news NamePros November 2021 – A new website and more!

[NamePros]

Welcome to the new NamePros in November!

Today marks the first step toward a lot of positive and exciting changes coming to NamePros. You'll notice that most of what you loved is still here, and we're working hard to bring back even more.

And that's only the beginning! We'll be bringing you regular updates, sometimes weekly, to add the features you've requested (please vote on features you want to see first!) and improve your experience.

Our mission is to build a thriving professional network around the best community – that's you! – where professionals can engage in civil discussions, ask questions, share advice, partner, transact, and succeed, all together.

We hope you'll have a look around, and let us know what you think!


All our best,

The NamePros Team

 

[VadimK]

I personally liked better when ''Like'', ''Agree'' and other ''reaction'' buttons were right there under, and you don't have to call them from a ''Quick reply'' tab.

 

[Paul]

The same quest about Likes every day...
@Paul - you should enable it OR find the way to inform all members: why silence on NamePros in November...
~Nobody reads this thread.

Our development team was in overdrive for about a month. I was working 18-hour days on a regular basis to ensure everything went smoothly. During that time, we migrated the site to temporary infrastructure optimized for the upgrade, and the code running the website was swapped out--the visual changes you see comprise the tip of the iceberg. Once we reached a point last week at which the deployment was moderately stable, I took a few days off to recover.

Most of my time this week will be dedicated to migrating the site back onto its permanent infrastructure. Although other developers will be fixing bugs and making improvements, most of those changes will not be deployed until after I've performed the final migration. You should not expect timely responses from me this week, and you should expect to see few changes.

Upgrading a large website like NamePros takes a lot more work than upgrading a small website. There are about a dozen servers and services that need to talk to each other, and everything needs to replicate to multiple datacenters to ensure no data is lost should one go up in flames. I know there are a lot of changes and fixes you would like to see, but my priority right now needs to be that migration. I appreciate your patience while I sort that out.

In the meantime, the moderators will be passing along bug reports to the rest of the development team. They should be your primary point of contact for now, but please keep in mind that they are tired as well.

 

[Paul]

Sorry to say... but this new theme is a bit more messy... and more difficult to find things.
The old one was more structured and easier to find things at first glance.
If it works, don't touch it
Anyway it's just my opinion

Our old forum software was discontinued several years ago. We were maintaining it on our own during that time, but it significantly slowed the rate at which we were able to fix bugs and introduce new features. It also meant that maintaining security was increasingly time-consuming.

Old is Gold .
No option to switch to the old vesrion ?


.

The underlying software has been replaced, so there's no way to switch back to the old design. That design isn't compatible with the new software we're using.

 

[Paul]

@Paul
I didn't ask you to provide: what is going under the hood and all other details from your life...
I just asked to inform all members (via email, banner etc.): why silence on NamePros.

There has not been silence, nor will there be. @Bravo Mod Team has been providing frequent responses to questions here and will continue to do so. I need to focus my attention elsewhere, or the issues you have raised will take longer to address.

 

[bmugford]

I have activated notifications. Still, in the alerts/notification side, this is a major downgrade for the NP website.

When I get in, the site seems dead. I'm not seeing any likes or whatever as it was. Even the reported sales thread appears like nobody is watching it anymore.

You need to put the old system of alerts back in. Or something that achieves the same.

Not all things are bad, some UI things look modern. But the new layout is entirely counter-productive as it is right now. Better UI, far worse UX.

I understand though that it's a work in progress since it's a major update.

I agree. What happened to notifications you would get for likes, thanks, agree, etc?

It was those that often lead me to go back to a thread and see what new content has been posted.

The site does seem far less active since the new update, but maybe that is just me.

A lot of the stuff is just hard to find or get used to.

Brad

 

[Future Sensors]

@Bravo Mod Team I gave you a Thanks, but immediately adjusted those points with minus 1. Just for testing purposes, I don't know what I'm doing. Don't take it personally

I'd rather see the old like, dislike, agree, disagree system without any additional points option. Simply because I don't understand all this. And, the more buttons, the more distraction.

Would be good to see the likes again in the alert stream. I'm not feeling the ambiance right now, and what's happening on the forum. I'm missing important and nuanced feedback, which has a negative effect on participation.

