DaniWeb now last resort because of Opening Modal Popup

[Stevishere]

For many months, I consulted DaniWeb heavily.

For the last few months, it is the very last place I select after Googling for answers to any of my development challenges.

I despise the modal popup asking me to join. Regardless of where you enter the site and whether or not you have already scrolled down to find the comment that helps, it SLOWLY loads and pops up.

It is bad enough to be required to login to prevent it. That is not even possible. During login, it will still initiate.

Even when going to the site and clicking on the login, the modal eventually shows up.

BTW, my connection spped is 6 down and 1 up. Not an issue with that.

Hopefully, you can see your way clear to rectify this. Other wise, Bye.

Thanks.

[The Dude]

Well i understand your point but IT IS A WAY TO BRING NEW MEMBERS ASHORE :)

It shouldnt be as obtrusive though and maybe Dani could look into it :)

Nice to see you posting BTW :)

Can't say I've noticed it. I've been logged in for about a year. Regular Rip van Winkle. Know what you mean though, "the dark background / bright in yer face white box insisting that you do something" thingy seems to have infected nearly every forum site. You reckon it might be a virus?

[VernonDozier]

Well i understand your point but IT IS A WAY TO BRING NEW MEMBERS ASHORE :)

It shouldnt be as obtrusive though and maybe Dani could look into it :)

Nice to see you posting BTW :)

You're missing the point. He has one post and probably never even had any desire to post. This bugged him enough to create an account just for this one post, he used to like Daniweb and now this is bugging him to the point that he's never coming back if it isn't changed.

Dani's already commented on the issue and suggested the exact same thing as ardav. Stay logged in. It's not a solution that I'm interested in. I log in, do my thing, and log out. Particularly since Dani has stated that she has no problem with "lurkers" (people who have no intention of every posting), it doesn't make sense unless the whole thing is for bragging rights (look at all our members), and the obvious high ad revenues that come with those bragging rights.

It's a trend among websites and a bad one in my view. You have a very specific question you are searching for that you imagine other people have asked and you type in a few keywords in google and go where it points. You want the answer and that's it. You have no desire to comment and register and there's no reason for the site to force someone to be a member just to up your membership statistic, which is already completely over-inflated here. Someone who has a question, registers, gets their question answered, and then never comes back can hardly be considered a "member" of any "community" and the membership count includes all of those people. Daniweb is even more annoying than most sites because it seems to be a delayed popup. The site loads and you're starting to read and then fifteen seconds later there's a popup, and as mentioned, it's modal. It totally screws up your train of thought, plus I'm a multitasker. I'm reading Daniweb and using my mouse for whatever in the other window, then I have to pause my game or whatever to get rid of that popup. Does ANYONE think that popup serves a useful purpose?

[happygeek]

Well Dani certainly thinks it serves a useful purpose, and that is to encourage people to join DaniWeb rather than just browse through it as a guest. Arguments about the merits of membership as a metric or any value attached to it aside, the stats show that the popup does produce results in bringing new members in.

OK, question. If you want to log in / log out, would you be interested in a cookie telling DW not to show the popup? Does the popup have a checkbox saying, 'don't show this popup again'? I really don't know, coz I can't remember seeing it. Would that be more acceptable?

That could perhaps reduce the frustration factor while netting potential new members.

[jephthah]

yeah, i just can't see how this is an issue. if you don't want to join, then use one mouseclick to get the window off and continue browsing. if this bugs you so much you won't continue to use the site as a free reference.... well, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, okay?

there are far more annoying things out there like advert popups and flashing banners saying "You're the 1,000,000th Visitor!"

anyhow, Stevishere, welcome to Daniweb. Glad you joined! :)

.

[Dani]

The reason we use it is because registration rates TRIPLED per day since it was put into effect about a year ago. There has also been a very significant increase in repeat traffic which is on a very steep uphill climb right now. And we saw no decrease in membership drop-off rates indicating that the modal is only driving people who register and then never return.

I did run a test a few months ago where I removed the modal for 24 hours. New registrations that day did, indeed, decrease by over 50% of what they had been averaging for that day of the week.

Therefore, the modal does serve my purpose.

I also want to point out that there are sites such as tek-tips.com where a modal pops up for unregistered members on every single page. Not only that, but you have to click the little Close link to exit out.

At least on DaniWeb, it only shows up for the first page a guest sees in their visit. They can then navigate to 100 DaniWeb pages and have only seen it the one time. Additionally, you can click ANYWHERE in the browser window to exit out of it.

That being said, we are launching a new design for the site in about a month. I will give it a try at first, not using a modal, and see if all of the activity stats drop off.

[jephthah]

That being said, we are launching a new design for the site in about a month. I will give it a try at first, not using a modal, and see if all of the activity stats drop off.

and this is the new design where posts are automatically closed after 3 months of inactivity.

right?

