The New eBay Community Boards

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi Everyone -

We created this forum as a central place to discuss changes, suggestions, concerns, etc... about the new Community. We're excited about the upcoming changes and think you'll like them too!

Thanks

Kalvin

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi Wenrath -

Thanks for your comments! You're right, the hover text isn't part of the product, at least not this build - however I agree with you on the page location memory. It's a great improvement!

Thanks again,

Kalvin

[nicki9912]

what happened to the button where we could reply with a previous posters comments?

I have to agree with the poster who said that this is a white out..

When you first click on Community and it brings you to the open discussions it's way too cluttered.

Hard to find posts that are not current

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi Nicki -

Thanks for your post! The "reply with quote" option is one that's also mysteriously missing at the moment (like the "back to top" link). We're aware of it and working to get it showing back up- hopefully very soon.

Appreciate your comments regarding the new layout as well. It's definitely a change from the previous boards, that's for sure. One thing I'd like to call out is that when you first come to the Discussion Boards the set up is 1 featured forum post, then the Categories and then a list of recent topics. If you know specifically what you're looking for (meaning in which category) it'll be easier for you to ignore the "recent" list at the bottom and just go straight into the category you're wanting to look at.

Thanks again!

Kalvin

[grandpatexhelp]

Is there a reason why the Technical Issues Answer Centre is no longer called the Technical Issues Answer Centre? Nearly as hard to locate as it is in the Uk.

Is that just for the sake of change?

Members having computer problems and cannot function on the site are not all having site issues.

As expected, the font is too small, the boxes crammed together and plenty of wasted space.

Can't wait until the changes hit the
U.S. next week, you guys will probably hear the roar from there. Best of luck to you.

[catsnewwife]

Why is the OP listed twice? It's just a bother...And I also miss being able to mouse over the OP's opening few words and deciding if I want to open and read the thread.

[kalvin@ebay.com]

what happened to the button where we could reply with a previous posters comments?

I have to agree with the poster who said that this is a white out..

When you first click on Community and it brings you to the open discussions it's way too cluttered.

Hard to find posts that are not current

Hi Nicki9912 -

The "Reply with Quote" is back- it's just in a different location. Now, instead of being it's own separate link, you just click on "Reply" and then next to the spell check button is a large quotation mark. If you click that, it will insert the post you are replying to as a quote.

Thanks!

Kalvin

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Is there a reason why the Technical Issues Answer Centre is no longer called the Technical Issues Answer Centre? Nearly as hard to locate as it is in the Uk.

Is that just for the sake of change?

Members having computer problems and cannot function on the site are not all having site issues.

As expected, the font is too small, the boxes crammed together and plenty of wasted space.

Can't wait until the changes hit the
U.S. next week, you guys will probably hear the roar from there. Best of luck to you.

Hello,

The "Technical Issues" category was renamed to "Site Issues" to try and target the questions a little more. With that, I mean that we are hoping the category itself will be based more on actual site issues and the other categories will be used for members to post issues they are having- for example if they are having a technical issue with a selling tool, they would go to that category instead of "technical issues".

With regard to the font, etc... you may want to check some of the settings on your system to make it more to your liking. Resolution settings can have an impact on this. Additionally, if your mouse has a scroll wheel on it you can hold the Control button and scroll to increase & decrease font size on any given page.

Thanks!

Kalvin

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Why is the OP listed twice? It's just a bother...And I also miss being able to mouse over the OP's opening few words and deciding if I want to open and read the thread.

Hi Catsnewwife -

The original post showing up as the first post of a thread is also a change with the new system. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of it myself, but thankfully it's mostly only an issue until the a thread receives a response or two. That said, I have put in a request that it be changed with the next update, but I won't have any insight into whether or not that is going to happen (and when) for a little while.

Thanks

Kalvin

[pocomocomputing]

Question: What is the "tags" box at the bottom of a reply to a post?

Someone asked in a reply they made in another forum topic. I understand that is it for adding keywords to be used by search from my experience in other similar forums outside of eBay that I use.

When I went to check in the Help at the top right, there is an explanation of how to use these forums but no info on tags. I went to FAQ's and this is the same page as help.

