After a bit more perusing, I can safely say this has issues—half the things are changed, but 1 click into literally anything and you’re basically back to the old look. Some things are just colored text, some are buttons.

It feels like a very poorly conceptualized change, or perhaps well-conceptualized, but missing so many pieces it feels like a pig wearing lipstick.

At best, this seems like an extremely premature move—which *could* work, but this goes against the slow-roll spirit of a supposed “archive”—which this place certainly isn’t anyway.

This feels like another step towards enshittification for a lot of reasons, but at the very least, I don’t like the precedent it sets that features can simply be pushed out fragment-by-fragment—again, seems odd.

After “The Purge”, I can’t trust any feedback matters anyway, though. “Against the spirit of an archive” is clearly not the concerns for the content side of things, so my faith in the design elements are similarly low.

cinder said:
People keep saying that, but it's just factually not true.
The UI was reworked to make it functional on mobile. And people have complained about it, yes.
No, there will not be an option to revert back to the old version.

I almost exclusively use the site on mobile except when uploading, and I never had issues with how it was before

The new menu looks ugly to me, there's a blank strip on the left side where I can still see the page I opened it on, leading to the whole thing looking misaligned and sloppy.

thatfennec said:
I almost exclusively use the site on mobile except when uploading, and I never had issues with how it was before

The new menu looks ugly to me, there's a blank strip on the left side where I can still see the page I opened it on, leading to the whole thing looking misaligned and sloppy.

that's how literally every dropdown menu in existence looks.

like, I could get not liking how large the header is, or how much of the screen the dropdown takes, or that the buttons are misaligned, or the colors, or the use of icons, or just that you were more used to the old one, or anything else. but... just the fact that the dropdown menu looks like a dropdown menu, that's the problem?

dba_afish said:
that's how literally every dropdown menu in existence looks.

like, I could get not liking how large the header is, or how much of the screen the dropdown takes, or that the buttons are misaligned, or the colors, or the use of icons, or just that you were more used to the old one, or anything else. but... just the fact that the dropdown menu looks like a dropdown menu, that's the problem?

On a portrait layout, at least on my phone, it leaves less than 10% of the underlying page visible on only one side of the screen. That looks bad. I'm not sure what else I need to say when giving feedback on how something looks.

It doesn't act like a "dropdown" menu when it basically fills your entire screen, it is just a menu.

Time really goes so fast. The last UI upgrade was 5 years ago 😳. It almost feels like last year.
Not gonna lie, the recent upgrade was unexpected, coinciding with the Lunar New Year, but it looks nice.

I do hope the Welcome page would be added again.

All i need is a button to go to the old user home page like the original massive "account" button used to. Perhaps that big "Profile" button should do that, and leave everything else as is.

I can adapt to the rest.

myiic said:
Revert the changes.

>barges into thread full of bickering
>says what we're all thinking
>refuses to elaborate further
>leaves
b-based...

davvydavvy said:
In defense of the users of old Reddit, the differences between the sites were more than stylistic. The new interface would try to force mobile users onto the buggy app through modals which (towards the end) couldn't be disabled and by prohibiting NSFW content from being viewed on the browser. On desktop, there are those of us who prefer full-width web pages, which the new interface was certainly not. These, and some other key functionality limitations, kept me on old Reddit until the blackout.

As a 10-year lurker here, the new e621 mobile interface is sweet.

When DeviantArt did the UI update I and all my friends left, groups of 100's of us just stopped using the place entirely. I wouldn't even use reddit if I couldn't still use the old layout (somehow I've managed to keep it still the old layout). I just see so many of these updates as trying to make things look too smooth and too simple, like they were designed by a corporation wanting to make everything look the same. Or DeviantArt which I have no idea what they were thinking.

alexyorim said:
Time really goes so fast. The last UI upgrade was 5 years ago 😳. It almost feels like last year.
Not gonna lie, the recent upgrade was unexpected, coinciding with the Lunar New Year, but it looks nice.

