Forum migrated, please report issues!

[Admin]

Hi guys! I've been working on an updated version of EBR, and this launched a few days ago. One change we made simultaneously was to move the forums from /forums/ to a subdomain forums.electricbikereview and that reset some of the permissions. I apologize for the downtime that was experienced these past few days. I was expecting this to work seamlessly, and had hired consultants to help with the migration. After three days of petitioning for their help, I dove in myself and figured it out! I'm still making adjustments and welcome any feedback about issues that you might be having here. I also welcome feedback about the new EBR design.

Sincerely,
Court

 

[DaveMatthews]

Hi guys! I've been working on an updated version of EBR, and this launched a few days ago. One change we made simultaneously was to move the forums from /forums/ to a subdomain forums.electricbikereview and that reset some of the permissions. I apologize for the downtime that was experienced these past few days. I was expecting this to work seamlessly, and had hired consultants to help with the migration. After three days of petitioning for their help, I dove in myself and figured it out! I'm still making adjustments and welcome any feedback about issues that you might be having here. I also welcome feedback about the new EBR design.

Sincerely,
Court

Thanks Court!
There were a few of us going through withdrawal, but all good now mate!

 

[J.R.]

The new EBR looks great and is so easy to use. Scrolling, swiping is fast and easy. I haven't tried every aspect of the review site, but I really like it so far. Very professional. Well done

 

[Deacon Blues]

A 'heads-up" would have been nice.

 

[AlanDB]

As always Court, thanks for your efforts and for providing this forum. My only disappointment is that you don't personally participate in the forum like you used to. But that said, I understand priorities. Thanks again for your work in resolving the issues in the new version.

 

[Admin]

Thanks for the great replies here, guys. @Deacon Blues I expected the transition to be seamless, to have 301 redirects, and for hard links to all be updated in our database at launch... let alone have the permissions preserved. I had mapped all of this out, but many steps were missed, I've stepped in to manually perform fixes at times but also taking the approach of documenting and informing the team so we don't end up with re-work or confusion. I'm sorry for the delays, very difficult for me to watch from the sidelines at times. All of this has been significantly overdue and over budget, I've learned a lot of patience, but we are also taking the site farther than ever because of specialized members contributing to code. This is party of why I have been less active here recently @AlanDB but I appreciate your positivity and recognition of the time I spent in the forums when they first launched in 2013/2014. I am hoping to improve some of the colors and accessibility here to make this area more consistent with the new site. I'm open to suggestions and requests

@DaveMatthews I'm so glad to welcome you here, and appreciate your passion and contributions. @J.R. thanks for the encouragement about the design decisions. I cut so much scope from the original vision based on execution challenges. I wanted to merge the site and forums more, but my hopes were not congruent with the timeline, skills, and budget we've had. I built much of the original site myself, then had a really good programmer at one point who could take it farther. I'm grateful for how far we had come leading up to this new platform, and have been doing my best to create something special with the new team. I've been splitting my time between filming, product management, operations, and a touch of programming. EBR remains fully private, has limited ads, and I strive to keep it authentic.

Please experiment with the new search, categories (inclusive and exclusive), as well as the filters. You can even filter from within brand now, and really narrow down the results. There are some AMAZING possibilities with this new site, and we will be adding more bikes (entire brands) in the coming months that will really increase the power of the filters and compare tool. Rock on!

 

[Art Deco]

Thanks for the great replies here, guys. @Deacon Blues I expected the transition to be seamless, to have 301 redirects, and for hard links to all be updated in our database at launch... let alone have the permissions preserved. I had mapped all of this out, but many steps were missed, I've stepped in to manually perform fixes at times but also taking the approach of documenting and informing the team so we don't end up with re-work or confusion. I'm sorry for the delays, very difficult for me to watch from the sidelines at times. All of this has been significantly overdue and over budget, I've learned a lot of patience, but we are also taking the site farther than ever because of specialized members contributing to code. This is party of why I have been less active here recently @AlanDB but I appreciate your positivity and recognition of the time I spent in the forums when they first launched in 2013/2014. I am hoping to improve some of the colors and accessibility here to make this area more consistent with the new site. I'm open to suggestions and requests