:)

[Dani]

Now that's just wishful thinking ;)

[mitrmkar]

Now that's just wishful thinking ;)

Daniweb has a quite nice sortiment of smilies, but this makes me think that there's one missing, that would be: 'Icon Sigh', or some such.

[jephthah]

Now that's just wishful thinking ;)

hey, it's not about me.

we always dream of a better place for our children.

.

[cwarn23]

The only thing I could suggest is to put a big button saying "Click Here To Exit" the same size as the thread reply button. Surely even the blind would see that and hopefully would stop these odd complains about the signup window.

[Biker920]

They won't see exit button they are to busy whining to stop and cure the problem--stay logged in-- works for me. Later---

[BestJewSinceJC]

I never stay logged in either, but I also never get that popup window before I've managed to log myself in when I return to the site.

[Stevishere]

OK, OK, you got great content. Why don't you at least put a place where we are able to login on that stupid, long loading, disrupt my current scroll that I made before you rendered, POPUP?

Is that a compromise you could work on?

I can't even kill the page load when I quickly see I clicked on a daniweb item in my Google search! It looks like I killed the page but it keeps coming back until I let it fully load and THEN close it!

Why - oh - why does your site need to be so painful???

[Stevishere]

You're missing the point. He has one post and probably never even had any desire to post. This bugged him enough to create an account just for this one post, he used to like Daniweb and now this is bugging him to the point that he's never coming back if it isn't changed.

Dani's already commented on the issue and suggested the exact same thing as ardav. Stay logged in. It's not a solution that I'm interested in. I log in, do my thing, and log out. Particularly since Dani has stated that she has no problem with "lurkers" (people who have no intention of every posting), it doesn't make sense unless the whole thing is for bragging rights (look at all our members), and the obvious high ad revenues that come with those bragging rights.

It's a trend among websites and a bad one in my view. You have a very specific question you are searching for that you imagine other people have asked and you type in a few keywords in google and go where it points. You want the answer and that's it. You have no desire to comment and register and there's no reason for the site to force someone to be a member just to up your membership statistic, which is already completely over-inflated here. Someone who has a question, registers, gets their question answered, and then never comes back can hardly be considered a "member" of any "community" and the membership count includes all of those people. Daniweb is even more annoying than most sites because it seems to be a delayed popup. The site loads and you're starting to read and then fifteen seconds later there's a popup, and as mentioned, it's modal. It totally screws up your train of thought, plus I'm a multitasker. I'm reading Daniweb and using my mouse for whatever in the other window, then I have to pause my game or whatever to get rid of that popup. Does ANYONE think that popup serves a useful purpose?

If I stayed logged in I'd have myriad windows open.

I can't afford on 1 source for my info, thus I always Google for answers. I am not sure that many actually search in each forum site for a specific answer.

I do hope you can help the load time if nothing else (I am on a 6mb Download Speed)

My favorites is now Satck Overflow, other than the old workhorse ASP.Net Forums.

[Ezzaral]

I think they meant "Remember me" in reference to staying logged in. It sets a cookie and you remain logged in between sessions. Obviously that's not a solution if you share the computer though.

[Stevishere]

I think they meant "Remember me" in reference to staying logged in. It sets a cookie and you remain logged in between sessions. Obviously that's not a solution if you share the computer though.

OK, I am blind...where would I find the "Remember Me" access?

Thanks!

[Ezzaral]

No, you're not blind - I guess I'm just crazy. I thought you had to check a box for it to keep you logged in. I logged out to check that and there is no "Remember Me" check box. Sorry for the misdirection :)

It seems to set the cookie automatically for me. Are you allowing DaniWeb to set cookies?

[Will Gresham]

No, you're not blind - I guess I'm just crazy. I thought you had to check a box for it to keep you logged in. I logged out to check that and there is no "Remember Me" check box. Sorry for the misdirection :)

It seems to set the cookie automatically for me. Are you allowing DaniWeb to set cookies?

There is a remember box, when I come to the site and find myself not logged in, I click the 'Join Us' link at the top so I don't have to wait for the JS to load so I can get the login box to popup. There /is/ a remember box on the login form on the registration page :)

[Stevishere]

No, you're not blind - I guess I'm just crazy. I thought you had to check a box for it to keep you logged in. I logged out to check that and there is no "Remember Me" check box. Sorry for the misdirection :)

It seems to set the cookie automatically for me. Are you allowing DaniWeb to set cookies?

No problem. Thanks for checking.

[Stevishere]

For many months, I consulted DaniWeb heavily.

For the last few months, it is the very last place I select after Googling for answers to any of my development challenges.

I despise the modal popup asking me to join. Regardless of where you enter the site and whether or not you have already scrolled down to find the comment that helps, it SLOWLY loads and pops up.

