[Heller]

Hi,

same happens to me. With the old User Gallery I was able to view the newest posts of the first 5 pages without time limit. The User Gallery as I understand has closed at the end of September, So, there is no possibility to see new posts, because there are no new post anymore. The new opening page I do not understand, that are only historicly postings, most of them are several years old. After some seconds a page is popping up to subscribe a payment account. So, no chance for me to view anything.

[BotComics Content]

... , if I go back to the gallery after a few seconds it keeps redirecting me to the sign-up page even though I'm logged in.  It makes the whole site unusable.

We know.

apparently, based on botcomics last post, they don't care.

 botcomics  "I took all the necessary time to read your comments carefully."
Did you?

You failed to answer my very basic question of "what is a pin"
or
address my issue of why a BEA FAQ (your link) is on the botcomics website.  Or why i need to sign in (yet again) using google+ in order to comment or ask a question.

 Your last post was a press release, not a serious reply to the issues addressed. 

While most posts  revolve around the adventurer there are other concerns.

The user gallery is now some random morphs with a redirect to a subscription page?
Back button kicks back to last off site Page. The says certainly says welcome to the BEA. That is the electronic middle finger.

The "main" page is just a bunch of random morphs? with a redirect to the subscription page with no details. WTF? 

so, a noobie has no chance to see what this is all about. Unlike the old main page where a clear offering is made and the divisions between free and paid are clearly delineated with the subsections within the BEA clearly outlined.   

There is a lot here but thanks to the new format and the redirects, they will never know that.

Property management in the electronic age, you are doing it wrong.





 

Hi and sorry for not responding your questions.

• I read and answered the most important and general questions. If you have more specific questions you can create a customer support ticket. If you don't like our support system you (or anybody else) can just email me directly to [email protected] and I will be pleased to help you.
• A pinboard is a social bookmarking website. Pin is the way of calling a post on this kind of websites. A pin may contain images, text and one source link. Images can be animated (GIFs).
• The customer support has the BotComics Logo but is not in the BotComics website. As you might notice in the URL https://botcomics.zendesk.com/hc/en-us it's a service provided by ZenDesk and we have a single "Support Page" for all our websites.
• You can create a Support Ticket without login on ZenDesk but if you want to comment you need to login. That's how it works and it's a third-party system.
• The problem with the information shown on the homepage is that the pins are ordered by multiple restrictions, like the number of repins or the number of likes and since we migrated the images from the old site none of the images has repins or likes on the deploy. Anyway I am confirming with the develpers that the pins can be shown ordered by date, showing the latest uploaded at the beginning.
• If you think we are doing all wrong, you can just be more polite, since as I mentioned before, our resources are limited and we are doing a HUGE effort to provide satisfaction even for the users who doesn't pay a dime. We do not show electronic middle fingers to anybody. We are just doing our best. If it's not enough, we apologize.

[DerGerch]

Some answers and comments:
1. Testing things out is almost impossible right now, because BEA is extremely slow.
2. The "search" function does not seem to work properly. Searching for my username "dergerch" - the name under which "pins" are posted - does not give any result except "Nothing yet", even though my test "pin" even shows up in the "popular" pinboard? Screen? List? Whatever!
3. The dropdown feature in the "search" function causes the search to close, rendering it unusable. You have to type in every search term.
4. There is no way to trace the "50 pin limit" for free users, which makes the subscription popup seem quite random. The limit is already quite small, given than in the old version, you had unlimited access to the "free" stuff.
5. A lot of the old "User Gallery" stuff seems to simply have been lost.
6. A sorting function for the pins would be nice. At least show us whether the images are sorted by likes, date or cup-size or whatever. Not finding what you are looking for, and not knowing how to look for stuff is annoying.
7. Why still no cookies? At every forum I am a member of, there is a "remember me" option at login... except at BEA. That would have been an improvement for me.

I can understand that after so many years, some people might ask for something new. But innovation for innovation's sake is useless. It should also incorporate improvements.

Considering that the old site worked reasonably well from a functionality point of view, I am really wondering what  the powers-that-be think the improvement is.

Come on, sell it to us! Convince us that we are better of with the new stuff! Otherwise all you will get is complaints.

