oops forgot
7. I miss the zip-code search as well. I realize you can do it mostly by clicking and sub-clicking on the Google map (you have to learn to use that thing, but once you've got its strange assumptions mastered it's not too much of a problem). But one zip-code-oriented function that isn't replicated with a map-click is, that people who live out of town don't know where to click on the map. It just adds another step, to have to do your own clicking rather than just hunting "as the crow flies."
Mostly it's an improvement. If you're still reading, here are my thoughts.
1. I LOVE the new (old) Google maps feature. Ideal for traveling mongers, and fellows (like me) who live near the borders of several districts.
2. I like the new grey-and-white-with-purple design. I really don't care about design, but it makes things look professional and cleans up a bit of the clutter to the point that some things I used to lose are now more easily found.
3. I like the PHP-based protocols. They happen quicker for me, and eliminate the former annoying "time out" function of the ASP things.
4. I suggest that the discussion board be defaulted to load as sorted by "most recent response" rather than by "first posted". Thus readers see what is hottest at the top, rather than scattered throughout.
5. I'm up in the air about the pop-up window for older reviews from a given reviewer on the "more" link. I think maybe I see advantages to it, but I also saw advantages to being able to read all of one dude's reviews next to each other.
6. Wireless and PDA ready. This is a must for the next upgrade. Even an old fogey like me is now using a high-res screen cell phone, and I'm going to want easy access to TUSCL on it soon. Why travel, if not to strip clubs? Why have a cell phone, if not to access strip club information while traveling? Humm? :)
Hey, that was quick. (I feel like I should be tossing Founder a herring as a reward.) Although I meant the Hot List displayed on the sidebar of every page.
I don't know why it's addressed to FONDL, but I also agree. Putting clubs on my Hot List used to allow me to watch for when any of their Last Reviewed dates changed - only then would I click to read a new review. Now, I'll need to keep clicking on each club periodically to see whether a new review has been posted. Let's hope Founder restores the one detail that made it useful to have a Hot List.
Founder: Sorry, another issue just reared it's head... It appears that after a certain amount of time, the login to the site "times out", logging the user off. That is okay, but I'd just spent quite a bit of time on a new Discussion Topic that I was about to post, during which time I was rudely interrupted with "business related work", of all things. When I actually went to submit the new posting, the Discussion board redisplayed without my new topic. Then I noticed that I was no longer logged in.
The old version intercepted those issues and asked the user to relogin at that point, after which the new posting was added, instead of losing the typing like what just happened.
Your page design looks MUCH more professional. The thing I miss the most is the "Date last reviewed" feature. It was easy to check the clubs with the latest reviews. Other than that, you are doing a fantastic job.
I've already implemented an easy workaround for the Discussion Board topic list sorting. If you click on the 'Last Reply' column header, then bookmark the page and add it to your browser's toolbar/bookmark bar, it will always be accessible in one click. I had done that before as my primary link to TUSCL, and to refresh the topic list, only it wasn't necessary until now to click the column header before bookmarking. Still, it would be good for Founder to fix that when therre's a chance.
Also, Doug, I'm sure the condensed review display on User Info pages was a conscious change by Founder. I think it's an improvement.
Founder: I submitted a message to you via the "gripes" link, but in order to make it easier, I will mention it here;
First, let me say we all appreciate your hard work on this web site, and I, being an IT person, realize that this re-write has consumed a lot of your time and effort. Overall, I like the new looks.
> From the Recent Reviews page, when clicking on a reviewer's name, the page which displays all of the reviews written by that specific reviewer no longer shows the entire reviews. Instead, we see maybe the first three lines of a review, with a "more..." link which opens a new page with just that selected review in it's entirety. It would be great if we could see the whole reviews from the initial reviewer's page.
> On the Discussion Board, it would be great to default the order to "last modified date/time". I realize we can click on that heading and it will sort it in that order, but it's a pain to have to do that every time.
> When bringing up a specific club's page, it was nice to see a pic of the club. This feature was also very helpful when exploring new clubs, making it much easier to spot a place while driving in a strange neighborhood when you have an idea of what the place looks like.
Founder: The time display on Discussion Board posts seems to be off by 3-6 hours. My post above at 12 noon EDT displays as 9:00. Posts I made last night before the new format at 11 PM now display as 5 PM. Unless I'm missing something.
Also, the date/time format on posts (e.g., "2007-04-11 09:00:52") is very hard to read. No biggie there as priorities go.
Whoa, my delete key ate my words ... That last sentence should have read: "However, I agree that its explanation warrants being added at least to the Top 40 Positive Trend page."