It is bad enough to be required to login to prevent it. That is not even possible. During login, it will still initiate.

Even when going to the site and clicking on the login, the modal eventually shows up.

BTW, my connection spped is 6 down and 1 up. Not an issue with that.

Hopefully, you can see your way clear to rectify this. Other wise, Bye.

Thanks.

Holy stuff!!!! It sure is nice coming here without all of the over arching stuff!!!!

And the login, it is so fast!1

I love DaniWeb!

[Dani]

> That being said, we are launching a new design for the site in about a month. I will give it a try at first, not using a modal, and see if all of the activity stats drop off.
So the new design has been up and running without the modal for about 5 days now, and unfortunately I have no other choice than to put it back into play. Registration rates decreased from nearly 1000 new members registering to just under 100 new members registering daily!

However, I did make some major changes to the modal in this new version. Firstly, it loads MUCH, MUCH quicker. Secondly, it now also includes a login box.

[Narue]

> That being said, we are launching a new design for the site in about a month. I will give it a try at first, not using a modal, and see if all of the activity stats drop off.
So the new design has been up and running without the modal for about 5 days now, and unfortunately I have no other choice than to put it back into play. Registration rates decreased from nearly 1000 new members registering to just under 100 new members registering daily!

However, I did make some major changes to the modal in this new version. Firstly, it loads MUCH, MUCH quicker. Secondly, it now also includes a login box.

How many of those new members actually post? How many post once or twice and then are never heard from again? I'm sure it looks good to have "58308583085839895783957 members!!!!111lolzors" at the top of the page, but if only a couple thousand die hard members are making any real use of Daniweb, that number is meaningless. And of course, alienating the die hard members to make that number grow doesn't seem like a good strategy.

Personally, I haven't have any trouble with the popup, but I have gotten the impression that lately you care more about numbers than the people who drive Daniweb. If those people leave, you'll be left with a lot of crap (spam, cheating students, and general garbage), and Daniweb will become just another fallen forum.

Just sayin'.

[Dani]

The number of new threads and posts has also decreased significantly. It's very possible it's people getting used to the new design, the New Thread button being moved to the bottom of the page, the regulars spending more time here in the feedback forum than actually posting in the "real" forums ... But there's been enough of an impact that it is definitely worth putting it back and seeing if it's the cause.

Also ... from what I have been hearing, the biggest problem with the nag box has been that it takes forever to load. Members with a login who don't keep a cookie set in their browsers will load up DaniWeb, start to enter their login info, and halfway through THEN the annoying popup box will appear. For guests, they get to the page, start reading, and ten seconds in the nag window suddenly appears and they lose their place. I think the new and improved version of the nag window fixes both of those problems. So let's see ... I'll be keeping a very close eye on it.

Is it fair to say that the number of posts/day is a better measure of health than the number of new members? Obviously there may be some correlation here. WRT the no. of posts, I'm just assuming here, some members, like me, may have gone AWOL for a little time while a few bugs were being ironed out. My post rate (approx. 10/day recently) went right down to 0. I'm now back to previous levels as the interface in now "usable" once more. Perhaps it would be worth waiting a little while longer before drawing any hard conclusions.

@Dani - you probably feel a bit battered by now, but I have to say well done on reacting and fixing so many of the issues so quickly.

[Dani]

I agree that posts and threads (activity level) are very important ... more so than the number of new registrations. However, when registrations decreases from 1000/day to 100/day then that's a huge enough difference that it needs to be dealt with as well.

As a business, we make money off of boasting big numbers. Without those bragging rights, we wouldn't earn advertising revenue, and without advertising revenue, we wouldn't be able to pay our bills. However, boasting big numbers and having a good, quality, solid product are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's my job to figure out how to make that happen.

[Stevishere]

The number of new threads and posts has also decreased significantly. It's very possible it's people getting used to the new design, the New Thread button being moved to the bottom of the page, the regulars spending more time here in the feedback forum than actually posting in the "real" forums ... But there's been enough of an impact that it is definitely worth putting it back and seeing if it's the cause.

Also ... from what I have been hearing, the biggest problem with the nag box has been that it takes forever to load. Members with a login who don't keep a cookie set in their browsers will load up DaniWeb, start to enter their login info, and halfway through THEN the annoying popup box will appear. For guests, they get to the page, start reading, and ten seconds in the nag window suddenly appears and they lose their place. I think the new and improved version of the nag window fixes both of those problems. So let's see ... I'll be keeping a very close eye on it.

I have no problem with driving new member registrations. I am anxious to see the new modal. It sounds like you have alleviated the biggest problems with it.

I did have trouble finding a place to open a new thread the other day. Did you say it has been moved or will be?

[Dani]

It has been moved to the bottom of the thread listing page. Enormous big grey button. I assume you found it.