As you may have noticed, we’ve rolled out some changes to the site and that started with a transition to a new login system that supports offering memberships. Many of you signed up! It’s incredible, and it’ll help keep this site going. We’re about 75% of the way to our December goal, and it’s only been a week, so if you’re on the fence it would be an awesome time to help support us and get some sweet swag. The change hasn’t caused too many issues, but it isn’t perfect yet. We’ve still got work to do and I wanted to let everyone (members and non-members) know what’s going on and what’s changing next.
THE GOOD
- The site is way faster! Memberful, our new system, is a lot leaner than what we used to use. Average load time is now 50% of what it was just a couple of weeks ago.
- The system is more resistant to spammers and we can more easily ban them from the site so they don’t keep popping up. It’s not perfect, but it’s much better. We still have moderation on just in case someone sneaks through so you may see your comment end up in moderation. If you do end up in moderation we’ll get it going as fast as possible.
- Most people have been able to transition to the new commenting system without any issues.
THE LESS GOOD
- There were a couple of commenter account transition issues, mostly centered around people using a different email than they originally signed up with and the accidental creation of a new account. If you are signing up fresh this shouldn’t be an issue.
- There are still the odd commenting sign-up issues, please email me if you experience something strange.
- We originally planned to use our current commenting system for a while and link everything back up so you can see your old comments/profile page. The amount of work to do this is roughly the same as just launching the new commenting system, which leads us to…
THE FUTURE
- We’ve been testing a new commenting system and our plan is to roll that out as fast as possible as opposed to upgrading the old one and then immediately tossing it out in favor of the new, better system. The new system has live notifications, better threading, rich media (emojis at the very least; we want to allow images, but we’re concerned about copyright stuff at the moment), upvoting, and a bunch of other features you’ve asked for and, frankly, we should have.
- We still want to give people a chance to transition their old accounts and user names while they can so we’re not going to do this immediately. Additionally, we want to test it now that Memberful is live to make sure there’s no weirdness we didn’t expect.
- Our estimate is that by mid-January we can have the new comment system rolled out and ready to use.
So far, everyone has been extremely understanding and patient and we’re extremely grateful. We’re a small staff with a small tech partner who’s used to building dealership websites. I can’t promise everything is going to work perfectly. I can only promise we’re doing our best, and never give up on striving to improve.
Feel free to hit me with some questions below and I’ll do my best to answer.
Photo Credit: Alfa Romeo via Wheelsage
Testing
I’m still having trouble getting my avatar back on here again.
test
Upgrading the server to a VIC-20, I see…
Just want to say a big thank-you to the Autopian staff and sponsors. I really appreciate the general upbeat attitude and the breadth of reporting. This site has become my go-to for cars and car related stuff.
You’re all doing great!
Insert comment here.
Also, not a huge fan of this Galvatron guy managing my avatar.
I’ve noticed the “Keep me signed in” feature seems suddenly to work, so: Thanks for the progress!
Huge thank you to everyone at the Autopian for making continuous system improvements. I know it’s an immense amount of work!
Is there a way that the most “thumbs-up”ed comments can rise to the top? Or are we encouraged to dig for the treasure?
I like the “dig for treasure” approach. It seems to keep the comments section fresh, instead of the same viewpoint/commenters that seem to always rise to the top. Variety is the spice of life, after all!
So now I can only log in by clicking an email link? Then I’m logged into some kind of modal window within gmail…if I come in through the browser, I am not logged in any more, and when I go to sign in I just get the box that asks for my email address so I can be sent a login link.
I’m sure this is inadvertent user error somehow, but the user experience so far is frustrating.
I have the same problem. On my computer this combines with my 2-step notification on my Gmail to make for a damned painful sign in. Every. Damn. Time. I . Sign. In.
It’s tougher than convincing David to buy a certified pre-owned Honda with no rust.
That said, the faster site is nice.
Same here. I thought it was just something weird with my work computer.
The faster loading times are much appreciated!
Load time is definitely faster. No issues (so far) with converting my account over. Good job!
Oh boy oh boy oh boy, I can’t wait to be able to post Puffalumps in the comments. There is going to be SO much ‘lump all over the website. CAN’T WAIT.
(…and they all still remember what Matt said in my Jalopnik farewell roast.)
Having previously run a site for more than 10 years that was basically all commenting (a software user forum), I can say with certainty that allowing the posting of pictures is a very slippery slope, and not because of the copyright. I would rather the gang here focus on writing awesome content and not worry about adult daycare of the commenting system.