I do hope the Welcome page would be added again.

Technically the page is there: https://e621.net/users/home

Its just a lot harder to find.

dba_afish said:
I don't think you can attach any click actions to pseudo elements at all, actually.

href on a link maybe?

The alt text/tooltip tags when hovering over a thumbnail is still broken. It's been like this for a couple months at least.
This is in firefox. Even with addons disabled it's random whether it decides to show up or not.

casmin7~ said:
I wouldn't even use reddit if I couldn't still use the old layout

I do feel like the Reddit thing is kind of apples and oranges, though. Reddit wasn't really supposed to be one place, really. it's a forum host, a collection of communities. a lot of new Reddit isn't just objectively "worse", it homogenized the platform, in several deleterious ways. it's the same as what fucking Wikia did with their shit back around the same time.

thegabsshow said:
What do you think of the new interface of our beloved e621?

I liked it because I never imagined that the website interface would change, so I still haven't gotten used to the change, I'm still adapting to finding each option.

And maybe even find out if new secret interactions have been added, who knows. Hehe

This even reminded me of the time the website made a joke by changing the color to red and yellow, a reference to another website that did this, and called it mustard and ketchup.

So thanks e621 team, a new interesting change from e621.

I do like that it's more user friendly allthough I'm a sucker for dated looking websites

snpthecat said:
See

This post needs to be seen by anyone curious on the 'tags on hover' issue, totally worked in Chrome for moi.

Edit: I realize that posting a Reply does not redirect to the post in question. What Snpthecat was pointing out was going into Settings/Advanced, then posting the following in Custom CCS Style's box:

article img {
pointer-events: unset;
}

How do i use the sets i've made? I don't know how to find them anymore.

ruksmith said:
How do i use the sets i've made? I don't know how to find them anymore.

Sets -> "Mine"

cinder said:
All changes get deployed to e926 a week ahead of time, with changelogs posted to discord, a discussion thread there, and a ping to users who opted into receiving notifications about site updates.
Just because you refuse to participate in it does not mean that you get to proclaim that you've been blindsighted.

Chief, this ain't it. I didn't really know about 926 either ( or if I knew about it, didn't really remember it existed ). Also, I can't really speak beyond myself, but I'm not at all keen on connecting my Discord account to any e621 server.

I'd really expect a major change to the UI like this was to have been announced on the main site and landing page more than a week ahead of time and had the opportunity to give feedback via a forum thread. I'd also expect - considering how overwhelmingly negative the reaction to the UI changes were back when infrastructure upgrades required the booru to be updated - that an option to revert and keep the old style would have been a higher priority.

cinder said:
I have already explained why the changes needed to be made – but you ignored that and asserted like five different times that I have not.

The only inkling I have to what you are referring to is this post where you said ''The UI was reworked to make it functional on mobile'', but you provided no details beyond that.

Can you please elaborate on why the issues you fixed to make mobile functional were also then applied to desktop resolutions and stylings?

Also, can you please elaborate on what was broken that required the top nav bar to be reorganized?

How about what was broken on the home page that required the elements to be reorganized and that frosted glass styling instead of the former dropshadow box element?

If none of the above was broken, what objective functionality improvement was made by these styling changes?

So far all these improvements, from the perspective of a desktop user without any further information about what's been fixed, seem like subjective stylistic changes.

cinder said:
I have communicated, responded to feedback, and issued a patch today that corrected some of the issues – but you asserted that I have been quiet.

Your response to criticism that the website was being ''enshittified'' was a meme image instead of asking for clarification.

Your response to criticism about the change feeling like it was fixing things that weren't broken was - in my opinion - brief and assertively dismissive, especially with the comment of "No, there will not be an option to revert back to the old version." That felt like a dismissive ultimatum to anyone that was hoping there would be some effort by the team to bring the older style back as a configurable option.

