ᐅ What do you think of the new design of the house building forum?

In der Ruine schrieb:
But that is not the credit of the forum operator. With the domain, it basically runs itself.

The domain is so well chosen that it was practically self-sustaining even when a huge amount of advertising should have caused a significant handicap factor on the search engines. At times, I had to drastically reduce my writing here because the ads severely slowed down page loading times in all browsers. My suspicion is that such effects on the search engines led the admin to reconsider the approach. Currently, it seems that even external links are allowed. Even SEO beginners have long known that external links to authoritative sources within the same field improve ranking; nevertheless, until recently, even links to the most trustworthy sources were removed here.

Using the forum on mobile was almost impossible at times: with an ad blocker it wouldn’t work at all, and without it, the ad traffic was almost like a denial-of-service attack on the mobile browser and used up a month’s inclusive data volume within half a week. In some cases, ads from the same advertiser even overlapped and refreshed with every scroll. Some ads were completely pointless, for example, promoting a planning software for sheet pile walls for the Suez Canals (something likely needed by only a handful of companies worldwide) in a forum targeted at home builders. In December, AI-based ad optimization made things worse by constantly showing me ads for a lawyer — geographically accurate, from a city about 20 km (12 miles) away, but completely irrelevant in content with absolutely no overlap in interests. This couldn’t continue — I was close to turning this channel into a dead end for my ninth forum anniversary.

nordanney schrieb:
That is also the forum operator's main job, if you look at the company. The forum is exclusively a revenue source.

He hardly posts anything here himself. In other words, he does not contribute to the forum’s reputation as “the operator knows what they’re doing.” In a forum from a completely different field where I was a moderator with admin rights, the main admin of multiple forums besides his day job also wrote regularly — although less than the co-admins, but still visibly interested and competent, sharing personal views as well.

nordanney schrieb:
I have also started writing again because it has gotten better. And because there is currently no advertising. If the unbearable ads return, I will stop completely. But overall traffic in the forum has SIGNIFICANTLY declined. It’s noticeable. And I don’t see “new people” coming, not even over the last few years. More like a slow decline.

A gradual decline is inevitable simply because each generation has its own culture in dealing with media. Almost thirty years ago, I was a freelance technical journalist for print media, then the decline of print editions happened even faster than the rise of online editions of the same titles, leaving fewer jobs for full-time editors. I was already using the internet before it was called that and before the analogue natives arrived, bringing along the poor netiquette of typewriter-style loud-loud-loud typing as the new mainstream. Today, forums tend to become a medium mainly for the over-30 community, because the hyperactive younger generation finds it too exhausting to follow multiple-line, principle-based (but linear ping-pong instead of chaotic overlapping) communication. In my federal state, there is an upcoming regional election, and many candidates are still seriously printing leaflets and believe that just because there is an English name for them, that makes it modern (enough). Lord, send some sense from above!

ypg schrieb:
I clearly remember that the forum could be accessed via the Tapatalk platform 14 years ago. Ad-free. Then came the first change. [...] Do you currently have ads?

The admin’s move against Tapatalk, as far as I recall, was only about seven years ago, or maybe less (?) In my opinion, interworking across the internet is broadly underestimated and neglected. Messengers still lack the option to communicate across different platforms, although retweeting is possible to some extent. Imagine if telephone calls and SMS only worked between customers of the same provider. This century hasn’t fully (or consistently) arrived yet. In landline VoIP, there is at least eNum (E.164), but it’s still purely numeric instead of allowing you to call someone via their email address.

Musketier schrieb:
The lead moderator (now renamed as “construction experts”) had a falling out with the operator and started their own ad-free forum, and many longtime members and part of the moderation team left with them. The homebuilding forum was declared dead by many. But none of that helped. The influx of new homebuilders continued, and new “old hands” came together to help. The spun-off forum, in contrast, lacked a stream of new homebuilders and faded away.

What was the name of the forum where “e p i” (probably auto-merged into one word) went? — There was also a spam problem in the Green section and a change of operator, which led the key accounts to spin off the original Blue forum, which, despite the similar name, attracts far fewer participants. However, the latter may also be due to the higher average arrogance level among the old hands there.

---

https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

ramar234 schrieb:
The links no longer work after the forum update.
I found this one from you here:
https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/l-bank-z15-darlehen-erfahrungen.31640/post-693619

Let’s see if the old links can be converted automatically in some way. Pure thread links still seem to work ==> Old link for floor plan discussion, read before posting: https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/grundriss-planung-unbedingt-vor-beitrag-erstellung-lesen.11714/ … but links to individual posts apparently haven’t been handled.

Re-linking images, at least in quotes, is also problematic… see https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/grundrissoptimierung-kamin-problem.j5v8g7/page-3/#q5o2s9 … this is acceptable because the original post is directly above, but often that is not the case. The quote link works again because, although it’s also a link to a specific post, the old forum had a different structure:

• Specific post (source of quote) – works with the new forum at: https://www.hausbau-forum.de/posts/668909/
• Specific post (link address from post number) – does not work with the new forum at: https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/L-Bank-Z15-darlehen-erfahrungen.31640/post-693619

------------------------
Trying to jump to the newest post in a thread does not work for me when I click “more new posts” at the bottom right. In that case, it also no longer shows which threads have been read up to the last post (i.e., thread titles are no longer displayed in bold).

@admin @webmaster ... I’m generally understanding, but it would be helpful and productive if you could briefly comment when you have fixed reported issues, so users know the problem should be resolved and can try again.

kbt09 schrieb:
specific post (link from post number) New forum implementation not working ==> https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/l-bank-z15-darlehen-erfahrungen.31640/post-693619

.. seems to be working now .. to everyone else, do you still have links to individual posts in the old format? Please try them out.

kbt09 schrieb:
Accessing the latest post in a thread doesn’t work for me when I click “more new posts” at the bottom right. Also, it no longer shows which threads have been read up to the last post (i.e., thread titles are no longer bolded).

.. this seems to be fixed now as well. Read threads are now only shown in normal font (not bold) after pressing “more new posts,” and you can reach the latest post in a thread.

Looks good.

kbt09 schrieb:
to everyone else, do you maybe still have links to individual posts in the old format and could test them?

I successfully tested some links from my post archive, meaning they each lead to the "old" target, and the post number (old) seems to be automatically updated.

However, when I arrive at posts where I wrote "our member Name also built with this company" and this member is probably no longer active here, it now only says "our member also built with this company." So the name no longer appears as text or link; it simply doesn’t show up at all.

kbt09 schrieb:
@admin @webmaster ... I’m understanding, but it would be helpful and productive if you could briefly comment when you’ve fixed listed errors, so people know it should be resolved and can try again.

Well, the original poster here isn’t any of those addressed, but rather the member @hanghaus2023.

---

https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

11ant schrieb:
If I come across posts where I wrote "our member Name also built with this company" and this member is apparently no longer active here, it now only says "our member also built with this company." So the name is no longer shown as text or a link, it’s simply missing.

Could you please be so kind and provide me with an example link?
I would appreciate it!

11ant schrieb:
Well, the OP is not one of the people being addressed here

However, this is the only thread that has been fairly consistently focused on collecting mistakes/notes etc. since 14.01. And I don’t expect the comment that an error report has been resolved as a personal message, but simply here in the thread. That way, everyone benefits ;-)