To the guys with the zip code comments: Use the Mapping Feature "By Area Map" and click where your hotel is. That works better than any zipcode feature we've had in the past.
The Advanced Search is coming back. It should be finished soon.
All the old top 40 List will return as well.
the PDA version... well... we're considering it.
To Clubber: thanks for the constructive criticism.
Founder, I've noticed these bugs:
- All the Top 40 List pages display HTML code
- Discussion Board topic list is not default sorted by last reply. No rhyme or reason I can see to how it is sorted.
- I like having the DB reply box on the bottom of the topic page, but the font is Courier, not WYSIWYG. Don't know if this is a bug or intentional.
Raincoat: The Trend number is explained in the FAQ. However, I Top 40 Positive Trend page.
I agree with Raincoat. The Zip code search is must when traveling. Some cities are huge. LA, Dallas they cover hundreds of square miles and I may not know where they may have booked me a hotel, but if I have the zip code I can plan my itinerary accordingly.
Might I chime In here? Very pretty in appearance but would you consider offering a text only option for PDA browsers. That really helps when you are mobile.
I like it, the google maps and gps download are great and I really like the "clubs near by" feature...What I might like to see in the future is when you click on a state to see the ratings near the club names.... Big improvement for us. Thanks for the update and hard work!!!
The new format looks nice but you have dropped some of the key features that made TUSCL very helpful. I will greatly miss the zipcode search that provided distances in the result. That's real helpful when staying in an unfamiliar city. The advanced search was also very helpful, say for finding a nude club with ratings of at least 7.
I really liked being able to re-sort the lists by clicking on a header. We need that back. Also, you have dropped the top 40 list of reviewers of different clubs. Many of the guys with the most reviews, review the same club over and over. Those of us that are out there doing some real recon deserve the credit.
By-the-way, why don't the club addresses include zipcodes. If you bring back the search-by-zip feature then it would be nice have the zipcodes on the club page. Say you find a club that looks interesting, you could then search by zip to see if there is a better club nearby.
Please consider explaining the math for your new trend number. In spite of my bitching, I really appreciate what you do for us hobbiests. TUSCL helps to make the industry better by helping us to spend our cash in the right place.
Well, like many "improvements", they are anything but. I am a creature of habit and normally prefer the status quo. I will, however, live with the change.
No fault of TUSCL, but those markers on Google maps are really clunky in an aggravating, computer-stupid way. The numbering is a decent, long overdue improvement, but even they are useless when the suckers overlap in crowded areas.
The other feature that was dropped from the sidebar Hot List - and this is since last year when the maps were added - was being able to click on the club's city and see a quick text list of nearby clubs and the date of their last review. It was a handy way to check on whether anything had been posted for a whole city's clubs. Maps are fine for areas you aren't familiar with, but it seems that many of the functions of the site are being overlooked that were useful for just monitoring updates on areas you already know about.
I just posted a review and it was almost immediately posted. Was that just a coincidence or will that be the norm? I liked it. I wrote the review in Word and cut and pasted it as recommended, but somehow a few funky symbols were added to the text.
That's the problem with using a word processor, especially Word. It can come out looking funky when it's displayed as plain text unless you turn off any "smart quotes"-like substitution features. It's safer to use a very basic text editor and set it for working in plain, unformatted text. At least you won't lose your work like can happen in TUSCL's windows.
I think there's a bug with the log-in page. If I type the URL ([view link]) and then the proper user-name and password, it doesn't work. Or, more accurately, it rejects me, seemingly working quite fine, by sending me to a "Object moved" page with a link, which sends me to a "login rejected" page. If, on the other hand, I CLICK TO the URL (by finding the "Login" link on any TUSCL page) and then type the proper user-name and password, it logs me in properly.
Not sure if anyone else is experiencing this. Maybe it's just because people are still working on the new TUSCL and it'll pan out in a few days. I'll re-report it if it continues to be problematic.
First thing I noticed other than wondering how the new rating system works before logging in (noticed Nepals went from way low to near top of the list, now to the top??) was that it is harder to search for a club now. I like being able to type in the city, partial or full club name, or zip code to find a club. Google map search seems awkward in comparison. I usually want to know about clubs in a specific city when I'm traveling.
This is a question. Do thread discussions automatically get deleted after a certain length of time? How long do they stay up if they do? I noticed they used to disappear after no comments for 7 days.
I respectfully disagree with Book Guy who wants the discussion thread posted "Last one at the Top" so he can quickly see who has just posted a new comment without scrolling down. That concern is swamped by the convenience of being able to read all the comments on a given topic just like you read a book -- top down for each entry and top down for the contents of each entry. IMHO, putting the latest comment at the bottom of the list is a big improvement.
