Sorry, Bergie, but the new forum just SUCKS!!

[andrechapelon]

selector sez:

I can't seem to post pictures using XP and IE 6.  Previously, all I needed were the bracket IMG prefix and suffix and my image URL from railimages.  Something has changed.

I'm also using XP and IE 6 and had no problem with posting a picture doing exactly what you say you're doing, except from Photobucket. The photo is of the old SP station in Monterey.

[ i m g ]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v651/andrechapelon/1aa97eca.jpg[ / i m g ] (just copying the URL)

With the spaces removed:

It works fine for me. Could the problem be at your end rather than at MR's site?

Andre

 

 

[skiloff]

OK, then, lets back it up.  What sort of toolbars/plugins/pop-up blockers, etc. are you using?  Often third party freeware can cause grief.  However, you've never had a problem with another site.  Its still got to be something.  Tell you what.  I've got some time this week, I'll download IE7 and see how this site reacts.

[skiloff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/trccs/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>andrechapelon wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4"><P>selector sez: </P>
<P><i>I can't seem to post pictures using XP and IE 6.  Previously, all I needed were the bracket IMG prefix and suffix and my image URL from railimages.  Something has changed.</i></P>
<P>I'm also using XP and IE 6 and had no problem with posting a picture doing exactly what you say you're doing, except from Photobucket. The photo is of the old SP station in Monterey.</P>
<P>[ i m g ]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v651/andrechapelon/1aa97eca.jpg[ / i m g ] (just copying the URL)</P>
<P>With the spaces removed: </P>
<P><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v651/andrechapelon/1aa97eca.jpg" border="0" /></P>
<P>It works fine for me. Could the problem be at your end rather than at MR's site?</P>
<P>Andre</P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, this is interesting. The editing bar doesn't show up with IE7 and the message window is teeny tiny. Let's see how the quote shows up.

[skiloff]

OK, river, I'll eat my share of crow. They've got a lot of work to do to make this work with IE7. I'll try playing with some settings and trying the other sites I frequent regularly.

[selector]

selector sez:

I can't seem to post pictures using XP and IE 6.  Previously, all I needed were the bracket IMG prefix and suffix and my image URL from railimages.  Something has changed.

I'm also using XP and IE 6 and had no problem with posting a picture doing exactly what you say you're doing, except from Photobucket. The photo is of the old SP station in Monterey.

[ i m g ]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v651/andrechapelon/1aa97eca.jpg[ / i m g ] (just copying the URL)

With the spaces removed:

It works fine for me. Could the problem be at your end rather than at MR's site?

Andre

 

 

Beats me, Andre.  I am doing nothing different, so unless something funny is going on with railimages or with the software here....  Maybe I should get a photobucket account and see how that works.

 

-Crandell

[electrolove]

To all,

I'm very surprised to hear all the comments about, what if it's something wrong with your computer, your browser, your blah blah blah and so on...

To make it very simple, answer this question:

Why did the old forum work with exactly the same hardware and software and the same way of doing things?

And I do not mean myself now. I mean everyone that could use the old forum, but have problems with the new one. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this forum has changed. Can't we just agree that something is wrong with this forum and try to do something about it?

From now on I suggest that EVERYONE that have a problem with the forum send a email to Bergie and tell him about it. I did that a couple of days ago. Just open a post by Bergie (example: Changes coming July 12) and there you have his email.

[electrolove]

8500HPGASTURBINE,

That was the most stupid answer so far...

So only because it's free, we can't tell anyone about the problems so they have a chance to correct them?

The old forum was also free, but at least it worked so I don't understand what you mean by outdated. Do you mean that it's better with a forum that does not work? Or maybe you think it's better just because it happens to work for you? What if you where one of the users with problems. Would you be satisfied with the answer, get used to it?

The problems with this forum can be corrected, the only questions are, do they want to do it or do they not care? I want to give them a chance by telling them about the problems so they at least know about them. Is that wrong?

END OF STORY

[SpaceMouse]

It should not be up to the subscribers to wade through all the inadequecies of this new forum attempting to get it universally operable. I certainly don't blame Tom for leaving. It seems many others have as well. Not a word has been heard from Bergie, posts have dropped off big time (and note, almost no photo contributions this weekend too...think there are no wide problems?), and a lot of the real modelers are leaving, or already have left, this forum. In my book, it's time for the powers that be to wake up and deal with the situation.

CNJ831  

It's a rare day when I agree with Mr 831.

I daresay, the move to this software has proven a nightmare for Klambach. Perhaps, they have completely over-shot their budget and have to "breathe" a bit before sending their software engineers back in.

But if people like Tom are leaving--and I consider Tom a great asset to this forum--something is broken.