 

[lovely4ever]

Old is Gold .
No option to switch to the old vesrion ?


.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Would be good to see the likes again in the alert stream.

I agree, it is important to know and get an alert for what post people like for feedback, and also an alert for dislike/disagree . . . This will help us post better content.

Coming soon.

 

[Sutruk]

Sorry to say... but this new theme is a bit more messy... and more difficult to find things.
The old one was more structured and easier to find things at first glance.
If it works, don't touch it
Anyway it's just my opinion

 

[Digital Nomad]

So basically, if I collect an awful lot of points in the What are you listening to at the moment section, I can use those impactful points in other sections with more serious discussions. That's just an example, of course.

Or in the welcome thread, which I've seen many people do. Free irrelevant impact points = more power = possible abuse

 

[Crysis]

Our development team was in overdrive for about a month. I was working 18-hour days on a regular basis to ensure everything went smoothly. During that time, we migrated the site to temporary infrastructure optimized for the upgrade, and the code running the website was swapped out--the visual changes you see comprise the tip of the iceberg. Once we reached a point last week at which the deployment was moderately stable, I took a few days off to recover.

Most of my time this week will be dedicated to migrating the site back onto its permanent infrastructure. Although other developers will be fixing bugs and making improvements, most of those changes will not be deployed until after I've performed the final migration. You should not expect timely responses from me this week, and you should expect to see few changes.

Upgrading a large website like NamePros takes a lot more work than upgrading a small website. There are about a dozen servers and services that need to talk to each other, and everything needs to replicate to multiple datacenters to ensure no data is lost should one go up in flames. I know there are a lot of changes and fixes you would like to see, but my priority right now needs to be that migration. I appreciate your patience while I sort that out.

In the meantime, the moderators will be passing along bug reports to the rest of the development team. They should be your primary point of contact for now, but please keep in mind that they are tired as well.

Thank you for the great work, Paul. Kudos to you and all the Namepros Staff. We really appreciate your hardwork and effort!

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Is there a way to do it? Or is it in the pipe line.........

Coming soon. In the meantime, auctions can be viewed at the following links:

• https://www.namepros.com/forums/domain-auctions.63/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/liquid-domains.338/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/numeric-domains.351/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/brandable-domains.364/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/traffic-domains.119/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/bargain-bin.168/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/new-generic-top-level-domain-new-gtld.300/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/country-code-top-level-domain-cctld.120/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/adult-domains-for-sale.70/?prefix_id=325
• https://www.namepros.com/forums/internationalized-domain-name-idn-incl-emoji.121/?prefix_id=325

That took a while to visit them all; looking forward to the feature coming back.

 

[twiki]

This new look is less compact and gives me headache.

Edit: Design wise yes it looks newer but I doubt about usability. I hate all these new designs where you can only see little, there's so much space wasted and you have to scroll a ton to read a full page.

It's all about looks, less about efficiency.

 

[oldtimer]

It’s important to note that it’s not anonymous; it’s just not public. Moderators can already see it, so if there is abuse, we can address it. It will also likely be visible to the top 1% of active members, but that’s sometime in the future.

You are basically going to depend on the integrity of the members here not to abuse this system, and although most members are going to use this in a proper manner, but we all know that there are a few less honorable members here on the forum who are going to down vote others because of some sick grievances and issues that they have developed in their own minds about them.

Nevertheless anyone who down votes me is going to be swimming with the fishes in the Metaverse

 

[TCK]

This up/down voting system is open to abuse. You should get rid of it or allow to see the usernames of the voters like with likes/dislikes/thanks/agree.

I just noticed you can keep voting up and down as often as you like. This can present a problem.

 

[Paul]

Like so far what I gather, they are used to weight a post, and can be done multiple times.. something along those lines. What's the limitations, where do the points come from (from our own point bank to give out, or is an unlimited thing), and also seems as though they aren't tracked and remain anonymous.

• At the moment, they don't really weight posts--they behave just like the old system, albeit more granular. Once we've polished it a bit, we might use it weight posts or threads in some capacity.
• The number of up/downvotes you can give to any single post depends on your own score. The higher your impact, the more votes you can give to a single piece of content.
• Voting does not subtract from your own points.
• You can see who offered which quick replies (Like, Thank, etc.) by clicking the number next to any quick reply.
• I don't believe we've enabled the ability to see how people voted on content for now, but that could change.

