Lushies Feedback

We are being told by the new host company that many of the differences are due to the fact that "75% of THEIR users access the site on a phone" and that they used to have features similar to some of ours, but when they polled THEIR users, were told they didn't like them, so they changed. It also appears that they intend to just make Lush part of their dating site "family". We feel like they should take into account what OUR LUSH MEMBERS feel, so here is a list of questions that should provide a good idea for how we feel about things.

I have written , chat occasionally , and forum regularly . I’m mainly accessing on lush via phone and PC to chat… No need for the swing/ date site and hate the fact we’ve been absorbed into the former mobile version. The overall appearance of the site seems cheapened and I can’t seem to see all of the stuff on phone , only through PC.

All these coders can’t equal one storm trooper (Gav).  I miss my privacy settings and controls 

Quote by adele

  1.   Are you an author?

Yes

  2.   Do you primarily use the chat rooms, forums, neither or both.

Forums  

3.   What is the main device you access Lush with? phone/tablet, lappy or PC

PC

  4.   On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the happiest) how happy are you with the chatroom changes?

 Don't care.  Don't use. 

5.   On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the forum changes?

2  Jump to last post links are nice.  Separation between posts is terrible.  Signatures are bare bones. 

 6.   As an author, on a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the story changes?

0 Don't like the new presentation of stories, especially those with top images.

  7.   On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the general overall design changes?

0 Author features barely exist, and what's there is buggy.

  8.   Which chatroom features do you miss the most? (ex. mention vs just selecting a name, whisper,  "landing" directly into a room, room size, etc)

Don't care.  Don't use.

  9.  Which forum features do you miss the most? (ex. new format, harder to post pics, forum signature, etc.)

Signatures.  Designing my story banners is one of the things that gives me joy.  Being able to use images from galleries other than the main one in the forum.  Being able to preview before submitting a post.

10.  As an author, which story features do you miss the most? (ex. detail vs rounding stats, ability to sort, tags at end of story instead of top, etc.)

Detailed stats.  Pasting with formatting intact.  Popular lists.  Read lists.  Landscape top images.  Sorting our story lists.  Being able to find anything in our story lists ( Need search if it's going to remain paginated ).  Prominence of story badges such as RR, Famous, and Legendary.  The # of stories on the new story page.  Notification when a vote is cast.

11.  Which general features do you miss the most? (ex. black boxes, ability to customize profiles, ability to sort friends, have friends all show on 1 page, settings don't hold, becoming part of a dating site, etc.)

Ability to search by name.  Author listings sortable by # of stories ( ideally, sortable by all stat columns ) 

12. Any other comments you would like to add or if there is anything you are particularly happy with on the new site.

I realise you have gone to some trouble to put this together, but it really is a voice crying in the wilderness about un fait accompli.

As a Forever Gold member of this brighter, better, adult entertainment site, I hope LS continues to go from strength to strength.

Quote by CallmeJayne

I realise you have gone to some trouble to put this together, but it really is a voice crying in the wilderness about un fait accompli.

As a Forever Gold member of this brighter, better, adult entertainment site, I hope LS continues to go from strength to strength.

I realize that it is probably an exercise in futility, but when we are told that very few complaints have been received (this despite the fact that the thread to report bugs was locked because there were too many complaints about missing features) and that some of the features won't be done because the developers say THEIR users didn't like them when they were polled or that 75% of THEIR users access the site on a phone, I just felt we needed to let them see in an open forum if they are right or wrong.

You are an author... are you happy with the changes to the way the stories are presented or what people are saying about how hard it is to submit them? I realize you only have 12 stories and poems, so maybe not as important to you, but there are authors with many more stories. I have 127 (or 122, depending on which stat you want to believe) and there are people out there with many more. And there are people who just use the chat rooms or just the forums that are unhappy with things on the site.

I am also a platinum member, and I visit lush virtually every day. I have already lost 2 of my friends who left the site due to the changes. I don't want to lose more. I was under the impression that this was to be an upgrade (as were most I talked to) but it certainly looks like more of a merger or takeover. If we are to become part of SH, then we ought to be able to voice an opinion. At least the current management will know why members start leaving in droves. Believe it or not, I want to see it succeed as well.

