stuff happens.

I'm still having trouble with certain reviews accepting my helpful vote.  Once I click Yes, the arrow just spins and spins and doesn't take my vote no matter how many times I leave that review and go back and re-try. 

Hi - I run advertising sales at Viewpoints and wanted to respond and thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

I can tell you that our advertising policy does not allow ANY advertising to run without clear "Close" buttons that should allow you to easily close any floating ad unit or turn off any video.

If you ever have an experience like you described below, it definitely means something is broken so please let us know, like you did here, and we will fix it. We do not allow purposefully allow any advertising to run like this - I completely agree that its very annoying! I have tried to recreate the problem that you describe below but haven't been able to yet. Is it still happening? If so, if you can send me a screencap or tell me the exact page url where this is happening? That will be helpful in fixing the issue.

Also, while we are on the topic, I thought I'd share a few other advertising updates with everyone -

First, we have removed all of the advertising that used to trigger the floating ads when you mouse over certain words. We heard all of you say that you didn't like it, so now it's gone!

Secondly, we are specifically working on improving our advertising programs to showcase the power of our community to our clients. You may have noticed the increase in sampling opportunities (we've recently given away freebies from Bounce, Windex, Purevia and Kraft) as well as opportunities to participate in sponsored contests (recent Moen contest). The beauty of these programs is that it allows our community members to try new products for free; in turn, our community provides amazing insights to the manufacturers of these products, and finally, the reviews themselves are incredibly useful to other consumers who are looking for product information before they make a purchase. It's the proverbial Win-Win-Win! :)

We are really excited about these programs - you may have noticed that we are now featuring quotes from reviewers in several of our advertisers' campaigns. Over time, we hope that you will see more and more of this type of advertising on Viewpoints, while we are scaling back other, less relevant advertising.

Stay tuned for lots of exciting programs (translation - free samples!!) that are in the works. And of course, if you have any other feedback for our advertising team please let us know, we're definitely listening.

thats ok.I am survivng and a little tech save so no matter what it all works out.

This isn't really a bug, but it's something that seems to be going wrong a lot lately.  I keep seeing reviews of products posted into the message boards instead of under the product review tab.  I'm not sure if anything can be done besides alerting the writer to what they have done - over and over again.

Happens to the best of us.

This something we are aware of and are discussing possible solutions.  Stayed tuned!  Thanks for brining it up.

Smika said…

Hi - I run advertising sales at Viewpoints and wanted to respond and thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

I can tell you that our advertising policy does not allow ANY advertising to run without clear "Close" buttons that should allow you to easily close any floating ad unit or turn off any video.

If you ever have an experience like you described below, it definitely means something is broken so please let us know, like you did here, and we will fix it. We do not allow purposefully allow any advertising to run like this - I completely agree that its very annoying! I have tried to recreate the problem that you describe below but haven't been able to yet. Is it still happening? If so, if you can send me a screencap or tell me the exact page url where this is happening? That will be helpful in fixing the issue.

Also, while we are on the topic, I thought I'd share a few other advertising updates with everyone -

First, we have removed all of the advertising that used to trigger the floating ads when you mouse over certain words. We heard all of you say that you didn't like it, so now it's gone!

Secondly, we are specifically working on improving our advertising programs to showcase the power of our community to our clients. You may have noticed the increase in sampling opportunities (we've recently given away freebies from Bounce, Windex, Purevia and Kraft) as well as opportunities to participate in sponsored contests (recent Moen contest). The beauty of these programs is that it allows our community members to try new products for free; in turn, our community provides amazing insights to the manufacturers of these products, and finally, the reviews themselves are incredibly useful to other consumers who are looking for product information before they make a purchase. It's the proverbial Win-Win-Win! :)

We are really excited about these programs - you may have noticed that we are now featuring quotes from reviewers in several of our advertisers' campaigns. Over time, we hope that you will see more and more of this type of advertising on Viewpoints, while we are scaling back other, less relevant advertising.

Stay tuned for lots of exciting programs (translation - free samples!!) that are in the works. And of course, if you have any other feedback for our advertising team please let us know, we're definitely listening.

---

Thanks so much for responding to me.  That problem that I mentioned actually lasted only about a day, disappeared after that.  I even forgot about it and I should have really mentioned that it had stopped doing that.

