Here's some feedback for the latest changed and some things I've noticed with the current user experience when visiting.
1. Last poster avatars
I do not like how threads currently show the avatar of the last poster rather than the avatar of the thread's creator.
I'm willing to hear the counterargument, but I'm having a hard time coming up with one. This emphasis on “who posts lasts” just does not make sense to me for the forum experience; why do we care about who posted last compared to who created the thread?
For example, consider the following screenshot from the “Popular” thread section:
I see the thread title, the forum category, but then I see the avatar of who posted last. Hovering over the avatar correctly shows that the person posted last, and clicking on their avatar takes you to their profit, but why is the person who is posting last in a popular thread the one being associated with the thread?
2. "comments" vs "replies" thread description consistency
In the forum view, the thread description is as follows:
However, in the thread view the thread description is as follows:
I myself prefer the format of “Started by <author> with x comments, last by <poster> <time ago>” for the forum view, and for the thread view, the <time> instead of <time ago> is fine.
Once again, the reasoning goes back to the “credit” of the thread author being taken away in favor of the person who commented last.
Also, the “3” “replies” as shown in the image above are links to nothing in particular.
3. Channel/Forum vs Forum/Category consistency
Not sure if this is new, or I never noticed it before, but when you create a topic, you'll choose a Channel/Forum as shown below:
However, on the forum listing, you see the idea of Forums/Categories and the naturally implied subforum instead.
Perhaps Channel should be Categories, or Categories should be Channels now.
4. Random ad placement inside posts rather than between
I am seeing ads in the middle of actual posts rather than between posts (or maybe it's been that way and it was too inconsistent to notice). Upon refreshing the page, the ad appears in a different location in another post in the thread, or sometimes not at all.
Then on another refresh (multiple times):
As someone who stopped using adblock ages ago to support sites, just not a fan of seeing user content randomly split up like that as opposed to having ads between posts, separate from user content. I can't give any more reason past the subjective “it just feels like a bad experience” justification. I was looking at some threads I had replied in and saw an ad right in the middle of my post, then started looking more into it and noticed this behavior. It just does not feel right.
