adrienne

I'm feeling very guilty about all the negative comments I posted regarding the new look at fodor's, although I haven't changed my opinions. I did post a positive response on the "site down" thread but it seems to be sinking and I'm not sure Katie saw my or yk's responses so I'm reposting mine below.

* * * * *

Thanks Katie and others at fodor's for working so hard to improve the site. I'm one of the complainers on the other thread about the new look but that does not diminish my appreciation for all your efforts.

The bolding of the thread titles does help them stand out so thanks for doing that today. The search function is so much better now and I like the trip report section.

I'm sorry you folks have to work throughout the night doing updates so you don't inconvenience us by taking the site down during prime time.

Keep up the good work!

JulieVikmanis

Yes, regardless of people's reactions to change, I can't imagine that anyone thinks Fodors made these changes to tick people off and drive them away from the site. This has been planned for a long time to answer many of the requests posters have made over the years for various items to improve things. No one was trying to make things worse. Let's all just hang in there and keep working on getting this to where it will provide the best service for everyone. Thanks Adrienne for bringing this back up.

jetsetj

Although I do have some issues with the new forum,
I think they are willing to work with us to make this forum the best it can be.

Katie always answers people and keeps the comunication going. That I like.

I hope the pink goes away. I hate pink.

cruiseluv

Katie,

Ditto for me. I have always appreciated that you are very responsive . Obviously, there is nothing personal in our criticisms.

And, what is the "pink" everybody talks about? On the left I see blue thread titles with a light yellow background.

adrienne

cruiseluv - some folks have mentioned they see the left bar as peach. I see pink. I know that computers vary in the screen color but yellow is far from pink or peach. How odd. I'd prefer the yellow.

SemiMike

Another attaboy (girl?) from me. All change is disconcerting at first, but I plan to adjust and adapt to continue to receive all the benefits the Forum offers.

yk

Yes, Katie, thanks for listening to us and implimenting some of our suggestions so quickly. I'm sure it's not easy to read hundreds and hundreds of angry emails sent by many of the posters here.

Another thought just occured to me... many people keep complaining about the lack of the "next 50 threads" button and said they now have to click more to get to each day etc.

But for the busy forums, like Europe forum, if I click on the day archive, I get ALL the topics from that day in one screen, which can easily have 200-300 posts in a 24-hr period. So, one click in the new format replaces 4-5 clicks (on the "Next 50 threads") in the old format. So I just don't get it when people are complaining about having to click more... esp on the busy forums.

jent103

Yes - THANKS Katie and the rest of the team! I actually like a lot of the changes and am hoping everyone else will get used to them and see the positives.

(And thanks Adrienne for starting a positive thread.)

crckwc1

The site is getting better, or I've had an attitude adjustment, or both. Thanks.
Kay

Katie_H

Thanks for the support and feedback---everybody!

We've received so much feedback. We're having daily meetings and pow-wows to determine to rank priorities for improvement. We're a small team so we can't make all the improvements/changes at once but we're doing our best and it's been great hearing from so many of you.

Improving the site's speed, improving the recent activity section and pages, adding a preview, tweaking the colors and adjusting the tag pages are top priorities---they're followed by many other things as well.

Thanks for all of your ideas and input.

monicapileggi

I too have to add my THANKS!! I've been on this site for years and don't plan to leave. I'll deal with the changes and go with the flow.

Thanks Katie and everyone at Fodors!

Monica

sf7307

Katie, we all appreciate the fact that you're listening (even though my top priorities aren't your top priorities )

iris1745

Hi Katie; Thanks for being 'patient' with all of us. Travelnut had a good comment and now this site is working for me. This morning the site was 'very fast', but now seems to have slowed a bit. My left hand column is blue print on a pink backround. No problem. I think people are adjusting. Good job. Iris

yk

I just saw that there's a new "Back to the Top" link at the bottom of the pink column on the left. That's a great addition. Thanks!

Steve_James

Yes Katie - a big 'thankyou!'

Now I've taken the guided tour, the new format is growing on me each day.

Familiarity breeds ... content . This is still the best forum around.

Steve

dfr4848

Katie - thanks as well. I've directed some questions to Katie on some things I couldn't figure out and she's responded within the hour. That's prompt! and it's been very helpful.

I'm getting use to the format and the threads by the date instead of "next 50" is working pretty well.

Still not crazy about the pink, but let's put things in perspective - not a huge deal. And the "Trip Reports" don't pull up all of the reports (some pretty recent), but I figure that's a kink that's being worked on.

The only that's still driving me a little crazy is not having the separate scroll downs for the various threads on the left and the main thread you're reading and/or responding to in the center. Maybe that can be considered on the "to do" list.

But thanks again!

The only

TPAYT

O.K. so the first day I really hated the new forum(obviously I don't like change), the next day I just hated it, and today I'm at the "I don't like it, but I guess I'll get used to it" stage. Tomorrow, who knows!

Katie, I do like the fact that you are listening to us and making some changes on a daily basis.

My biggest complaint right now is the lack of a"preview" and "edit" key.

yk

I just look at the "Activity by Day" page (aka archive page), and now all the thread titles have been made <b>bold</b> which is much easier to read now!

Also, the topics which I have already read are now in GREY, even in the archive pages.

Both are new improvements since this morning! Thanks again for listening.

Katie_H

We manually had to go back and tag the trip reports---so there's many missing. I tagged the ones I received from members in the [email protected] box first and then went from there to tag other reports in the other sections. If you see a topic that's not tagged a trip report but should be, please click the feedback form in the left-hand category and just say "trip report". I'll get an email with the link and can then tag it.

The blue/grey linking is <i>almost</i> working correctly; it's not right yet for search results and for the profile pages. We're working on this.

Preview will be added--

I do not believe that we will be able to use the dual scroll bar feature since we are not using frames anymore. We could have a scroll for the recent topics but I'm fairly certain that it would significantly limit your view of that column; you'd only be seeing basically one or two topics at a time as you scrolled. It's hard to explain; but I'll check with our producer who is more knowledgeable about the limits of the scrolling.

We're also investigating being able to break the topics back into groups of 50 instead of by day; this would be an immense help for the tag pages and for slower forums. It would also allow us to further pursue the possibility of displaying the times for the topics in the time zone that you're in. I'll let you know if this becomes closer to being a possibility--I just wanted to let you know that we're working on it. Thanks for the great ideas.

One other item---we have in the last 24 hours put the topic titles in bold, increased the size of the info with them (the recent activity column) and decreased the space between the lines in the topic. We've also made the space between lines smaller. I think the color of the links turning to gray when there's no new posts since you last viewed the thread is also now working.

Katie_H

I wrote that last post over many minutes---the grey/blue is working (like I mentioned at the bottom of the post). In the profiles that is; not yet in search.