New AgingCare website - do you like it?

Golden and CM I miss that right hand column too. It made it very easy to get a snap shot of activity. I don’t think there is nearly as much activity as with the old site.

Does anyone know of a website for people who are receiving care. I’m finding being on the other side of the caregiving issue frustrating. I have way more help than most people, and I’m very capable and able of taking care of many tasks myself, but sometimes it is difficult. And things crop up that one never thinks of. Maybe a new thread on this site?

IDK Becky, I think you might try looking at support groups targeted at those with your conditions or generalized ones for those with disabilities.

Thanks CW. Probably end up just sucking it up. My situation isn’t dire and I have plenty of support and help. Maybe I’m just whining over nothing and should accept my situation and move on.

Becky, you could always start a new thread. You never know what will resonate with others in your situation. Just put it out there, if you would benefit from it. That's enough of a reason to start a new thread, for sure!

CM, Golden, et al, I think the "featured threads" row at the top of the main screen is supposed to be the new way AC tells us what threads are active on any given day. But I don't like it as much and I can't figure out exactly why. Used to be the "highlight column" on the right side was based on last active thread, am I remembering that correctly? So then it was a listing of the last 5 or so threads someone posted or commented on. The row of thread links at the top of main page seems to be trying to do the job of the old column-on-the-right. But... it doesn't work as well for me, either.

Happy weekend, everyone! Thanks for the more specific feedback. We have implemented some changes to the font colors and weights and continue to work on specific requests.

One of the larger issues that we are hearing is sort order, please understand that everyone prefers to sort their answers differently, so we can't win by choosing one. We have heard the requests, and we are working on a tech solution that would allow for your preferred sort order to save while logged in so that you don't have to re-sort each thread.

The reason I'm here now is to clarify another specific request. On the old site, there was a small box in the right column titled "Recent Community Activity" that listed 5 items and was only present while you were using your newsfeed. Are you looking for that element to be brought back? I hate to ask this on the open forum but are any of you willing to share exactly how you use the site. Do you navigate directly to your newsfeed and not use the main caregiver forum page? More specific information and requests are very useful to us in determining our focus. Thanks!

Hurrah! A sentence I understand.

Yes, I do navigate directly to my News Feed.

I must admit I didn't know there was another way of using AC..?

I tend to check the main forum page in the morning to get a general idea of what has been posted since I logged out, then will log in to comment or check my news feed.

Even though the shortcut on my laptop goes to the main page, I almost always click straight through to my News Feed without stopping to read the things on that page. I see the current threads at the top of that main page and I am using it some.

I have this perception that more quantity of users are finding current threads this way, as these threads are staying active for days longer and getting more comments than they did previously imo. That's only my perception and could be your metrics indicate something else, I have no idea.

I think an ideal situation might be to leave the row of current threads on main page and add a column similar to the old one on the right of user's news feeds, so that would be two ways, not just one, to access current questions/discussions.

I go right to my news feed and I miss the "Recent Community Activity" too. I would love to see it come back. Somehow scrolling through the threads under the various headings in the Caregiver Forum isn't as appealing, nor is the front (main) page. The other was so convenient and updated as the threads were answered. The current pages (above) are so spread out it is hard to grab what is happening at the moment - or something like that.

Thanks for all your work.

In all the 5-6 years on this site, I automatically hit my News Feed. I scroll down to see what's up with the normal people/thread that I follow. If something I find interesting posted by another poster from the News Feed, I pop in to the thread and read.... After I'm done catching up with the News Feed, I automatically look at the "Recent Community Activity" to see if anything catches my attention.

While posting or reading on the other threads like Whine or Dysfunction, etc... I do periodically check on "Recent Community Activity" because that is always changing by the latest post (whether a new question or a recent answer.)

Yes, even in this new site, I find myself automatically looking on the right to see the activity - only to remember it's gone.

P.S. when I first found this site, the Home Page was very helpful for me. When I was considering POA, I automatically checked there, too. But most of the time, I automatically go to News Feed.

Book, there is a "normal people" thread? I don't think any of us would fit there.😁

I didn't even realize that you have to go to the main page to see recent activity. I always navigate to my newsfeed that is what I have my shortcut set to. I will use the caregiver forum. It does seem to be very quiet around here since the change. Missing Garden Artist, especially. Gardening as therapy is a nice normal people thread, I guess. We all have our normal moments I suppose. 😉

The main page does not show the most recent activity which I think is very odd.

The only way to see recent activity that I can find is from the drop down under the menu. It would be nice to have everything show on the newsfeed page.

AgingCare's home page shows the four most recent posts and links to articles and some of the other services and info on the site - probably useful for newbies but I never go there. The forum main page is where you have the option to browse frequent/unanswered questions as well as recent and popular questions or discussions.

CW that is not the case. Maybe the threads do not show on the home page until they have more than a certain number of answers? Look at the questions needing responses then look at the main page.

Hm, you are right Glad, I never thought to do a side by side comparison. There are 4 recent questions on the home page but they are not the most recent, and it doesn't seem to be just that the home page doesn't update in real time. I wonder how those questions are selected?

This is soooo much more work to get around than the old website. I understand: more clicks means more screens means more advertising space, which keeps the forum free to the user. But I hate it.

