It seems that HQ made some "improvements" to Squidoo's guestbook module. Hm... Improvements. Is it some kind of joke? Apart from the disappearance of the "delete" button in view mode and the appearance of a "like" button in the same mode, I don't see any kind of improvement done to that guestbook.
When is enough... enough? I ask the question because while they "improved" the guestbook module with the false motive to ease the user experience (we, lensmasters) I don't see any kind of ease of use in all this mess! Please, HQ, can't you test things on a separate domain or subdomain before making them go live ????????
First, they broke the HTML feature in guestbooks which means that our introductions were messy and looked quite unprofessional to the eyes of our readership. Our images disappeared and were replaced with our HTML codes. This made our lenses look like junk and certainly chase some readers away for good.
Then they fixed the HTML issue but my bug report was replied that I had to re-publish all my lenses in order for my HTML to be seen properly. I didn't do that, just republished the more important lenses right now and then, while editing the guestbook, saw a few other problems induced by these so-called improvements.
While comments pre-approval and emailing are set by default, we now have to re-set to strip all HTML off of comments as well as the number of comments we want to be displayed on our lenses. Yesterday while the one that broke all the guestbook module was working on fixing all bugs, some of us already started fixing our broken settings... a few hours later, noticed that our fixed settings were, once again broken and that we had to re-do everything.
Is HQ at Squidoo taking us for fools? Do they think that we don't have anything else to do than fixing all the things they deliberately break? Do they really think that we enjoy working over and over again on the same lenses for nothing? Do they really think that they look like professionals when they break everything they touch? Do they really think that these improvements were necessary when so many bugs are still not fixed and will probably never been fixed?
I wonder why the person responsible for these bugs doesn't fix all of them: it's their job after all and we don't have to waste time restoring what THEY deliberately broke!
The site really looks like it's managed by a team that doesn't have a clue what what "live" usage is. They think about making some "improvements", change things but never test them out, they just make them live and... you lensmaster, do whatever you want with it, we don't bother. Your lenses are broken? It's not our problem, we improved your experience after all.
And talk about guestbook improvements: not being able to delete comments is stupid! Adding a "like" button in comments is totally useless! Who would want to like a comment? Oh yes, "nice lens" or "wonderful job"... is this type of comments going to get a like ???
What were the other improvements? Oh yes, the famous "lenslets", these "review" lenses that are going to go live soon. I checked some newly built lenslets. Hm... To say the truth, I thought they would be the only new features that would make me build new lenses. After having seen some done by the beta testers, I'm not sure any more. I've been truly disappointed with these sample pages. Even though some were built by lensmasters I appreciate, I found these new lens formats look like as if they were built by beginners. Though, and for once, I liked the one Seth Godin built: he turned it into a short selling page that was nicely designed.
Ah well, when they'll go live, other lensmasters will be able to make use of them and I'll see how they turn. I might even play with one of them. If I like what I see and if it works, I might build more. If I dislike what I see, I might just delete it and forget about making new pages on Squidoo once for all.
Was the new workshop indispensable? Hm... I finally gave it a try to get back to the old workshop in no time. I've never seen such a waste of time in coding than that new workshop! Never! What's the benefit of having that huge black column to the left? First it's disturbing - I really dislike having that wide black column stuck to my workshop. Then options are just basic: adding modules, payment and lens settings. That was already available in the right column in the past. Oh we had to scroll down a bit to access them but was that sooooooooooooo tiring? NO !
We still have to scroll down to edit our modules. What's the point having a "no-scoll" facility when you stil have to scroll up and down? Once again, they wasted their time and ours. Oh some are sooooooooooo happy with the new workshop. I consider it useless. And there were more urgent things to take care of!
How about the subdomain tests! Now was that necessary? Cross subdomains tests? How does that look in search engine's eyes? Does that provide them with the insurance that Squidoo's led by a team of professional webmasters, developers and marketers? Not sure :(
Did we absolutely needed all these so-called "improvements"? No. What we needed was a fix for all current bugs. But fixing the bugs doesn't seem in HQ's priorities. And believe me, there's no other site on the Web that's as buggy as Squidoo!
At this rate, more and more successful lensmasters are going to leave and move their lenses else where. At this rate, more and more readers are going to keep off of Squidoo - which is a reality since, although the increasing Halloween traffic, Squidoo's overall traffic is still decreasing dramatically.
Squidoo looks more and more like having a "thing" for smokescreen... And that is not the way they're going to revive the site. Traffic stats proof the point. They really should take an eye to them instead of artificially or blindly inundate us with new silly quests and other joyful posts featuring only 5 of the best XXX lenses - while in the past they were able to feature 30 or 100 of them. They really should study these stats. They really should do something.
But it seems that they'd rather lie to themselves than listen to those who know, those who predicted the current troubles, those who have a solution... or at least those that could help reduce the loss to a minimum.
Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66
When is enough... enough? I ask the question because while they "improved" the guestbook module with the false motive to ease the user experience (we, lensmasters) I don't see any kind of ease of use in all this mess! Please, HQ, can't you test things on a separate domain or subdomain before making them go live ????????
First, they broke the HTML feature in guestbooks which means that our introductions were messy and looked quite unprofessional to the eyes of our readership. Our images disappeared and were replaced with our HTML codes. This made our lenses look like junk and certainly chase some readers away for good.
Then they fixed the HTML issue but my bug report was replied that I had to re-publish all my lenses in order for my HTML to be seen properly. I didn't do that, just republished the more important lenses right now and then, while editing the guestbook, saw a few other problems induced by these so-called improvements.
While comments pre-approval and emailing are set by default, we now have to re-set to strip all HTML off of comments as well as the number of comments we want to be displayed on our lenses. Yesterday while the one that broke all the guestbook module was working on fixing all bugs, some of us already started fixing our broken settings... a few hours later, noticed that our fixed settings were, once again broken and that we had to re-do everything.
Is HQ at Squidoo taking us for fools? Do they think that we don't have anything else to do than fixing all the things they deliberately break? Do they really think that we enjoy working over and over again on the same lenses for nothing? Do they really think that they look like professionals when they break everything they touch? Do they really think that these improvements were necessary when so many bugs are still not fixed and will probably never been fixed?
I wonder why the person responsible for these bugs doesn't fix all of them: it's their job after all and we don't have to waste time restoring what THEY deliberately broke!
The site really looks like it's managed by a team that doesn't have a clue what what "live" usage is. They think about making some "improvements", change things but never test them out, they just make them live and... you lensmaster, do whatever you want with it, we don't bother. Your lenses are broken? It's not our problem, we improved your experience after all.
And talk about guestbook improvements: not being able to delete comments is stupid! Adding a "like" button in comments is totally useless! Who would want to like a comment? Oh yes, "nice lens" or "wonderful job"... is this type of comments going to get a like ???
What were the other improvements? Oh yes, the famous "lenslets", these "review" lenses that are going to go live soon. I checked some newly built lenslets. Hm... To say the truth, I thought they would be the only new features that would make me build new lenses. After having seen some done by the beta testers, I'm not sure any more. I've been truly disappointed with these sample pages. Even though some were built by lensmasters I appreciate, I found these new lens formats look like as if they were built by beginners. Though, and for once, I liked the one Seth Godin built: he turned it into a short selling page that was nicely designed.
Ah well, when they'll go live, other lensmasters will be able to make use of them and I'll see how they turn. I might even play with one of them. If I like what I see and if it works, I might build more. If I dislike what I see, I might just delete it and forget about making new pages on Squidoo once for all.
Was the new workshop indispensable? Hm... I finally gave it a try to get back to the old workshop in no time. I've never seen such a waste of time in coding than that new workshop! Never! What's the benefit of having that huge black column to the left? First it's disturbing - I really dislike having that wide black column stuck to my workshop. Then options are just basic: adding modules, payment and lens settings. That was already available in the right column in the past. Oh we had to scroll down a bit to access them but was that sooooooooooooo tiring? NO !
We still have to scroll down to edit our modules. What's the point having a "no-scoll" facility when you stil have to scroll up and down? Once again, they wasted their time and ours. Oh some are sooooooooooo happy with the new workshop. I consider it useless. And there were more urgent things to take care of!
How about the subdomain tests! Now was that necessary? Cross subdomains tests? How does that look in search engine's eyes? Does that provide them with the insurance that Squidoo's led by a team of professional webmasters, developers and marketers? Not sure :(
Did we absolutely needed all these so-called "improvements"? No. What we needed was a fix for all current bugs. But fixing the bugs doesn't seem in HQ's priorities. And believe me, there's no other site on the Web that's as buggy as Squidoo!
At this rate, more and more successful lensmasters are going to leave and move their lenses else where. At this rate, more and more readers are going to keep off of Squidoo - which is a reality since, although the increasing Halloween traffic, Squidoo's overall traffic is still decreasing dramatically.
Squidoo looks more and more like having a "thing" for smokescreen... And that is not the way they're going to revive the site. Traffic stats proof the point. They really should take an eye to them instead of artificially or blindly inundate us with new silly quests and other joyful posts featuring only 5 of the best XXX lenses - while in the past they were able to feature 30 or 100 of them. They really should study these stats. They really should do something.
But it seems that they'd rather lie to themselves than listen to those who know, those who predicted the current troubles, those who have a solution... or at least those that could help reduce the loss to a minimum.
Posted by Squidoo lensmaster Prosperity66
I'm sure not looking forward to running through my 600 lenses republishing to correct the html glitch in the guestbook. What a lot of work that didn't need to be.
ReplyDeleteI only am left with 138 lenses but like you I'm not sure I'm going to look into all of them. I'd rather update them on time for their matching holiday if they're in this niche, as for the others, I'll see on a one after one basis.
Delete