Community Revamp - 04/20/2022

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

Community may look a tad different when visiting today! We’re excited to roll out our revamped look and feel throughout the Upwork Community. While things may look different, you’ll find nearly everything you are used to about Community is still in the same spot you are familiar with. If you are interested in what specifically has changed, read on below! Check out the full article here

Let us know what you think - Provide us any feedback or report any oddities you may encounter.

Known bugs and issues - We'll try to keep this updated throughout the week as we tackle find and tackle these

~~Usernames are not showing as First Name, Last Initial in all spots~~
- This has been resolved in most spots. We're working to fix the few remaining.
Last edit/edit author is missing from forums
Header has slight issue with margins when no announcement is present
On mobile, the search bar on homepage is going off the page
We're looking into adding the 'load more' button back in as an optional setting per feedback here
Search is missing from the header (Should be next to your avatar/notifications)
~~Link to Upwork Profile is missing from member profiles~~
~~Pagination is (at times) missing for (some) members~~
~~PM and Community notifications are missing~~
~~Custom tags for our moderators are missing~~
~~Private Messages are squished when visiting the private messages page~~

Sophie A · ‎04-20-2022

Usernames are displayed when you click on First name. Goes to About username.

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

This should be resolved in the next ~12-24 hours.

Renata S · ‎04-20-2022

The home page is completely disorienting. The icons and stuff at the top seem to occupy way too much real estate. I had to scroll down about a page to get to the threads. If a user was landing here for the first time, it wouldn't be obvious that there was any forum activity displayed on that page.

Also, I really have no desire to constantly see my picture and rank at the top of the leaderboard. Is there a way to turn that off?

Maria T · ‎04-20-2022

Have you noticed this on the right?
All with our username, wrong.

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

This should be resolved for now (By that, I mean we hid the component as it wasn't meant to be showing!)

Phyllis G · ‎04-20-2022

I like some aspects of the new look/feel and will make my peace with what's not immediately appealing. I have two complaints about functionality:

(1) It is no longer possible to access a FL's profile by clicking on their name. This is a really important feature that helps us engage in more intelligent, useful conversations especially with FLs seeking advice or wanting to bounce ideas. Looking at each others' profiles gives us valuable context. I can't figure out why that functionality has been eliminated!!!

(2) Our user names are now displayed in various places under various conditions. That's not categorically a problem except that when we set up our accounts, we're somehow given the impression our user names will remain private. Otherwise, many of us would make different choices when creating them. I don't know what the remedy is, or if there is one. But it's certainly the kind of thing that creates utterly unnecessary friction.

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

This should all be resolved in the next ~24 hours. I probably am to blame for both of the problems, but I will definitely take the blame for #2 being removed by mistake - It'll be added back in shortly.

Edit: #1 now fixed!

Martina P · ‎04-20-2022

Image my utter shock and horror when that happened last time.

Since then I learned that they don't consider them private information. Would have been nice to know, I would have chosen a different one, obviously.

In any case, everybody activate 2-step verification, since upwork makes it so easy to hack our profiles.

Sheila F · ‎04-20-2022

I like the general look, colors, etc.

But it's not possible to view to threads older than the most recent 20 (minus any pinned threads). I don't know of any forum that does this. I wanted to add to the "weird job post thread". If there's a way to search for threads, I can't find it. I had to look at my previous posts to get to the thread.

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

This is a styling issue that should be resolved by the time I hit reply I hope! (edit - Should be fixed now!)

CJ A · ‎04-20-2022

You can't see any freelancers profile by clicking their name anymore and all the 'ranks' are gone, like 'Community Guru', 'Community Guru', etc. Everybody just has the title 'Member' now which is not helpful. If everybody has the same title of 'Member', then why show it at all? It's repetitive.

You should be able to see a freelancer's profile if they have it 'public' when you click their name in the Community. This is needed when people ask for help with their profiles. There's an entire thread in the 'New to Upwork' community dedicated to freelancers asking for advice for bettering their profiles. How are people so suppose to help them if nobody can get to their profile anymore?

I also preferred the Notification/Alerts thing at the top of the screen and that it would be highlighted when you had unseen alerts. I don't like that button to get to the Alerts is buried all the way down in the profile menu - not very convenient.