[BotComics Content]

Thank you Georg!

You provided a truly honest and constructive like feedback!!! We can work on that!!!

I am adding all your recommendations to our pending tasks/wish list so we can implement the fixes and features ASAP.

Thank you again!!!

[blender]

Some answers and comments:
1. Testing things out is almost impossible right now, because BEA is extremely slow.
2. The "search" function does not seem to work properly. Searching for my username "dergerch" - the name under which "pins" are posted - does not give any result except "Nothing yet", even though my test "pin" even shows up in the "popular" pinboard? Screen? List? Whatever!
3. The dropdown feature in the "search" function causes the search to close, rendering it unusable. You have to type in every search term.
4. There is no way to trace the "50 pin limit" for free users, which makes the subscription popup seem quite random. The limit is already quite small, given than in the old version, you had unlimited access to the "free" stuff.
5. A lot of the old "User Gallery" stuff seems to simply have been lost.
6. A sorting function for the pins would be nice. At least show us whether the images are sorted by likes, date or cup-size or whatever. Not finding what you are looking for, and not knowing how to look for stuff is annoying.
7. Why still no cookies? At every forum I am a member of, there is a "remember me" option at login... except at BEA. That would have been an improvement for me.

I can understand that after so many years, some people might ask for something new. But innovation for innovation's sake is useless. It should also incorporate improvements.

Considering that the old site worked reasonably well from a functionality point of view, I am really wondering what  the powers-that-be think the improvement is.

Come on, sell it to us! Convince us that we are better of with the new stuff! Otherwise all you will get is complaints.

Thank you for the echo    (really, thanks)

[blender]

"I read and answered the most important and general questions. "
(I have do this freehand because your quote function doesn't work properly)

It's pretty simple.
what is a pin?
Why do I need them?
What do I do with them?

Why am I getting a redirect signup page anytime I try to interact with a page?

Where is the user gallery with the latest posts? You know the one with the current contest?  best thing to happen to BEA in a While. Props to
Prof Morearty. Good job on that.

What happened to Chilli?
 

"A pinboard is a social bookmarking website. Pin is the way of calling a post on this kind of websites. A pin may contain images, text and one source link. Images can be animated (GIFs)."

what does this even mean?
If I call a page and you show me 100 thumbnails then the first 50 are "pins"?
if I click on a thumbnail, is that a pin?
are "pins" counted be session, cookie or accrued?
To clarify (I hope): The User Galleries (and the new Morphs and Morph Requests galleries) have been combined into a single imagebase. "Boards" are collections of related images within that imagebase. User Galleries, Morphs, and Morph Requests are the highest-level boards, and are also (confusingly) referred to in the interface as Categories. You can create your own boards within those higher-level boards, but make sure you choose a Category for each board you create, or you may have trouble locating it. Each image is posted onto the board that you specify, and is called a "pin", because the organizing principle of the imagebase is supposedly analogous to pinning related photographs and comments to a bulletin board.
—
gonZo
You called me impolite. (I freely admit that my tone was rather stiff. Sorry)
Look at it from the other side.
My current account, since '03 ( my first was trashed in "03 . Since day one I've been here)  I check in (daily) and I get this.
What am I to think?  Has the BEA been highjacked?  Format change with nothing working. splash screen auto redirects to sign up( it doesn't load correctly and it wants a credit card).  slow as hell, time outs, 404,503s with no consistency.
I can't even get to the forum because of time outs or error messages. 
Do I have a browser extension incompatibility? 
What is going on? Gee, I guess it's on me to figure it out.

No warning or notice (as far as I can tell from reading the forum)
Nice!

 
You just don't make a major format changes to a website with a long history without giving notice and warning.
Nor do you try to do it on the fly (that never works).  You test first, THEN migrate.

You also communicate the reasons for the changes. Give a somewhat detailed description of the changes along with an estimated (we all know things can and will go wrong. We will understand) time frame.

Sorry for being impolite. I'm sure it's my fault.   