You have not answered questions about why the changes were required or have responded to negative feedback in a progressively dismissive way. It's easy to see why people would feel as though you are being quiet and ignoring them.

cinder said:
Needless to say, I consider that kind of behavior to be quite rude.

And I consider the above behavior rude and unbecoming of an admin. It's unnecessary.

slimshod said:
Thank you for this! I appreciate having an indicator for responses to your forums threads but ALWAYS having a notification about responses or threads somewhere in the forum not related to you is annoying.

Sweet, thanks. See ya'll in another ten years.

xideron_coldscale said:
I'd really expect a major change to the UI like this[...]

okay, but like, this wasn't a major UI change. this honestly wasn't even the biggest change to UI in the past 365.

unhelpfulconsensus said:
so... why not?

this seems like a pretty polarizing change, and adding an option to revert to the old layout would make 99% of people happy

This is exactly what you should not do as a dev, ESPECIALLY when the change is polarizing.

Like, don't get all emotionally attached to something if it isn't working that well..
but adding 'take-back' options to make people happy is a) a cop-out, b) usually a maintenance burden, c) a signal that you can be manipulated.

I like the changes so far, but even reverting the whole thing would be better than making it optional.

This might have been replied earlier but dayum I just noticed both Profile and Hamburger menu > Account button lead to the same page

spuriouszabaione said:
This might have been replied earlier but dayum I just noticed both Profile and Hamburger menu > Account button lead to the same page

Yeah. At least one of them should lead to the user homepage. 😣

dba_afish said:
okay, but like, this wasn't a major UI change. this honestly wasn't even the biggest change to UI in the past 365.

Idk, i'm pretty sure this is the biggest change to the UI in this year so far

snpthecat said:
Idk, i'm pretty sure this is the biggest change to the UI in this year so far

well, there's was the blacklist changes and the recent change to the user page and parent/child, that also changed how thumbnails worked in general, and--

oh... "year so far"

ʚ(ϵ⁰⟝⁰)϶

ϵ(⁰–⁰)϶

dba_afish said:

ʚ(ϵ⁰⟝⁰)϶

ϵ(⁰–⁰)϶

Why are you staring into my soul

snpthecat said:
Why are you staring into my soul

https://www.myinstants.com/en/instant/x-files-theme-20294/?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

i feel nothing one way or the other. its not even mid its just. ok. cool i guess. theres not anything wrong with it to me but its not like its exciting in any way either. truly the redesign ever.

So... hover is still disabled for thumbnails in search.
And back button is broken in posts search. Dafuq?Just listing things that might need to be looked at for quality of life.

casmin7~ said:
When DeviantArt did the UI update I and all my friends left, groups of 100's of us just stopped using the place entirely. I wouldn't even use reddit if I couldn't still use the old layout (somehow I've managed to keep it still the old layout). I just see so many of these updates as trying to make things look too smooth and too simple, like they were designed by a corporation wanting to make everything look the same. Or DeviantArt which I have no idea what they were thinking.

Technically the page is there: https://e621.net/users/home

Its just a lot harder to find.

TBF, Wix is like some contagious dumpster fire. They actively made it almost impossible to search for anything on that site.

alphamule said:
So... hover is still disabled for thumbnails in search.
And back button is broken in posts search.

article img {
pointer-events: unset;
}

and... the back button? like < Prev? I've never heard of something like that happening.

dba_afish said:

article img {
pointer-events: unset;
}

and... the back button? like < Prev? I've never heard of something like that happening.

Well if it's the first post in the search the back button brings you to the same page who knows if that's the issue

snpthecat said:
Well if it's the first post in the search the back button brings you to the same page who knows if that's the issue

yeah, that behavior is how it's always worked, though, but that's the only thing I can think of... other than somehow some invisible element is overlapping the button.