Getting rid of "rank" is also a nice improvement, as "rank" did not provide useful information.
One thing that could be improved in TUSCL is to get owners or users to update the factual information such as hours of operation, dance prices, food options, etc. Many listings are incomplete. That said, TUSCL is far ahead of all the rest and FOUNDER must be complimented for the overall high quality of this site.
I don't think Book Guy said he wants that. He wants the topic list to be sorted by default by Last Reply, the way it always had been until yesterday's format change.
Well, I'm still able to get the club info that I want, but in many ways, I feel that new format is "change for the sake of change". 1.) I miss being able to view the list of clubs reviewed by individual poster when not logged in- ie, lists club names alphabetically with geographical location, sans actual review. I could quickly evaluate credibility of reviewer that way, a dozen different single reviews of a dozen diff. Deja Vu clubs shows a more seasoned visitor than a dozen reviews of same Deja Vu club. 2.) I agree with several posters that DB posts should be arranged by recency of posts, not in the order that subject was initiated. 3.) I assume that "Rating" has 2-3 yr "lookback" grade average?? I'm guessing that the changes made is as much designer/server/web capacity freindly as it is user freindly- as long as the "food is still on the table".....
Minnow, I took away the ability for non-members to view the clubs reviewed by a member because it is a valuable feature, and if people want that info, they need to join and contribute.
The discussion board will be sorted the old way soon. working on it now.
Arbe: I think we're talking about two different things. I agree with your interest in comments being listed "like a book" on any given discussion page.
What I am referring to, is the main discussion topic-listing. On that page ([view link]) the order in which the threads appear can be sorted by various criteria. Currently, the default sorting criterion is first-post date; I (and a couple of other dudes) suggest the default criterion be changed, to sorting by most-recent-reply date. Thus, older threads and less popular ones slowly disappear off the bottom of the page, while active ones remain at the top even if they were originated a long time ago. This would only apply to the LIST of threads, not to any given thread itself, where I (like you) prefer first-post at first-read (top) and latest-post at last-read (bottom) positions.
If I'm reading you correctly. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Pythagoras: try turning off "Clear Type." Generally on Windows XP or later, the operating system will assume that you like "Clear Type" turned on if you are using a laptop with a non-glass screen. I frankly find "Clear Type" to be fuzzier than non-clear-type. Here's where you find it:
Control Panel (non-category view) > Display icon > Appearance tab > Effects button > second item.
On that second item, use the menu to select something OTHER than "use Clear Type." Or simply deselect the second item itself for no smoothing at all. Try all your options, see which you prefer. Maybe turning off Clear Type that will clear up the type. :)
Founder,
One thing I did notice that is nice, the trend indicator. That is a nice feature. My comments were not intended as criticism, just how I approach change.
It's obvious from reading this entire thread that I'm the least computer literate guy here (which may be related to the fact that I'm also the oldest.) I don't even understand what half these posts are about. So PLEASE Founder, don't get too fancy.
I think the trend arrows would be more useful if they were reserved for indicating a statistically significant change, whether that's a half point, a 10% change or some other measure. As it is now, a club whose rating has gone up .03 of a point gets the same big fat green arrow as a club where it might mean something, while a club that has gone down .03 gets a big fat red down arrow. If both clubs were represented by a "no change" symbol, the clubs where a change is worth noting would stand out better. That would probably be less than half of clubs. When every listing in a column gets an arrow, the tendency is to either ascribe more meaning to them than they deserve or to ignore them altogether.
That said, I agree that the trend number is a big improvement over the now abandoned rating/ranking numbers.
WOW!!!!! I am REALLY impressed. I made a comment about the "Date last reviewed" NOT being there - I look this evening and ----- IT'S THERE NOW!!!!!!! YOU are doing a FANTASTIC JOB!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish "other" web-sites did as good a job..........
FONDL,
I think we had this discussion before, and you were older, but not sure. 58 here, but I am computer literate, since I was involved with them for over 34 years. I also agree, even being computer literate, Founder, don't get too fancy.
Chandler,
An excellent point about the trend arrows.
Clubber, I'm a LOT older that 58. But any time you'd like to run a race I'll put money on me. I can still keep up with my 30 YO ATF when we run together. And she's in super shape and runs regularly. Too me that's much more important than how long ago I was born. Time is relative and I think of myself as relatively young.
