tuscl

So why the change?

founder
respect for others goes a long way
Saturday, December 31, 2011 5:20 PM
Hi All... I guess some of you noticed a few changes. The changes were made for the betterment of the site going forward. Nearly 50% of our traffic now comes from smartphones (not cellphones, but phones with browsers), and that number is only going up. The site redesign is to merge the two technologies (PCs and Smartphones) into one site. Maintaining two sites (one mobile and one desktop) is just not in my time budget, nor do I think it necessary for the type of site that tuscl is. It is for this reason that reviews are now scrollable one at a time (less data per page), and avatars are now resized to a smaller size and turned into png files (rather than animated gifs), along with most other changes. It is to create less data transfer per page. The new design will also allow me to do more things on the back end and I am working on more features, which are top secret right now ;) Also, the new site creates more pageviews, which creates more revenue. If you'd personally like to pay my rent, I will go back to the old way ;) I'm sure many of you have feature requests. You can post them here, or send a PM, or use the contact link below. Thanks, and have a great 2012

61 comments

  • bossman3041
    13 years ago
    Well....if we get to do more on the "back end" , it's always a good thing!! Keep up the good work!
  • motorhead
    13 years ago
    I do most of my viewing with my iPhone so I do like some of the changes. I think the feature most of us would like to have is the ability to edit or delete posts. Most other forums allow for this. Sometimes we are just poor typists esp on phones but sometimes we wish we could delete a comment we later regret.
  • JuiceBox69
    13 years ago
    It works like a gem on my smartphone : )......I would enjoy having the subscribe button to were u could follow all my fav reviews,post,article......for example I enjoy shadowcat so I go to his profile and click a button that says subscribe or something like it and then I get updates on my phone on when he does a review or starts a thread.......it would also be kool altho not as important tho if all the top guys that had a large following got a little pay from it wich would in my thoughts would encourige more and better reviews and threads.......I know it sounds very youtubeish but google does this idea with blogs and websites as well....just thought it would be kool to have it as an option for this kool site....thanks founder for creating this site it has help me a lot in my short useage....I plain on staying a longg time.....thanks juicyjuice ! : ))
  • Alucard
    13 years ago
    "If you'd personally like to pay my rent, I will go back to the old way ;)" I did mention in a thread about running the Site on a Subscription Basis. I hope that the increased features are worth the loss of ease of use on a PC. The site IMO is now not very PC Friendly, and I access it via PC 99% of the time. Oh well... Post Scriptum: More than once I've asked about including a way to back & edit posts after hitting the "Post Comment" button.
  • founder
    13 years ago
    @motorhead - the trouble with editing posts is sometimes users can go back and change the meaning of their orig post, thereby taking some of the integrity away from the site. the same goes for deleting posts and/or comments. If you really fuck something up, feel free to email me and I can make a change or delete something for you. @jb69 - I am working on something similar to your subscribe idea. as for paying users, well, if I had google money, I would be all for that ;) @alucard - see comment above re post edits, and we do have the site on a subscription basis (and thanks for buying a lifetime one at that), but the money is not the only issue. the issue is staying current with the times (would you still pay $20 for an airdance from the 1980s?). If tuscl isnt usuable, then it goes away. Give me some specific examples of the site not being PC friendly, and I will look into them. (I agree the site is not taking advantage of all that I can on a pc, but remember, it needs to run on ALL browsers)
  • JuiceBox69
    13 years ago
    Awsome bro ! Thanks for being a kool kat !
  • shadowcat
    13 years ago
    I can no longer open my photos but can open other members photos. Instead my photos page shows Warning: imagepng() [function.imagepng]: Unable to open '/home/httpd/vhosts/[view link]' for writing in /home/httpd/vhosts/[view link] on line 290 What does this mean in laymans terms?
  • snowtime
    13 years ago
    I don't have a smartphone but fully understand your need to make changes. This is a great site and very interesting and informative for most of us. I think we will all get used to the changes and do just fine. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into making TUSCL what it is.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    thanks for adding the list for reviews back. I like being able to click on that option to get the list only of recent reviews. It looks like it's sorted by states as well now. Thanks, makes finding reviews in my state easier. Now if we could get the search feature back by club or city, that would be very nice. Maybe it's in there somewhere. The search box at the top of the screen didn't seem to work.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    Maybe it does, I see the google results only showed tuscl google results and I'm still logged in when I go back. The previous search results had a whole lot less information on the screen.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    If you're looking for adding a new category to the ratings for a review, you could add an overall fun factor to sum up one's experience. That would be a combination of how well you enjoyed your time in the club. It could even go from zero to 10. zero would be a waste of time even to visit. 10 would be the best you could hope for. Then being able to sort clubs on categories like fun factor, dancer ratings, etc. would be nice as well. Just suggestions.