I use this site on mobile and I don't like the new design because it moved the popular tab and other links.

the removal of old account button and my overstimulating urge to check comments under posts is harder to access renders this site overhaul objectively terrible and unnecessary

scth said:
Still two clicks to check comments (profile -> comments on).

edit: pretty subtle, but it's very appreciated. thank you.

bitez said:
the removal of old account button and my overstimulating urge to check comments under posts is harder to access renders this site overhaul objectively terrible and unnecessary

Still two clicks to check comments (profile -> comments on).

I'm on mobile, so at first glance it doesn't seem too major of a change, but whoever decided that they simply had to add a red notification icon for the Forums tab (which, as far as I can tell, appears any time that ANY thread is updated) needs to rethink their line of work.

Maybe I'm just OCD for liking to keep my notifications clean everywhere I can, but holy shit does that eternal little red dot piss me off.

Logged into the desktop version and I much prefer the old home page over the new one.
If the buttons up top were more centralized instead of spread out over my entire browser, it'd be less bad.

Also, when will developers learn that Discord is a garbage way of surveying your users.
You have a fucking website - If you want to communicate with your users, use it.

kinkykitty22 said:
I'm on mobile, so at first glance it doesn't seem too major of a change, but whoever decided that they simply had to add a red notification icon for the Forums tab (which, as far as I can tell, appears any time that ANY thread is updated) needs to rethink their line of work.

Maybe I'm just OCD for liking to keep my notifications clean everywhere I can, but holy shit does that eternal little red dot piss me off.

There's solution to that has already been posted several times, go search for it
It's also becoming an option to turn it off tomorrow

I think it's a little bit much to ask for people to join discord to have new or previews of changes for e621:

- There are people who don't have a Discord account and/or don't want to have one
- They do have one but aren't keen on trusting Discord having their phone number (that's me)
- You need to have a verified discord account to access the server, even so people wouldn't want to join the server just for that or can't because of the point above

It won't hurt to use more of the announcement feature of the board for stuff like that, it's really that janky to post with it?

TL;DR there are lots of users that use just exclusively the page and won't or can't access the discord server for more info, make it easier to access, make an announcement only server or use more the announcement feature.

notknow said:
I think it's a little bit much to ask for people to join discord to have new or previews of changes for e621:

- There are people who don't have a Discord account and/or don't want to have one
- They do have one but aren't keen on trusting Discord having their phone number (that's me)
- You need to have a verified discord account to access the server, even so people wouldn't want to join the server just for that or can't because of the point above

It won't hurt to use more of the announcement feature of the board for stuff like that, it's really that janky to post with it?

TL;DR there are lots of users that use just exclusively the page and won't or can't access the discord server for more info, make it easier to access, make an announcement only server or use more the announcement feature.

I've been waiting for a news announcement on site.

notknow said:
I think it's a little bit much to ask for people to join discord to have new or previews of changes for e621:

- There are people who don't have a Discord account and/or don't want to have one
- They do have one but aren't keen on trusting Discord having their phone number (that's me)
- You need to have a verified discord account to access the server, even so people wouldn't want to join the server just for that or can't because of the point above

It won't hurt to use more of the announcement feature of the board for stuff like that, it's really that janky to post with it?

TL;DR there are lots of users that use just exclusively the page and won't or can't access the discord server for more info, make it easier to access, make an announcement only server or use more the announcement feature.

e9 has the previews, discord just has the patch notes
also what's a verified discord account and why does discord need a phone number

But yes the staff really do need to announce stuff more, and good luck trying to get that message through to em

notknow said:
I think it's a little bit much to ask for people to join discord to have new or previews of changes for e621:

- There are people who don't have a Discord account and/or don't want to have one
- They do have one but aren't keen on trusting Discord having their phone number (that's me)
- You need to have a verified discord account to access the server, even so people wouldn't want to join the server just for that or can't because of the point above

It won't hurt to use more of the announcement feature of the board for stuff like that, it's really that janky to post with it?

