Uks changes for july 2022

[scrapdolly]

Thank you yiayia and Alison Both of you give back to UK in hosting challenges and Alison you have been an utter stalwart with points and challenges and everything. You really have.

I have to say Alison I agree with all of your comments. And I personally find it easier to navigate forums here (and yes I am a big fan of forum spy which sounds horrible but isn't) than I do on facebook.

[thriftycrafter]

It's like any community, some chat every day on lots of threads, I can't commit to that, and I come here for inspiration to scrap, which I get lots of. There are so many threads to chat on, but that's not really what I'm looking for. I find that the team works for me as I can just about keep up with that small number of people. I don't feel that I can keep up with bigger chat threads.
I've got so much out of UKS over the years, I hope there is a way forward, that works for us all.

[Susie.A]

Having had a bad bout of Covid at the beginning of April (yes, it was Covid despite all the negative test results, I have barely been on here. For a while now it has been difficult because of the amount of work we have here since our friend died and all that has entailed etc... So, I feel a bit cheeky making any suggestions but I used to be on here all the time and I have to be honest since the snap chat thread changed I am not on as much there either.

The snapchat thread was more about fun and chatting and now all the chat has moved to community chat we don't chat on the other thread. The photo's have become more serious too. I never joined in with the photography forum bit because it was all about fabulous photo's but the snapchat thread was more about fun and thinking outside the box. It used to be about unusual doors or spotting things in odd places. If red came up you didn't have to find say a beautiful sunset it could be a red postage stamp - it was finding red things that you wouldn't notice otherwise. We had a 'guess what this is game' once where you took a photo of something at an odd angle or very close up and everyone had to guess what it was. That caused lots of chat and fun. So to me we had the fun side of things in the snapchat and it has been taken away now when it was changed, in my opinion.

I don't collect points so have no say in this whatsoever, they mean nothing to me but obviously do to others so whatever is decided about points I'm happy to go along with.

I will never go on FB - end of that conversation.

As for using the site and uploading, I think it is fine. I don't have any problems whatsoever and feel if it ain't broke don't fix it. Often it is just figuring out how to do something when you're new to it and once you know, you know.

I don't feel the need to be competitive because to me this site is more about the friendliness and sharing, than trying to outdo each other. It was the kindness and encouragement that kept me on here for so many years, not trying to collect points but as I've said if others feel that is important, that's fine.

I don't do community chat as a rule because it is time wasting to go on different parts of the site and say the same things and a lot of it is just "I'm about to put the washing out." I'm frightened of missing out replying to anyone's comments and then offending them so I don't bother. I still do my chatting on the snapchat thread and if I have to chat to myself so be it, hubby would say it's nothing new!

I think I know what you mean Karen about the scrap chatter. When we had SLYMI, which was the first thread I took part in there was more chat about LO's. I will definitely go with the flow on this because I am barely in my lovely new craft room yet, let alone making cards or scrapping. I have so many fantastic photo's to scrap and can't wait to get back into it but we have so much going on here with a whole house to refurbish as well as all our work on our house to do as well. So as Alison said life can be too busy at times but I will get back into craft as I miss it so much.

I must admit to being in awe of those of you who keep with the challenges, you are amazing. As are the three of you for making it all happen, I think most of us don't realise the hard work you do we just accept that UKS is here and for many, as yiayia said, has been a lifeline when life gets tough and we can share on here.

Finally, I don't think we need another photography forum for fun, we already have one, let's use it as it used to be used. No-one used to ask about points at one time as far as I recall.

That's me done, hope I haven't upset anyone, it wasn't my intention just an honest opinion.

[sarah mckenna]

I am one of the Newbies to this group. Unfortunately Karen, I, like others, have found the site incredibly clunky and outdated technologically. It took me and another new member 2 hours of FaceTime tutorial from other long-term members to understand how to join in at all - and subsequent online chats from time to time with screen-shotted annotated bits of the site chain pasted by them when we couldn't work things out or we got things wrong. This is simply discouraging to most people who wouldn't have the time.