  • georgmicrodong
    13 years ago
    Well, after using it for a couple of days now, it does seem to load faster on my phone. And even though I currently have an unlimited data plan, that may not last forever, and others may nag have it now, so less data transfered is good. However, I do think that limiting the discussion threads per page to 10 will dissuade people from participating in the older ones. That said, please, please, please add back the thread post counts and last date and time to the places it was before, e.g. discussions club reviews and articles, rather than this "x hours ago" thing. And if it's not too big a deal, the post and review counts for reviewers and discussion posters.
  • Ermita_Nights
    13 years ago
    I liked the old non-Google search better. I liked the old club summary better, now it doesn't all fit on one screen and I have to scroll down. I really dislike the new review list that requires clicking through one by one.
  • mjx01
    13 years ago
    Dear Founder, Let me start of by saying that I have enjoyed TUSCL for a few years now, and the information posted here has proven to be very valuable numerous times. As for the new site, let’s just call it what it is (as you said): “the new site creates more pageviews, which creates more revenue.” For what it’s worth, I respect that. I don’t like it, but I can respect it. With that said, I’m not buying the maintaining two sites excuse. I am not a website expert. I have only personally built one website in my life. And I don’t know how your site runs, so I don’t know what limitations you are up against. But, given my professional background and experience, I just can’t get my head around the assertion that it would be so much more work. From what I’ve been reading up on, CSS3 (maybe also CSS2, not really sure) allows for ‘broswer capability’ detect. You throw in some code to detect if it a personal computer based browser or smart phone browser. Then the display rules, amount of text, picture sizes, etc. (and resulting data transfer) then happen automatically. It still is one site, but the display format varies from PC to tablet to phone. I’ll know more after I have time to run in by some friends at work. For your sake, I hope the creating more pageviews works out for you. For the high volume guy on here that I enjoyed following, I hope it goes the way of the failed $5 debit card fees and Verizon’s failed $2 charge to pay online. It’s just too tedious to click click click compared to a few days ago. I just don’t enjoy the site now. So, I just don’t see myself checking in daily or even a couple of times a day anymore.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    On the particular screen where you got only one club on the screen, it does seem more logical when logged in, to display in full the last set of reviews rather than having to click on each one. Just making another suggestion.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    If not logged in, I would be fine with discussions and reviews being completely hidden. Why give everyone complete access to whatever is found here? I suppose a sample page or temporary membership may then be required for potential new customers or users to see what the site is like.
  • CTQWERTY
    13 years ago
    So, 'click-a-thon' format has now been explained. Mind you the recent reviews section is much harder to skim for interesting stuff--several items of which have served as discussion board fodder for the rank and file here. Personally, I am much less likely to take the time with the recent reviews section now going forwards. That will cut down on my time spent on TUSCL. Additionally, the "member since/club reviews/etc." is missing from the reviews and discussion board posts. This was helpful in weeding out the less credible posters and shills. With this intel we were able to help keep the pollution out via flagging, etc. It would seem you have abandoned this free help we provide in the name of more eyeballs of the types who pollute other sites such as strip club list. Want more eyeballs? Give the gals their place: While you're at it, create a new section to preserve the best works written by dancers. Call it DPV for short (Dancer's Point of View). Allow the rank and file to comment to the pieces. Adding the DPV zone will give dancers a reason to stop by and motivate them to author additional content. Provide 3 free months for something which makes the DPV zone.* In turn you'll get more stimulative reading for your membership, benefit from word of mouth, and enjoy a virtuous cycle of growth. Otherwise you're fumbling away content as past quality works fade into oblivion. [This idea is similar to bars offering half-price ladies nights to "get 'em in the door". Then the money-spending stags follow...] YES, TUSCL is dedicated to the customer experience. But YES, you're looking for additional revenue/eyeballs. Time to grow! (And I apologize for the lack of editing....... truth-be-told, this little rectangular box to type in is too small to spend much time editing within. Give me a box twice as large please and my sentence construction/thought organization and overall readibility will improve!)