TL;DR there are lots of users that use just exclusively the page and won't or can't access the discord server for more info, make it easier to access, make an announcement only server or use more the announcement feature.

I'm like 99% sure that the Discord account that I have logged into the e6 server does not have any sort of phone number attached.

dba_afish said:
I'm like 99% sure that the Discord account that I have logged into the e6 server does not have any sort of phone number attached.

It's still silly on principle to not use the website itself to poll any changes you intend to make. Requiring a second website to participate in polling is hardly an intuitive decision and will ALWAYS result in a smaller sample of people than viable to make a decision like this.

Didn't even know there was a forum until I saw the dot. I think I've been browsing this site for like 15 years. Lol. Cheers for that.

dba_afish said:
I'm like 99% sure that the Discord account that I have logged into the e6 server does not have any sort of phone number attached.

Huh guess I mixed with something else.
Still why having to check other pages and places when other boorus make it more simple to check updates?

WTF man, I remember when I wrote this comment, the Artists Listing didn't exist in the top left corner of the website?

ethan95326 said:
I have yet to find any benefit to the new UI
But I am a little annoyed that the Artists Listing is no longer at the top of the site at all times

That was an intentional change, but should be re-added soon.

Glad they added the artist page back! And it’s the perfect position because it makes posts the second button so I stop accidentally going to the pools tab! :D

Oh good artists is back so posts are back to being in the 2nd slot. Good to fix that muscle memory haha.

Though I was hoping the original home tab (that leads to https://e621.net/users/home ) would be there, as then you could still access your account without needing to go all the way to the right (for the left handers, as this website is less accessible now)

I didn't like the welcome page, I like that you can go directly to your profile now.
It's weird how people complained about the dot but never about the annoying red "NEW" next to every forum post.
The wiki tab should be with the other buttons with icons on mobile instead of below.
The front page looks and feels horrible on smaller and older phones but it's fine on desktop and other phones. I like that the blur isn't faked anymore. It's weird not having a logo abouve the search bar like every other booru and search engine.

iseekstowin said:
I didn't like the welcome page, I like that you can go directly to your profile now.
It's weird how people complained about the dot but never about the annoying red "NEW" next to every forum post.
The wiki tab should be with the other buttons with icons on mobile instead of below.
The front page looks and feels horrible on smaller and older phones but it's fine on desktop and other phones. I like that the blur isn't faked anymore. It's weird not having a logo abouve the search bar like every other booru and search engine.

The least they could do is have the account button in the drop down menu go to https://e621.net/users/home so people who like it (like me) can still access it.

temp7 said:
The least they could do is have the account button in the drop down menu go to https://e621.net/users/home so people who like it (like me) can still access it.

it'd be a bit weird to only have a button that does that on mobile, though.

It seems the red dot for new forum posts has gone away. Wasn't there supposed to be an option for it? I can't find it. How do I get it (or at least the italicization it used to be) back?

watsit said:
It seems the red dot for new forum posts has gone away. Wasn't there supposed to be an option for it? I can't find it. How do I get it (or at least the italicization it used to be) back?

The dot is toggleable in Themes / Gestures, has been for an hour or longer.

dba_afish said:
it'd be a bit weird to only have a button that does that on mobile, though.

I'm on mobile. I want some way to reach my home page. And who said only doing so on mobile was a thing? Both mobile and desktop should be able to reach that page.

iseekstowin said:
The dot is toggleable in Themes / Gestures, has been for an hour or longer.

Thanks. Wouldn't have considered it to be part of the theme, I was looking in my profile settings where similar options like colored usernames and showing post statistics are.

temp7 said:
I'm on mobile. I want some way to reach my home page. And who said only doing so on mobile was a thing? Both mobile and desktop should be able to reach that page.

I'm saying the two seperate profile buttons is only a thing on mobile.

temp7 said:
I want some way to reach my home page

You have access to your profile page.
You can do pretty much everything you could do from the account home page there.