 

 

[saibott]

Look at it from the other side.
My current account, since '03 ( my first was trashed in "03 . Since day one I've been here)  I check in (daily) and I get this.
What am I to think?  Has the BEA been highjacked?  Format change with nothing working. splash screen auto redirects to sign up( it doesn't load correctly and it wants a credit card).  slow as hell, time outs, 404,503s with no consistency.
I can't even get to the forum because of time outs or error messages. 
Do I have a browser extension incompatibility? 
What is going on? Gee, I guess it's on me to figure it out.

No warning or notice (as far as I can tell from reading the forum)
Nice!

 
You just don't make a major format changes to a website with a long history without giving notice and warning.
Nor do you try to do it on the fly (that never works).  You test first, THEN migrate.

You also communicate the reasons for the changes. Give a somewhat detailed description of the changes along with an estimated (we all know things can and will go wrong. We will understand) time frame.

Sorry for being impolite. I'm sure it's my fault.

Exactly what I've been uneloquently saying. Revert your site to the old with a link (make it however obnoxiously unmissable as you want) to test the new system until bugs are worked out, for the most part anyway, then replace it. As it stands now the site is a broken unnavigable mess, and you are alienating your client base with no telling how many have decided not to return.

[chilip99]

What happened to Chilli?
 

Yes, what happened to access to my story archive?

I stopped participating here years ago because despite promises from the former owner that I would have membership forever, for multiple reasons, including being the first person to contribute to his new server back in 1997/98, and the fact that I had created literally dozens of galleries for the wonderful artists who populated this site back in the day, I no longer had access behind the paywall. When I (twice) went through customer service (a definite contradiction in terms on this site), I was roundly ignored and simply decided this place was not worth my time, but I could at least access my story archive. Now, with this "upgrade," it's gone.

Can you please tell me (and the others) where it went? I'd really like to know.

Thanks,

Chili (I'm not dead) Palmer

[Adama]

For that matter, are any of the fiction galleries still there?  I know MarkT's story archive is no longer reachable now (I know it was removed from the front page years ago, but it was still accessible until a week ago).  What about Benji Dude's?  I think Cheviot's has already been mentioned as being missing.  I don't remember off the top of my head what other fiction galleries there were.

[blender]

What happened to Chilli?
 

Yes, what happened to access to my story archive?

I stopped participating here years ago because despite promises from the former owner that I would have membership forever, for multiple reasons, including being the first person to contribute to his new server back in 1997/98, and the fact that I had created literally dozens of galleries for the wonderful artists who populated this site back in the day, I no longer had access behind the paywall. When I (twice) went through customer service (a definite contradiction in terms on this site), I was roundly ignored and simply decided this place was not worth my time, but I could at least access my story archive. Now, with this "upgrade," it's gone.

Can you please tell me (and the others) where it went? I'd really like to know.

Thanks,

Chili (I'm not dead) Palmer

Holy shit!. It's a ghost.
How the hell are ya? I heard that you were dead. Captured by indians or eaten by wolves.
Hey, I hope things are going good for you. Good to hear from you even if the circumstances are less than ideal.

[blender]

For that matter, are any of the fiction galleries still there?  I know MarkT's story archive is no longer reachable now (I know it was removed from the front page years ago, but it was still accessible until a week ago).  What about Benji Dude's?  I think Cheviot's has already been mentioned as being missing.  I don't remember off the top of my head what other fiction galleries there were.

not that I can tell.
I tried Chili first, then the others. I got nothing.
But I can't interact  with any pages without the sign up page or an error page.
The forum excluded of course.  Even the forum is really wonky for me. 

[DerGerch]

Thank you Georg!

You provided a truly honest and constructive like feedback!!! We can work on that!!!

I am adding all your recommendations to our pending tasks/wish list so we can implement the fixes and features ASAP.

Thank you again!!!

Err... ok.
I am trying to stay polite. Though it is not easy. (*deepbreath*)

Look, I think I can understand you. You had this great idea to rejuvenate this time-honoured site. You put a lot of time and effort into it. And people don't appreciate it. You didn't expect this much negative reaction, and you didn't plan for putting even more time and effort into damage control.

But you have to face it: you messed up rather badly here. People are annoyed. Angry. Livid! With good reasons.