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

We removed ranks awhile back, but they'll be returning in the future - See update here -> https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Current-Community-Updates-and-Planning-for-the-Year-Ah...

Notification / Alerts should now be back, as is the ability to see someones Upwork profile.

Martina P · ‎04-20-2022

Since the functionality to drill down to a freelancer's profile is gone, you need to delete the "Get feedback from experienced freelancers" thread, since this is now an impossibility.

A lot of conversations about JSS, feedback removal, and other issues that freelancers might have will stop now, since nobody can take a look at their profiles. I'm guessing participation will be half of what it was before.

Maybe this is the intention, I'm not going to venture a guess.

In any case, participating in the forum was fun while it lasted. I will hold back now since there's not much to comment on, and I'm also hoping that my rank will decrease, I really don't want to be so high up on the leaderboard. Man, I hate that so much. Well, that's my personal preference.

In any case, please nobody give me kudos. I want to vanish into at least #11 or something.

I hope that the visibility of my user ID is a not a permanent feature. I get enough unsolicited PM's as it is, and don't care to receive messages to my email from intrusive newbies.

Phyllis G · ‎04-20-2022

Stan indicated earlier that the access to profiles will be restored.

Martina P · ‎04-21-2022

Phyllis G wrote:
Stan indicated earlier that the access to profiles will be restored.

Yeah. I was assuming that they published a finished product, not some trial and error stuff.

Stan G · ‎04-21-2022

Douglas Michael M · ‎04-21-2022

What happened to the development instance you recently assured us you have?

Why is the input you have sought so unmoored from the development process?

Sadly, this is typical Upwork. Happily, this instance is less consequential.

Renata S · ‎04-21-2022

Martina P wrote:
Phyllis G wrote:
Stan indicated earlier that the access to profiles will be restored.
Phyllis G wrote:
Stan indicated earlier that the access to profiles will be restored.
Yeah. I was assuming that they published a finished product, not some trial and error stuff.

Nah, they're gamifying the experience, and that wouldn't waste nearly enough of everyone's time. And it's such a delight that trying to find anything is so much like scavenger hunt, and you have to go through this crazy path of links to try to get there. Every time.

Stan G · ‎04-20-2022

It was a bug for about 6 hours. It is resolved now. Sorry it had such a negative impact on your experience. (We're working on resolving the rest!)

Wes C · ‎04-20-2022

@StanG wrote:
It was a bug for about 6 hours. It is resolved now. Sorry it had such a negative impact on your experience. (We're working on resolving the rest!)

Not sure if this is on your list of username exposures, but they're showing up in the blockquotes for quoted messages.

Stan G · ‎04-21-2022

Wes C wrote:

@StanG wrote:

It was a bug for about 6 hours. It is resolved now. Sorry it had such a negative impact on your experience. (We're working on resolving the rest!)

Not sure if this is on your list of username exposures, but they're showing up in the blockquotes for quoted messages.

Looks like this one is fixed now!

Jennifer R · ‎04-21-2022

Really? This 👇 is still here and the user IDs are still shown for a split second when going to a new page.

Phyllis G · ‎04-20-2022

Jeez, this is a real struggle. I had stumbled onto this page earlier -- while looking for it but through no logical navigation I could recall. Then I was commenting to another FL's question who is obviously new and needs to read Wes's red flags post. OK, it's no longer pinned to the corner of the page, the carousel is someplace else. I opened the Community home page in a new tab and went searching. And seraching, and searching, and searching. Never found it. Nor could I find my way back here to comment. Finally resorted to opening my browser history in order to get back here. I don't know how much of this is ironing out bugs and how much of it is by design. But if we can't find the Feedback page easily, and can't find frequently referenced items easily, then you've still got work to do.

I'm going to try to stay away for a while, until the dust settles.

Wes C · ‎04-20-2022

Phyllis wrote:
But if we can't find the Feedback page easily, and can't find frequently referenced items easily, then you've still got work to do.

I want to put my vote in again to please put the Feedback forum back on the menu.

And please sticky that red flags post again somewhere visible for the newbies.

(Edited to remove Phyllis's username from the blockquote)