The account home was a band-aid solution that we do not really need anymore.

cinder said:
You have access to your profile page.
You can do pretty much everything you could do from the account home page there.

The account home was a band-aid solution that we do not really need anymore.

I disagree. The Profile page hasn't meaningfully changed, so all it's capabilities are identical to what was available before the account home page was disconnected.

Rather, the account home page merely streamlined your ability to access things specific to you. It wasn't a band-aid to anything.

temp7 said:
I disagree. The Profile page hasn't meaningfully changed, so all it's capabilities are identical to what was available before the account home page was disconnected.

Rather, the account home page merely streamlined your ability to access things specific to you. It wasn't a band-aid to anything.

The profile page had been gradually updated to include more functionality over the years – like the "mentions" links, for example.
The account home page predated that, and was solving more or less the same problem.

The only things present on the account home page right now that are missing from the profile page are the links for dealing with sets.
But those should be fairly easily accessible from the sets index, which is the exact same number of clicks away.

cinder said:
The profile page had been gradually updated to include more functionality over the years – like the "mentions" links, for example.
The account home page predated that, and was solving more or less the same problem.

The only things present on the account home page right now that are missing from the profile page are the links for dealing with sets.
But those should be fairly easily accessible from the sets index, which is the exact same number of clicks away.

Sounds less like a band-aid solution and more like a process of gradual replacement. In any case, i liked having both pages: i found it a useful hub to access stuff specifically related to me, as i said before, and others here have expressed the same.

In fact, the home page made all user related things like replies easier to access on mobile for me, because on the account page it was all scattered around the page as small text in parentheses.

The old layout:
---
From here you can access account-specific options and features.

» Sign out
» Settings
» Change password
» Manage API Access
» Change username

» My profile
» My messages
» My favorites

» My sets
» Sets I maintain
» Set maintainer invites

» Search for myself in comments
» Search for myself in blips
» Search for myself in forums
» Comments on my posts
---

Simple and functional

I do not hate what I have seen so far. It will only take some time to get used to it. Just like all the changes before.
The tag on hover thing had been missing for a while, and I assumed it was a change that was there to stay. However it now works, which is good for me.
Correction: The tags thing sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.
I don't remember if the old front page had Latest and Popular but I like that we do have this.

However I do miss the link towards /users/home; I believe it had been called "Profile".
Is there a chance that it will be re-added? I cannot seem to find it in any roundabout way.

victoriabeaumont said:
Didn't even know there was a forum until I saw the dot. I think I've been browsing this site for like 15 years. Lol. Cheers for that.

Yeah its been here awhile, but its rather slow. Even evidenced by this thread, a large site change happens and we have barely 4 pages soon maybe 5.

Last time there was activity was just the whole purge thing that got quite a few. Guess it was just more noticeable. Or people have left? All I know is we have these forums there, but the place is rather dead.

It looks like this change is here to stay regardless of what we say of course. A worse version of e621 but at least its still the best tagging furry site. I am here 100% because of TWYS. Imagine if they changed that, lol.

casmin7~ said:
Yeah its been here awhile, but its rather slow. Even evidenced by this thread, a large site change happens and we have barely 4 pages soon maybe 5.

Yes, I agree, how much engagement this forum received, but I come here to read each thing. Because together, everyone here, helps each other to see changes, or, reformulate for user practicality in particular. And that's what makes the forum so much fun and interactive, and I like that.

It looks like this change is here to stay regardless of what we say of course. A worse version of e621 but at least its still the best tagging furry site. I am here 100% because of TWYS. Imagine if they changed that, lol.

I don't remember how I found this site, I wasn't even used to seeing posts about furry people, you know? Maybe it was prejudice.

But when I enter this site, I can't help but see new posts, comments, artists, memes and even music. And it's so much fun.

e621, I didn't imagine saying this, but he was part of my life, and it was a good time, and it still is, (It seems like a farewell letter) and I witnessed this even more in this forum.