I left on vacation a couple days after the software switch and came back two weeks later. There was a significant difference. When I left there was excitement about the new software. When I returned, it was a though the life was drained from the forum. Posts were down. The number of people on the forum were single digits, not the 30-50 we used to see constantly.

And the posts were boring.

Not because the posters had nothing intelligent to say, it that the fun was gone from them. The interaction of old friends is missing.

Edit: I just noticed that in the week that I've been back I've posted 16 times. Compare that to the 11/day that I've averaged since I joined.

 

[fwright]

I'm guess I'm in the minority, but I do like the new forum.  It's much faster (Yahoo is the slow one now), and the quote feature works really nicely (for me).  I rarely post pictures so I can't say whether that's gotten harder or easier.  I don't miss the polls or the stars and I prefer the reduced number of posts draining less of my time.  But I don't want to lose the sage advice provided by a lot of the old timers either.  And the search is as bad or even worse than ever.

That said, I would hope that Kalmbach would fix whatever it is that is not working for a LOT of common configurations.  Or at the very least, prevail on the software makers to put up a temporary support line and permanent FAQ/trouble-shooting web pages.  They ought to have a good idea of what user configurations are having problems by now (hint: Mac, IE7, Netscape).

Electrolove, thanks for sending your summary of your problems directly to Bergie.

yours in training

Fred W

[skiloff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/trccs/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>skiloff wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4">OK, river, I'll eat my share of crow. They've got a lot of work to do to make this work with IE7. I'll try playing with some settings and trying the other sites I frequent regularly.</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've played with all the security settings, taking them down to levels that I would say are unsafe and this is the result. Still no editing bar and I'm betting this quote doesn't work.

[skiloff]

I'd have to look into it, but I'm wondering if IE7 tries to "fix" HTML code that gets embedded when you are quoting or posting pictures and ends up screwing it up.

[skiloff]

I'm slowly switching sides here. I would think that this would have been tested with IE7 and on Macs before launch to have bugs worked out, but apparently that didn't happen. However, I can still use the site OK, I just can't quote (and I haven't tried to post a picture).

[electrolove]

skiloff,

I'm very glad that you posted about your problems. Your quote does not work as you suspected. As you already said, this forum should have been tested before letting us in and use it. It seems to me that it's very poorly tested, if it's tested at all.

I have been working as a webdesigner and a VERY importent thing a do with a finished site is to test it with the most common OS and most common browsers before releasing it to the customer. All webdesigners I know do exactly the same thing before releasing anything. Most of the problems can be sorted out that way.

[river_eagle]

went over to telligentsystems site, forum has 45 pages of bugs and issues with this forum software, would do direct link but, you know?
........................sorry you will have to copy and paste................................................
http://communityserver.org/forums/128/ShowForum.aspx

[skiloff]

electrolove, I'm a web programmer, too, and I guess I gave the benefit of the doubt that anybody would test multiple versions of multiple browsers. I was wrong, apparently. I know from experience that there are issues that crop up because people have different setups on their individual computers and sorting through all of those can be a nightmare, but my experiment showed me that it plain wasn't tested or just ignored.

I think one of the bigger problems is the lack of response regarding the issues. Not even a "sorry, we're working on it" post. Just silence. Now we're starting to bicker with each other over it and people are leaving and others are being divided. Its just not a good thing all around.

[tstage]

Maybe all you IE users could install and try Mozilla Firefox as an alternative browser and see if that doesn't help eliminate some things.  Here's the link:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

Thankfully, I have not experienced ANY of the problems you all have mentioned with posting pics or editing.  You can have more than one browser program installed on your computer and choose either/or when viewing sites on the Internet.  I've been using Firefox for nearly 2 years now and highly recommend it.

Hope that's a help for some of you...

Tom

[electrolove]

skiloff,

You made a good point there. Everything would be so much better if someone at MR could answer. I do not want people to start a war here just because of this. So let's stop it right away. We are all model railroaders, let's not forget that.

Piece...

[WickhamMan]

I'm going to agree with Chip on this one but for another reason. Kalmbach is spending a nominal amount of money on this forum (software licenses, hardware, Bergie's salary, etc.). However, much of this spending is conditioned on the number of eyeballs viewing the pages on this forum. If you haven't already noticed, scroll down to the bottom of this page and take a look at that banner from Atlas, BLI, whoever. Product companies are paying Kalmbach for the right to drop those ads into the forum pages. As fewer of us use the forum, the less advertising revenue Kalmbach can charge for the rights to banner these pages.