Paste with formatting intact, detailed stats, popular lists by category, and the ability to quickly locate one of our own stories via search or removal of the pagination are the deal-breakers for me. The rest is irritating or sucking the joy out of the site for me, but those are what make the effort vs. reward calculation fail to balance.

Paste with formatting is #1 because I would be willing to add cross-venue work if I had that. The rest are discouraging me from writing the short Lush exclusives that don't perform particularly well anywhere else.  I simply don't see them reaching performance levels here that make it worth the effort as things are.

Quote by adele

I realize that it is probably an exercise in futility, but when we are told that very few complaints have been received (this despite the fact that the thread to report bugs was locked because there were too many complaints about missing features) and that some of the features won't be done because the developers say THEIR users didn't like them when they were polled or that 75% of THEIR users access the site on a phone, I just felt we needed to let them see in an open forum if they are right or wrong.

The bug thread was locked because it was getting too hard for the tech guys to sift through and we decided it would be easier to keep track through the help desk. Not for any nefarious reasons.

I'm not sure what your poll is meant to accomplish when so many changes are still ongoing. Lush today already looks very different to how it did on day 1. The tech people have been working pretty much round the clock since we switched and they put in a hell of a lot of work prior to that. They're still currently putting in full days on things and the team of mods who cover every aspect of the site are contributing to it daily too.

With Gav unable to update and maintain the site, it would have closed. Simple as. We have a team who have stepped in, hopefully eventually to everyone's benefit. The platform is noticeably more stable than it used to be. Of course there have been bugs, but I think it's clear to most that they're being worked through. Of course the site is different too, but the majority of us are still here trying to get back the best bits we had from v1 whilst embracing the new opportunities that new developers bring.

I get that people loved v1, I did too, but it's so easy to rewrite history and forget the downtime and the quirks, the chronic forum software and the also the ongoing changes and improvements that were built up over time.

Feedback is welcomed, but please keep it constructive. If something isn't working, take screenshots and pass them to an appropriate person. There are loads of chat mods who are in the rooms daily. Give them reports of things that aren't working right and they can feed that back.

I'm happy to take on board any story design elements, but there are so many story mods and loads of us have been here for years, so it's likely we're going to have raised the same issues. I've said all along that the design elements will come later, once tech stuff and bugs are ironed out. That's still the plan. It's not going to happen overnight.

I will say that if pasting with formatting intact isn't an option, allowing us to use BBcode and have it interpreted into the correct HTML formatting for the final posting would also be acceptable.  I can at least prepare my documents in advance with find/replace to do that.  Doing it with the GUI is what I find too tedious and prone to omission.

Formatting intact seems to work in Mozilla. I know it doesn't suit everyone to work from multiple browsers or from a different one to their primary, but as I couldn't paste from Safari and Chrome was screwing my formatting I tried Mozilla. Site definitely seems most stable that way, at least for stories and submissions.

Please... this is a poll for a reason. We need to answer at least the first 6 questions, but preferably all 12. I am trying to gather information to see if what the developers say about phone usage and a few other things also apply to lush users. So it is important to know what you use lush for and how you primarily access the site.

Quote by CallmeJayne

I realise you have gone to some trouble to put this together, but it really is a voice crying in the wilderness about un fait accompli.

As a Forever Gold member of this brighter, better, adult entertainment site, I hope LS continues to go from strength to strength.

Quote by RejectReality

Quote by adele

  1.   Are you an author?

Yes

  2.   Do you primarily use the chat rooms, forums, neither or both.

Forums  

3.   What is the main device you access Lush with? phone/tablet, lappy or PC

PC

  4.   On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the happiest) how happy are you with the chatroom changes?

 Don't care.  Don't use. 

5.   On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the forum changes?

2  Jump to last post links are nice.  Separation between posts is terrible.  Signatures are bare bones. 

 6.   As an author, on a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the story changes?

0 Don't like the new presentation of stories, especially those with top images.

  7.   On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the general overall design changes?

0 Author features barely exist, and what's there is buggy.

  8.   Which chatroom features do you miss the most? (ex. mention vs just selecting a name, whisper,  "landing" directly into a room, room size, etc)

Don't care.  Don't use.