I liked the change, because I was in love with the previous design, which gave the website an old look, because it was, but that's okay, changes can be good things that we didn't see before.

thegabsshow said:
I don't remember how I found this site, I wasn't even used to seeing posts about furry people, you know? Maybe it was prejudice.

But when I enter this site, I can't help but see new posts, comments, artists, memes and even music. And it's so much fun.

e621, I didn't imagine saying this, but he was part of my life, and it was a good time, and it still is, (It seems like a farewell letter) and I witnessed this even more in this forum.

I liked the change, because I was in love with the previous design, which gave the website an old look, because it was, but that's okay, changes can be good things that we didn't see before.

Come participate more in the forum then

Where have the language settings gone? I had my language set to random on login so it would greet me in a different language every time I login. That seems to be gone now. I feel like this is following the trend of all fun and creativity being sucked out of every UI on the internet. I don't see what was wrong with the old interface, the new one just seems soulless to me.

Why is my fav mascot (darkdoomer one) gone?

goosho said:
Where have the language settings gone? I had my language set to random on login so it would greet me in a different language every time I login. That seems to be gone now.

There wasn't any settings for that, that's still present on https://e621.net/users/home
The only thing that has changed is this page is not linked to from anywhere now

donovan_dmc said:
There wasn't any settings for that, that's still present on https://e621.net/users/home
The only thing that has changed is this page is not linked to from anywhere now

e621:faq

Personally, I dig it! It's minor but feels a bit more fancier, no complaints.

I LOVE that the profile button brings me to my profile (like 100% of sites) instead of that weird and annoying Home page that, as stated, was a bandaid solution, and all the things you could do with it you also could access from your profile page, it was one of those mildly annoying things that I'm glad is gone.
The popular button on the landing page is also a cute way to see what is, well, popular on each day, it's one of those small niceties that isn't necessary but makes the place feel more homely

donovan_dmc said:
There wasn't any settings for that, that's still present on https://e621.net/users/home
The only thing that has changed is this page is not linked to from anywhere now

As a mobile user who liked that page as a hub, having it linked from the "Account" button on the drop-down menu would be nice, instead of having that redundantly lead to the same page as "Profile". Seems like an odd thing to do.

notknow said:
I think it's a little bit much to ask for people to join discord to have new or previews of changes for e621:

- There are people who don't have a Discord account and/or don't want to have one
- They do have one but aren't keen on trusting Discord having their phone number (that's me)
- You need to have a verified discord account to access the server, even so people wouldn't want to join the server just for that or can't because of the point above

It won't hurt to use more of the announcement feature of the board for stuff like that, it's really that janky to post with it?

TL;DR there are lots of users that use just exclusively the page and won't or can't access the discord server for more info, make it easier to access, make an announcement only server or use more the announcement feature.

skunk_in_scarf said:
I've been waiting for a news announcement on site.

As I understand it, the current cycle is:

• changes get deployed to e926 a week ahead of time
• changelogs posted to discord
• ping to users who opted into notifications for site updates
• discussions
• goes live
• relevant changelogs get updated
• news update

Anyways I sniffed around a bit. My nose brought me to the Site Changelog, still updated. Usually gets pushed off the front page by the volume of tag discussions.
That thread should probably be stickied. Could be used to announce e926 testing ahead of time. VojT brought up that, and an accompanying user feedback thread.

votp said:

What is the point of having a forum if you're going to disclose important/large-scale changes only via Discord? It seems trivial to just... use the extant newspost function to give updates for this sort of thing, and to point people to the SFW/Test site and to drop a stickied "user feedback" thread for those changes.

Have you considered mailing lists? Type up one dmail, it gets sent to everyone interested in upcoming updates. Then they will know there's stuff to look at on e926, and go look.

There are multiple reasons why someone might use this site but not be in the discord. Accommodations should be made regardless of those reasons; as long as they still use this site, their input matters.

