What on earth has happened to the Overclockers UK forum?!

RobinHood

RobinHood

Well-known member
They just converted to xenforo - finally! :D

But it looks awful! :cry:

They used to have one of the best vb styles ever imo, and now this!

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/

IMG_7318.webp
IMG_7319.webp


I can't believe they went live with that.

Does the conversion a big disjustice.

Someone get a style designer to the rescue, pronto!
 
Yea not sure what they were thinking with those colors but not my site so not my place to judge. They are getting reamed pretty badly over there for the style as well.
 
It's such a shame, it's pretty much the same colours, but completely butchered with poor spacing, different border widths, font weights etc.

I've just done a comparison using the wayback machine, and it's funny, it's not that different, but it's a combination of lots of little changes that add up make it feel much worse.

It's busier, some double line borders, unecessary drop shadow and added depth effects, and the use of a stark white in places where it needs a softer white for less contrast.

They could have had one the guys from here make it look literally exactly the same as the old style and it would look great with no resistance from the users and all the benefits from the new features. It definitely needs either a pro designers eye to polish it up, or a pro designer to make it look exactly the same as the old one (which shouldn't be hard).
 
I was actually slightly hesitant to make this post as know you're a regular there too Slavik and I figured perhaps you did the import?

I didn't want to diss too much in case you were involved!

It makes more sense now that I know you weren't...
 
BUG REPORT : Forums look krap

SECURITY REPORT : SQL injection exploitable, root available - noted you've not even dirty cow patched, for public disclosure shortly on pastebin

REMEDY : ROLL BACK THIS ******** RELEASE IMMEDIATELY
Click to expand...

Claiming SQL injection exploitable and root available? Ohh err

Dirty cow
 
Genuinely couldn't understand their thought process, as one of the leading tech companies in the world, you would think they would reach out to ensure the most seamless transition possible, even if I didn't do the work they would ask me about doing it in the best way.

When people started mentioning week old passwords that has been changed were reverted, I was horrified to think how they managed to do that, well actually I know how, but to knowing they decided to do that way was just, disappointing more than anything.

I would of been ashamed to put my name to that job had I done it, and for it to be done by such a high profile and prestigious company as ocuk has really lowered my regard for them. First they took one of the most user friendly and browsable online stores anywhere on the internet and replaced it with that monstrosity they have now, and then they've botched the forums.

I am aware this may read a bit like sour grapes, but ocuk was one of my favorite forums to frequent, I have a lot of great friends on there who we meet up regularly for car-stuff so it is very annoying to see it done in such an unprofessional manner.
 
Doesn't sound like sour grapes at all, you're spot on. It's madness that they didn't let you consult on the conversion, especially as you say, given the size of the company the forum represents.

It's also madness they thought that style was ready for the public, it's the first thing people notice about a conversion before they get to play with the good bits. And if they style is no good, some of the users don't hang around long enough to give the good bits a go.

I love that forum too, spent a huge amount of time on it over the years and made some lifelong steam friends from it. I really do hope they sort it out quick. They'll be fine if they do, but it says a lot about the way the conversion and forum is managed that they launched in this state. Why wouldn't they want get get a few XF pros on board to help out with the conversion?

Makes me wonder what they've done with regards to getting all the custom add ons recoded and what state those are in.
 
I meant to say that, it is bloody fast, so it's got that going for it!

Probably got 8-Pack to build them a custom OC'd server setup ;)



IMG_7320.webp
 
Someone on OcUK said:
No Forum Jump combobox at the bottom of the page that lets you choose what forum you want to go to directly.
Click to expand...

I've seen more than one person post about this on OcUK. Some users were missing the old forum quick jump until they found the Quick Navigation Menu in XF. It can be useful, might be worth keeping it for XF2 as I think it's been removed?

They've managed to get it setup so users can individually choose how many posts per page, which is nice. I didn't think that was possible with XF? Each user can choose to have up to 100 posts per page, that a custom add on or is it available here?

upload_2017-2-15_20-33-23.webp
 
That's actually a pretty good idea to help aid the transition, it's because of their no avatar policy though. It's still a shame they didn't bother to put as much attention to detail into the other 90% of the transition.

Part of what I always like about OcUK was that there was very little distraction from the content. There's no user avatars (okay, there's a select few based on post count, but they're repetitive so you don't associate them with any one user), so I'm never distracted by some shiny image or scantily clad slightly nsfw image.

I was there purely to read, I would rarely bother to read who said what unless the post was particularly relevant to me or insightful or I just wanted to see who said what on earth I had just read for any reason. Similar to reddit a little bit I suppose.

I'm glad they've not started using avatars. I'm sure they won't change that. It works very well on certain large communities.
 
They do, I think you have to be logged in to see them (good performance trick)

Or do you mean they only let you select from a defined list of avatars?
... based on post count? Does this mean your avatar changes as you get "higher ranked"

leached example:

OtRrhHc.png
 
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