Y'all seen the new board format yet?
- Thread starter Rod Dangerfield
- Start date
Cocky kebo57
Well-Known Member
Sorry, but I felt the need to interject here.
First off, I'm not a Rivals employee. I'm contracted with GamecockCentral and work for GamecockCentral. We're part of the Rivals network. I've been out front in some of the things that Rivals has needed to do in the past to make user experiences better and am glad that it's being done now.
Your points, while you are entitled to your opinion, are incorrect.
I see now way that Rivals changing the message board format "makes things easier on themselves." That honestly doesn't make any sense. It A) cost them a great deal of money and resources to do and B) is something that *so many* people have been clamoring for. I can tell you this as a staff member that deals in customer service daily and takes the pulse of what our members want. Will everyone like the design or features? I'm sure not, because there's not a thing in the world that makes every single person happy.
The interface that the message boards used was badly outdated. It lacked features, it lacked a true fully functioning mobile site. A great deal of those problems are now fixed. Rivals took feedback from publishers and staffers as to what should go into the new message boards and we based that largely off what our members wanted.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how Rivals making a long-overdue improvement in functionality to keep up with the times that many customers have wanted, spending a lot of money/time/resources in doing so is making it easier on themselves. Making the message boards faster, more stable, giving a better mobile experience (tons of people access the web on mobile) isn't a selfish move. Yes, it gives us a better vehicle to deliver info and it helps Rivals as a company but it's something that users wanted. All? No, certainly not.
Many users do not pay for Rivals.com or GamecockCentral.com, true, but thousands do pay for the service.
its almost like a cheap rip off of 247sports imo
edited to add, it has a "like" button. seriously?? and when scrolling through it takes forever to get through a thread. i liked the condensed version much better, also a lot tougher to see who's posting what.
This post was edited on 4/16 6:24 PM by bmhood1984
edited to add, it has a "like" button. seriously?? and when scrolling through it takes forever to get through a thread. i liked the condensed version much better, also a lot tougher to see who's posting what.
This post was edited on 4/16 6:24 PM by bmhood1984
I'm not a big technology guy, I'll freely admit. I know for a 100% fact that there wasn't anything "cheap" about this for Rivals, though. I know many message boards across the web look sort of similar, particularly newer ones/ones that use newer technology. We weren't of course, as a GamecockCentral staff, involved in any of the planning or development - that was all on the part of people that do that stuff for a living.
The like button isn't something that users have to utilize. Some people will like it and others won't.
As I said, there are some features/things about it some folks may like and some of it may take getting used to. The functionality is way better overall, particularly when it comes to mobile, embedding video/tweets, etc. The old board software is incredibly outdated, had technical issues, and just wasn't nearly as functional as it needed to be.
I'll definitely be passing on your feedback, thanks!
Number of things....
Every time I look up in the right corner, I have more "red flags" to check on.
Can't see enough topics on the page.
When in a thread, it quickly goes to a 2nd page once there are a few comments.
This is just off the top of my head right now.
Gotcha.
For the "red flags" - Click on the flag and then click on "alert preferences". If you don't want to see any red flags, then uncheck all the notification markers and "save changes." That will solve that.
As for amount of topics - I just counted what I could see on my full size screen on the new Main Board format versus our current format here. I could see 11 topics on the Main Board and 12.5 (the text cut off on one) on the current FGF format. So, to me that wasn't a huge difference.
As for second page after amount of replies, I checked one of the lengthier threads on the Main Board format and there were 51 comments before it rolled to a second page. Obviously that number can fluctuate based on how long each comment is. It could be less if there were long replies/graphics/video embedded and more comments if they were shorter text only comments. By comparison, a similar length thread on FGF featured 50 comments on the first page before rolling over. So doesn't appear to be a lot of difference there in most cases.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Rivals.com is upgrading message board technology network-wide. The Rivals Main Board was the first to transition. You can find that board here.
The upgrade is hitting team sites on Monday, April 20.
Yes, I believe it will.
I believe it's the count that appears next to "messages" on the user profile.
Yeah. It does. You can't view as many threads per page and for some reason they took away the simple ignore feature which used to be under someone's name and now you have to click on someone in order to ignore them.
It seems to me that users were a secondary concern on the new update.
As for the threads per page, I sampled that with the Main Board/FGF and posted some results up above in a previous reply.
The users were actually the number one reason for the main update. If Rivals didn't care about users, Rivals just wouldn't have updated the message board software and would have left it the exact same - outdated and not working very efficiently. Rivals sought feedback from team sites based on what users have been telling us for years that they wanted. Better mobile access, less tech issues, runs faster, better media embedding, private messaging, and many other features.
Obviously, not every person is going to like the new format for one reason for another but there is zero doubt that most folks we talked with believed the boards needed upgrading in a major way.
If you have any questions about how to navigate or anything at all really,then please let me know.
Hey Chris, will the GCC test forum still be available with the new features?
I just checked it out and though it will take some getting used to, I think I'll like it.
Haven't heard anything about the test forum going away, so I'm working under the assumption it will still be here.
The new boards will definitely take some getting used to for everyone, including our staff. It's something new and that comes with a different look and functionality. At the end of the day it's much needed on several fronts. Glad you believe you will likeit.
I visited it today and was seeing more theads per page and I liked the avatars rather than the bland pic I was seeing before. So that was one issue that was fixed. Still don't understand why the simple ignore feature was taken away, tho. There are a lot of idiotic posters on MB and I use the ignore feature a lot. I use but still have to click on idiot poster to do it.
I officially qualify as "an old fart" as one poster was gracious enough to point out but I don't mind change as long as I think it is better.
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