It is in the company's financial interest to make sure the forum is useable to their community of customers. In a sense, we are all paying for this forum (with out time) in the same way we pay for TV by enduring commercials (OK, I confess, I don't watch commercials anymore because of TiVo ). Given that Kalmbach is paying for this forum software on a monthly licence, they have incentive to listen to our pleas and drive the vendor who makes it to fix the thing. Otherwise, they are throwing money down a rathole.

My

[fwright]

I don't know how much difference it makes but...

I have always checked my links by opening them in another browser window before posting.  Then I simply copy and paste the link from the address window.  This technique works just fine on every forum I participate in (except Yahoo when the URL is too long), and both the new and old trains.com.  Works with IE6 and Firefox, both at work (which is really locked down) and at home.  And I know the link is good because I just tried it.

my thoughts, your choices

Fred W

[river_eagle]

Maybe all you IE users could install and try Mozilla Firefox as an alternative browser and see if that doesn't help eliminate some things.  Here's the link:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

Thankfully, I have not experienced ANY of the problems you all have mentioned with posting pics or editing.  You can have more than one browser program installed on your computer and choose either/or when viewing sites on the Internet.  I've been using Firefox for nearly 2 years now and highly recommend it.

Hope that's a help for some of you...

Tom

Actually over on the forum providers site the "bugs" page showed loads of problems and trouble with firefox and this format.

[river_eagle]

I don't want out,I just would like it to work.

[caboose63]

The main thing i hate about the new forum is the fact i no longer get email notices from people that answered previous posts i made on trains.com forums. now instead of getting a message saying i had a reply to a post i made, i now have to surf with pages and pages of posts till i find the one posted on there.

[ShadowNix]

Jrin,

Do you have the email when replies to your post option enabled in your profile?  Just a thought. If you do, sorry to bother... then there is a bug.  The other option is to use the "My Forums" option and you will see all forums you are participating in

Brian

[donhalshanks]

To add a comment. I have used Mozilla Foxfire for a long time, and maybe that is why the new forum hasn't been giving me much of a problem. Good luck to everyone, hang in there.

Hal

[tstage]

Maybe all you IE users could install and try Mozilla Firefox as an alternative browser and see if that doesn't help eliminate some things.  Here's the link:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

Thankfully, I have not experienced ANY of the problems you all have mentioned with posting pics or editing.  You can have more than one browser program installed on your computer and choose either/or when viewing sites on the Internet.  I've been using Firefox for nearly 2 years now and highly recommend it.

Hope that's a help for some of you...

Tom

Actually over on the forum providers site the "bugs" page showed loads of problems and trouble with firefox and this format.

RE,

Do you have a link to the bug page that you mentioned?  With that said, does anyone here who has Mozilla Firefox had any of the above-mentioned problems?

Tom

[SilverSpike]

Add my vote to the "this forum upgrade is really a step backwards" group!

I have more trouble posting on this forum now under the new régime. I typically type my post in a word processor program and then cut and paste it into the post section. Often the formatting does not carry over exactly and cleanly as it used to in the past. I now have to edit my post and resize the length of each line, or copy the post from the word processor program and paste into a text editor program, then reformat it there before copying again into the Model Railroader Forum post. Way too much work to get a simple post to work.

I just want it to work as a more "user friendly" forum!

[vsmith]

I stated my reservations before about this new formats shortcomings (no image icon)  and in many respects may be a step backwards, but that being said....

 

No matter how much I may like or dislike the new format I have to always remember this...

 

THIS AINT MY SITE! 

 

I dont own it, therefore all I can do is simply point out what I dont like and hope the powers that be might listen to my comments and address them. If they do, terrific! if they dont, Oh Well I'll lump it and move on. I may post less pics due to the difficulty of adding them, but I'll get used to it. I'm a guest here, so even if I dont like whats being served on the free lunch line, I wont whine and bellyache everytime lunch is served.

[jfugate]

Do you have a link to the bug page that you mentioned?  With that said, does anyone here who has Mozilla Firefox had any of the above-mentioned problems?

Tom

Tom:

See my forum post thread here, where I pasted in a discussion from the CS bugs and issues list outlining the problems and the CS developers' response. Here's the link:

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/873636/ShowPost.aspx

Basically, this CS forum software is very sensitive to the use of older browsers and "niche" browsers. The best forum experience will be had if you use the latest version of IE 6 (6.0.29) or Firefox (1.5.0.6).

If you are using any other browser, it appears you will have issues. Not really great news for some of us, but hey, browsers are free, and the latest version of Firefox is very easy to use, will import all your current bookmarks/favorites, and is less suseptible to spam than many older browsers.

Besides, the one truth in internet land is change. If you haven't updated your browser in the last year or two, then you are not keeping up, and you will only find you have increasing difficulties accessing certain web sites. I find it's best to just keep up, like it or not. The internet is a lot less frustrating that way.