How's the new AVEN?

[Togee]

Since the upgraded AVEN is up, I'd like to know what other people think about it. 

[Manic Pixie Dream Nerd]

I'm sad cause I lost all my friends due to the new "follower" thing :/ Otherwise it's great!!

[Icelime]

2 hours ago, Lona the Hobo Writer said:

I'm sad cause I lost all my friends due to the new "follower" thing :/ Otherwise it's great!!

yeah!!! All my friends disappeared. 

 

[Grumpy Alien]

I honestly hate most of the changes...

[ItWasNiceKnowingYou]

*inserts indifferent comment here & hugs to those who don't really care for the new changes*

[Nebulous]

I love the stability and most of the new functions. I don't like the followers thing, though - having followers and the other "social media add-ons" makes me anxious, and I feel like I'm making a public speech every time I post something now, whereas before it wasn't really like that. I also loathe the new CSS and overall aesthetics. There's way too much white and there's no clear way to discern the different modules from each other. Makes the coder/artist in me cry.

[WhenSummersGone]

Tbh I like the old look better (less scrolling) on mobile but I like how it mostly refreshes when I hit the back button. So it's ok. I'm just glad it's fast again lol.

[Ashmedai]

There's some very minor thing's I've noticed, some which might actually be able to be fixed, but over all, it's quite nice.

[Togee]

I now added a new question about the Friends->Followers change, since it seems to be a controversial change.

[Plectrophenax]

5 hours ago, Nebulous said:

I love the stability and most of the new functions. I don't like the followers thing, though - having followers and the other "social media add-ons" makes me anxious, and I feel like I'm making a public speech every time I post something now, whereas before it wasn't really like that. I also loathe the new CSS and overall aesthetics. There's way too much white and there's no clear way to discern the different modules from each other. Makes the coder/artist in me cry.

I think it's this "social media" style that I find slightly off-putting, though I fully understand the desire to move with the times. Especially regarding the aesthetic, though, this development unfortunately doesn't cater to my personal tastes (such as the overabundance of white you mention, but also the round avatars or the way posts merge into one another much more easily than before). While I don't use mobile devices for internet, a lot of the changes just seem as though they are made with those users in mind, and I can appreciate that even though I have always been a sucker for blocky forum layouts.

 

Regarding the 'friends' to 'following' change, it would have been nice to keep the 'friends' in addition to the 'following' function, since those two things don't necessarily seem synonymous to me. But since people can customise their notification preferences, it would really just be a cosmetic difference.

 

Lastly, and most vitally, stability on my end has been formidable so far, and I'm saying that as someone for whom AVEN was always slow and often fickle.

[Katarina0815]

I realy like the new style! But, has anybody thought about an "Aven-App"?

[Still]

All the little visual gripes I might have pale in comparison to the site actually working.

[deltaX]

There are some things I love about new AVEN and some things I hate.  I think they kind of even out so that my overall impression is somewhere between positive to neutral.  I think I'll like it all whole lot more when Cole finishes fixing things and I get used to some subtle changes.

[Guest 222]

So the fact that we're almost constantly online is really nice. It's not "that big" of a deal but the friends becoming followers thing reminds me a bit of social media. Also the default setting of being able to see any time someone you follow posts is a bit creepy. Like I'm stalking them or something. The appearance... idk. I feel like some of it will of course get fixed, like youtube videos in signatures being gigantic, longer names being cut of and the poster's info being centered instead of coming from the left (that one might be personal, idk). Others worry me. All the white space in signatures is a bit much. We don't have a preview option anymore. And fonts are gone too :/ I'm glad Aven's back I just think it needs a bit of tweaking.

[Chrysocolla Dawn]

The only critique I'd have at this point is on the friends/followers thing.  I liked being able to add friends to a list, and though it may achieve the same result in seeing what they post, adding them to a friends list felt more social.

Being a "follower" sounds kinda odd to me XP

[Chrysocolla Dawn]

1 hour ago, Katarina0815 said:

I realy like the new style! But, has anybody thought about an "Aven-App"?

