Forum jump drop down box gone?
 

I seem to have lost the drop down box at the bottom of the page that allows one to jump from one forum to another.

Anyone else?



Never mind, it is back now.

Strange... what browser are you using? I am on IE and seeing the drop down box.

It is back now. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was a brain fart.

Mine disappeared yesterday. It was gone this morning while browsing as a guest, but reappared after I logged in. (Using Firefox 3.5, but replicated the issue on IE 6.0).

The forum jump drop down box seems to be available now only when logged in.

Another "enhancement"?
 

I only log on when I have something to say. If I want to browse the forums without posting, I (used to) use the drop down box to easily navigate between those forums that interest me.

This new "feature" makes it much more inconvenient to just browse the forums when not logged on.

Between this and the drastic decline in quality and civility evident in OmniP/R since the changes that "opened" that forum to the masses, Flyertalk is becoming, for me, more trouble than it's worth.


:td:

I don't know the answer yet as to why the jump box is missing, but thought it better to post "I don't know" than to leave you all hanging. Either myself or someone from the IB tech team will post back as soon as this issue is clarified.

As always, thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I'm hopeful that Internet Brands will get their act together on proving a better experience with stable uptime but i noticed this other comment.

I read this and went and did yet another quick audit. In the last 1,000 posts in OMNI/PR which accounted for posts by about 600+ members, only a single member (PhoenixRev) would not normally be there with the change in OMNI. The facts, all this time later, seem to support what was said to begin with and that the change has really been nothing, other than to not segregate the normal members of FT. If you sense quality and civility matters, it's really been the result of the members who posted there before the change, not the change itself and not from new voices other than a rare example like PhoenixRev. No one has complained about their posts so this single member likely not the problem. Another member might be close in this interpretation but they have posts exceeding 100 elsewhere and has been a member from oct 07. Fact is, OMNI has not been overrun since the change and hasn't had any material change in the makeup of the conversations which the existing members (prior to the change) make up. Just like things in life, sometimes it just seems that way but with no real basis. Hope this helps.

Randy, Please stop saying Omni has not changed. It has. I don't know/care what statistics you're pulling, but as a person who a) never wanted Omni in the first place and b) hardly ever went there unless it was because of a RBP or if you needed something, well, you're really not the person to judge.

There is a massive difference in Omni since opening it up to the world and google bots. There are zero post count trolls. There are people who post nowhere else on FT except for Omni P/R. There are hit & run posters from other FT forums. Just because no one uses RBPs doesn't mean they're not being disruptive. It means the regulars in Omni are used to those things and don't report the posts.

Most of the regular posters who actually care(d) about FT have stopped posting - including myself.

I let tech know- I can still see the forum jump on mine though

Just checked with Dick.This change was made intentionally yesterday when they did a VBSEO update. It was included with the latest version of this plugin and unfortunately this is irreversible. You will have to log in to see the ' forum jump' drop down..

Sorry for the inconvenience.

steph-

Thank you for the prompt replies.

Whether or not the change in atmosphere in OMNI can be attributed to the access changes made awhile back, I don't think anyone can deny that it has changed markedly from what it once was, and not for the better.

This does not diminish my appreciation for the rest of Flyertalk as a valuable tool for maximizing the value of my various frequent traveler programs, nor my gratitude to you for creating and nurturing it.

Why was this done? It's really an inconvenience, and I can't imagine any positive aspect of it.

That's the bit that alters the URLs to make them read in plain text (e.g. /Technical-Issues-386/ rather than forum=386). The search engines love that sort of thing as they can "read" just the URLs and assume that they know something about the content. That translates into more traffic to the site and, ultimately, more ad clicks.

In other words, it's all about the money. Just like always.

And it is a huge inconvenience. :mad: As other posters have said if you only want to drop in for a quick review of some threads then you either have to log in or stuff around trying to go through the menu to find said threads.

If you read a long page and want to navigate elsewhere back to the top and through the menu again.

Anything that makes it difficult to enjoy the FlyerTalk experience will make it harder for new members to become a part of the community and may well be the final straw for members frustrated by other problems.

I don't fall into either of those categories but any frustrations like this do make it harder to find threads you review all over the site and will undoubtedly cause a lower posting rate.:td:

An intentional upgrade nobody apprarently knew about until it happened. And now that it's been foisted upon us a change few apparently like, myself included. Must be a CO type "enhancement" for my FT viewing pleasure.

A week or so ago, a vulnerability was discovered in vBSEO. We immediately patched the required files and ran a security sweep of the site. While the patch should have only fixed the vulnerability, we had some weirdness on the servers that we suspected the patch being responsible for. Just to be sure, we went ahead and did a full package install to be sure that everything was correct. This fixed the weirdness as planned.

We exported our settings and re-imported them, so nothing should have changed, which is why we didn't feel the need to make any notification.

This time it was all about security.

It wasn't an intentional change, and we have absolutely no problem reverting it.

Is it me or are these statements contradictory? :confused:

:confused: Please bear with me as I am easily confused.

Is this irreversible or will you revert it back to the way it was?

I see wharvey beat me to it.

There was a misscommunication between Steph and I.

The unintentional change was reverted. Non-logged in users can now once again see the forum jump menu.

Unfortunately this sort of thing has been going on for 16 months. I think that's too long to have to remain hopeful.

It sounds like your issue has been fixed, but I'm curious why you don't just check the box to remember your login (thus negating the hassle of having to actually log in) and using the MyFlyerTalk feature to subscribe to and view the forums that interest you.

I can breeze through the 26 forums that I follow in just a couple of minutes just by control-clicking each of the forums I subscribe to (opening them in new tabs) and then popping through the tabs to find new threads that interest me. Control-click those threads to open those threads in new tabs behind my current one, and boom--I'm done navigating and ready to settle down for some good reading material. :)

Jackal,

I am guessing many people often check in on FT from computers other than their normal computer. As such, they may not want to sign in...

Thanks for restoring it. I use it a lot.