Dear BV Members, I've had the pleasure of serving this community for the past few years and most recently became very close with quite a few of you as we worked together to resolve many of your favorite features on the site. After today, I will be going on extended leave and will return in March. In the meantime, my colleague will be on board to help you. He can be reached at blackvoicesrush@aol.com and will also be in the forums and in the blog providing updates to bugs, issues and new features.
In the meantime, here are some fixes coming your way this week:
* after you reply to a post you will be returned to the last page of the discussion and bookmarked to your post (the current experience only displays your post) * Selecting 'Read More' from the forum level will bookmark you to the last post of a discussion
Being investigated or resolved
* missing flags * returning to the last page of the discussion you've already visited
I want to follow up on my last post regarding the resolution of the features below. It appears there's some inconsistency in performance. As a result, they are being revisited to ensure they are working properly.
When you reply the page should refresh to the last page of the discussion and anchor you to your reply
When you return to a discussion, you should land on the page with the last unread post
I'm very happy to share some good news with you on this Friday. We have restored two very important features to the boards:
Returning to the last read page When you return to a thread you've visited prior you will automatically be navigated to the last read post and the page on which that post resides.
Landing page following a post When you reply to a discussion, you will automatically return to your reply
If you experience any problems on the boards or find that these features are not working as I have outlined above please leave a comment below or email me at TiffaniLW at aol dot com.
We believe the message board and profile issues to be resolved at this time. If you have any problems accessing these properties please email me directly at TiffaniLW at aol dot com.
Again, we apologize for the inconvenience you experienced.
The message boards and profiles appear to be accessible though I still want to cautiously warn you that we have not identified the root of the issue at this time. Should we witness another outage or some errors I will report via this blog.
Please be aware that we are experiencing a network outage in the Community. All profiles and message boards are down. We are working diligently to resolve and sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.
I've got a quick update on board issues experienced earlier from 10:30 AM EST respectively until later this evening. We believe all errors are resolved at this time. If you witness otherwise, please reach out to me in the comments section of this blog or email me directly.
The resolved errors include:
* member names displaying as anonymous IDs * search functionality down * no action when you attempted to create a new message or post a reply * old profile pages displaying * issues signing in and an error message when signing out
I want to thank you for your patience today and look forward to hearing from you if you have any problems.
I wanted to share with you that some links may result in errors. When you visit BlackVoices.com and click on any of the board links or profile links on the right side of the page, the page may refresh with a message alerting you that an error has occurred. In addition, if you visit http://blackvoices.com/boards and select any of the links in the Most Popular Topics module, you will also see this same message.
I encourage you to navigate to the boards by clicking on any of the links on the left side of the page found on http://blackvoices.com/boards. This will allow you to read board posts.
However, when attempting to sign in and post or reply to a new message, some users may experience issues preventing them from logging in. This is also being investigated and we are seeking a quick resolution to get you posting back on the boards in no time.
If you have questions email me or drop off a comment in my blog.
Here's more information on how to post a video in the message boards.
1. Select the button to create a new discussion or reply to an existing one 2. Once your editor displays, select the 'HTML' tab
3. In a separate window, visit your desired video hub and copy the embed code they provide on their web site (don't forget BV has a Video hub, too with thousands of trailers, music videos and news programs)
4. Return to your editor on BlackVoices and in the HTML window, paste the embed code you just copied.
5. Now that you've embedded your code you can either select 'Preview' to preview your post, 'Post' to share your video with others, or click 'Design' to add some text to your post. If you add more text to your post, be sure to add the text at the very top so that you don't break your video code.
If you find your video is not rendering properly, edit your post, select 'HTML' and paste your video code once again.
Here's some final good news on hump day. Another feature you will notice as of today is all posts once again have their own ID and hot link as seen in the classic board experience. Many, many thanks to the team here at BV for diligently working on this as a result of your feedback. Speaking of feedback, please keep it coming. Click on the 'Send Feedback' link located on any page on BlackVoices.com or drop off a comment in my blog.
In the past, when an edit was made to your post it was captured and displayed in the footer of your message. This feature is back. See my screen shot below for an example. If you have any questions regarding the return of this feature please leave me a comment below.
I've noticed many of you post video links across the forum, well now you can embed those videos and have them display in your posts. All you need is what's called the 'embed code.' First, begin by creating a post or reply. Select 'HTML' and paste your embed code. If you wish to add a bit of copy to your post, select 'Design' and type away. Your video will not display unless you select 'Preview' or 'Post.'
Please note, the same community guidelines and terms of service apply to embedded video. Posting inappropriate content can result in immediate deletion of your BV account.
The flags are finally back by popular demand and as promised. When you reply to a post or rate a post a flag will appear next to the title. The flag is visible at the forum level. Let me know what you think by dropping off a comment.
I want to thank you for your patience as we built and tested this feature.
Clearly a lot of changes were made following the launch of the new message boards on Black Voices. I am pleased that after many weeks we have made strides to improve the experience based on your feedback. In addition, it's nice to see many of the old names return to the boards day after day to post about O.J. or Obama or anyone else making headlines in the Black community.
While many changes have been made, more are sure to come. I will address that Monday, October 13. In the meantime, the message board FAQs have been cleaned up a little bit to help you navigate around the new site. From logging in to posting, all the information you need is right there. If you discover some helpful information is missing please leave a comment and help me, help you. For now, you can find all these links on the main Message Boards page. After Monday, it will appear across all forum pages.
I read your comments and also received a few emails from you folks to my personal email address at TiffaniLW at aol dot com. Thanks to member SloeWyne for also calling this out.
Our purpose for 'Read More' was to allow you to read the rest of the post displayed in the preview pane. By selecting this link you will go to that post (the last posted) to read the full message by that particular member.Clicking 'Read More' will not take you to the last visited page. It is actually working as intended.
However, to visit the last page you read within a discussion, click on the title of the thread. If this is not the behavior you're seeing please drop off a comment so I can look into this asap.
Find out what members are saying about everyone from Barack to Beyonce. There are nearly 100 forums from which to choose. Click on a category below and discover the right board for you.