  9.  Which forum features do you miss the most? (ex. new format, harder to post pics, forum signature, etc.)

Signatures.  Designing my story banners is one of the things that gives me joy.  Being able to use images from galleries other than the main one in the forum.  Being able to preview before submitting a post.

10.  As an author, which story features do you miss the most? (ex. detail vs rounding stats, ability to sort, tags at end of story instead of top, etc.)

Detailed stats.  Pasting with formatting intact.  Popular lists.  Read lists.  Landscape top images.  Sorting our story lists.  Being able to find anything in our story lists ( Need search if it's going to remain paginated ).  Prominence of story badges such as RR, Famous, and Legendary.  The # of stories on the new story page.  Notification when a vote is cast.

11.  Which general features do you miss the most? (ex. black boxes, ability to customize profiles, ability to sort friends, have friends all show on 1 page, settings don't hold, becoming part of a dating site, etc.)

Ability to search by name.  Author listings sortable by # of stories ( ideally, sortable by all stat columns ) 

12. Any other comments you would like to add or if there is anything you are particularly happy with on the new site.

As things stand, I have no desire to submit anything.  The inability to paste with formatting, the shortened window for new stories due to the halved new story page, the missing popular lists providing a possibility of longer lived readership, and the inability to actually see the statistics ( which don't even agree from listing to listing ) makes it feel like working twice as hard to toss things into the void.  I get that this was a rush job by necessity, but it's hard to be patient when basically everything I enjoyed about Lush and recommended it to other people for is all but absent.

We no longer get a notification from the mod when a story is published. This was something that was a key part of the communication. Now - unless the mod decides to make a comment - we have no idea who has modded the story or what changes have been made. Can this please be changed?

Quote by adele

Please... this is a poll for a reason. We need to answer at least the first 6 questions, but preferably all 12. I am trying to gather information to see if what the developers say about phone usage and a few other things also apply to lush users. So it is important to know what you use lush for and how you primarily access the site.

I am finding almost every aspect of getting a story submitted and published more difficult than it was before, certainly, nothing is better. I hope that all of the problems regarding stories eventually get solved.

I enjoyed online chats on the original site (chat window) and now try to chat via messages, which is not as good but is just about acceptable.

I miss the BlackBox element from before because you could leave a message for a friend and they could see it and respond when they logged in. I suppose messages serves that purpose too.

As I am trying to say, purely from a selfish point of view, nothing is better than before (except the site not freezing/crashing), very little is as good and most is not as good although hopefully, one day, that gap might get closed.

Just to add, I access Lush via a desktop computer which is the only way that I have of getting the internet. I might buy a tablet/ipad one day! My mobile phone is very old and very basic.

I love the site. 

I just see this thread as another form to complain when there are other threads where actual feedback is needed about what you liked about the old site and how can we make it work w/ this interface. 

Quote by IMPÜRETHOUGHTS

I love the site. 

I just see this thread as another form to complain when there are other threads where actual feedback is needed about what you liked about the old site and how can we make it work w/ this interface. 

The bug-reporting system is hardly ideal and, because there is no transparency, I'm sure that the same problems are being reported over and over. Or users just aren't bothering. 

And what constitutes a bug, anyway? Messenger conversations not being saved, the way BB conversations were? Is that a reportable bug, or just a diminishment of the user experience?    

There has been no clear single point of communication as to what is recognized as missing and to be replaced, what is buggy and to be fixed and what is gone for good. Neither is there a timeline, even though the IT team must be estimating and prioritizing everything.  

The only open feedback thread is the 'what do you like about new lush' thread. Most of the comments in there are just people 'liking' things which went live broken are now no longer broken. 

Because there were so many features in old Lush, it was very flexible. There were as many ways to use the site as there were members. Now not so much. 

If the admins wanted feedback on what people liked about old Lush they might have considered asking for it ahead of the change. Given the oft-stated time pressures involved, that might be excused, but members have not been asked directly since the changeover, either.