@DaveMatthews I'm so glad to welcome you here, and appreciate your passion and contributions. @J.R. thanks for the encouragement about the design decisions. I cut so much scope from the original vision based on execution challenges. I wanted to merge the site and forums more, but my hopes were not congruent with the timeline, skills, and budget we've had. I built much of the original site myself, then had a really good programmer at one point who could take it farther. I'm grateful for how far we had come leading up to this new platform, and have been doing my best to create something special with the new team. I've been splitting my time between filming, product management, operations, and a touch of programming. EBR remains fully private, has limited ads, and I strive to keep it authentic.

Please experiment with the new search, categories (inclusive and exclusive), as well as the filters. You can even filter from within brand now, and really narrow down the results. There are some AMAZING possibilities with this new site, and we will be adding more bikes (entire brands) in the coming months that will really increase the power of the filters and compare tool. Rock on!

Actually pretty impressed with your jumping in and getting it going on your own. And I believe I speak for others that have spent way too much time wrestling with someone else's code.

 

[JGcycle]

I know how challenging working with code can be--great work. I have noticed that when I click on the "your content" link, it only shows content that I have posted since the changeover. Otherwise, everything seems to be working great. Thanks so much for all your hard work maintaining this fine forum.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Court: Not sure what you people did but the links to EBR Forum posts do not work on Facebook. Yes, I'm talking the new posts.

Please click this FB link (it is a Public post):

Facebook

www.facebook.com

Then, click the link in the FB post. The link does not work.

It makes sharing EBR Forums links impractical, why?

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Thanks to @Court for coming up with EBR and to everyone involved in keeping it going. Excellent content, remarkably civil for the internet, and generally runs smoothly.

However, started a thread titled something like "Difference between touring and adventure cycling?" roughly 2-3 weeks before migration. Generated several lively pages. Then it vanished around the time of migration. No search hits now.

Addendum: Also, all entries prior to July 30, 2023 have vanished from my content list. Only 2 of more than 10 pages remain.

 

[Rexlion]

A couple days ago I added a signature line and saved it, but it doesn't appear in my posts. Is that the sort of issue you want us to report?

 

[Gionnirocket]

@Stefan Mikes is still an @$§¿©][

 

[Admin]

Thanks for all of the feedback! I am working to resolve the issues that have been mentioned. If you continue to see issues, please share them below with details so I can help

 

[etchlings]

Good effort! I know as a former web front end guy that this stuff often behaves in unforeseen ways! Sorry you had to jump in without the help you hoped for. And it didn’t completely go down, which is a boon.

The initial huge issue where old /forums links didnt work, on google results or directly from the forum, have resolved to all (afaik) point to the new “forums.” address.

My issue and maybe unrelated to the migration? seems that as a new user (a week now), I have no New Post permission. Every time I try to post a new topic in any forum, the post is invisible and says “Awaiting approval before being displayed publicly.” on it in my profile. I can reply to older posts just fine though.

 

[DaveMatthews]

I see blue buttons/frames/headers now instead of green.

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

Court, I just want to thank you for everything you've done and continue to do, with this great forum and everything else related to Ebikes. This is still, hands-down, the best forum for ebikes in the world and it all goes back to you.

 

[PatriciaK]

I like the blue!

 

[Admin]

Thanks for the continued feedback! Yes @PetriciaK the blue was chosen to make text more legible because the light greens were difficult for some of my family and friends here to read. I hope this is better, providing higher contrast

@Mike TowpathTraveler thanks for the encouragement. The EBR forums have been around for many years now, I think since 2014? There have been challenges with spam posts, with moderation, and I've always tried to balance how much advertising goes on here. My goal was to create a space that isn't owned by the brands or slanted by advertising and affiliate links. I hope it continues to help people choose the best ebike for their budget and lifestyle for years to come! It's also meant to be shared with shop owners and people from all across the industry, where everyone feels welcome and can share their perspective.