I should have realized that it wasn't something which had been done deliberately but I wasn't sure who designed things like that into ads -- the sponsor or you guys.  Since it had never happened before at ViewPoints, I should have realized it wasn't intentional.

You're RIGHT, the floaters are gone!  One day they were there and then gone.  Floater ads are a common part of every website and there again I tend to blame the sponsors for wanting that type of ad.

I realize that our sponsors bring a lot of income into ViewPoints and also I think we all really enjoyed the free sample things -- both trying the stuff and writing the reviews.  We look forward to other ones I hope in the future. 

Thank you so much for your detailed response to me and again I'm sorry that I did not follow up my original complaint by reporting that the problem had stopped almost as fast as it had started.

Everybody have a nice day and stay warm if you can!

I have complained about this, and I know Patty, and JovialCougar have too now... why is it at the bottom of a new review, you can post the review to the discussion boards? I would like that eliminated. The reviews show up in the community timeline, and those posts, move better topics further down in the pages of the threads.

Also, when I need to choose a sub-category for a new review, or even choose how often to receive email posts about topics on the boards, the window that comes up to choose is tiny - so small some options can't be clicked on. It's two big scroll arrows and a thin window in the middle.

Google Chrome

true,true.

jlowe308 said…

true,true.

---

jlowe308, I'm not sure which post your are responding "true, true" to, but it might be more helpful to the community leaders if they knew which problems specifically you were referring to.  The more information you can provide, the better.

ok

For a couple days now when I upload a photo to a review  it doesn't give me the option of editing it after it's finished. I can only put a caption before I upload.

I'm using IE 7 or 8...

MRSverret said…

For a couple days now when I upload a photo to a review  it doesn't give me the option of editing it after it's finished. I can only put a caption before I upload.

I'm using IE 7 or 8...

---

Thanks for the report! We have always allowed personal, profile photo captions to be edited but I'm not sure we ever allowed review photo captions to change after publishing. However, you bring up a great point that members may need to change review photo captions so we can add that to the list of enhancements.

There used to be two buttons on the side of the photo, one to delete and one to edit. Now, there isn't a button for editing.

wow.

jlowe308 said…

wow.

---

jlowe308,

The "Found a weird bug? Report it here" discussion board is a place for members to state what problems they are experiencing with the site, and for the community leaders to address those problems.  Your one word responses are not really appropriate here because they are taking away from what this specific thread was designed for.  Unless you are reporting a problem, please avoid this thread.  Thank you!

Meredith said…

MRSverret said…

For a couple days now when I upload a photo to a review  it doesn't give me the option of editing it after it's finished. I can only put a caption before I upload.

I'm using IE 7 or 8...

---

Thanks for the report! We have always allowed personal, profile photo captions to be edited but I'm not sure we ever allowed review photo captions to change after publishing. However, you bring up a great point that members may need to change review photo captions so we can add that to the list of enhancements.

---

We have been able to edit our captions after publishing for a while now. There are two little icons next to each photo and one is a pencil. That one allows us to edit captions. I just actually edited a caption that had been published so it works for me in Firefox 3.5.2 or whatever the latest version is.

And I do agree with this2shallpass19's statement about one word posts. If people would at least quote what they are responding to, it would help the discussion. I honestly don't think it's necessary or helpful to post one or two word comments but that's just me....

Bugs,trojans horses and back door bot are everywhere and the truth is viruse are changing every minute and every second of the day so people are gonna see some fromt ime to tiem that slip through the cracks and we just have to hope that our computers are up to date on their security and stuff.

PattyTherre said…

Meredith said…

MRSverret said…

For a couple days now when I upload a photo to a review  it doesn't give me the option of editing it after it's finished. I can only put a caption before I upload.

I'm using IE 7 or 8...

---

Thanks for the report! We have always allowed personal, profile photo captions to be edited but I'm not sure we ever allowed review photo captions to change after publishing. However, you bring up a great point that members may need to change review photo captions so we can add that to the list of enhancements.

---

We have been able to edit our captions after publishing for a while now. There are two little icons next to each photo and one is a pencil. That one allows us to edit captions. I just actually edited a caption that had been published so it works for me in Firefox 3.5.2 or whatever the latest version is.

---

Okay, my apologies, MRSVerret. If you wish, you can use FireFox 3.5.2 to edit captions until we can get this fixed in Internet Explorer. Thank you for clarification and sorry for the mix up, ladies!

it happens.