Quote by dlcalguy

There is no thread asking for feedback. The 'report bugs' thread is locked. 

People are free to use this one.

Quote by IMPÜRETHOUGHTS

I love the site. 

I just see this thread as another form to complain when there are other threads where actual feedback is needed about what you liked about the old site and how can we make it work w/ this interface. 

That it not the intent. The developers have stated they did polls and that they had done certain things before and their users didn't like them, so they won't change back. They also stated that 75% of their users accessed the site on a phone. Well, it looks like lush is now going to be part of their members, and with over 500,000 members, we ought to have some say. I don't expect them to look through this thread for either complaints or info. I will periodically gather the pertinent info and post it and send it to them.

And besides that, this is a country that allows freedom of speech. And if you don't allow people a place to vent, they will just leave. The other thread that people were complaining in has been locked. People have been told to report bugs via a support ticket and the other threads are supposed to be to list suggestions or where hints are posted. If people add complaints in them, is that any different than posting them here. At least I am trying to gather some pertinent info.

Wheeeeeeeeee, this is pointless but I'll play along.

> Are you an author?

Yes!

> Do you primarily use the chat rooms, forums, neither or both.

Forums, trying to help people transition and remain informed about what's going on and why everything won't happen right now.

> What is the main device you access Lush with? phone/tablet, lappy or PC

Laptop/phone. It doesn't matter. It's the same codebase now on a single domain, unlike previously.

> On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the happiest) how happy are you with the chatroom changes?

Never used the chat rooms. Not starting now.

> On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the forum changes?

Maybe 4? It evolves by the day. But it's actually usable on mobile, unlike before where it was pinch-zoom city and I'd have rated the forum experience a 2.

It's not perfect. What is? Linking to individual forum topics works fine on desktop but copying a post link to the clipboard doesn't seem to work reliably on mobile (might be my obscure browser). We never had that feature at all on Lush 1, so that's a major step up.

Quoting is hit and miss here right now. It's workable. Quoting multiple people or adding quote blocks via the toolbar would be a nice-to-have one day.

Glad to see the back of BBCode. Man, that was awful.

The only major regression I can see is uploading images direct from device. And that's coming soon (which should hopefully work in PMs and wall posts too).

> As an author, on a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the story changes?

Right now, you mean? Might change tomorrow. Dunno. 4ish? Compared to the story pages and experience on Lush 1 which I'd rate a 3 in comparison. It was clunky and dated.

The story pages here look mint, barring the story cover image if it's not strict portrait dimensions. Hopefully that requirement can be relaxed one day.

On the publishing front I've not tried in anger. But with the formatting not pastable from Word and no apparent ability to import, that's a major stumbling block that I hope can be fixed quickly. It'll largely depend on the toolbar that's used. The one on Lush 1 was bodged and hacked over time to be what it became. It was very basic for a long time. And let's not forget what happened to everyone's stories when the editor was swapped out and all the spacing got screwed up if you went and edited an old story. That was a major pain - for authors and moderators.

> On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the general overall design changes?

So far... it's a huge step up. I'd rate it between 4 and 5. Unified codebase, usable forums, sleeker appearance. Sure there are (currently) some omissions that'd make things smoother still. IM is flaky. But so were BBs.

All in good time.

> Which forum features do you miss the most?

Not so much miss, because the new forum is fab. Catching up on threads was a pain in Lush 1 because only the latest post in each forum was highlighted on the main page so it was easy to miss topics. Two posts per forum here is better, and overall it's waaaaay easier on the eye.

With 'New Posts' in the Lush 2 forum, we never need miss anything. But there's such a post volume that it'd be great if there was an indicator of which forum each topic title was in (clickable to take you to the relevant forum landing page). At the moment I have to guess from the topic title whether it's in one of the forums I care about.

> As an author, which story features do you miss the most?

Formatting when pasting in from an external source.

Notification of activity is hit and miss right now.

Squishing my existing cover art into the portrait box instead of letting it fit naturally (constrained only by height would be fine).

> Which general features do you miss the most?

