Lithium issue: replying to a topic screen jumps around taking ages to render

[#1]

While you were replying @JonoH  I was composing this:

OK I need to ask this. On your Careers page you are looking to recruit 6 Student / QA Engineers on Internships this then implies that the expertise needed to train these people exists within Plusnet so why are you needing to farm out Jack’s?

But your reply above (sort of) answers this, but for the long term is anyone willing to pick up the baton Jack dropped when he left?

[#2]

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@Anonymous wrote:

your reply above (sort of) answers this, but for the long term is anyone willing to pick up the baton Jack dropped when he left?

The honest answer is we've never had a specific Community developer, Jack spoiled us, he picked a lot of community stuff up in his own time as he enjoyed working with the technology and he's even won awards from Lithium for some of his work, suggestions and support offered to other devs on their own forum. We were extremely lucky to have him.

We have resources we can use for things that we need to fix and change, but nobody specifically tasked to the forum.

[#3]

@JonoH 

Thank you for the detailed follow-ups.  This has been something of a discussion of principle … in this case mitigated by specific helpfulness from your supplier to do something outside of their normal protocols to resolve the issue.

However the suggestion that this fix (reported to be small) would not get done by Plusnet in a timely manner, due to either capacity or skill availability (or both) does not bode well.  The fact that Jack did do much of the stuff which makes this toolset work, in his own time might be fact, but that does not justify not accepting that such contribution significantly supports the business and needs to be "forward" supported after he has left.

[#4]

The problem here @Townman is one of priorities, that this issue here causes a delay of up to 15 seconds for customers that use Edge or Firefox (still very usable). That only about 60% of our traffic comes from desktops and of those Edge (under 5% and Firefox (under 10%) combined make up under 15% of browsers, and that it works fine if you use another eg Chrome at over 65% it makes it very difficult to make the case that this needs fixing over another issue.

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[#5]

I’ll stand corrected if I am wrong, but I’d be willing to bet that the majority of these 15% desktop users are in fact the main contributors to the site and are the source of the majority of the content.

Do you have any metrics to confirm or deny this @JonoH?

Your own figures show that the majority of traffic is from desktop implying that this is the favoured platform for the current user base (hence my assumption above) and 15% of this traffic uses either FF or Edge which is a lot. You also appear to imply that if you don’t use Chrome then tough on you, and we’ll get round to a fix if and when.

[#6]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I’ll stand corrected if I am wrong, but I’d be willing to bet that the majority of these 15% desktop users are in fact the main contributors to the site and are the source of the majority of the content.

What makes you think that? I don't have any metrics unfortunately but it would seem strange to me that these less favoured browsers would be used by people more likely to write forum replies than those of us using more mainstream browsers.  

Your own figures show that the majority of traffic is from desktop implying that this is the favoured platform for the current user base (hence my assumption above) and 15% of this traffic uses either FF or Edge which is a lot.

It is a lot, but the issue these customers face is a 15-second delay and a screen jump, sometimes. It's not going to be a priority when functionality actually works.

You also appear to imply that if you don’t use Chrome then tough on you, and we’ll get round to a fix if and when.

No, I'm saying that it works perfectly for 85% of desktop users,  and as the 15% of users that are impacted, still retain full functionality, just a delay. It's not going to make the list of things we even look at untill more pressing issues are resolved. 

[#7]

OK I should have said desktop users (without the 15%) and the reason I came to that conclusion is that for those contributing to the site having a browser open, long term, on the site is a lot easier than on a tablet or phone, as it's easier to switch around as you do other things.

A 15 second delay is a lifetime to some people, your stats will show you how many users exit the page while waiting on this. So I am assuming that this value is very very low hence the decision to reduce the priority.

I appreciate you have other priorities so maybe you can add to that list the intermittent disappearance of the "Options" link.

[#8]

Valid points there @Anonymous

I'm kinda a 'desktop' user, though it is a laptop (either on my desk or rarely on my lap) and due to my personal conditions I have great difficulty in using a tablet or (as it's smaller) a phone. I can't use the D-pad either so have to rely on a separate mouse.

Of late my browser is open on these forums from roughly when I get up to after I've gone to bed (often let it sleep with the forums loaded). But this isn't my long term plan as I've got to break this habit of lurking;)

Add the 15 seconds to the reduced edit times and I do sometimes not bother to post as the delay does get a little annoying after a few posts. Add to this the wait I see after posting (as the page loads) and yes I sometimes close the page before it shows I've posted.

[#9]

@JonoH 

but it would seem strange to me that these less favoured browsers would be used by people more likely to write forum replies than those of us using more mainstream browsers

I guess that there are no metrics to support any views here, strange or otherwise.  Less favoured by whom and on what grounds?

Personally I use Edge all of the time, why would I want another hammer when I already have one?  Why would I want the bloat of the other bug ridden so called modern browsers on my IT platforms?  If they were not so bug ridden we would not be seeing the high frequency of re-releases and consequential issues.

As @Anonymous suggests some might, I keep web tabs open most of the time to the forum and return to them several times a day without logging out.  I wonder what others doing the same, does to the stats?

Thinking about the very obvious behaviour I reported here whilst using the Edge browser, I can only conclude that zero testing took place against the Edge browser for the issue is impossible to ignore (pretend it is not happening).