentally, there is a broken link on the customisation of views: Unfortunately, the page you have just requested 'forum/customise ' does not exist on Stockopedia!

rgds

alano20

22nd Jun '09

In reply to emptyend (post #14)

there may well be posters on here whose threads I may wish to avoid posting on (so it is useful to have the author/moderator's name accessible

Yes, good point: I overlooked that.

doverbeach

22nd Jun '09

In reply to promethean (post #10)

Ok re. Clutter - We've tried to add everything you've requested on that page! - i.e. the title, and the author, column order... in aiming to please we seem to have caused displeasure! :-)

well that is the problem with not being able to see the results. Frustrating for everyone I agree! Sometime users (who needs 'em?) ask for things that just dont work in practice.

Regarding column order - it may make more sense if all the links on that row link directly to the forum in question, and not the topic overview ? Would that help?

I am not quite sure what you are suggesting. There are only two links on the row. Take the Northern Petroleum line on the current active thread board. Obviously clicking on "breakout soon" takes you here http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/view/30173/breakout-soon to the thread. Clicking on "Northern Petroleum" currently takes you here http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/threads/NOP where you can see other NOP threads - this feels right to me. (BTW it only shows open threads - I think there is a case for saying that there should be another box on that page showing closed threads too - will make it easier to find old stuff.)

I have just spotted the third link in the row - the 'last post date' - which correctly goes to the thread. But is this link needed at all?

The name of who last posted is to my mind, much more informative than who the 'author' is - I will always read certain individual's posts over others.

I disagree that who last posted is interesting, because if there are more than one replies, you only see the last one - so maybe someone uninteresting's name conceals a reply from someone you really want to read. Also I think in most cases people will simply want to read all the posts on a thread which interests them. But ee's mouseover suggestion seems to me to be a possible solution here?

I believe that you want to view the author because there are certain individuals forums that you want to avoid.

um not me. But some people seemed to regard the thread originator being the moderator as a Big Thing so I think i said that perhaps it should be there in preference to the last poster. I don't mind if it is dropped but ee's mouseover could be a good compromise.

Having a column dedicated to this seems a little senseless... we are thinking of extending the 'filtered' feature so that if you have filtered/ignored someone, then you won't see their forums/threads in any lists... that would solve this issue no? I'd suggest we revert to what was before, and remove the 'author' completely.

Personally I would like to be able to mark a thread as Ignored but wouldn't want to do that with a poster. But I am not really the right person to argue this one as I am not that fussed about the moderation issue so perhaps someone who is could respond?

re. colour variation - I hadn't noticed that personally, and it's certainly not something we've designed. It's probably a browser setting on your side - but we can over-ride those defaults, so I'll make a feature request.

No it's not browser specific - this is a general feature of link colour coding in web-sites and is under your control

db - who used to be a system designer in a previous life :)

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