I’ve said this more or less before, but I’m going to say it again, and then I’ll stop. I click on, say, the Landscape Gallery just to look at the wonderful photos. I click on the first, and it opens to the medium image size view with the photographer’s comments. I enjoy. I now want to move to the next photo and enjoy it, but there’s no “next” button. I have to execute a series of mouse clicks to go back to the previous page, find the next image thumbnail, and click on it. Seems like a lot of “work”. Am I just being lazy?
Also, my vote is all galleries should be listed in original-posting-date order. That way the order is static. I like static.
You used to see all of the images of a member with a single click from any of his images. Now you (1) click on his icon next to his/her image (2) click on a larger icon (3) click on activity (4) click on topics.
I rather liked giving the user the ability to sort on either the create_date or last_comment_date, and have those dates displayed.
I think there are a ton of good things here, but I agree on the clicks. Also, I used to be able to jump on and look at all the new photos very easily. Now I know I miss some. If I like someone’s work, I have no idea how to look at all their other posted work. Logging off needs to be improved too. It’s not easy on the phone version of the app.
It’s new.
Editing this post to add that I find so many good things here that they might outweigh the things I find difficult. Time will tell. It is obvious the creators are doing a lot of work to make this a great site. I hope they take these comments in the spirit that they are made.
After about a week of being on NewNPN this is the way I see some of the issues brought up in this post, as well in some other related ones. One thing that I want to say from the start is that I don’t know how many of these things that we would like to see done some other way are mandated by the platform on which NewNPN is built, and thus there is not much that can be done about it, but I suspect that this is the case for many if not most of them. I also want to say that I truly appreciate the enormous amount of effort that David and Jennifer are putting into this and that, from my experience of maintaining two simple personal websites, I have a full appreciation of how difficult it can be to make things look good and simple, and how much sweat goes unnoticed in the final product.
So, this is what I think is the root of the issue. Whether by design or by constrictions imposed by the platform, NewNPN follows a “Social Media Light” model. I for one deplore social media, do not belong to any “channel”, and consider social media to be the greatest threat to human civilization to arise since the last one came down in flames on May 7, 1945 (I’m not kidding, but explaining why would get me into sociological, historical and political arguments, so I won’t). Having said this, I also realize that it is the current “fashion” or “trend”, and that it is here to stay, no matter what I and a few other dinosaurs may think about it. I also confess that out of curiosity I signed on to Facebook around 2010, and promptly closed my account after a month or so. In 2012 or 2013 I made the mistake of trying 500px, thinking that that was not the same thing. It took me a couple of days to realize that it is exactly the same thing as any other social media “channel”: a popularity contest and a platform for narcissists to collect adulation from the adoring masses. Ditto for 1x, but….ohhh….they are so hip…
What I see is that NewNPN is a bit like 500px. Not nearly as bad, of course, but the basic premise is there: unless an image gets a comment soon after it is posted, it is quickly buried under new posts. The more comments an image gets, the more frequently it “bobs up” and thus the more likely it will be that it will get new comments and stay in the first “page” or two. Sounds familiar? This is the antithesis of “static”, and it is the reason why you cannot have it both ways. If the software is designed with a “Social Media” philosophy, then it can never show you the images in the order in which they were posted (or it may be able to do so but at an exorbitant cost in computing and storage resources). If you want a static platform then it will not be able to follow the social media paradigm that millennials grew up with and like, and the site will die of old age, as happened to OldNPN.
As to why no “next” button, I think that there may be a couple of issues at work here. In the Social Media model as I described it above there is no “next” because the system is dynamic, it is constantly updating depending on which was the image that was last commented on. I can see a number of situations in which, depending on exactly when an image is clicked on, the next button will take you recursively to the same image that you are trying to move away from. I realize that my software skills may be a bit dated (Fortran, C and R are all I can do) and that there may be better ways to deal with this now, but perhaps not on the cheap if one wishes to be absolutely certain that the system will not hang up under any circumstances, no matter what unlikely combination of inputs it may get. Alternatively, it may just be “fashion”: social media leads to short attention spans, so you don’t want to waste time looking at the next thirty seven images that you know you will not be interested in, if all you want to do is get to the image of your buddy that you want to comment on. It is easier to do this with the thumbnails.
Awwwright - this has gone on too long. In my defense I’m in bed with a horrible cold and little to do. I will finish by saying this. I like NewNPN a lot, despite issues such as the ones that I describe above. I think that the decision to separate critique from galleries was an excellent one, and it was probably the main factor in my decision to return to NPN, for reasons that I explain in my “Introduce yourself to the community” entry. I realize that many of the things that one would like changed may not be changeable owing to platform constraints (even getting my WordPress theme to do what I want it to do is more often than not a losing battle), and I am happy to accept NewNPN with all of its “imperfections”, because even with those it is a mighty beautiful site and a unique resource. Thank you again David and Jennifer for making this possible!
I can understand the frustration with too many clicks compared to the old site, I have been looking into the possibility of adding a next button before responding to this and I am not seeing a way to achieve this unfortunately. I like the idea but we are working within some of the software limitations. I will continue to look for ways to achieve this, but right now it’s not possible.
Galleries and critique forums are set up this way, they are in chronological order by the original post date and do not get bumped up by new replies. You will only see this behavior if you go to ‘Latest’.
Sorry Igor, as we have discussed before there is no easier way to see all of the users posts than what you described.
You can do this! Just look for the ‘New’ button on the top of the home page. If you go to New on the homepage it will show you all the new posts since the last time you visited. If you first go to a category and then click the New button it will only show you new posts from that category.
This is a bit harder now, as Igor described above you have to click the users avatar, click on the large avatar again to go to their profile, click on activity, click on posts to see all of their posts. I would like to improve this but I don’t think it will be possible anytime soon unfortunately.
@Alberto_Patino-Douce there’s a lot to cover here but I will keep it simple. Essentially what you do not like is the ‘Latest’ feed, if you stay away from this I think you will be much happier. First off, as I described above if you go to the New button this will show you everything new since your last visit. Or, if you simply go to a category of gallery or critique these are displayed in chronological order from the original post date, new replies will not bump the topic to the top of the list. So essentially you can use it like a social media style if you use latest, or more traditional if you go to New or just go directly to the category. We absolutely do not want this to be anything like 500px, instagram, or facebook. I also despise social media and the strive for popularity.
Hi David
Well, I don’t want my “avatar” sitting up there all the time like I’m perched on the site when I’m not. It isn’t because I think the site is “tracking” other activity . I pretty much sign out of all the sites I am a member of if I am done using them. Anyway, I have pretty much solved the problem by not using my phone as much to come to the site. The photos are certainly better on larger screens!
@Kathy_Snead If you are logged on and are either inactive with NPN on screen, or you leave the site, your avatar will remain visible for about five minutes and then disappear.
-p