New-model Gallery reordering makes no sense

[Silversleeves]

Just an observation/open remarks to the techs and Higher-Ups:

Does it make any sense that a site which tried to prevent spam from being promoted by de-activating that part of its gallery software responsible for the accurate dating and re-ordering of galleries when such galleries had pictures added to them, would turn around and introduce a list-reordering scheme that obligated one to move one line item at a time past potentially dozens, or even hundreds, of others after any change at all was made to said list? You got us creating new and unique galleries, and now you're punishing us again for doing what, back in February, March and early April, you wanted us to do so we could distinguish ourselves from those you deemed "spammers."

Which approach do you want us to take? We do one thing, we're faced with the arbitrary removal of a routine procedure that many of us long-time members took for granted. We do the other, you change a feature which makes it difficult to put things where we want them because we followed your lead often enough the first time. Which is right?

BZT

[earlyamerican]

I second that! Makes no sense, takes too long. Im confused!

[abadboy]

The overall feeling is like a four-hand piano concert.
Unfortunately each hand plays a different musical theme.

[Silversleeves]

Well, as was true in the weeks when galleries weren't "bumping" to the top of our Top 5 list for many of us inveterate adder-onners, there's a way to get the results we want all the same. I explain it here. And though it takes one or two extra steps, it does indeed work for new galleries created. BZT

[Silversleeves]

And this morning, I completely forgot it was necessary to do what I wrote in that other thread to keep the gallery order the way I wanted it, maybe because for three-and-two-thirds of the four years I've been a member of ImageFAP, it wasn't necessary!

Old habits do die hard, like the one the techs seem not to be able to give up of trying to fix things that aren't broken, ignoring what still IS broken,then adding untested or under-tested features that from conception to crypt are sure to go wrong, and were seldom if ever what folks wanted in the first place. There was nothing wrong with the Frontpage checkbox feature. There is everything wrong with this gallery reordering scheme -- and I have yet to see them fix the modified-date flaw that they created themselves when they deemed that ANYONE who habitually added pictures to their galleries must be a spammer and MUST be kept from knowing any such thing as the last time,to the minute by the Dutch/Bosnian clock, they added spam to their existing galleries. Which, by the way, were set to a 1000-picture-per-gallery limit, so evidently it was deemed unnecessary that Anyone should ever have to Add to a Gallery, although I don't think anyone But a Spammer, would have a thousand pictures ready to upload at any one time!

So folks who wanted to be honest and not confused by man nor machine for being spammers, went ahead and created several new galleries where they may not have done so before. The rest of those who were inclined to upload that way continued in their merry way. Then along comes this drag-n-drop moving scheme, which is really no more than a tease -- you lure people in by saying they can move their galleries about by mouse movements. Then you spring a "GOTCHA!" on them by making it so the gallery they add to, if they're so inclined, is the only one to stay in the Top 5 on their Profile pages -- all the rest are sent to Coventry in reverse chronological order. And all the honest folks who, before the "anti-spam" measure that lost them any clue of when they might have made the evil mistake of adding to one gallery once four or five weeks back, have now got so many more galleries to move galleries QQ, rr, SS, and tt past, one at a time btw, than they would have had had the techs and Brass had enough sense to leave things that were working fine alone, that there's only one word for it:


RIDICULOUS

...but free, as if maintaining a site with paysite features strictly by feeding it ad revenue, then telling members it's OK to block ads from which that revenue is garnered (and here's how to do it, kiddies) wasn't equally bizarre.

BZT

[Silversleeves]

I've just emailed Support on this issue. My thinking was that the Admin is not fully aware of the aggravation this new reordering scheme has brought more than a few of us. I'll await his reply(s) and get back to this thread with the gist of them. BZT

[Silversleeves]

He's forwarding my email to the techs. I hope they don't take the fact that I posted a detailed "work-around" thread to mean that they shouldn't fix what the scheme does to list order in the first place. The Admin will likely also have to explain my idioms and Americanisms. I hope he has his coffee first.