I would suggest that this info be added to make the Help / FAQ's more robust on how to use the forums.

[pocomocomputing]

I find the lost ability to get to your last post read very annoying. Browsing down many posts to find your last post is a PITA. Not an improvement with these new forums!

I understand that this was replied to already in this topic and the best is that you get to the last page viewed if there are multiple pages of replies.  I set my number of replies shown im my forum profile to the maximum so I have to wade through up to 50 replies that I read sometimes to figure out where I was.

Can this not be fixed?

Or is it me and there is a way to do this?

Or do I have to set my number of replies seen to the lowest so that I have to wade through only 10 replies to find my last post read and continue reading from there?

[pocomocomputing]

I changed my preferences from 50 posts to 10 posts and this makes the browsing easier.

Another annoying quirk.  When I compose a reply, there is spacing between the paragraphs as I type. When I preview, there is no spacing between paragraphs. When I post it comes out with no spacing between paragraphs.

If I add a blank line between paragraphs manually, I get double spacing between paragraphs when I post.

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi Poco -

Thanks for your comments! We are updating the Help/FAQ pages today and they will have information on tags as well as uploading an Avatar.

With regard to the last post vs. last page viewed change- that was a concsious decision to move from the system taking you to your last post to the system taking you to the last page you viewed. In your scenario, it may be easier for you to change the number of posts per page.

Thanks!

Kalvin

[kalvin@ebay.com]

I changed my preferences from 50 posts to 10 posts and this makes the browsing easier.

Another annoying quirk.  When I compose a reply, there is spacing between the paragraphs as I type. When I preview, there is no spacing between paragraphs. When I post it comes out with no spacing between paragraphs.

If I add a blank line between paragraphs manually, I get double spacing between paragraphs when I post.

Hi Poco -

The spacing in the reply box is a little wonky and I've asked them to look into it. As a rule of thumb, I hit "enter" twice after I've finished a paragraph and it shows up as desired with a space separating the two paragraphs once I post, though it seems like a much larger gap in the actual composition box.

Again, I've asked that it be looked into to make sure it's working correctly. Will let you know what I hear back.

Thanks

Kalvin

[pocomocomputing]

Now I will post with a blank line in between.

Paragraph 1 no blank line added.

Paragraph 2 no blank line added.

Paragraph 3 with manual line in between.

Paragraph 4 with manual line in between.

I am using Internet Explorer 8 in non-compatibility mode. Should I use compatibility mode?  I find that compatibility mode cause me other issues so I do not use it.

Hmm, I just did a Preview and it looked like what I wanted, spacing between paragraphs. I went back to edit and it looked like before in edit with my extra lines. But when I did spellcheck, it showed double spacing between paragraphs.

Very strange!

[pocomocomputing]

Thanks kalvin about the spacing. It was driving me crazy (not that far to drive after so many changes on eBay all the time ...) 🙂

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Ha ha, no problem Poco. It was driving me a little bonkers as well but they are looking into it. I think it's just some miscommunication between how the WYSIWYG interface is translating into html code (or something along those lines anyway)

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi Everyone -

Is anyone experiencing difficulty in posting right now (It's about 2:45pm on Thursday). The CAFR board has reported some difficulty, which I'm not able to duplicate here but want to be sure things are working for you all.

Thanks

Kalvin

[pierrelebel]

Kalvin.

Two comments.

One, it appears to me the boards are slower to load with the new system than the old.  Is that tenmporary or permanent? (I have made no change to my systems)

Two, it also seems to me that there are fewer posts than usual since Tuesday.  Was that expected?

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi Pierre,

The slowness is due to the cache needing to "warm up". It should continue to load more quickly over the course of the next day or two. If it's still slow on Monday we may want to look into if there's an issue causing slowness or something.

As for posters, I haven't had an opportunity yet to look at the numbers because it's only been a couple of days. We'll look at a week or two's worth of data to see what the overall impact looksl like.

Thanks!

[pocomocomputing]

I can confirm the slowness.  I was wondering if it was my computer or the new boards. 🙂