  • overnights
    13 years ago
    I can understand the changes to be more friendly to the smartphones. I do not access the site that way though, since my smartphone is a company phone. Call me paranoid, but I do not want to leave any "traces" of my activity here should the phone be taken from me before I can do a purge or reset (if that would even help). I may end up getting a personal smartphone to keep away from that problem.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    One thing I'll add. I just surfed the site on my ipad. One of the big advantages to using an ipad is that I can make the text or anything else I want a lot bigger typically when surfing on the internet. The size of everything is now fixed so I can't enlarge anything with the simple finger spread technique on the ipad now. This change is not good in my opinion. There are a lot of ipads out there and a growing number. Another site I visit has the option to view a site in standard mode which will let me enlarge text and stock charts using the finger spread technique. I believe this is a major problem many web site designers seem to overlook when they are setting up their web pages for viewing on mobile devices. Many people like to be able to easily enlarge a picture or the text on the screen. If the text is fixed and small, I stop even looking at on my ipad. That just means whoever set up that page or site lost me when they thought they were designing it to be ipad friendly.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    Meant to say when a site fixes the text and site so that I can't enlarge it using the simple finger spread technique, I often do not visit that site again on my ipad even if the change was to make it ipad friendly. I don't know why so many web sites have been so dumb about this. I can't be the only one. I even heard on the news some older people were using ipads because they could easily read everything online. I can still see it ok on my ipad but find it very frustating when a site takes away from what I can do on my ipad. Just wanted to mention it.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    I don't have a smartphone so I won't comment on that.
  • minnow
    13 years ago
    founder- Thanks for explaination of changes. While making site more smartphone friendly seems like a logical and even noble goal, please consider this: Smartphones don't read tuscl, real people/customers do. If you are going to make me click/read 10-30 pages vs my long accustomed 1-3 pages, then maybe I'll stop reading the reviews. Maybe I'll say "screw this crap", and just go to club website, or pm some user I recognize. An "unintended consequence" of introducing a new, "pump up the pagecount" idea. Really now, how does that affect ad revenue? Please consider the concept of making site user friendly for exisiting users in the format that they're most likely to use. Some users that have iphones still have laptops. Is someone trying to decide which club(s) they should visit going to do 10-30 individual hits on their iphone while driving a rental car through rush hour traffic, or on their laptop from the relative quiet/comfort of hotel room, office, or home? I won't nitpick too much, several users have listed some good ideas ( viewable number of reviews by author, etc). As I've stated before, the old format of being able to scroll through 10 complete reviews on single page is MORE user friendly than new format. I'm not a web designer, I've read 1 tusclers comment about 2 seperate sites, but whatever it would take to go back to old system of viewing club reviews would be my unequivocal pick for making ONE change if I could only choose one. BTW, Happy New Year, all.
  • bellman
    13 years ago
    Things I like/don't like about the new format. 1) The font is too small -- makes reading reviews and discussion a strain on the eyes. 2) Clicking through the reviews of a club one at a time is tedious -- the old style of 10 at a time is much better. 3) The geographical sorting of the recent reviews list is good -- makes finding clubs in an area you live in or will be visiting easier. I visit the TUSCL site exclusively from a desktop PC, so any "improvements" for users with other devices are meaningless for me. I will continue to visit this site, but less freqently, and spend my time on other sites covering similar ground (like Best GFE).
  • Titangs
    13 years ago
    Founder, I for one like the changes, and I really appreciate your candor about revenue. Keep up the good work and thanks.
  • vincemichaels
    13 years ago
    You are doing what you think is right, Founder. Happy New Year. Keep up the good work and we'll be around. :)
  • rh48hr
    13 years ago
    It has been a couple of days and I have adjusted. I'm sure most everyone else will as well. Are there somethings that I would like to see come back, sure, but if they don't return in some fashion, I'll live. Thanks for all you do Founder and have a Happy New Year.
  • sharkhunter
    13 years ago
    yes, Happy New Year. I lost all the settings on my ipad when I did an update and my backup was unworkable due to a trojan horse detected and blocked by my anti-virus software. I hadn't done a backup in several months. Lost all my settings. Things are changing. We'll adjust. I'm hoping it's not too much effort to work out the kinks. I rarely access this site from my ipad anyway. You've been doing such a good job of making updates so far I believe everyone is just voicing their input. Many places people just leave and just complain if they can. I plan on staying around. I believe you said you're still working on changes so I'll be patient.
  • sandman96
    13 years ago
    I'm OK with most of the updates since I access the site about 50/50 between smartphone and pc. However, the date format for My Hot List drives me nuts, displayed in military time makes it more difficult to use. Personally, I look at my hot list to see if there are any updates to the clubs that I care the most about. Showing the year first is useless to me, I'd much rather it show month, day, year. Please give us a date format or sort option or highlight the updated clubs or something, please!