 

[bmugford]

So basically, if I collect an awful lot of points in the What are you listening to at the moment section, I can use those impactful points in other sections with more serious discussions. That's just an example, of course.

Hmm. That seems like a pretty bad structure IMO.

Brad

 

[Sutruk]

OK my humble feedback...

1. Up and Down arrows are needless. Stick to the Thanks, Likes and Agrees. If possible, with visible buttons like before.
Now the system is less intuitive. Members have to make extra work now with mouse over the chat icon, and then click.
Not to mention the possibility of voting one post many times with the arrows... I really don't understand that. Also it does not show who voted up, down, and how many times. Keep it simple

2. The pinned first post of every thread, also needless. People now have to scroll more down to get to see the first post of every page. Again, more extra work to do with the scroll wheel.

3. Where's https://www.namepros.com/account/reactions ? The list of the given Likes/Thanks/Agrees/Dislikes/Disagrees

4. The "New Posts" on the right column. Better showing the last 6 new posts. Now it only shows the last 3. The "Latest News" right column shows the last 6 news.

Just a few feedback points, in my opinion, and always hoping to improve this amazing forum.

Edit: Another extra one:

5. Now on the avatar at every post, at first glance you just can see the number of likes (impact!) of the member. It was very useful to see also at first glance the number of "Messages" of the member.
Now you have to click on the avatar to see that info. Again, an extra click to see something.

 

[Paul]

Silence due to lack of alerts!
And 99%+ of NamePros members don't read this thread and ask about this issue again and again (daily)...
That's why just banner or email is necessary to inform them.
Is it so hard to understand???

People generally don't appreciate mass emails, and the people who are most likely to have a hard time adapting to the change tend not to notice banners. We'll handle the support requests as they come in.

This issue is already reported by MANY members!
As for me personally: I don't need this forum at all, I can live without it easily!

It doesn't matter how many people report it; no changes can be made to that system until the issue explained here is addressed. Complaints cannot change that. Continuing to tag me in this thread will slow down the process, not speed it up. That's just the reality of the situation.

 

[Digital Nomad]

Currently, just points on posts. Eventually, it will include other things, such as member reports that helped the community, lack of warnings received, etc.


Yes, these are set to the same as before: 0 points for disagree; -1 point for dislike; and +1 point for like, agree, and thanks.

We’ll eventually add a lot more quick reply options (formerly called reactions), such as “Love” for +2 points.

Note: You cannot exceed your influence. If your influence is a maximum of +2 points per post, you will only be able to assign +2 points to my post, even if you love it (+2) and agree with it (+1), which is a total of +3.

It’s a super sophisticated system that is eventually going to be part of community moderation. But from your perspective, it’s simpler:

You simply quick reply with the words or phrases that fit what you think/feel, and optionally, look at the points that were automatically assigned as a result of your quick replies. If you think the post deserves more or less points, you can adjust them manually.

For example, a lot of members used to add a Like and add an Agree to posts before because they wanted to give the post +2 points. Now you can just give the post +2 points without needing to use quick replies if you want.

Please add a "LOL" option.

 

[Future Sensors]

I'm sure the development team will roll out a lot of small improvements pretty soon. They are power users of this forum themselves, and most certainly experience the same annoyances as well. The main upgrade to the new forum software was a monumental task, and technically for a large part invisible to the end-users. Now that it's done, it's time to further improve and fine-tune UI and UX.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

I have noticed that every day one more NP member posts in this thread the same question...

For what it's worth, several of the requests made in this thread have already been addressed; we'll provide an update soon about which ones.

Unfortunately, certain requests require more time to do than others, but you are aware that we are aware of them, so now would be the time to exercise some restraint and patience. As Paul said, getting upset about it taking longer than you'd like isn't going to speed it up.

In other news:

You may be happy to know that there will soon be a list of all quick replies that you've received, so you won't miss any; you'll be able to scroll through and see them all once it's added. Does that help with the urgency?

We hope so.

 

[Ostrados]

Nice.. but the mobile version is confusingly bulky each post occupies 2/3 of the screen.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

The endless anonymous (without signature) dislikes via your new DOWNarrow button!
Why you created this paradise for trolls?!