Some of the privacy controls. I'm sure they're on the list as things evolve. Lush 1 probably had about 5 settings when it launched and they grew over time (though comprehensive, they were an absolute mess - some for hiding stuff, some for showing it).

I think the team are doing an amazing job tackling everything and keeping the plates spinning. It's a shame about the impatient members who have given up because it's currently not exactly the same as before. Lush 1 was built over 15 years, feature by feature, hack upon hack. Not everything can survive a transition to a completely new system from day one.

Lush 2 has pretty much been rewritten from scratch in a very short space of time before the old site ran out of support. With the amount of downtime Lush 1 had due to ailing hardware (and said hacks) it was on borrowed time. When it next fell over, it might never have been revived without anyone to charge the defibrillator paddles.

With no other viable options (partners in a similar story sphere due to conflict of interests, or people unwilling to host adult content due to various payment or legal restrictions) Lush has terraformed a biome on an alien planet inhabited largely by swingers

Very little about the way the indigenous folk used the platform is compatible with a story site, so that aspect is being built entirely from scratch to coexist with our new neighbours. There's a lot of overlap with other areas of Lush 1 that have now been expanded, merged and tweaked too. There were only two user levels in the existing system; we had more. That's a fundamental, system-wide change with far-reaching ramifications from an architecture viewpoint, which needed to be changed in "their" system to match "ours". And that's not an isolated case; it's not all one-way.

As many hacks and warts as possible from the story side of Lush 1 (and StoriesSpace!) were ported in the restrictive timeframe. I'm astounded the development team shoehorned in as much as they did before blastoff. Everything else will be considered feature by feature, just as in Lush 1. But in a more sustainable manner.

We survived in Lush 1 without series links for, what, 12? 13 years? And they were twitchy AF with that dual input box and selector contraption. Until then, we had just rudimentary next/previous links that were a pain to manage on a story-by-story basis.

After listening to feedback, less than a month after launch among all the other teething troubles and bug patches, we have series ordering here: better and more flexible and usable than before, showing up as navigable sets in each story to allow readers to enjoy more of an author's universe. That's dedication. That's hard work. That's taking a bolt-on feature from Lush 1 that took 13 years to materialise (through nobody's fault) and re-engineering it in a more sustainable and manageable form. In a month.

It's not us vs them or "we are being told by the new host company" as if they're some monolithic entity determined to bulldoze everything about the written word in lieu of making us all date each other. To imply so is plain rude. It's about taking each piece of what made Lush great and slotting it into an existing framework so both can be supported and not fall over or need to go down for 20 minutes (or longer) every day for maintenance.

The previous thread was locked because, with the best will in the world, nobody is going to read through 13 pages of bugs/rants before deciding whether to post their own findings, just in case it's a duplicate. The helpdesk is there to be used. File support requests as you find them. One per ticket to keep things specific and manageable. Someone will field them as best they can, while we all learn new ways of working and keep abreast of the changes.

Asking divisive questions in the forum about why the new planet on which we've just landed only has saplings instead of the gnarly oaks from the one we had to hurriedly leave behind isn't constructive.

tl;dr - Drink the cool-aid and stop complaining. 

Quote by dlcalguy

tl;dr - Drink the cool-aid and stop complaining. 

That's the spirit. Stop complaining. 

Quote by IMPÜRETHOUGHTS

Quote by dlcalguy

tl;dr - Drink the cool-aid and stop complaining. 

That's the spirit. Stop complaining. 

Quote by TheShyThespian

Quote by CallmeJayne

I realise you have gone to some trouble to put this together, but it really is a voice crying in the wilderness about un fait accompli.

As a Forever Gold member of this brighter, better, adult entertainment site, I hope LS continues to go from strength to strength.

It's not a voice crying in the wilderness. It's many voices crying. Lush is not going from strength to strength - it is weaker, poorer and no longer appeals to many who were once devoted to the site. Just because you keep saying it is better doesn't make it so. 

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

I'm happy because I know the difference between an adult entertainment site with stories and a writing site.

Quote by IMPÜRETHOUGHTS

I love the site. 