I too miss the zip-code search, and I'm glad you're going to bring that back. The only thing I have to talk about is aesthetic: I'm not too hot about the black-on-gray headline for each review. It's not like I can't see it, but before it was white-on-black, and it made it look a lot clearer. In particular, I like the fact that the rating number was BAM! right there for all to see. I like the bottom-line opinion that represents, and then I can read why the reviewer gave it an 8 or a 3 or whatever. I'd like a little more contrast there, that's all.
Oh yeah, it'd also be nice if you included the day of the week alongside the date. I use the day of the week to keep track of where I left off reading the club updates. But that too is cosmetic. Otherwise, fantastic job, and thank you!
I see that the discussion board now doesn't drop old messages. In fact it goes back to 2004 (2899 messages to be exact). Nice trip down memory lane to look at some of the old ones. Also interesting if you want to see what we were talking about in September of 2005 (Stripper fights, black lights exposing the aftermath of a particularly good dance...). Thankfully, even though users can be ignored now, there is also an expiration date so 3 year old posts can't be resurected just by posting something at the end. It looks like about 2 weeks without a reply and a message becomes just an archive. Those who have enjoyed the discussion board for years will probably know why these are good changes.
I strongly agree with someyoungguy's request to restore days of the week to the date format, especially for reviews. Knowing whether a reviewer visited a club on a Monday or a Friday can be crucial. A lot of reviews, including mine on occasion, refer to "last night" or "two days ago". I hope Founder can appreciate this detail. I see where he seems to have picked up on suggestions about more limited use of trend arrows and making cities in club listings clickable. Very nice.
The biggest thing I still miss is searching clubs by city name, maybe city and state to be more precise. When I go traveling, I may not know the club names but I do know the city name. It just makes it easier to find unknown clubs using this site.
AN: Hey, the 'Next 15 Topics' links must have just been added. That's great, Founder! If anyone wants to try skipping way back, just replace the "Start=15" at the end of the URL with any number up to "Start=2890". I do notice that topics started by "removed" nicknames do not appear. I also notice that the "DiscussID=" URL numbers for new threads started since the format change is on a whole system. Probably to work with the new threading system for club discussions.
I just checked out the search by state. That's not too bad. You can just scroll down to the city of your choice. If you wanted to add a nice feature to that and had room, you could add rating number, and the number of reviews beside the club name.
I guess I can live wihout the search by city name since there aren't usually too many cities in a given state with strip clubs. Maybe I'm wrong though.
Casualguy, you can click on states, then find the city from there. Hope this helps.
I may have spoke too soon on bringing the zip code search back. The maps are just the same if not better than zip code searching. Go to the map and click on the city you're heading to. It's simple.
Yes, I just noticed that. Looks nice there. Having the rating and number of reviews beside each club would be a nice extra feature to those lists. Just a suggestion.
The new rating system, does it take the average rating for a given user and count that one average together with every other unique user to determine the final rating? It appears to be that way to me.
CasualGuy, you are correct sir. That way if someone floods a club with 10's every month, and there are 12 other reviews that are 5's, it will average out to 70/13 or just over 5.3
Minor quibbles aside (I like the changes, just takes some getting used to) I want to thank Founder for putting the time and energy into his hobby to make our mutual hobby more enjoyable.
Chandler, ahhh, Start=1785, we were so young and innocent then.
Ah yes, AN, just the mention of some of those topic ID #s makes me nostalgic for a world that is lost forever. Or make that archived forever, and too old to reply to.
Put me in the pro map crowd. Its easy enough to click on roughly where you're going, then further refine search by bringing up a familiar club, and clicking on "find nearby clubs". Having city and zip code listings nice, but who the hell knows the zip code of a prospective club anyway. Likewise, many people probably don't know where Sauget,IL is(right across river from St. Louis), or that INglewood, Hawthorne are near LA, or that Mt. Carmel is near Cincy, or Medway is near Dayton, etc,etc,etc.
Minnow: in furtherance of your post, I find that many other web boards have the major problem that you list. For a long time I used to email people in the US who were considering a trip to Toronto for clubbing, to send an explanation of what locations were "distant" or "near" suburbs of that city. Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Etobicoke, Brantford, they were all quite active on the strip-club (and high-extras club) scene, but you wouldn't have known it by searching for Toronto, and you CAN'T do a zip-code search in Canada at all.
Then TUSCL improved, thanks! I wish USA Sex Guide would improve -- I'm trying to look up things in Chicago, because I'm considering moving there. But the back-and-forth to Google Maps has become hell, trying to find out about whether I need to read the section on Des Plaines, or Gary, or Hammond, or Barrington, or Milwaukee ...