  • Clubber
    13 years ago
    founder, Happy New Year! As you might have read, of all the changes you have made in my 10+ years here, many I didn't care for at first, but was quickly able to adapt. But this time, my trusty IBM 1410 is going nuts! I guess I will have to upgrade.
  • LoneLurker
    13 years ago
    Founder, Just wanted to say this site continues to do what I need it to do. It's been an invaluable resource to me for more years than I want to think about. Thanks for your work on the site and happy new year. LL
  • Clubber
    13 years ago
    Not to mention baby harps are overrunning my home!!!
  • rickdugan
    13 years ago
    Founder, Thanks for taking the time to walk through the changes. Most of this stuff will take some getting used to, but I think that everyone will adapt. The one feature that I really do miss badly is the ability to see the number of reviews and clubs covered by each member at the outset when I am scrolling reviews. Frankly, some of these clubs have so many "1 and 1" reviewers that it is very helpful if I can see the counts at the outset in order to determine which reviews to spend time on. If there was any way to place that data in the taglines that link to each review it would be helpful. I do realize that more page hits = more revenue, but needing to click through to 10 shill reviews before I find one with meat on the bone is going to make this site harder to use.
  • founder
    13 years ago
    @mjx - we are already running 2 stylesheets (one for mobile, one for pc) The two sites is a bit more complex than that. It would require a completely separate set of code. @bellman - please send a screen capture of the small font (it should be the same size as the previous version) also, what OS and Browser are you using? @ all mobile users - pinch zoom should be working now the # of posts/reviews/clubs per user will be returning (it needs to be optimized to run faster) @, ctqwerty, there is something in the works for women, but lets face it, most dancers don't stay long here because when they post, they very often get bashed.
  • motorhead
    13 years ago
    founder, Thanks. Zoom works. That was my only complaint. I liked the display changes for smartphones but I missed the zoom. Much better.
  • rob0411
    13 years ago
    I'm getting a "bad certificate" notification when I open the site, and a warning to not open. Something about the site was originally under a different address. Is this my problem or yours?
  • racejeff
    12 years ago
    In the discussion threads I miss the last comment posted date/time helped me know how far back to read. As has been said by many others information on number of reviews up front was helpful. In an earlier discussion with another member here I said don't worry founder has always fixed usability problems here. Looks like this time I was wrong as this is for a specific strategy. I seldom use my smart phone for here. And the clickathon will chaange my approach. In the old days, last week, I would enter ans scroll through reviews until I hit one I had read before. Then go to discussions and review comments the same way. Now I'm simply going to follow 4-5 locals clubs and look at 1st ten reviews to see if any are interesting. Then glance a 1st page oft discussions. I suspect my page views will be down.
  • CTQWERTY
    12 years ago
    Founder, that is some good news. The "refuge" should help things all the way around: best content preserved for those who stop by occasionally and a motivator for others to contribute as well. Now, can you get Shadowcat inducted to the TUSCL Hall of Fame??? (And give me a 50% larger rectangle to type in--scrolling is a pain in the arse!)
  • sharkhunter
    12 years ago
    I checked, zoom feature works on my ipad. Thanks. I also had the strange server message error yesterday or whenever I first accessed the site on my ipad the first time. However after clicking yes or ok to access the site anyway, it never came back again.
  • jackslash
    12 years ago
    It would be nice if we could highlight good reviews or articles or discussions so that people would notice them. You can flag reviews, but this is only to indicate a problem.
  • JuiceBox69
    12 years ago
    I agree with jack that would be very helpful..........also a place 4 n00bs would be nice all they would have to do would be click a button and it would go to past threads that help answer the most common questions.....example what do I wear in the club for lappers and how to get laid ?
  • JuiceBox69
    12 years ago
    My vote for shadow cat in the hall of shame !
  • motorhead
    12 years ago
    As much as we bash the pink site, maybe founder should just copy their web site. They have a features that would satisfy us all: a newbie thread, a customer & dancer section a more user friendly comment forum section. Lol
  • Clubber
    12 years ago
    Why not ask founder to personalize this site for every single one of us? He has to serve the masses and in my book, does a more than excellent job. Sure there are things I would prefer to have and things I preferred as they were, even from YEARS ago, but as they say, it is what it is! Having him explain some of his decisions really makes a difference. Might not agree, but I can respect his reasoning. OK, off the soap box. Y'all have a Happy New Year!!!
