(except for the guy above who said I should be IP banned..... not him)

I'm aware that VGchartz has been worked on by many different people and as Talon pointed out there is not only a huge number of files and code but also almost a dozen different coding styles used in different parts of the site, that was the euphemism for string and rope as you can feel with certain parts of the site when a change happens to one area of the site it doesn't "flow" down to others and functionality can be lost most of the time on a temporary basis but still there are certain aspects which seem to not have any unification between them such as text entry between the formatting used here on the forums and in the private message portion which has recently broken in a way that as I described above is embarrassing to see on a site where we have the visitors which I linked in a follow up post (I'm aware that it's unlikely the VGC pro users are going to be using the PM system here all the same) but I have also recommended this site to both work and friends at points but having them ask me about certain aspects of the site such as advertising at times I find myself in a position where I'm the one getting ire for what I would call "mistakes" potentially on here. 

I know the ad choices are nothing to do with the admins of the site but of course when you have something like

on the side the place again becomes hard to recommend to people at work or who have younger kids asking me for advice regarding sites for gaming news.

(I work in IT support so gets lots of questions regarding sites, like I said from my activity here love the site... hate that it's not in a way right now that I can say it is recommendable as I suggested some "beta testing in progress" bars might make users aware of what elements are non functional but temporarily)

IT support for a Gov run training center, Temp Teacher for various IT support classes under CompTIA and Examination supervisor/IT support for classes which do online exams but aren't computer literate.

Basically I spend all day at PC's at work... then all day at PC's at home... then I travel in the off seasons and swear at my phone... for not being a PC.

I did also see a message regarding the non complete deletion of the PMs but it seemed that returning them to the inboxes they were intended for was something which would nearly need individual attention per message and my thought process was... why wasn't it just rolled back instantly to before the mistake happened rather than waiting and making restoring from a backup a lot hard as you would need to potentially lose the work on site since the mistake happened.

There was a question raised if there was backups in that thread

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/dev2016/post.php?id=8802836

But it didn't get a reply.

Sorry I guess it sounds obvious that the site would have backups of the main data of course but I felt as though I was the only one alarmed at the loss of the "600k+ messages" between users here as like I said, been around a while and had some people from here leave and yeah their PM's in the inbox were all that remained of some in terms of my direct contact.

Again look I'm not without respect for the work and site here, it's just when stuff is working fine and then there is work done on it which lowers functionality as a whole I feel like there has to be a way to step in and say "look, this used to work okay before, maybe it didn't need changing" of course understanding the knock on effect of work anywhere on the site over the 12 coding styles makes insuring mistakes don't propagate through the site like that somewhat harder and again I appreciate that too.

I know that adverts content would be what I would consider an issue, but there is other adverts on mobile which break the area's they're meant to stay inside in which makes me think it's the coding at this side which isn't scaling and fitting them correctly into the frames available.

and again this is something I've raised here and I've been assured this is just a local issue down to individual adverts not playing ball with the site since viewers of the site in different countries see different things I understand again that all you guys have is the feedback of users to show shots of things like

That's the site on a 720p 6" mobile screen, those adverts scale out the sides of the site in a way which limits being able to zoom closer, like I said many times though, Talon's work hasn't gone unappreciated here, but at times it can feel like an area of the site is changed and it's done with and on to the next without firstly getting feedback on things which went wrong from change 1, like I said that CEX advert breaking out of frame I've mentioned on here a long while ago (upwards of 2 months) and that screen shot was taken in the last few days.

I know the fix many jump to here or would probably say to me is "why don't I just use an adblock" and I could, but I feel as though using those on a website is the equivalent of piracy as you are using the site without "paying" for it so I don't want to go down that path but wanted to bring the stuff to the attention in a way that it could be fixed so the adverts weren't intrusive to the point where the solution for other users was also to block them.

Like I've said a fair few times now, VGC is a site and community I enjoy but have definitely felt a reduction in site functionality from mobile devices since the new front page layout has come in and genuinely feel that in 2018 a greater number of potential new users are going to be coming via the mobile site, their experience of the site will be that one which long time users can navigate around or know to use adblock on to allow access to it, but a new user coming from google won't know the same work arounds or know that the site behind the issues is worth fighting through them for if that makes sense.

As mobile version

Some ads do behave as above, like the girls advert in the earlier shot, it's just some don't play ball. (I've cycled a few, couldn't trigger the CEX one which is the one which pretty much means I need to reload if I want to read the site)

In terms of the speed of site change though, obviously in the perfect world something is changed and all the issues are pointed out and sorted ASAP but maybe it's just me with my Irish adverts that don't adhere to the rules or getting notifications about when I do something myself on here... but yeah that was mentioned to Talon, passed on via VGPoly to the area for stuff to be looked at back in Nov

This is today

I've just put it down to being a part of the site now as it's a minor thing but still minor things can build up and there must be a reason for each thing which goes wrong even at a minor level, to power onto the next project while something isn't right runs the risk of a cascade failure when a collection of minor things all come together.

I'm not nitpicking I'm making a point that something which was raised as a bug 7 months ago in what I feel is a relatively positive (albeit could be worded better) post to Talon which he replied to and confirmed as a bug is still present today.

Obviously low on the priority list is understandable for a user getting notifications about their own posts, but there is a difference between low prio and forgotten.

This just an example based on a post I happened across earlier while I was looking for something else but agreed, not a big issue, still though, it's not functioning as expected there. Don't mean to come off as nitpicking like I said was just an example of things getting ironed out after changes.

Dont mind me butting in but you really havent seen how long the list is, it will take trucks years to do even do half with the time he has available

But then you can see why I'm asking that rather than power on to the next project and start to change things which will have that knock on effect of causing this list to get bigger and bigger again... stop, take a step back and see where some of the changes which have been done have stirred up negative impacts on the site.

There is just the point when you see someone move to get another box of matches, but the previous fire is still going if that makes sense. But then of course there is the fact that Trucks, Machina and Talon all do this work in their spare time as volunteers which makes me feel bad about even bringing up issues with stuff that they spend their spare time on and even worse when I talk or think about their work as though they should have some foreman overseeing their work and keeping tabs on them... I acknowledge their time spent as being given to the site with effectively nothing in return other than a functioning forum that they can use themselves as well.

I guess it's just a case of if there is a ticket waiting for me to tend to it and it goes without attention too long I will hear about it a lot so any side projects at my job start when all the other things are done,  but then of course it's different when I'm not volunteering to be there by choice.

As a bystander to this conversation, I am curious as to what about the last two large paragraphs made you highlight them as being "unnecessary", not "constructive", and/or not "respectful": 

honestly right now not only is this not a site that I could ever recommend people come to join for the functions it offers, but it's one that I feel I'm going to go back into lurk mode rather than attempt to use anything other than the front page here because everything beyond that is just cross fingers mode that some page won't load and typing is wasted as it will never reach the site as intended.

I've reworded this post a few times to remove profanity from it (hopefully most of it) but yeah, I write it shaking my head, because I really enjoyed VGchartz and it genuinely upsets me to see it in the current condition. Could I at least suggest a few posts about the place or popups on area's which are being worked on? "beta testing function" on certain parts with the ability to revert to the old versions for those who do not want to be beta testing the site?

It seems to me that those were pretty reasonable thoughts on the situation.  Some of it is personal commentary or opinion, but in those cases it is presented as such and explicitly as anecdotal evidence, for example (slightly reworded) "the situation has become bad enough for me that I can no longer recommend it to others, and I won't use it as often because I feel punished for trying.  SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF PROBLEM.  This seems obviously bad for the site's long term health.  Is there any way that PROPOSAL XYZ could happen?"