@DaveMatthews yes! That's an update that I'm working to refine a bit. It should match the main site better, and also improve contrast for people who might have trouble reading small text, especially on small screens. I welcome feedback and input, some of these changes have been more abrupt and imperfect than I would like, but we are moving forward and I'm trying to tidy up along the way.

@etchlings thanks for calling this out! I wonder if this is a permissions issue. I can see your reply here, but you're talking about creating new threads entirely, correct? I visited your profile and saw a post "Hallo! Calsual rider, from Mid-Atlantic..." and another one "If price was the same... R&M Nevo..." and both are in not-published status. Did you delete them or are those the ones you wish to have live? https://forums.electricbikereview.com/members/etchlings.60212/#latest-activity

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Thanks for the continued feedback! Yes @PetriciaK the blue was chosen to make text more legible because the light greens were difficult for some of my family and friends here to read. I hope this is better, providing higher contrast

@Mike TowpathTraveler thanks for the encouragement. The EBR forums have been around for many years now, I think since 2014? There have been challenges with spam posts, with moderation, and I've always tried to balance how much advertising goes on here. My goal was to create a space that isn't owned by the brands or slanted by advertising and affiliate links. I hope it continues to help people choose the best ebike for their budget and lifestyle for years to come! It's also meant to be shared with shop owners and people from all across the industry, where everyone feels welcome and can share their perspective.

@DaveMatthews yes! That's an update that I'm working to refine a bit. It should match the main site better, and also improve contrast for people who might have trouble reading small text, especially on small screens. I welcome feedback and input, some of these changes have been more abrupt and imperfect than I would like, but we are moving forward and I'm trying to tidy up along the way.

@etchlings thanks for calling this out! I wonder if this is a permissions issue. I can see your reply here, but you're talking about creating new threads entirely, correct? I visited your profile and saw a post "Hallo! Calsual rider, from Mid-Atlantic..." and another one "If price was the same... R&M Nevo..." and both are in not-published status. Did you delete them or are those the ones you wish to have live? https://forums.electricbikereview.com/members/etchlings.60212/#latest-activity

Really like the new blue color scheme overall, but the regular text and link colors are now harder to distinguish in some lighting conditions. Maybe blue links that aren't quite so dark to better contrast with black text? Boldface?

Thanks!

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

Thanks for the continued feedback! Yes @PetriciaK the blue was chosen to make text more legible because the light greens were difficult for some of my family and friends here to read. I hope this is better, providing higher contrast

@Mike TowpathTraveler thanks for the encouragement. The EBR forums have been around for many years now, I think since 2014? There have been challenges with spam posts, with moderation, and I've always tried to balance how much advertising goes on here. My goal was to create a space that isn't owned by the brands or slanted by advertising and affiliate links. I hope it continues to help people choose the best ebike for their budget and lifestyle for years to come! It's also meant to be shared with shop owners and people from all across the industry, where everyone feels welcome and can share their perspective.

Court, I was riding my Specialized Fatboy for a couple years when I lucked out and "stumbled" on your site & in particular, your ebike reviews. This was about 2016 or so. I was riding that fatbike everywhere but after one 85 mile canal towpath ride, I was drained for several days afterwards. Not good for a "cardiac patient"! It was around that time that you had reviewed the Felt Outfitter and the Haibike FatSix. I was impressed by the build and technology of these fatbikes, but more so, very impressed with your fairness and impartiality within the reviews.

It was only timing and luck that Haibike came out with the Full FatSix powered by the Yamaha PW drive and you were there with your review, that I felt fully armed with enough information put out by you, to commit to buying a 2016 model year Full FatSix. That was back in April, 2017. So there you go, Court; your H-Bike reviews did everything in convincing me towards which bike to buy. And it turned out to be one of the best purchases I've ever made in my life! And I want to thank you for that; for if not for you and your great reviews, I would have been completely in the dark as to which bike to buy.

The Full FatSix is still running perfectly, some 6 years later. Going on 19 thousand, trouble free miles. And it's just as great to see the forum still thriving, with you at the helm, after all these years. The forum posters are like the friends I have never met. Your reviews and the insights provided on this forum, mean the world to me.