The CGC Journals Migration 1 1

[buttock]

I tried to look at the journals the other day and found it completely uninterpretable.  

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, buttock said:

I tried to look at the journals the other day and found it completely uninterpretable.  

A group of us feel that way buttock. I'd be interested to see how participation has been affected. And views. I think my opening summary sums it up. Too many cons. And not fair on those who put so much effort into their journals. 

[Harry Lime]

Scott was very obliging to me with my request to move my journal thread into the SA forum but I must admit I'm not totally happy with it being there. I feel I'm intruding upon the general love affair with high grade books with my low grade examples and irrational views. On a wider aspect it feels like the move to the bloggy format has killed off the journalistic endeavours of many long standing members. Although it was never the most populous of areas (unless you were terrible at selling comics) it must have garnered more views and discussion than it's trendy new step-son will ever do, sorry for the mixed tenses. The whole point of a forum is views and discussion, the new journal area seems like a substantial setback in that regard and I would hope that the powers that be acknowledge this and allow us to frolic in our old playground again.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Harry Lime

[Get Marwood & I]

7 minutes ago, Harry Lime said:

Scott was very obliging to me with my request to move my journal thread into the SA forum but I must admit I'm not totally happy with it being there. I feel I'm intruding upon the general love affair with high grade books with my low grade examples and irrational views. On a wider aspect it feels like the move to the bloggy format has killed off the journalistic endeavours of many long standing members. Although it was never the most populous of areas (unless you were terrible at selling comics) it must have garnered more views and discussion than it's trendy new step-son will ever do, sorry for the mixed tenses. The whole point of a forum is views and discussion, the new journal area seems like a substantial setback in that regard and I would hope that the powers that be acknowledge this and allow us to frolic in old playground again.

[AJD]

I'm with Harry. My journal is in the gold area, and I'm aware that not everyone likes journals 'cluttering up' the joint. I also self-censor a bit more now, and have pretty much stopped posting anything that isn't golden age related.

[oldmilwaukee6er]

On 9/22/2018 at 11:40 AM, Get Marwood & I Are Not Dead said:

And yet look at his 'activity' and you see he has another journal:

Why doesn't this show? Why wasn't it migrated?

@Get Marwood & I Are Not Dead- for what it's worth... the two postings of mine that migrated over were Journals that I posted while in the Registry side of CGC's website (one in 2012 and one in 2015). 

Whereas my large journal was a 'thread' that I maintained in the Jounals subforum and hence why (I think) it did not migrate over. 

[Scott =)]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. A couple tweaks have been made already based on your comments:

1. "By Author" has been removed from the main menu. Analytics showed it was being clicked/used significantly less frequently than "Latest Entries", and you can still access the "By Author" view by using this toggle:
2. "Latest Entries" in the main menu has been renamed to "All Journals". Hopefully this makes it easier to understand the purpose of each option under "Journals" in the main menu.
3. The tooltips seen in the image above have been clarified (ex: "Organize by Author").

Other changes are still in progress:

1. I asked the boards vendor to look into the sorting issue with journals in the sidebar. There seems to be a caching issue causing it to be sorted incorrectly sometimes, and actions like making edits to an existing journal may also be affecting the sorting in unwanted ways.
2. We DO have the ability to make "Last Reply" the default sort option instead of "Start Date", which would reduce 4 clicks to 2 clicks. But there are a couple issues with "Last Reply" sorting that I'd like to get fixed before considering making it the default.

 

----

 

I also want to clarify the situation of certain old journal entries not being migrated, such as the ones by oldmilwaukee6er and Hepcat. I touched on this in the original announcement thread, but I'll explain it in more detail this time.

The Journals feature was originally introduced on Collectors Society over 10 years ago. After several years, a feature was added that allowed authors to cross post Collectors Society journal entries to the Chat Boards so that others could reply. Some authors took advantage of that feature, and many didn't.

We never intended to allow journal entries to be created directly in the Journals section on the Chat Boards (bypassing Collectors Society), but a broken setting made it possible for an unknown period of time. Hepcat's thread is one example of a journal entry that was created directly on the Chat Boards, and so is the thread by oldmilwaukee6er quoted above. Not many threads were created like this.

