What happened to myATS?

Originally posted by chissler
Did anyone here actually sign up because the myATS page was that damn good?

No.

But after I realized the feature was available, it kept me coming back.

In fact, when I first signed up on this board, I had zero experience with message boards. I didn't know the feature existed. The consequence was that I spent much of my first year as a member surfing a variety of message boards.

It was only when I discovered the MYATS page much, much later, that I moved to almost exclusively using this board.

Nothing compares to convenience.

Besides, that superior content you speak of was only really evident to me because of the ease of access MYATS offered.

Sure, ATS has my loyalty now. But I'm not so convinced that without it, I would have arrived at the same point.


[edit on 2-7-2007 by loam]

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
If money is an issue I'm sure a little fund raiser could pull in what is needed.

Well.. we tend not to discuss specific expenses, and also not accept donations.

However, if you want to get a feel for how much we're about to spend...

Research a few providers of dedicated servers for the set-up and fee costs of the following:

A) (1x) Database server
--> 4x Quad Core processors
--> 8 gigs RAM
--> 15k RPM RAID-5 hot swap drives
--> dual hot-swap power supplies

B) (3x) Web servers
--> 1x Dual core processors
--> 2 gigs RAM
--> 15k RPM RAID-5 hot swap drives
--> dual hot-swap power supplies

C) Cisco load balancer
--> 4 IP's

D) Cisco hardware firewall

E) (1x) email/auxillary server
--> 1x Dual core processors
--> 4 gigs RAM
--> 15k RPM RAID-5 hot swap drives
--> dual hot-swap power supplies


Even still... with this hardware, the old methodology for creating the MyATS page doesn't make sense.

I like your thinking on a modularized pre-parsed format.

As long as something is done to resurrect the appearance and data presentation of the old format, all will be well I suspect.

In times like these, I refer to my current signature...

When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can become deadly projectiles.

The changing of the home page rustled some leaves. The conversion to ATS Dark knocked down a few tree limbs. The abandonment of myATS would be the Katrina of site modifications.

I'm completely lost.

MyATS was the best way to track individual forums.

It was a brilliant format and its loss represents much more than the inconvenience of learning a new format.

An essential tool has been obliterated.

Originally posted by Springer
We are sorry for the inconvenience our free service has caused you.
Springer...

If someone had said right off the bat that this was a temporary inconvenience, responses would have been much different.

The site might be free, but if the single most effective tool to navigating this extensive site were to be dumped completely, free wouldn't make any difference.

It's something of a jolt when you go to the page that puts the whole site into a manageable format and it's suddenly gone.

People aren't concerned so much that the site creates inconvenience from time to time because of format changes, they are concerned that the site might become unusable and for the loyal membership, that's a really big deal.

There is no moaning when 5 figure sums are involved. So listen, give me the liberty to adjust it. I see no button to turn off certain forums.

I would like to point out that I am now disabled from deleting ANY subscribed threads.

Ok I think I figured it out.

You have to enter the actual thread and click "unfavorite" or "unsubscribe."

The X buttons don't work on myATS though. Just wanted to let you know.

While tackling one problem, another was created.

I want to help out with the bandwidth problem, but I cannot as the delete function is not working.

I would be willing to sacrifice the loss of myats for a while until it was fixed if there really is going to be some work done to it.

A few dollar donation from a few hundred members adds up quick.

I don't mind giving even $20 to continue the expansion of ATS.

You guys allow us to post here for free, I don't see a problem with helping you out a little bit so you can help everyone out.

Give it a thought. I would be more than willing to donate to the ATS fund .



P.S. What's the difference between favorites and subscriptions? Do they serve different functions or will the purpose be added at a later date?

[edit on 2-7-2007 by biggie smalls]

While your in the donating mood throw some my way.
Gratious.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
I notice that a lot of long-time members have posted in this thread, and their remarks are negative. I hope to hear from Skeptic on this one soon, it's not a change I like at all.

The ease of use of the old system was far better, and I always used myATS as my start page to the ATS community.
Before I could check the top posts in my favorite forums in the order I liked, and I could add/remove, or move forums depending on my interests.

This new format is a jumbled mess that will necessitate me deleting some of my favorite forums so that I can view the others more easily. I will likely miss some topics that interest me, and as a result I'll post less often.
I don't see how that's a good thing. :shk:

im having to agree i used myATS as my starting page for AST too and i thoroughly miss the old layout. it's one of the conveniant things that got me back into ATS after i left for a time.... and i do miss it because i only skim ATS/BTS sometimes and check if a thread i posted in has been responded to. because i look up to ATS members to answer some of my questions in life and if i can't do that with a quick glance than it may not be worth it.... dont mean to be the absolute negative but what was wrong with the old layout? i wouldnt mind a little changemaybe just change how it looked like grafficks wise. it woulda been fine.

sincerily yours,
-the king

Change. Sometimes welcome, sometimes not so welcome. Since I joined, I have not liked ANY of the changes I have experienced here. At least in the beginning. But I got used to those same changes, and I even like most of them now. As much as I disliked the changes at first, I kind of hate to think about using the "Old" ATS after getting used to what we have now.
Do I like the "New" MY ATS page? Nope. But-- I figure it will be like all other changes I have seen here. I'll get accustomed to it, or I will find another way to navigate to what interests me. I was like a sailing ship on a stormy coast needing direction to where I needed to be. The "MY ATS" Page was my navigational beacon, or Lighthouse. As wonderful as they were, even lighthouses become obsolete, don't they?
I don't post often , although I do get here almost daily. I enjoy reading what others post. I learn a lot of things here. For that I thank you. You are good teachers. Whether you realize it or not, I appreciate each one of you.
I do have a question for our Staff. In the future, would it be possible to send a U2U to the rest of us before changes like this are made? Perhaps by explaining, in advance, the changes and the reasons for them, the rest of us might be more amenable to them.

