A little transparancy please?
Hey there bdsmlr people. Would it be too much trouble to, you know, let us know what's going on? The last notice on the home page is from February, and clearly a lot has transpired since then. I know you occasionally post vague updates on Twitter, but I also know that it's super easy to embed a twitter feed in a site, so it'd be dead easy to set it up so that announcements go to both places.
There's a lot wrong with this site. Inconsistent ability to post and reblog, terrible issues with the chat system, general slowness, etc.
I think most of the people here understand that this is a low-budget site, and they're willing to cut you some slack and wait for things to be fixed provided that they know that things ARE being fixed.
We understand that the site wasn't ready for the Tumblr diaspora. We know that you're playing catch up with limited resources, and the more tech savvy of those among us know what an immense challenge it can be to root bugs out of years-old code that you didn't write and only barely understand.
What we really want is know what's actually wrong, how you're going about fixing it, and when you think the fix will be finished. And on that last part, I, at least, am willing to cut you some slack, because I know how easy it is to underestimate the amount of time something will take (Boy, do I know!).
As someone pointed out in another thread, the ads work beautifully. I'm guessing that's because you get the code from the ad service, but it was integrated into the site seemingly without any hiccups.
So please, guys, just keep us informed. Be honest. Don't sugar coat stuff. If you try to blow smoke up our collective asses, it'll become obvious in very short order.
I am a technical writer. I can write these posts for you. I don't work for free, but writing them won't take long, so even at my semi-extravagant consulting rate, it wouldn't cost that much.
But whether you take me up on that or not ( you won't), please get SOMEONE to just give us some basic info.
You might be thinking, "This is just a porn site. It's not worth the effort to engage the user base," but that's outmoded thinking. This is a social site as well, and it needs to be easy to interact with other users as well as with the content.
We understand that this is a big, difficult job. Just trust us enough to tell us the truth.
Please.
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Ads ... integrated into the site seemingly without any hiccups.
Actually no, they fumbled this too. The ad scripts are what are preventing the site from loading on IOS devices. Because they managed to insert the script in the wrong place. That means it's not valid HTML and Safari on IOS rejects it.
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Error:
scriptelement betweenheadandbody.From line 207, column 1; to line 207, column 47
>↩</head>↩<scri.. src="//cdn.tsyndicate.com/sdk/v1/n.js"></scri..
this gets worse ... a validator tells us:
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Fatal Error: Cannot recover after last error. Any further errors will be ignored.
Very basic errors.
As you can see a simple validation check shows the issue up, and it's very easy to fix. If anyone knows smallest part of web dev.
So no, they are not in any way in control.
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It should be noted that the team HAS set up a github page with status updates that seem to be more current than anything else. They have it linked on the front page. They should really take down the February thing, though. It makes it look like it's still the same old notice from then.
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The new place for updates appears to be GitHub. New link on your dashboard - https://github.com/bdsmlr-development/bdsmlr-updates
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So, about that GitHub ... who among us is gonna comment with bug reports on GH?
That'll look great the next time a recruiter is vetting my repo contributionsIf only they had some kind of helpdesk type software, with tickets, announcements and forums for reporting. All anonymised due to the nature of the content.
If only they had some sort of zendesk type support subdomain. eh. that would be good eh?
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Teas & Denial: They are giving updates on GitHub. https://github.com/bdsmlr-development/bdsmlr-updates
(they haven't updated since April 13th, and Twitter: https://twitter.com/bdsmlr no update since 3/31. You don't need an account on either, to view.
Apparently posting right on the site, like they always did, isn't good enough for the devs. That, in itself, tells a lot!
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I'm familiar with GitHub and the choice to do this sort of anouncement over there is pretty weird.
IMO the only reason its over there is because the dev who has been tasked with fixing the issues will habitually spend time at GH, so it seems natural to use it.
It's like finding that the ship's cook is posting meal service times on the kitchen wall. That's where chefs get their info, so the cook puts info there.
But the choice to use it as an announcement area for the customers shows that there's no captain to this ship. There's no front of house. No chain of command, nobody making decisions.
There should be a project lead person saying "right, lets get this situation under control" and have some tasks distributed. Fixing the code goes to the dev. Any decent dev doesn't really need the bug reports because there are so many massive bugs that are obvious, that's a few weeks work just plugging the big broken parts. No need for a bug report like "chat doesnt work" because its self evident.
The other things are "keep user up to date", like that's usually customer relations, marketing dept. Only a lunatic lets devs talk to customers. Customers just stress the dev, and devs hate idiots, so its mutually destructive.
that's why Customer Relations use Twitter, ZenDesk, home Page, Blogs, to make puff pieces saying stuff like "we hear you" and "here's the latest update".
It's easy to hire a blogger to churn our palliative guff to buy the devs time to fix things. it's easy to set up a Wp site, or use a ZenDesk announcement page, it's easy to get the low skill staff to write puff pieces like "we love our community, and here's ten ways we are changing!"
But they aren't doing that.
they have one Dev, who has randomly decided to put a few updates on an orphaned GH. And it will be abandoned, because it's totally mad as a strategy.
This ship is sinking. The captain is long gone.
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