I agree, CW. I think I miss a lot of what is going on on the forum in real time because each section is updated separately. I notice the last post in some of the "most popular" discussions is from several days ago. The old page seemed to update in real time so I could see which discussions and questions were the most current on one feed.

The # of clicks are very important if a website is needing to generate advertisers. It’s kinda like YouTube and choosing “subscriber”. Neither cost us but important for sites as far as ranking and advertisers. YT will delete those with low subscribers.

The new AC site is meh for me; design wise the colors are easier to look as it’s the “spa” color combo but the fonts absolutely suck. The white interior for fonts is just asking for ghosting issues.

Two actions I do like is that older posts are being closed to new comments and there’s a LCSW on staff.

yeah I miss GardenArtist too as she’s so knowledgeable about contracts and other legal. Hopefully she’ll come back.
Who else seems to have joined Elvis in leaving the building?

and for anyone looking for a lovely YouTube channel for music background or to sing along with, “nowhereman” is one. Nowhereman (I assume it’s a guy somewhere in N. Europe based on the comments) YTs Beatles & thier solo careers original songs with the album cover with lyrics overlay and photos. It’s all lovingly done; the ATMP songbook especially wonderful but then I’m biased to George Harrison. His Brainwashed album is wonderful solace for anyone going through a terminal illness and recent death and finding peace in it. I wore my CD out all those months my mom was on hospice.

POSTING ON BEHALF OF LUCKYLU:

luckylu
Sent a private message 14 hours ago
PRIVATE MESSAGE
Wish I could post on the Dinner thread or ANY thread.It still won't let me and Iv'e tried everything and also still no response from AAgingCare either.It's SOooo frustrating!

This is a problem for me:
"Indicate your topics of interest and we’ll customize the content presented to you"

I want the freedom to browse, not have topics "presented" to me, which excludes other things in which I have an interest.

I agree send, I don't want anyone choosing the content presented to me.

Igloo's multiple posts show another issue which I have had. Sometimes I press submit and nothing seems to happen, so I press submit again and again and then reload/refresh the page and find I have multiple posts. This rarely was the case on the old site, but it is regular for me now.The big X that shows when you edit a post looks like it should be a "delete" function, but I can't see that it has any function at all. I tried to delete my multiples and nothing happened.

ETA Aaah, just found out when I press submit and then the big X, it submits properly.

On the caregiver forum page the horizontal format makes it hard to read. But worse is the fact that questions are duplicated in the “needs answers” and “recent questions” and then the popular questions are up to six years old. Then in I miss Garden Artist too. Does anyone know happened to her? It appears that website is not responding to requests for changes.

Yep, agree here too. I don't want "customized" content. I just want to see the latest questions and discussions in real time on one feed on the main page (like we had before!). Then from there I can navigate to what I want to look at.

More clicks may be better for the advertisers, but in the long run a more user friendly site would create more traffic.

First, I tried choosing ALL the topics presented on my settings.
Now, I will delete ALL the topics, and wonder if I will be getting anything in my newsfeed. It is all very weighty, imo.

All I get in my news feed are the threads I have commented on and am following (and I'm happy it is so easy to stop following now). I also get a daily email update and the newsletter, but since I'm on here every day I usually just delete the daily email unread.

I really miss the feature that gave an idea of how many posts there have been added since I last responded to a specific thread. It was a strange feature, in that I could never figure out how it was exactly calculated. Instead of the total number of responses on a thread, it would say something along the lines of gladimhere and six others have commented.

Now all we get is the total number of responses on a thread. I may be losing my memory😧 but geez I have no clue how many rsponses were on a thread when I commented originally. So, I have to go to each thread, then find my last comment, then read what has been posted since. Sometimes there are posters that have replied to a specific response so that makes it even more confusing.

What I dislike the most is the fact that the posts appear horizontally on my phone, which makes looking at each one VERY difficult. I finally figured out yesterday that if I tap the last box ("see more") it rearranges them vertically.

I;m getting used to it,, but I'm still not in love with it. I seem to see a lot less topics and activity

Did we lose the "On my mind" posting feature or am I being daft and missing it somewhere...?

Yes Ali,
We lost our minds. I had read somewhere that new posters were asking their questions on there; and would never get their questions asked or answered, so they removed that feature.

I also read (my interpretation) that if we all really needed it, that the ACCM would have it restored. I need the feature!!

I really need it, miss it, and on behalf of Veronica posting in July on Dorker's thread to report her own circumstances, unbelievable, I am requesting to have
"what is on your mind" feature back, please. Veronica, Countrymouse, and myself all used this feature. If one is following a friend, this feature reaches out to several friends at one time. It is a good thing!

P.S. I don't mean to speak for Veronica on this, she probably was using Dorker's thread as a teaching moment for Dorker.

WHAT'S ON MY MIND?
What is on my mind, and has been for awhile, is to bring back this feature.

Today, I needed to express my burned out frustrations but no thread would do.
I was so sad, upset, at the end of my rope so to say, disheartened and angry too!
But that is "Dorker's thread". See? No thread would do.

Just express it, get it out, wanting no replies or questions, needing to work it out myself.

Uffda!

Ali,
You want it back, huh?
You are very intelligent, one of the most un-daft persons I know.