I went back to a review I wrote on a Jewelry Warehouse Charm Bracelet and I noticed that all of the locations and addresses are staggered instead of being flush to the left margin.  When I go in and edit I see them flush to the left side of the page but then when I click save and go back to read the review they are all staggered again.  Could you please fix this so it doesn't look so bad?  It doesn't seem like what I'm doing is working.

Thanks!

So many things floating all around on the net just waiting to attack your security.

I voiced a complaint here originally which upon reflection, I considered to be inappropriate and impatient and I have deleted it myself. 

The issue I had complained about originally had been resolved.

Thank you to all concerned for your help.

A couple days ago, the "Friends Recent Activity" on my homepage went from showing the last: discussion post, review posted, comment sent, friend made and blog posted.  It used to show the most recent of all five of those categories and then the box drastically shrunk and now it only shows the last two things that have been done by my friends, no matter what they did.  Of course, I can still click on "Friends Recent Activity" and see EVERYTHING they have done recently, but I miss the last 5, like it used to be.  Will it go back?

Meredith said…

PattyTherre said…

We have been able to edit our captions after publishing for a while now. There are two little icons next to each photo and one is a pencil. That one allows us to edit captions. I just actually edited a caption that had been published so it works for me in Firefox 3.5.2 or whatever the latest version is.

---

Okay, my apologies, MRSVerret. If you wish, you can use FireFox 3.5.2 to edit captions until we can get this fixed in Internet Explorer. Thank you for clarification and sorry for the mix up, ladies!

---

The same thing just happened to me. I'm using IE6 (the only browser allowed on my work computer) and there was no little pencil icon to edit a review caption. I have previously edited captions using that feature, but it's gone with IE6.

--Bob

this2shallpass19 said…

A couple days ago, the "Friends Recent Activity" on my homepage went from showing the last: discussion post, review posted, comment sent, friend made and blog posted.  It used to show the most recent of all five of those categories and then the box drastically shrunk and now it only shows the last two things that have been done by my friends, no matter what they did.  Of course, I can still click on "Friends Recent Activity" and see EVERYTHING they have done recently, but I miss the last 5, like it used to be.  Will it go back?

---

I miss the last 5 also... mine has shrunk to two things also. Can we address that one?

As an aside: the skinny menu problem in Google Chrome seems to have been rectified. I used to have to go into IE8, pick a category and then go back to Chrome. Thanks for fixing it!

Meredith said…

PattyTherre said…

Meredith said…

MRSverret said…

For a couple days now when I upload a photo to a review  it doesn't give me the option of editing it after it's finished. I can only put a caption before I upload.

I'm using IE 7 or 8...

---

Thanks for the report! We have always allowed personal, profile photo captions to be edited but I'm not sure we ever allowed review photo captions to change after publishing. However, you bring up a great point that members may need to change review photo captions so we can add that to the list of enhancements.

---

We have been able to edit our captions after publishing for a while now. There are two little icons next to each photo and one is a pencil. That one allows us to edit captions. I just actually edited a caption that had been published so it works for me in Firefox 3.5.2 or whatever the latest version is.

---

Okay, my apologies, MRSVerret. If you wish, you can use FireFox 3.5.2 to edit captions until we can get this fixed in Internet Explorer. Thank you for clarification and sorry for the mix up, ladies!

---

I am able to edit review photo captions in Google Chrome. The pencil and X icons are there, but they are very skinny. If you mouse over one or the other it glows red or green and that is how I know which one to click.

So I guess skinny menus have been replaced with skinny edit icons! I am used to pages being kind of buggy with Google Chrome not being widely used. When I have problems, I switch over to IE 8 to see if it is site-wide or not. I don't expect sites to be totally compatible with Chrome yet... 

Hi everyone!

Bugs on the docket to fix soon...

• Edit photo caption button is cut off on the edit review form
• Friends Activity Feed on MYHOME only lists 2 items, used to list 5 - you can still click to view all
• Pop up screens to edit fun facts and other profile info is acting up for some users and some browsers - this should not happen by tomorrow
• STILL want to improve Spell Checker!! We will get to this... we know it stinks most the time

As always, thanks for your reports and patience. Just can't say that enough :)

Enjoy your Thursday,

Meredith