The email reads as follows.
Subject line: Gallery reordering -- the current scheme is a bad idea.

And that's understating just about everything about it.

The current threads in the Forums about it:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6136
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6058
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6203 (workaround -- terribly time consuming -- see below)

A personal view:
I have 430 galleries uploaded. If I add a gallery, or add to a gallery, that gallery is moved to somewhere near the top of my My fap>My Content list. The list of galleriess on my Profile page changes likewise. What follows in the case of the My Content list is every other gallery I have uploaded in reverse chronological order, oldest first -or- if I happened to arrange a customised Top 5 on a previous day, four of those will be with the new/newly-modified gallery. If I wish to restore the order I had before adding one or the other, I must move each item other than the aforementioned past 425 other list items, one at a time.

In short, for those of us who remember how things were, when adding a gallery or adding To one affected absolutely nothing else in the various lists, the techs have not only introduced this drag-n-drop scheme without any of us asking for it; by its very nature they're compelling us to use it. if adding changed the order of none of the other galleries in our lists, which is what I'm hoping the techs had in mind, I could endorse this new scheme and wish it a long life. Maybe even get used to it.

Because it doesn't, my vote is to have it replaced with the old Frontpage checkbox scheme that was galaxies more convenient and _worked, as well.

I've heard the mods say that if they have to spend all their time in their phpBB consoles, it gives them far less time to enjoy ImageFap as a website. Congratulate the techs: this ordering scheme has put us older members and long-time gallery uploaders -- as well as the folks who've been members only a few months but are in the habit of making new galleries at the drop of a mouse button -- on par with the mods, considering how much time it takes many of us to put our galleries where we want them.

I hope this mess can be attended to soon.

Silversleeves

BZT

[jimjam140]

Ah! I didn't see this thread before I posted my own complaint about this ridiculous state of affairs. It's no wonder that XHamster is becoming more popular - it is massively easier to use! I have a sentimental affection for Imagefap - PLEASE make it like it used to be!

Now, apart from a gallery I have only just uploaded, everything is in reverse order. Why do I bother? (Well, until the situation is remedied, I won't)

[Silversleeves]

It penalizes instead of rewarding.

Back when LOTF first described (note -- not explained, described) it in his Announcement, the tone of the promotion made it sound like we would instantly fall in love with this scheme. Instead, those of us with more than two or three dozen galleries are inclined to hate it.

From where I sit, members should not have to spend 5 to 45 minutes -- sometimes more -- putting galleries back in the order they had them/wanted them, just because they follow what had been "normal" routine in adding, adding to or changing one gallery out of several in their My Content list. That's a penalty, not a reward.

I've noticed something about this set of "techs" (I put it in quotes because I still seriously doubt there's more than one): if it's easier to add to a part of the site something that works for people who have been members less than 1 year, rather than fix something that's been quirky or broken for longer than 1 year, they'll take the "add" option every time. It's aggravating.

I'll be emailing Support and asking if there's been any progress. I'll keep us posted. Good times. BZT

[Silversleeves]

No more than the polite "I'll forward your email to the techs" from the Admin as yet.

I slipped up tonight and added to a gallery without saving my order before closing my My Content page. I timed myself moving one gallery from bottom to top (currently I have 437 galleries): it took me 2 minutes and 3 seconds in SeaMonkey 2.x.

I also tried an older version of SM, and Firefox 3 (or is it 4 now) in Ubuntu Linux -- both were dog-slow no matter what I did. My desktop machine is somewhat older, and as I wanted to get a good sense of how long it might take folks with faster hw to do this, I came back to SM 2.3 in Windows and did the time test.

I shared all of the above in an email to Support. I also added the line "Compare that with half a tick to check a box in a column marked "Frontpage" in the previous scheme."

So now we have a better idea of the time involved in restoring our gallery listings to what they should be. I'd trade that in for a change back to the Frontpage scheme in a shot, to be perfectly honest.

BZT