I have found out by accident things that don't work properly for example, posting comments where having typed out something long I discover the site does not like certain punctuation such as apostrophes and deletes the lot. This is really frustrating.

It is cumbersome to upload and for me, only works from my phone. I find this hard as it is so small. It does not work the same in terms of upload from one part of the site to another eg. Gallery/Forum/Certain challenges such as Scrap a Sketch are all slightly different. I honestly think if you have been using the site for a long time you have probably just got used to its idiosyncrasies and don't realise how difficult it is for new people.

In addition, everything has to be resized and becomes smaller and therefore, and perhaps most frustrating of all, the layouts are much lower resolution than for eg. on FaceBook/Instagram and a lot of the time you can't see them properly - or perhaps only can if you go to the computer and zoom in and then are wasting time swapping between computer and phone and often they are still blurry, which doesn't show off people's work, whether layouts or photographs to their best. The worst aspect of this is that I have always enjoyed journaling on my layouts as for me, as for many others, scrapping is often about telling a story with words and pictures. I type in an ordinary sized font as I can fit more on that way and it is illegible on this site. This means I have to try to copy and paste it separately to load somewhere else on the thread so people can read it and sometimes this fails and the whole lot gets deleted because of some punctuation or other issue and I just lose heart.

So all this is a longer version I guess of what ScrapElephant is saying but I thought it might be helpful if I outlined the specific difficulties from a new user's viewpoint.

It would be wonderful if something could be done to update the site but unfortunately, I don't see how the suggested July 22 changes do this and suspect that a lot of people have found easier options elsewhere and drifted off.

(BTW in between typing most of the above and coming back to it 15 mins later, the site wouldn't allow me to post my comments, asking me to refresh and re-log in, which I have done - happily this time having copied my comments elsewhere before doing so as the original comments disappeared, which would have been a wasted half hour again had I not done so).

[Susie.A]

That's very odd Sarah, I have never had a problem with punctuation being removed or pretty much any of your problems. I'm using a desktop Mac simply because I hate using phones for anything other than Whatsapp, texts or phone calls. I am old school in as much as I always use apostrophes, exclamation marks etc... and have never had a problem with anything being refused or altered. Could it be settings on whichever device you are using, just a thought? I also can wander off and leave a comment hanging and it is still there when I come back. Do you get restored content below your comment? If I have moved away from a page and go back shortly after it is usually in restored content, it's worded something like that. It would be interesting to know if others have this problem as it is a new one on me.

I have noticed that with resizing, some people's journaling I can read quite well and others not very good at all. I'd love to know why that is.

[scrapdolly]

That’s really odd Sarah … I use it on my phone … now for example … and on my iPad abs desktop and I have never had those problems.

The changes are not intended to address any perceived clunkiness but rather to see if people want to engage more. This thread has had more engagement and discussion than we see in weeks and weeks in just one day.

[scrapdolly]

Perhaps it’s worth asking, those of you who find it clunky to participate in the community and clunky to upload, what keeps you coming .

[sarah mckenna]

I have struggled on Karen because I have enjoyed engaging with other Scrap-minded people, especially my group. Plus, significant underlying health issues make it hard for me to attend face-to-face crops. It is a point of contact to reduce isolation.

My post was designed to be helpful so that you can understand the problems new people to the site face and why it might be that people are drifting off. It is unfortunate that your response is so defensive at best.

It is not accurate to say that you haven't suffered these problems as you yourself have commented against one of my layouts that it is a shame you cannot read the journaling.

[elainevking]

I have the punctuation problems and it has been recognised as an issue Susie.
I am optimistic that people that have difficulties uploading come back because they have friends here? And the challenges and point collecting but perhaps I’m being naive?
I like to collect points for fun! Nothing wrong with that as Susie says. There are many people who contribute and don’t collect points. Long may that continue.
I’m not sure how having an extra photography thread will help?
I suspect it is the resizing that causes more issues than anything but I am only guessing. Because I use an iPhone I don’t have that problem but I know android is different. If you are waiting for me to use my laptop or iPad I’d only come in every three weeks or so

[Susie.A]

Well, that's me all over Elaine, right out of the loop because I've never had a problem with punctuation blocking me. Did anyone ever find out why that is, just curious now?