  • txtittyfan
    12 years ago
    Two points for Clubber. TUSCL is designed for the masses. It works well and the improvements will benefit his profitability, which in turn continues to benefit the users. I think too many users feel the site is about them and their egos. Probably just like when they wander into a club and get upset when dancers don't flock to them.
  • Clubber
    12 years ago
    ttf, Sarcasm, my friend, sarcasm, at least the first sentence.
  • newmark
    12 years ago
    Let me just say nice job on the changes. As a smartphone user, they are great.
  • imnumnutz
    12 years ago
    founder, it's your site, we're just visitors. do what you think is best.
  • Hugh_G_Rection
    12 years ago
    Overall I like the new look and as I have yet to browse TUSCL from the Android phone I recently got I'm sure I will find the new format will be helpful. I notice I have to log in now where I used to stay logged in... should I think of deleting the cookies for the site from my computer and letting Firefox create new ones?
  • JuiceBox69
    12 years ago
    Founders a fuckin pimp yo ! I bet he has bitches all over him !
  • rh48hr
    12 years ago
    I would like to add I like the change in the review section of listing the reviews by state/province/country in alphabetical order. It makes it real easy to go to the reviews you want to look at quickly.
  • jackslash
    12 years ago
    Maybe you could add a "Like" button similar to Facebook so that readers could indicate good reviews or articles or discussion. The number of "likes" could be displayed by the title. This would help to direct readers to reviews or discussions that other readers have found helpful.
  • Rod8432
    12 years ago
    Regarding the ability to edit posts, I've found that no matter how much I review my text in the little input box, I'll often spot errors after I post it. How about offering either: 1) A middle-ground like TER does it? There, after you post, you have a limited period to modify it (like 24 hrs, or something like that). After that, it goes hard (no further mods). - or - 2) A "Review" step to view the post as it will appear before committing to it, like Meetup does? It's frustrating and sometimes embarrassing to not be able to modify the communications I'm intending to post. I think either approach would be a welcomed improvement. In any case, thanks for hosting this site. It's the best thing going for SC aficionados.
  • EarlTee
    12 years ago
    Founder, For smartphone users, far too much of the most precious screen real estate there is -- the top of the page -- is devoted to rarely used functions (buttons linking to My stuff -- profile, photos, reviews, articles...). - E
  • Cheo_D
    12 years ago
    So far doing well with the new format, Founder. Some formatting hiccups in my older netbook and on my iPhone ( the columns in the "rc" recent-review list kind of cram into and over each other) but the content comes through.
  • amaihar
    12 years ago
    I'd like to add the map feature back. When I am traveling, I would click the map and see what clubs were close to my location. That is the main feature I use with this site. Many times I may be 30 or so miles from a place with good reviews and will make the detour while traveling to have a good time. Just using the city search is useless to me unless i'm in a city that has clubs listed. I have tried to access it on my smartphone before Christmas and decided to just get out the laptop, so thanks for making it mobile friendly!
  • founder
    12 years ago
    @amaihar - just fyi, you can click on any map and it will show you nearby clubs. Meaning you can go to any city, view the map, zoom out and click anywhere
  • Ghosty
    12 years ago
    Love the site. Longtime lurker, several time reviewer (till I decided to just pony up for a membership). Suggestion if I may: RSS feed for comments and club reviews. You can put ads in the feeds so no lost revenue for lost page views. I think that would be a very useful feature. If you had that and individual club comment boards (one thing SCL has that this place doesn't) you'd be blowing the hated SCL away. The new format works very well on my iPhone. Thank you and congrats.
  • founder
    12 years ago
    you can now "prop" reviews. This is like the reverse of flagging. See a good review? Prop It. more to come later
  • Club_Goer_Seattle
    12 years ago
    @ founder: Another glitch I noticed in the changeover: When I go to change my primary profile pic it takes a couple of days to show up on anything I post, but the change is already evident when I view "my photos" or if I pull up my pics from clicking on my own handle, as one could do with any TUSCL member. Do you anticipate this problem being cleared up soon (with the numerous other things you're trying to fix, and improve upon) ?
  • Clubber
    12 years ago
    Ditto Club_Goer. After reading this I remembered I tried to change my picture yesterday since the club no longer works, and it didn't seem to work. And today, there she is!
  • enphl
    12 years ago
    Please add the Locator feature back. That was the most useful feature of this site because I could put in my location and look at what is nearby or even sort.
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