Founder:
I really like the way we can now see the old topics on the discussion board. That is truly helpful and a big improvement.
Not to whine, but typically, when I am reading the discussion board, I look at the date/time stamps of when the topic was last updated to determine what I have read and what I still need to read. With the date/time stamps showing three hours off, it makes it harder to determine my starting point, and I find myself doing a lot of needless re-opening/re-reading of posts that I've already visited. I think it would really help if the three hour time difference could be gotten rid of. I assume this is because the database resides on the west coast and that is the current time over there. If there's no easy fix, I can probably resort to mental calculation whenever I view the date/time...
I think this is still on your list, but I think at least one other TUSCLer said they didn't want this changed, but if the whole reviews could be seen instead of using the "more..." link, it would make the browsing of Recent Reviews a whole lot more efficient.
Thanks... sorry to be nitpicky. Overall, there are still a LOT of positives with the new version... a definite improvement!
I second Doug's complaint about the time offset. I had assumed all sites could stamp time relative to GMT so that users' systems could display it correctly for their time zones. If that's not the case, then it would help if time could at least be shown in AM/PM format. That way, my feeble brain wouldn't have to always perform *two* conversions - from PDT to EDT, and from 24 hr. format to 12 hr. I mean, I know we're at war, but that doesn't make military time any easier. As for why the time matters, it tells me whether there are any new posts since the last time I looked at a thread without having to click on it and look again. I've been missing replies to my posts lately, because it didn't register with me that, e.g., 17:01 meant a minute after 8 PM.
Also, it's odd that older posts - any from before the revamp - now read *six* hours older than they were. I know because I never post before about 10 AM, and in the archives I'm seeing a lot of mine in the 04:00 to 07:00 range.
BTW, that last part about the offset on older posts is just a curious observation, not a complaint.
However, I did mean to add a suggestion that might please everybody (except for Founder and his To Do list). Perhaps the reviews on User Info pages could have links to 'Expand All' and 'Collapse All' within the main window, depending on which state they're in. Personally, it's not an issue - I think it's fine as it is now, or as it was before. When I said I thought it was an improvement, I meant that it appeared to accomplish what Founder intended with the change. However, I can appreciate how opening a series of windows could become annoying in some situations.
RE: Pevious Posts: I think that being able to review old posts is cool. One helpful feature would be to have the option of clicking on, "go to oldest post" vs hitting "go to previous 15" a bejillion times. If my relative computer illiteracy shows, could anyone enlighten me as to a quick and easy way to go back to , say, Oct 2005 posts?
Minnow: After you go to the first 'Next 15 Topics' page, the URL ends with "StartID=15". Change the 15 to a higher number to skip to a page of older topics. The higher the number, the older the topics, up/back to 2900 from Jan. 2004. For Oct. 2005, try the 1670-1750 range. BTW, the way it works, the StartID=#s should go up over time for any given as new topics are added.
Founder: If you're open to considering it, having more than 15 topics per page might be called for, perhaps 40 or 50. Lately, it has hardly been enough to include all the topics active on the current day. If users are reluctant to click to the next page of 15, as topics die sooner, more and more new and duplicate topics will get created, which may make the board harder to administer.
Maybe he's not unhappy with users being reluctant to click to the next page of 15, and he wants topics to die sooner ... saves on database size, and makes the discussion board more of a "quick thoughts" than a "deep and meaningful talks" sort of thing. The editing interface and the kind of page-threading (non-existent) already privileges quicker posts as it stands.
Book Guy, I shudder to think what length your posts would take if this were less of a "quick thoughts" board. But thanks all the same for your speculations on why Founder might decline my suggestion.
What do you know, Founder has increased it to 25 topics per page. Good number. You see, that's how many I was hoping he would up it to, so I asked for 40 to 50 as negotiating tactic.
Founder: I light of Chandler's excellent success using his "negotiating tactic", we still have the "more..." link on the reviewers page, only displaying the first three lines of each of their reviews. Any chance that you could increase the number of lines shown for each review to say 40-50 lines?
Seriously, if you'd rather not display the whole reviews, if you could increase that number to the point where it's not a necessity to click on the "more..." link for every review, in order to read them? It really does get cumbersome when you have to click on "more...", wait for the review to display, then click to close the window.
I like how the login works now, so that you are returned to whatever page you were at instead of being sent to your My Page then having to find your way back. On the other hand, I'm having to log in way more frequently than before the revamp. Sometimes, practically every time I use the site, rather than once a day as it was before. Actually, the constant need to log in seemed to begin a few days before the revamp.
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