The boards vendor was supposed to migrate all existing journal entries to the new journals area as we transitioned to the new Chat Boards in early 2017. Anticipating that migration, we removed the journals features from the CS site. Unfortunately, the boards vendor strung us along about the migration for months, and then ultimately said they wouldn't do it. The result was that every journal entry originally created on Collectors Society and not cross-posted to the Chat Boards was missing. That's almost 1300 journal entries, not even including coin/note entries. Those of you who only use the Chat Boards might not have noticed anything was wrong, but the missing entries were a big deal to Collectors Society users. Getting those journal entries back online was one of the main goals of our recent migration.

Earlier this year, we reached out to the boards vendor again to explain our disappointment at that situation and figure out a resolution. They eventually agreed to migrate our old Collectors Society journal database into the new journals area, but wouldn't help with any of the following:

1. Migrating journals that were created directly on the Chat Boards into the new journal area (this is why that Hepcat/oldmilwaukee journals aren't listed in the new journals area).
2. Migrating replies from old journal entries into the new journal area (they only agreed to add a link to the old thread).
3. Migrating CS journal entries into the old journals area on the chat boards.

In an ideal world, we would have done some of those things ourselves since the boards vendor wasn't willing to help. Unfortunately, that's not possible because we don't have access to the Chat Boards database. We rely on the vendor for data / migration oriented tasks 

[Get Marwood & I]

Thanks for the response and additional information @Scott =)

I'm not looking for tweaks to the new journals myself as I find them unusable as I've said. It doesn't really matter how many clicks it takes to get to them, or how they are configured frankly. Those elements are just irksome. The real problem is the top level format which is awful for all the reasons stated in this and other threads. As a result, the journals are now disparate and invisible.

What I want to know - and it looks like I'm not alone - is can the old ones be reinstated? If the answer is no, and the current position isn't going to change, please just say so and I will leave it. 

I've deleted my own new journals as they served their purpose and I don't want to encourage others to use them. I'm trying to do the right thing here Scott so please meet me half way with a reply. I think that the journals migration was ill conceived and the resulting position has diminished participation. That is why I am pursuing this - I assume CGC would not want new functionality to drive away it's forum members so I'm banging the drum to see if we can undo what appears to be a widely unpopular move.

That question again: can the old ones be reinstated in one location in the old format?

[Scott =)]

That seems unlikely.

I think a more likely outcome would be for us to create a new forum section, not branded as "CGC Journals", but otherwise similar to the old section. 

We could set it up to allow new threads to be created, and we could migrate threads from the old journals section there too if authors requested it.

We would just need to come up with a name for it... 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Scott =) said:

That seems unlikely.

I think a more likely outcome would be for us to create a new forum section, not branded as "CGC Journals", but otherwise similar to the old section. 

We could set it up to allow new threads to be created, and we could migrate threads from the old journals section there too if authors requested it.

We would just need to come up with a name for it... 

How about 'Barry'? 

[Get Marwood & I]

Dranzer?

[Get Marwood & I]

outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed?

[Get Marwood & I]

I've got it @Scott =) 

Call it "Would the last person please turn the lights off"

Catchy and relevant 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Monkey tennis?

[bababooey]

[Get Marwood & I]

Triple Bs arrived 

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, Get Marwood & I Live! said:

Triple Bs arrived 

Don't call it that though. 

[Get Marwood & I]

Anyway, thanks for replying Scott. Maybe a few others will chip in later. Nightime in Englandville. See ya... 

[Get Marwood & I]

Morning @Scott =) 

Well, would you look at that. Total apathy. 

Well, I believed in the cause but clearly no one else does. I couldn't even rely on my buddies for some banter. But hey, they only follow me.

Do as you will Scott. Do as you will. 

[Wall-Crawler]

 

16 hours ago, Scott =) said:

That seems unlikely.

I think a more likely outcome would be for us to create a new forum section, not branded as "CGC Journals", but otherwise similar to the old section. 

We could set it up to allow new threads to be created, and we could migrate threads from the old journals section there too if authors requested it.

We would just need to come up with a name for it... 

I support this idea...I think if the change was made and it was "like the old one" that people would "come back".

As for a name? 

CGC Board Chronicles?

CGC Board Confessions? 

CGC Bulletin? Daily? Logbook? Notebook? 

I know those are not the best but thought I would offer something semi serious...