A bit dead around here isn't it?

neeb

Seems to be very little activity on here (I mean the road forums in general) since the forum update. Why's that?

OK, the new format is a little disorientating at first but it's not THAT bad.

Can't help wondering whether BR are worried about this or (with my conspiracy theory hat on) they were trying to wind it down anyway..

Darius_Jedburgh

Because the new forum format sucks.
It's just awful.

tonysj

Yep, definitely lower users on the forum. I don't like the new site much prefer the old one.

slowmart

The forum has a commercial value for advertising rates and driving traffic so I’d be surprised if the owners are winding the forum down.

We were told that improving the look and feel of the forum was high up on the remedial to do list. Other than minor changes I can’t see much improvement so it’s understandable users are migrating elsewhere.

homers_double

It's just a terrible layout, even if they managed to condense the sub section (ie road forum) so it didn't show all of the most recent topics it would be an improvement.

mattsaw

Agreed, I'm spending more time elsewhere.

It's a bit of a spiral, fewer users because of the format = fewer users because of the lack of activity.

It's difficult to pull things back from inactivity.

lesfirth

tonysj said:

Yep, definitely lower users on the forum. I don't like the new site much prefer the old one.

Agreed

surfercyclist

but on the up side a few wankas have left.

imposter2.0

surfercyclist said:

but on the up side a few wankas have left.

You must be the exception to that rule..

daniel_b

I agree, it certainly seems to be a lot less intuitive, and more effort to find what I want to find.

A simple example, on the old forum, if I clicked on ego search, it would bring up all threads I had created OR contributed in, where as the new version only brings up threads I have created, so is (for me) virtually useless.

The end result is that I come on here less often - before I would have the pages open on my machine most days, and occasionally refresh to see new stuff.
This also seems to be the case for a large percentage of other people, which means the time I do make an effort to come on here, there is maybe 20% of the postings that there were on the old forum, so it's a kind of melting snowball effect, if that makes sense.......

surfercyclist

imposter2.0 said:

surfercyclist said:

but on the up side a few wankas have left.

You must be the exception to that rule..

I did say a few not all.

drummer_boy

Terrible new layout means I'm not on here half as much, plus the pop up video ads really put me off.

imposter2.0

surfercyclist said:

imposter2.0 said:

surfercyclist said:

but on the up side a few wankas have left.

You must be the exception to that rule..

I did say a few not all.

Fair point. Wankas aside though, few forums have ever recovered from an update as bad as this. I doubt this one will be any different, especially as the management seem determined to help it on its way..

chris_bass

I think it is because the new format makes the different subsections less prominent . i follow a few different sections so only ever see posts from there and the more active threads (all the brexit/labour posts hide everything!!) filter to the top and the new ones quickly get lost.

this forum has just become the trivial threads and brexit stuff forum - for me at least

term1te

Only come here now when I'm really bored, and can face having to delete the awful pop-up adds every time I change page. My cursor immediately hovers over the bottom right of the page waiting to click the tiny cross. Not that I particularly liked the old format, just don't like this new one. But fora need money to run, and we don’t pay anything, the advertisers do, until no one is looking anymore

bigmitch41

New forum format is dreadful, sorry but that's just how it is.....

topcattim

I'm another less frequent and less satisfied user. Used to be a nice way to browse away a few moments at lunch time, now it doesn't even manage that. A few others have said above that they've migrated elsewhere - where are you hanging out online for bike chat now instead?

imposter2.0

topcattim said:

I'm another less frequent and less satisfied user. Used to be a nice way to browse away a few moments at lunch time, now it doesn't even manage that. A few others have said above that they've migrated elsewhere - where are you hanging out online for bike chat now instead?

From reading other threads, I think cyclechat or YACF are the preferred options. Milemuncher is on cyclechat though..

supermurph09

Used to visit 5-10 times daily but don't bother now. More in protest at such an ugly format, it's just horrible and as others have said it's clear many posters have left which reduces the content level.

supermurph09

The adverts are a complete annoyance.

kingstongraham

You can't be subtle about looking on here any more. I have no idea what those adverts are for, because I click the close button as quickly as possible.

Longshot

kingstongraham said:

You can't be subtle about looking on here any more. I have no idea what those adverts are for, because I click the close button as quickly as possible.

I think they're for a site called BikeRadar. They're probably hoping some people might visit it.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

It's more than a bit dead, this forum is decomposing, one of the worst forum "transformations" I've witnessed over the last ~20 years!

I'd struggle to think of much I've contributed in recent weeks besides a few "bargains" and an update to the RGT turbo app I just posted.

I discovered you can change your forum name in the settings, so I've changed mine to match what I use on the STW bike/general life forum (originally a MTB forum, there's probably more roadies there now than MTBers and the topics outside biking are very diverse... With an awful lot of the community claiming to be older than myself at 46, as of the very near future).

supermurph09

How could they possibly think this format looks and feel good??

luv2ride

I'd echo all of the comments above, was a regularly reader and poster, often visiting a couple of times a day, but not any more. Difficult to navigate, rarely see many new posts, and now it seems to "hang" severely on my old Samsung Galaxy tablet for a pretty miserable user experience. Dont have the same issue on the Singletrack forum. Certainly less road oriented over there, but plenty of gravel-related chat going on which appeals to me

Really disappointing to hear most folks consider this will be unrecoverable. Will probably save me several £100's a year though in missing out on (rarely needed, but often impulse-purchased) bargains i got pointed to over on Commuting Chat

neeb

I agree it's pretty bad.

It's not so bad when you are actually inside a thread, it's the layout of the forum as a whole and to some extent the subforums.

1) Worst thing is the main Road Cycling page - the listing of several thread titles under each subforum preview means that you only ever see the top subforum (buying advice..) without scrolling down.

2) The subforums themselves aren't sufficiently well separated, I think because the thread titles are more prominent than the subform section titles.

2) The interspersing of horizontal adverts exacerbates the poor division of the subforum sections by creating meaningless and distracting divisions that are more prominent than the subforum divisions themselves.

3) The large font size further exacerbates the same issues.

The end result is that the whole experience of visiting the main forum page (or to a lesser extent the subforum pages) is one of dissonance and discomfort. You unconsciously want to escape as quickly as possible..

I wonder if it's designed that way to try to increase clicks on the adverts. If so it's a massive fail, as no-one is going to do that if they have stopped visting the site. My guess is that the forum redesign is an attempt to increase advertising revenue that is backfiring spectacularly because it is squandering the underlying asset, i.e. the forum experience that creates site visits in the first place. It's the same story as the main BR page - the content has become increasingly commercially focussed so much less attractive, hence (ironically) probably commercially less effective.

exlaser

I couldnt agree more with the above comments.
I used to pop in a couple of times a day to browse and could always find something interesting quickly and easily. Now it’s just to much like hard work.
I probably only drop in a couple of times a week now.
Cyclechat is my first port of call these days

thistle_

Might help if the forum "homepage" was the alldiscussions page not the most recent page so folks can go to the section they want more directly and it looks more like the old forum.

I have a couple of sections bookmarked so I can go straight there and it's like the old forum but white and with big text and some odd quirks.

supermurph09

attempted to come back more today but the ad pop ups are too annoying.

kingstongraham

same

dodgy

Here's fairly good evidence of the downturn, I posted this in another thread on here somewhere.