After the move to Microcosm

OK, so the first week is out of the way... a debrief of sorts.

What went wrong?

• Sign-in issues in the first 3-4 days were appalling
  
• Search defaults didn't suit the way people used search
  
• No adequate replacement to the "New Posts" page
  
• Lots of minor UX bugs and quirks
  
• Some people didn't sign in using the same email they had before, which would create a new user
  
  

What went right?

• All content that we said we would migrate we did migrate
  
• All permissions were intact for secure forums, etc
  
• The servers didn't melt down
  
• Much glee at mobile suddenly being pretty damn good
  
  

We spent much of the last week fire-fighting bugs and issues that should've been caught during the 6 months of testing. It's obvious that we had a very technical and non-representive crowd testing the test.lfgss.com and go.lfgss.com test sites as very few of the eventual issues that everyone freaked about were even mentioned.

Fixed:

• The sign-in issues, with only a few individuals still having trouble with Persona.
  
• The search defaults have been improved, title only and sort by date rule.
  
• The /today/ page was built (it's just a search really)
  
• Tons of small UX fixed, but lots more still to be done
  
• Gave lots of people their account back, by associating it to their new email address
  
  

There's still loads to do, but I feel good about it... it's about as smooth as it could've been given the sudden urgency brought on by old and failing servers.

I guess the big question is "Does it work?". As in, is it as effective or more effective than vBulletin, or did the site just nosedive? With 1 week of data it's too early to say, but early numbers:

Since moving, we have seen an increase of 17% in the number of registered members who visit the site each day. Members are also staying a lot longer (close to 17 minutes per session).

What we have seen is a big drop-off in Google traffic. This is in part due to Google suddenly freaking out and re-indexing furiously as Google realises that none of the 2.5 million pages it knows about are valid. We are watching Google increase the indexing, and Google is loving the new pages as the attachment shows.

Basically: Members appear to love it, are staying around and returning more frequently... mostly due to mobile view, though the /updates/ page is being used way more than the Subscribed Threads and UserCP ever were. And Guests do love it too (high time per session), but we're overall seeing a lower volume of traffic due to Google freaking out.

We'll carry on splatting bugs, and will keep an eye on Google.

1 Attachment

This is interesting, although it misses out posting frequency, which is the surely the key metric of how many people are actually interacting with the 'community'. How does this compare to ur-LFGSS?

I've added "Posts per day" to the table.

It's increased by around 9%, 2.2k > 2.4k.

I never had a posting frequency on the old forum, it varied throughout the day. But I did have a posts per day metric, and that is directly comparable to the number of new comments per day on here. The metric excludes private message usage which I never reported on.

Looks like it works. Congratulations on your work.
Google properly tracking the dates for rides is also verrrry neat.

Also: I like that table. How did you do it?

Isn't it a bit too soon to be measuring the length of time people spend on here? Could the increased length of time be down to the newness and changes in forum navigation?

Personally, I find I am reading less on here. Or it is taking me longer to read the same amount of threads.

They are early indications only, but the initial fear that usage would plummet hasn't come true (except for guest users as Google is currently re-indexing).

The numbers are fairly accurate though: A greater number of users are signing-in for a great number of sessions, and then staying for a greater amount of time, and the accumulated number of posts is greater.

This is even played out on the home page. Remember the bit that used to say "1,000 people online"? That was a combination of guests, members and search engine spiders. Only just above a third were actually signed in members. On Microcosm that number is members only, and the number is more consistently 500~ people at most points of the day, rather than 350-400~.

Now if I can just finish a lot of the usability stuff and Google can get on with indexing, we might get the guests back too.

BTW and "I told you so", but I did point out the lack of onward navigation at the bottom of the page during testing.

So there.

Yeah, but it's not like we had "Trending is awful" or "It doesn't work on Opera on an old version of Windows" ;)

Google seems to be indexing fairly fast now, 313,000 pages today alone.

How have the forum's server power requirements changed since the move?

Is the data from vBulletin that from a specific week or an average?

I should've tested this before the switch.

Needs New Posts.
Needs Ignore
Needs Merge (and other admin stuff like title editing)
Needs Classifieds prefixes
Needs quicker, more intuitive search and search in thread

Mobile is much better

I think it's fabulous, David... As soon as I can engage 'hide mode' I'll be very happy... Top marks...

This time next year, Rodney... #etc

Down by about 2/3. Microcosm is just far more efficient. The hypothesis we started with has been proven true, that we could use fewer servers to power more sites on the same platform.

vBulletin data has been fairly the same for most of the summer, but I chose yesterday vs Wednesday 2 weeks ago, and focused on just the one day. Wednesday's are very consistent... as are Sunday's surprisingly. Usually Monday and Tuesday are our peak.

Needs New Posts.

/today/ deals with that, non?

Needs Ignore
Needs Merge (and other admin stuff like title editing)
Needs Classifieds prefixes

Those are coming (at various speeds)

Needs quicker, more intuitive search and search in thread

Have you tried search today? Agreed on in-thread search.

Mobile is much better

Except for the pagination... incomplete, only at the bottom, and the touch areas are too small.

New Posts at the bottom of the screen?
I've searched today but not complicated search just basic. I don't like have to type around the 'conversations' limiter - that should disappear and be the default or something.
I could never paste links in mobile and paging isn't much of an issue for me (other than it's ugly and wraps - it still works)

Ah, actually we're thinking that the nav bar core links: Forums, Today, Following, People, Messages... those should be repeated at the bottom.

We're also thinking that on mobile view those should be icons and not require the opening the burger menu to access them.

What about the nav bar fixed on top? So that you can change page at every moment of the scrolling.

Only before the breaking point.

where's the spinning arrospok London eye in the header?

the 'today' button does seem to restore order somewhat

Definitely needs to be Single click!

Also: I like that table. How did you do it?

Looks like you just have to write (or paste) the HTML - I can't see a clever markdown shortcut

Tech	Guest Sessions per Day	User Sessions per Day	Session Duration	Bounce Rate	Posts per Day
vBulletin	10k	6k	9m 10s	37%	2.2k
Microcosm	2.5k	7k	11m 53s	23%	2.4k

=

    <table>
    <tr>
    <th>Tech</th>
    <th>Guest Sessions per Day</th>
    <th>User Sessions per Day</th>
    <th>Session Duration</th>
    <th>Bounce Rate</th>
    <th>Posts per Day</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td>vBulletin</td>
    ... etc ...
   </tr></table>

@Velocio cheers for the info.

Funnily enough on the 3 or 4 forums I've used regularly Mondays and usually Monday evenings used to be pretty busy.

Markdown tables:

First Header  | Second Header
------------- | -------------
Content Cell  | Content Cell
Content Cell  | Content Cell

Preview doesn't know about them though.