An app would be amazing! :O

[SithLord]

I don't like all the white.  It's visually unappealing and stuff doesn't stand out as much.  So far haven't experienced many problems with it though, so mostly positive with a few misgivings.  I don't like the friends to follower change. Follower makes me feel like I need to supply things for other peoples approval while friends just says "Hey, you're cool, I like you."

[Myssterry]

I like the new site, it just takes a little time to get used to.  The quick loading is wonderful. :) 

[Skycaptain]

Generally I like it,  although followers sounds less companionable than friends. 

Being able to go to the next thread without returning to the index screen makes reading forums quicker 

[Éadweard]

It works. Enough said. 

[SkyWorld]

I don't really like to complain much because I know that the tech team has worked really hard on this.

Though despite that, I honestly like it a lot more than dislike it. For one, it's so much faster! There are some things that I miss or which was improved, but other than that, I think it's great! I like the new look, it's about time. Many bugs have been solved, being nice able to change ignore settings and putting pictures in our signature. There's also a few new really cool features. 

About the friends/followers thing, I am sad that all my friends are gone, but I do like the followers function better because it's not as pointless as the friends feature. It actually does more. Though if we don't like it, we can always change the notification settings or even turn off the followers.

[Ace-TheTimelordsCompanion]

The thing is that yes, I miss the old AVEN very much, the new one is not the same, I resent it, and there are things I hate. But just like the Doctor regenerating it had to happen, the old AVEN was dying of disease and old age. It had to change it's face to save it's life. 
It will take me time to learn to accept, and even love, the new forums, that's okay. But I will be forever grateful that it is here, and loading. Young and spritely and regenerated, because the alternative, AVEN slowly dying in front of our eyes, is too horrible to think about.

Yes I hate the followers thing too, especially the fact that if you visit someone's profile you see who follows them, rather than who they follow. You have no control over who follows you, so it doesn't say as much about you and your friend groups, and over time our profiles will become cluttered with short-term members who followed us then wandered off.

[Dagomir]

I don't have much of an opinion on the forum's appearance one way or the other.

The stability if, of course, the greatest part :)

I don't like the "followers" thing- it seems every site has been doing this recently, including the only social network I regularly visit. I find it creepy. Luckily, here I have an option to disable it. 

[Raina.]

I'm very happy about the stability of it! So glad it was fixable and i'm very thankful. :D

I don't like the way of loading new posts, however. I found the pages much more managable, this way you have to go through a huge list constantly and it makes everything a bit of a mess. I can't really keep up with some of the things? Aesthetically it messes with my OCD/confuses me, which makes it harder for me to come back to. ):

As for the friends/followers thing, I've never really used that option in the past!

[Nebulous]

Agreed that it was easier to view new posts as threads, not singular posts - it certainly kept the new content pages less cluttered (I find myself just looking at each subforum now, for bolded threads, instead of using the new content stuff). Hopefully there's an option for that in the future. 

[Maiflower]

I just logged into the new AVEN for the first time, and already like it.

[Guest]

I like it far more than I dislike it.

[dissolved]

Eh it could be worse.

Also, typing is lagging horrifically on my tablet, and only on here.

[Cimmerian]

The stability of the site's been a lot better, even if I've run into a 404 error periodically yesterday when just reloading pages but it went way pretty quickly.

I'm not too picky about the overall appearance change other than that it feels like there's a lot more space between posts (or even before/after) a post's content so you don't fit as many responses on a screen at a time.

I voted before the third question was added, but I also don't like the change to "followers". I used my friends list to keep track of people that I enjoyed talking to or seeing around and "followers" seems more invasive than that; you see anything they do (from what I've been able to figure out) and while I might want to see what they've posted on occasion I don't need to know every status, post, and like they might make but I still want a way to "find" them and remember them easily like the old friends feature.

[BobRossRules]

Personally, I love it!  Point being IT WORKS and I now can be connected with my buddies!  Sure the followers thing is a bit creepy, but so what - isn't all social media?  All in all, I'm grateful!