Connosr "Reboot"

Thanks for the heads up. I think it's great to have an opportunity to take part in the reshaping.

@vanPelt Other than the ability to edit one's comments, I don't have any ideas myself... But good luck! Site redesigns are often exhausting and thankless endeavors, so I wish everyone involved all the best.

@HeartlessNinny ditto on both points! Editing posts would be a much needed improvement.

11 people so far. Don't miss your chance!

Cool!

Up to 50 comments now! connosr.com/blog/connosr-updates/… (Sorry many are mine; I guess I care a lot).

It would be great to hear some kind of update and outlook....

Welcome back! The site was just down for 4-5 hours today... Is this the sign of Project Reboot being implemented now...? Maybe we could get an update of the progress......?

So... What's going on?

@vanPelt

Not much...enjoying the weekend...

Oh. You meant the site?

@Nozinan Compared to the answer I was looking for-- Why do I have a feeling that your answer is actually both more informative and more of a pleasure to hear? :-)

Yes, I am wondering what's going on with the website reboot; and I figured 18 months was a long enough silence for this thread....

@vanPelt, we are indeed fortunate to have this site. It is fine the way it is. Could it be improved upon? Absolutely! Should it be improved upon? That is up to the owners to determine. The price is right and the user's are quite civil, most of the time. Life goes on, and hopefully, so does Connosr

In case you missed it, @Jean-Luc posted an update a couple days ago (the site announcements can be easy to miss):

connosr.com/blog/reboot/…

"...the redevelopment of Connosr is well underway"... "show you more towards the end of this month".... I think that's fantastic. @paddockjudge, I respect your feeling and I've said before myself that the site is still great for maintaining the social aspect among 20-30 members with consistent activity. Unfortunately, the reality is that the owners of MySpace, for example, didn't get to decide when their website should be improved-- because Facebook made that decision for them :-) But such is the nature of creative destruction.

Looking forward to the new site!

Thanks for the bump @vanPelt - development is going very well. We're excited about the initial relaunch but also about how we can shape Connosr going forward. Our new platform gives us much more scope to build in cool features.

Just saw that you can post an image with your review. Much needed addition I feel and so thanks for that! One recommendation please: Please specify the dimensions so that people know what format the image is going to appear. I have an approximate size of 445 x 605 px ---- is that correct?

Hi @MaltActivist, the short answer is – the optimal size is 1000 wide x 750 high which is a 4:3 ratio.

On the new site the review images get cropped intelligently depending on where they are displayed. On the review index and other review lists they will be square... cropped from the centre.

On the review detail pages they will be displayed up to 1000px wide. If the images are in 4:3 ratio they will use the natural height. Taller images will be cropped in the browser and you'll be able to 'expand' them.

Multiple mages uploads will be allowed per review so they will go into a gallery if there are enough.

I hope this explains it clearly enough – let me know if you have any questions.

@Jean-Luc

@Jean-Luc That sounds awesome! This is pretty good. When's the new one out BTW?

@MaltActivist We're hoping to start user testing the new site privately this month - if anyone wants to assist with that process drop me an email via reboot@connosr.com

In terms of progress: we're past the half way mark with developing the new functionality but there are still some big tasks remaining such as migrating the content over from the current platform. I don't want to commit to a launch date until I have a better handle on the content migration but will let you know as soon as that becomes clearer.

Rest assured that we're working round the clock on this and it's going to be great :)

@Jean-Luc I'm sure it's going to be great! Sending you an email now volunteering as your guinea pig

Glad to hear it!

Here's a sneak-peak of the new Connosr site reboot.connosr.com/first-look a few screenshots from the beta site to give you an idea of how things are shaping up.

@Jean-Luc

Looks really interesting (though I suspect it will take some getting used to in terms of navigatin).

One criticism though...I don't think you'll be able to get away with giving Uigeadail a score of 71...

@Nozinan shocker! ;)

Excuse the dummy content!

Looks slick.

What does "improved mentions" mean? From what I can tell on the current site, you can do the weird "@name" thing but nothing happens. On the new site, will that notify the person you mention or something like that?

Looking modern and handsome

@OlJas that's correct, there will be a notification when someone @ mentions you. You will also be able to see a list of where you were mentioned.

Additionally, in the comment input box, usernames are suggested as you type once you hit the @ symbol.

Thanks @Alexsweden :)

Not a major user of this site, but I have some suggestions.

For one thing, it is imperative to have an "edit" function. I hate not being able to edit my posts. I'd also like to see a bit more user-friendly forum architecture: for example, ability to easily quote, for another, put the posting box below the latest post so I can see the post I'm responding to while I'm writing.

Here's another: I just went through and "rated" many of the whiskies in my cabinet. I did this pretty much on the fly, by the seat of my pants--I don't really have any true reference, I just know what I like. Perhaps a good primer on "how to rate whisky" might be helpful, if nothing else to provide some standardization to the ratings across the board? (Of course, I know this is a problem even with the professionals, but...)

I may post more as I think of it.

Thanks for the feedback @Spitfire

• Edit functionality for comments / reviews / discussions is included in the new version
• I will add a 'quote this' link under each post which will pre-populate the comment form with the quoted text when clicked... and the @username of who is being quoted.
• I will also see if I can add functionality so you can select a part of a comment and easily quote that passage.
• We will give some consideration to the "how to rate whisky" primer

Did you see the screens I posted of the new site above? reboot.connosr.com/first-look

@Jean-Luc No, I hadn't seen that. Looks good.

Another suggestion--how about a "comments" section within our own cabinet, so we can make personal tasting notes on the whiskies we've sampled. And perhaps a toggle to make these private or public? After reading Lew Bryson's "Tasting Whiskey," I'm trying to be a bit more systematic in my approach; he suggests taking some private notes on each bottle for future reference, but I'd likely lose those, so I was thinking to use this site as a sort of repository for my notes. (Not that I want to become a "Whisky Robot" as I read on another thread...)

@Jean-Luc, having all the reviews in Latin is a great idea. i wish that I had thought of that.