New GB homepage design....

ushsta · Post by **ushsta** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:02 pm

..Added nothing new, did not improve functionality, made the whole thing less personal, and resulted in an apparent (imo) drop in the number of @news comments. Picking between disliking it and hating it I will go with hating.

Post by **BuckGB** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 11:44 pm

I'm sorry you feel that way, ushsta. It's always difficult to please everyone with a layout change, but trust me when I say that there were good reasons for every single change I made. I have a lot of plans for the site in the future, and some of those plans required the switch to Disqus, the moving of the core site links to the header, and other such revisions.

As for a drop in news comments, it's tough to say at this point. We were averaging around 30-40 daily comments prior to the change and we've seen about 20-30 comments a day with Disqus. I'm hoping people warm up to it a bit more, as it really is a good system that's widely used across the Internet. The advantages it brings to the site far outweigh the negatives, at least from a backend and moderating perspective.

Please give the layout a chance to sink in... perhaps it will grow on you over time.

ushsta · Post by **ushsta** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 6:02 am

Also, why is it that I am posting under my account name in the forums but a chosen alias in the news comments? That also applied before disqus.

Also, I am giving it every chance. It's a bunch of other people who are not.

Post by **BuckGB** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 6:41 am

If you sign up for a Disqus account with the same email address you use here, then you can attach all of your previous comments to your Disqus account. And it doesn't matter what your Disqus account name is in regard to what a post shows as the username - you can just change the "full name" on your Disqus profile to whatever you want displayed on the comments you leave ("ushsta", I assume, in your case).

childofbhaal · Post by **childofbhaal** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:54 pm

I tried to register on disqus with my e-mail adress but I couldnt find the topic,comments(or gamebanshee) on that hellish site.Clicking on the hyperlinks from gamebanshee didnt help,it redirected me to the same page(something about disqus and how awesome it is,it had nothing to do with GBat all).After like 10-15 mins I gave up.This was 2 weeks ago,I already forgot the username and password.

I made a fake account on facebook just to be able to read the comments but I couldnt find out how to find the latest news(what I found seemed to be days old and I dont really know how FB works and I dont really want to use it,if you ask me its a teen site and the whole thing wants to step on your privacy +it can have negative impact on your life(years after deleting your FB account because data always gets stored on the internet by 1 company or another(google f.ex.)) if you apply for a serious job,its not unusual that a HR specialist scans the internet for all the available data about you.I already forgot that password too...

What bothers me is that I cant read the comments on this site,reading other players opinion is half the fun(because I like the GB community,looking at the top RPGs list tells me that they are like-minded people...the codex takes it to serious and they often seem to be crazy,other gaming sites are full with the new generation of gamers),if I cant comment thats not a big prob. for me but somehow making the comments at least readable on GB would be cool(and logging in to a different site just to be able to read comments seems to be bad idea too,what if I am at a public computer or I use someone elses phone).Lots of other sites use disqus but they are easily replaceable with something else,GB is unique

edit:Just to be clear GB will stay amongst my bookmarks and I understand why these changes were made and I know how popular facebook is(2 of my family members are on it all day),its just not as good as it used to be

Post by **BuckGB** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:22 pm

I'm confused by your post. Registering on Facebook isn't required, nor is checking the Disqus site to see other comments. Registering on Disqus is just a good way to merge all your previous comments into one account that you can use here and thousands of other sites on the Internet. It certainly isn't required, though.

In short, you should be able to view all comments beneath each newsbit and article whether you're logged in or not. If this isn't the case, please let me know and we can try troubleshooting it. There's also a quick list of the "Latest Viewer Comments" on the right side of the homepage, which should indicate which articles are currently being commented on.

childofbhaal · Post by **childofbhaal** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:52 pm

wow that is good to hear,the problem started with the new changes so I assumed that it must be the site...I will try another browser

childofbhaal · Post by **childofbhaal** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 5:04 pm

The site works with internet explorer x64,probably 1 of my firefox addons caused the problem(my guess would be Ghostery or Better Privacy,I used them to get rid of adware.tracking cookies permanently because superantispyware always found a few of those).I can load the Disqus home page but for some reason my browser didnt display the disqus part of gamebanshee(the comments) just a hyperlink leading to the disqus site(where I couldnt find gamebanshee after registering).

