Hi folks,
Just so you all know what's happening, I thought it best that I post regarding impending changes at Lush HQ.
We have again partnered with the HQ Group (who set up the mobile site for us) and they will be helping with the ongoing development on Lush going forward.
Gav will be stepping aside due to personal commitments as soon as we upgrade to the new platform in the next 3 months or so. He has done a brilliant job with the site over the last decade and a half, but is no longer able to allocate the time and energy to maintaining and developing the site.
Right now behind the scenes there is a whole team of developers working full time taking all the bits that make this site great and coding them onto a new platform. What I mean by that is the new home will be familiar feature wise, but also benefit from being a lot more up to date and mobile responsive. All the forum posts, content, GIFs and anything else content wise that is on here will move over.
The chat will join their global service which means that we will have our own Lush protected rooms that no-one other than site members can get in, but members will also have the ability to chat with 1000s of other members from all over the world in global rooms if you want to. We used a cut down version of their chat on the old mobile platform, but you never had access to the global chat (which rocks!).
The new forum will be mobile responsive so you don't need to scroll on your phone. They are just making sure all the forum signatures etc., will work on it. Every category, sub category, and post will be there.
Story wise they are pretty much copying every feature on the site, voting, scoring, tags, badges, competitions etc..
Groups will be improved, but once again also feel familiar with the tags to navigate etc., and you'll have the ability to list events if you want to.
Profiles are probably where you will notice the biggest changes. There will be better albums, media etc.. There is also the same kind of friends, following, followers features, but the layouts will be a bit different to be mobile responsive. They are also copying all the badges, stories, and other functionality over that we have. What they can't do is have animated GIFs as backgrounds although there is a customizable panel at the top. It's to do with Google page load times now as most people view on mobile devices these days and we will be penalized for slow loading pages.
Still on the profiles, there is a really good filter tool that will save you getting unwanted attention from other member groups as well. For example if you don't want attention from single males it will filter them all out of everything so you can focus on seeing activity and feedback from user groups you want to.
I have been told that, "Development will be ongoing for at least the rest of the year making feature upgrades as well as site speed improvements etc. We have a mission critical priority list to get through in the next few months, and only after that is done can we move on to any other features."
Having stuck with the same design and technology for over 15 years, I have to say I'm very excited to see the new site in action. Functionality, speed, responsiveness, features etc. will all be greatly improved.
I will post further details as things progress.
Cheers,
Nicola
How will the changes effect those of us who use only phones to access Lush ?
Great news, although not so much with the impending loss of Gav. He's been a superb behind-the-scenes guy and he's helped me quite a few times. Like everything else in life, change is the essence of life. Without out change, there is only death. I'm looking forward to seeing and using the end product. Thanks for the updates, Nicola.
Personally speaking (and I mean MOHO exclusively) I have been a webpage designer and developer for a number of years. I was around when Geocities was big then it got bought out by and disappeared, taking two or three of my websites with it. Then I was at Angelcities for a bit before it too went the way of the dodo and the dinosaur. My last failed attempt was over as tumblr before it went all Disney on us all.
Now I am here and with 650+ stories I am not looking to move again. I will reserve judgement on what's to come and wait to see the finished product. But I do so with a bit of well-earned skepticism. I hope I'm wrong.
Clearly there will need to be some place for folks to leave goodbye comments for Gav. I did interact with him very sporadically when I first joined, and he was always very pleasant and responsive. As someone, um, modestly involved with software development, I can appreciate all his hard work. (How is it that "responsive" and "hard" seem to sound like innuendos here?)
Any teasers for site design will be most appreciated, though I know that sort of thing can be a lightening rod, too. (Hmm... there is again... "rod". You'd think this was some sort of sex site!)
It is good to know that the contents will migrate to the new platform.
"insensitive prick!" – Danielle Algo
Hopefully Gav will stick around as a member.
A lot has changed in the past 15 years in web development and design and it's good the site gets an overhaul to reflect that. Technical debt on a site the size of Lush is impossible to get rid of with a single developer IMO. I'm amazed Gav has been able to manage it all this time.
A separate mobile site always felt old-fashioned to me, so I was glad to see Lush got some responsive styling not too long ago. A new Lush, build as a responsive site from the ground up is excellent news in that regard. Looking forward to the new design.
=== Not ALL LIVES MATTER until BLACK LIVES MATTER ===
Great news x congratulations on getting this working, looking forward to the site being usable again xx
Gav has done an amazing job just keeping this site running, albeit with some occasional frustrating issues. But considering the fact that he was only part time, he is a true wonderkind.
Perhaps this isn't exactly the thread for this, but if everything is being re-worked from the ground up, it would be nice to see all the various emojis (from forums, emails and chat rooms) be available site wide and standardized where the same or similar emojis are in multiple locations. Also, if possible, the addition of some new emojis.
FYI, the upgrade is underway at Storiesspace. I tried going in early this morning and got a really nice splash page about the upgrade. So if you want a hint of the future (and a chance to read some good non-erotic fiction), pop by once it's back up.
all of my photos I have uploaded over there are showing and I can't change my settings. I try to change them and the system won't let me. I can't change some of my other settings too.
I still can't change my settings.
This is a privacy issue and I can't disable my account until it's fixed even.
I can't delete anything. This is a huge security issue!!!!