8. No announcment.
I was just trying to check the (old) user gallery when this totally different website sprang up. Had I clicked on the wrong link? I tried to reload. Same site: BEA logo somewhere almost unnoticable. I managed to find the forum. No message about a change. No announcement. No comment. Had the site been hacked (again)? I tried the chat. No one knew anything... but people were lamenting things that didn't work.
9. Not working features.
I wasn't even testing stuff... just trying to look at the new "pinboard". Site loads at whatever the standard "pins" are meant to be... I click on "User Galleries".... INSTANT SUBSCRIPTION SCREEN. Not even the 50 pin limit seems to work right now.
At least the site works at a reasonable speed now... let's see if that keeps during the day.
10. Missing features.
You killed Chilli's Archive? What the...? God damn, I knew I should have saved my favorite stories. Please fix that!
11. FEEDBACK!
Well, thank you for your lack of meaningful response to my 'honest and constructive feedback".
Again, I think I can understand you. I don't have the technical knowledge to build a website as complex as this one, but I know enough to understand that it is a complex, time-consuming and error-prone task.
Still, customer service, public relations and contact to your audience is part of the job.

So when one of them (like, me) asks you something (like, what do you think are the improvements of this train-wreck of a relaunch over the old working site), please don't respond with a form letter answer of "Thank you for your feedback, we are working on it.) It makes you sound like a politician.

In the opening post you wrote: "...we are doing what we should have done a long time ago..."
Why should you have done that?
The only thing that seems to be really new is this "everyone can create content now".
Was that necessary? Was there a huge number of people who wanted to create content, but were reluctant to create a free account?
Do people create more content now? Are people inspired to create content - that most people will never see, because they run into the SUB popup before being able to browse all the shiny new content?


I have been a registered member (on a different account) for a long time. I have never been a very active member. I almost never posted in the forum, I didn't contribute any content.
Now I started to make my own morphs and try to talk about them about half a year ago... and just now this board comes crashing down.

It hurts. Please don't kill this site with "innovation".

[Benji Dude]

For that matter, are any of the fiction galleries still there?  I know MarkT's story archive is no longer reachable now (I know it was removed from the front page years ago, but it was still accessible until a week ago).  What about Benji Dude's?  I think Cheviot's has already been mentioned as being missing.  I don't remember off the top of my head what other fiction galleries there were.

All my stuff is locked behind a paywall you may get the "50 free views/pins/whatever" if you're lucky.

Thankfully I've got copies of all my stuff (apart from addventure episodes) on my pc and available on my yahoo groups (yes they're still a thing!)

I'm still waiting for a responce to my concerns from my previous post. BotComics seems very selective in which posts to respond to.

---Edit---
Also noticed that any images I had hosted on my bea site for the adventure/forum no longer work... any chance of getting that fixed? Don't really want to use my business site for hosting smut.

[lurker]

I have an interesting question.

What legal rights does BotComics have with regard to commercial use of user-submitted content?

The only mention that I could find was:
"When posting their content, copyright holders or their representatives grant the BEA irrevocable perpetual license to display the posted content non-commercially in free-access areas of BEArchive."

But it explicitly does not address commercial usage, such as putting said comment behind a paywall.

So it is my understanding is that requiring paid membership to view user-submitted content (including the "past 50 pins" rule) may be in violation of their copyright.

Of course, I am not a lawyer so I may be wrong about it, therefore a clarification will be appreciated.

[BotComics Content]

Hi again.

I'll appreciate a few more days to read and answer all your questions and suggestions. Here I provide just a few answers:

"Missing Contents"
Firstly, I would like to respond some general question related to some "missing" parts of the previous website. As a general rule, if you know or you have a bookmark of a gallery, just add old. at the beginning of the URL you have and it should work.

Example: http://old.bearchive.com/~chili/

Priorities
We are working very hard to fix the bugs you are reporting, we are also trying to change the behavior related to the login/registration requirement to Addventure. Those are our priorities.

Performance
I would like to respond an specific question regarding performance. Yesterday we have been testing the whole site, including uploading some new pins and the speed on our end looks avergage. It's not fast (again, we know that) but it is reasonable usable here. If you have a performance issue, please send me an email to [email protected] and provide further information about the system you are using so we can research further.