Thanks for the help,now that I know this I dont mind the new changes(I thought that the entire comments section moved to a site called disqus)

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 4:46 am

childofbhaal wrote:The site works with internet explorer x64,probably 1 of my firefox addons caused the problem(my guess would be Ghostery or Better Privacy,I used them to get rid of adware.tracking cookies permanently because superantispyware always found a few of those).I can load the Disqus home page but for some reason my browser didnt display the disqus part of gamebanshee(the comments) just a hyperlink leading to the disqus site(where I couldnt find gamebanshee after registering).

Thanks for the help,now that I know this I dont mind the new changes(I thought that the entire comments section moved to a site called disqus)

Ghostery - if you block the Disqus cookie - will hide the comments.

jakobbp · Post by **jakobbp** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:24 am

BuckGB wrote:As for a drop in news comments, it's tough to say at this point. We were averaging around 30-40 daily comments prior to the change and we've seen about 20-30 comments a day with Disqus. I'm hoping people warm up to it a bit more, as it really is a good system that's widely used across the Internet. The advantages it brings to the site far outweigh the negatives, at least from a backend and moderating perspective.

Please give the layout a chance to sink in... perhaps it will grow on you over time.

I agree with ushsta. I know people who stopped posting, because, like me, they just don't feel like having to create yet another account to post (as them) on a page they are already registered with.
It's hard to warm up to something, that you just don't see any advantage of.
For me, the look hasn't changed (except visually) in any other way, but the added level of 'bother'. I don't post much here, but that change did bother me enough, to come to the forums, prepared to start a new thread, if need be.
So what are these advantages that you speak of?

Post by **BuckGB** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 6:36 pm

Change is never easy, but this was one that I really felt was necessary given the direction the web is going. We've seen a record number of comments in recent months (30-60 a day and as many as 100+ on some occasions), so it appears that at least some people are warming up to it.

The primary advantages are:

1) A continuously updated comment system that automatically recognizes spambots (even when they employ new tricks), is compatible with all major social networks (even future ones), has the most robust moderating tools of any comment system we've used previously, and so on.

2) All comments are stored and retrieved from the Disqus server, saving resources that our server would otherwise be taxed with. These can be exported at any time if we ever want to leave Disqus in the future.

3) Regardless of what content management software we install, upgrade, remove, or switch to in the future, all of our comments will be available and 100% compatible. This is a big one, as it allows me to install newer versions of software without worrying that our comment add-on will break.

4) Visitors no longer have to register at GameBanshee to post, and there are way more login options available when posting. Long-time GB visitors will have to use another login, yes, but they can link their new account to their old one in order to take ownership of all their previous comments. It's a small annoyance, but it also means that the barrier of entry for newcomers is considerably smaller.

5) Similar to #4, but in reverse. Having an account that's compatible with Disqus not only makes it easy to comment on our news, but it also makes it easy to post on any of the other *over 1 million other sites* currently using it, too.

Again, I just feel that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. I don't want to see anyone leave over our switch to Disqus, so please give it a chance and you'll likely see just how accessible and user-friendly it can be.

Viggo · Post by **Viggo** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:28 am

You make a good, tempered case for yourself Buck! Love mature mods able to put things in perspective through reason, logic and truth

BUT

BuckGB wrote:And it doesn't matter what your Disqus account name is in regard to what a post shows as the username - you can just change the "full name" on your Disqus profile to whatever you want displayed on the comments you leave

I can't quite get that to work. My profile name is ViggoMe and entered Viggo as full name. Yet it still wants to post as ViggoMe.

Do I have to log in and out of both services, wait for verification (of some sort) before it takes effect?

---EDIT---

Never mind, once I hit "POST AS VIGGOME," my name appeared as Viggo