Part of my signature says, and has said for a very long time----
"I'm a man, But I can change, If I have to, I guess"...

just like to say im sorry bout my upper post i didnt pay enough attention to it when i went by it... im actually fine with the new layout i only went to it for the things that ive posted in... i manually go to each forum to find interesting threads... so im sorry to the 3 amigos, heh i was a little to hasty in my accusations by me cause i can still see my my thread are hanging

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
One possible solution is the creation of static modules for each forum. The modules with be "pre-rendered" every few minutes with the latest forum activity. These modules would then replace the "dynamic" tables in the old MyATS layout. The functionality would be much the same, but the content would not be "live."

That sounds good.

Actually if you could click 'forum' on the new version so they grouped like a spreadsheet, that would settle most issues I think.
The main problem is that the old way gives equal amount to each board, but this one doesn't.

(edit because I can, 5 hours after I posted)

[edit on 2-7-2007 by apex]

OK, so maybe I don’t know what is going on here, maybe I am a caveman, but are you guys saying that we could pick favorite forums?

I click the myATS link like I do 30 times a day and instead of this nice blank page with all the threads I have participated in on the right I have what looks like the recent posts page only with all the breaking news stories on it.

My first thought was "why all the mess?" I find the material I want to talk about by browsing the top 100 recent posts.

Is the big deal that you have to go to the main forum page and scroll down to the forum you want to view now?

Seems kind of like a streak of laziness to me, but then we aren’t all on the internet all day because we love sunshine and football, are we.

I don’t know about the complainers, but I still love you ATS.

You know, I don't mind it all that much. Only thing I'd like is the ability to organize it a bit, by color namely. That way, we could categorize our favorites just as we did before, and it would make my surfing for a particular subject much easier. I like all of the colors. MUCH nicer than the bland previous one.

TheBorg

Forgive me for sticking my nose in this thread again, but Springer's comments seem to say that this new myATS layout is only temporary, while Skeptic Overlords comments hint that it is a permanent change.

Which is is?

i just have to point out that it says "your favorite forums" yet i hardy ever visit these forums, except in this case where i didn't know what was going on,
but i mainly visit "member art" and "General Chit Chat" why are "Board Business & Questions" and "Breaking Alternative News" in my favorites?

also it looks bad.

just my opinion.

EDIT: picture won't work.



Roswell.



[edit on 2-7-2007 by roswell1]

I have one question. How do we UN-Favorite BTS Forums. Apparently there is no way to do so, yet.

The "Favorite" Button there, only adds the thread to the list of favorite threads.

Some Constructive Criticism...

1) Limit the number of Subscribed Forums to 6 or 8, whatever works.

OR

2) Have MyATS list ONLY the Subscribed Forum Titles and not the most recent threads in each. Then we could click on the forum to see the most recent threads there, one forum at a time, to decrease the load.

OR

3) List the latest threads in my favorite forums, but not all jumbled together. For example, the list would look like this:

Alien hybrid, jesus christ.........Faith, Spirituality & Theology
Blood Sacrifice.........................Faith, Spirituality & Theology
desire = scarcity = death........Faith, Spirituality & Theology
.
.
.
What happened to myATS?.............................Board Business & Questions
Mystery Maths: Views Are Always Zero!!.........Board Business & Questions
ATSMIX needs some Members to HELP OUT.....Board Business & Questions
.
.
.


In my opinion, the current MyATS is terrible. There must be a way to list my favorite forums without all the confusion. I hope.

And I hope I don't sound ungrateful, because that would be incorrect. I love ATS and I will get used to this change if necessary. I may not use MyATS page, but I will deal with it.

Thank you.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
3) List the latest threads in my favorite forums, but not all jumbled together. For example, the list would look like this:

Alien hybrid, jesus christ.........Faith, Spirituality & Theology
Blood Sacrifice.........................Faith, Spirituality & Theology
desire = scarcity = death........Faith, Spirituality & Theology
.
.
.
What happened to myATS?.............................Board Business & Questions
Mystery Maths: Views Are Always Zero!!.........Board Business & Questions
ATSMIX needs some Members to HELP OUT.....Board Business & Questions

My thoughts exactly. I'll second this idea because it's my arm-chair DBA opinion that tacking on an order by forum wouldn' t be that expensive database wise.

Well I don't know exactly what SO did, but I like it

More compact and less garish now!

Nice one