I understand that efforts are made to announce things, but yeah. Everything is too out of the way. Discord, opt-in to a role, know to log into and check e926 - man, we're already here. We got the forums and the news banner. Maybe try a blog post style announcement page for upcoming updates, with screenshots and previews and whatnot? That way nobody has to go too out of their way to stay informed.

Anyways I got some notes:

• A+ on trimming the fat off the Account button. I argue it should have stayed on the left, though. Disrupt the old user flow as little as possible, or they might scream, then nobody's happy - you know the deal.
• I think the forums need an organizational overhaul before drawing more attention to it with the activity dot, if that was the intention.
• If you really want more forum engagement, definitely secure the spaces for the technical people first. They make the bulk of the posts.

skunk_in_scarf said:
I think the forums need an organizational overhaul before drawing more attention to it with the activity dot, if that was the intention.

I'm curious why people find the activity dot a significant problem, when the link being italicized from activity (and all the other links weren't, making it stand out) wasn't a big problem? It's not like it's blinking or animating to continually draw focus, it's just there. If you're not interested in new forum posts, it's irrelevant and can be ignored as part of the header.

watsit said:
I'm curious why people find the activity dot a significant problem, when the link being italicized from activity (and all the other links weren't, making it stand out) wasn't a big problem? It's not like it's blinking or animating to continually draw focus, it's just there. If you're not interested in new forum posts, it's irrelevant and can be ignored as part of the header.

Different color, it stands out a bit more than italics. I mean in the past I had been foruming for at least a year and didn't really notice the italics/know what it was for. Thought it was some dtext spillover and such

watsit said:
I'm curious why people find the activity dot a significant problem, when the link being italicized from activity (and all the other links weren't, making it stand out) wasn't a big problem? It's not like it's blinking or animating to continually draw focus, it's just there. If you're not interested in new forum posts, it's irrelevant and can be ignored as part of the header.

A red/orange dot is often used in mobile games to signify "Notice me" or "come here" or "new"

It is a very powerful mechanic and very eye catching. You notice them right away and usually do what's required to remove the dot. When the forums were just italicized it was very easy to not pay attention to it, or understand the meaning of it means new posts.

Though the default now appears to be off? if you have to opt in for the red dot then I can tell a majority of users will never know the dot exists (How many bets there is posts later with people asking for a way to see if new posts exist.)

And I agree with Skunk above, the site has a news banner we all see every time we use e621, even just putting something like "hey guys go check out e926 new UI features and give us some feedback much appreciated" Simple stuff like that, solve everything. Or an official forum page/subforum posted for feedback listing the changes.

Edit: Actually thinking about it, there would most likely be similar posts with people asking how to turn it off, so it being default off is probably the least likely to cause new posts about it.

casmin7~ said:
And I agree with Skunk above, the site has a news banner we all see every time we use e621, even just putting something like "hey guys go check out e926 new UI features and give us some feedback much appreciated" Simple stuff like that, solve everything. Or an official forum page/subforum posted for feedback listing the changes.

Edit: Actually thinking about it, there would most likely be similar posts with people asking how to turn it off, so it being default off is probably the least likely to cause new posts about it.

I feel like having it as a news announcement would be a bit overkill for moderately sized updates like this. I don't think that absolutely every user (including ones who aren't logged in because news goes to them as well), necessarily, needs to know about every change before it goes live. it's liabile to just end up with a thread like this if we did.

I think that it does, however, appear that a larger quantity/quality/variety of testers might be useful for working out kinks before changes go fully live. and I don't think replying with "Do you guys not have phones Discord?", when a community member says they'd've liked to know about a change before it went live, is a good way to go about that either.

I feel like just having a thread (either a new one for each change that's moderately large or just a collective one that gets bumped) would be the best middle ground. the people around here that are able to discuss the merits of AIBURs endlessly with reletive levels of decorum are likely able to handle discussing changes to the site's looks once in a while as well.