I just see this thread as another form to complain when there are other threads where actual feedback is needed about what you liked about the old site and how can we make it work w/ this interface. 

ETA: if in by "other threads" you mean ones created by mods/site admin.

Quote by honeydipped

Quote by IMPÜRETHOUGHTS

I love the site. 

I just see this thread as another form to complain when there are other threads where actual feedback is needed about what you liked about the old site and how can we make it work w/ this interface. 

where is the thread where we can provide feedback?

ETA: if in by "other threads" you mean ones created by mods/site admin.

Here: https://www.lushstories.com/forum/site-announcements-feedback/lush-20-ask-user-interface-questions-and-share-tips-here

Quote by CallmeJayne

Quote by TheShyThespian

Quote by CallmeJayne

I realise you have gone to some trouble to put this together, but it really is a voice crying in the wilderness about un fait accompli.

As a Forever Gold member of this brighter, better, adult entertainment site, I hope LS continues to go from strength to strength.

It's not a voice crying in the wilderness. It's many voices crying. Lush is not going from strength to strength - it is weaker, poorer and no longer appeals to many who were once devoted to the site. Just because you keep saying it is better doesn't make it so. 

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

I'm happy because I know the difference between an adult entertainment site with stories and a writing site.

I write for my pleasure, but also wanted to feel like I contributed something positive to the site with my scribbles. It's hard to maintain that feeling when I don't get that mod's note saying they approved my story, no notification my story's even been published, or no comment from the mod on my story. And long-time readers no longer comment (most likely because they have no clue I published), but leaves me feeling like my efforts are no longer of value to the site. 

And insulting those struggling with the above mentioned just makes people leave. Read Master_Jonathan's ( long-time highly-awarded, member here) profile. Maybe if he was shown understanding instead of made to feel like a "dinosaur", he'd still be here. 

I don't know where 'dinosaur' came from. I've not seen that reference. I struggled for the first few days to get used to where things are - still do at times - so I feel for people's experiences. Plus everything's shifting around us, goal posts are moving, features are being introduced, bugs are being fixed, new ones are being introduced, just like every software project.

Notifications have been (and continue to be) flaky at this time. It needs fixing big time. As does the ability to retain formatting when pasting/uploading from an external source. Those are two killer writing features that need attention.

I presume they've been raised as tickets, but I'm not sure. I've not dived into the helpdesk to see what's still open.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

I think here lies the problem. Many (including me) viewed this as a "writing site" with extras. And while we've been asked to be patient while the new site gets updated, please be patient with us as we go through the process of adapting, accepting changes, and reestablishing expectations. 

I write for my pleasure, but also wanted to feel like I contributed something positive to the site with my scribbles. It's hard to maintain that feeling when I don't get that mod's note saying they approved my story, no notification my story's even been published, or no comment from the mod on my story. And long-time readers no longer comment (most likely because they have no clue I published), but leaves me feeling like my efforts are no longer of value to the site. 

And insulting those struggling with the above mentioned just makes people leave. Read Master_Jonathan's ( long-time highly-awarded, member here) profile. Maybe if he was shown understanding instead of made to feel like a "dinosaur", he'd still be here. 

I agree with all that.

In fact the first that I knew about me having a story published yesterday was when I had a notification that someone had commented on it!

I have just read Master_Jonathon's profile on your advise.

If the story of mine that I am currently working on gets published, it will be my 200th on here.

I have enjoyed and stil enjoy being on Lush, I have met and made (online) friend's with a number of people, some of them, I think, special friends.

Almost everything that I most enjoyed about Lush is, at the moment at least, either more difficult, not possible or less enjoyable.

I am not planing on going anywhere and I hope that story writing goes back to being the pleasure that it was.

Just a note to say in the next update (middle of next week), we will be giving moderators the option to send messages when they approve stories, we are also hoping to have the new editor ready which will support copy and paste.

Quote by danadmin

Just a note to say in the next update (middle of next week), we will be giving moderators the option to send messages when they approve stories, we are also hoping to have the new editor ready which will support copy and paste.

Wooohoooo! Thank you.