I'd agree with that about the resizing being a problem with journaling. I understand the need to reduce the size of LO's but it does seem to cause a problem with reading the journaling. Sometimes just double tapping with my mouse is enough to enlarge things so I can read journaling, other times that doesn't help. Mind you, my eyesight is appalling so I could never look at anything on a phone. If it's a photo I often put it on my Mac because it's a 27.5 inch screen and then I can see things properly.

Had to laugh at your comment about the amount of chat on this thread Karen but it always happens when there is talk of change to the site.

Sarah, I have had long term health issues so I completely get where you're coming from about the site bringing you into contact with others, safely.

Back to the wallpaper scraping now...

[scrapdolly]

Sarah I was referring to the clunkiness and losing posts not the ability to read journalling. I think the difference here is that … and this is only my understanding … bandwidth is an issue … it’s not like Facebook when you can use any size pictures etc.

I have just spent time on other forums I belong to and contribute to regularly and I don’t see UKS is any different in its setup. But maybe I am just used to all of them. I thought the way MA had structured it with sub forums etc worked well and as Alison said, a big fan of forum spy to navigate round new posts

[normeyg]

just catching up, reading back all the comments !!
What can I say that has not been said, I have all the problems that has been mentioned, have to use a computer to upload my Lo the re sizing is a pain but I put it down to me not being very good at using technology ( find it all very frustrating when I spend time doing something and then it disappears into thin air). I enjoy doing my scrapping, making cards and chatting with our team. I can’t chat in all the threads as i think that would be just overload. I have life outside UKS so I get involved with as much as I can. I appreciate all the people who work at keeping the site ticking over so thank you very much for your hard work and for all the lovely people who help me when I have any problems.

[elainevking]

For me I love the challenges. They keep me coming back all the time and the friends I made on here keep me coming back daily. I obviously need to get a life!
I don’t ‘need’ points for motivation, the challenges give me that but I will still miss the points. I will still do FB challenges but, as I do now, I will likely combine these with UKS challenges as I do now. Sadly, I can’t see your proposed changes will do anything to encourage more contributing but I am happy to give it a try.
With regard to the photography thread, it was always ‘just for fun’ but in the last revamp points were introduced so I can’t see why we can’t just do things ‘just for fun’ again.
Thanks for your valiant efforts.

[Crafty Lady]

I've been through and read all the comments on here. I can never get UKS on my phone for some reason, it won't accept my log-in info so I can only come in here via my laptop. I can NEVER read journalling on anyone's pages and get frustrated about that, and I've not found a way that works to zoom in. I also find having to resize photo's a pain. I love coming on UKS, and value the friendship on here. I like the challenges even though I don't always get a chance to contribute, I feel the points system puts pressure on me to do pages and if I don't have time I feel guilty and that I'm letting the team down. I agree with Alison about the value of UKS to connect with like minded people. I also used to love the fun aspect of the snap thread when we'd photograph things and have to guess what they were. I hope UKS can continue as I get frustrated with facebook and trying to find something you saw a couple of days ago and you can never find it again. I've only recently discovered forum spy, I used to go on New Posts, but then you'd be on one for a while, then the others disappeared, but now it doesn't happen like that on Forum spy. I personally chat on Snap and Community chat, but sometimes forget what thread I'm on, but that's just me.

[RED HEAD]

I have read back on the comments, and I agree about the Snap thread. It has always been for fun.
But when points were introduced, it changed . I do chat on the chat thread, but spasmodically.
I don’t collect points, don’t think that they are necessary. I do challenges that interest me, and
which I have photos for.
I don’t do FB, I also have apostrophe trouble on here, with posts disappearing.
Change for change sake ,isn’t necessarily good.
But thanks for all your efforts in keeping UKS going.