Addressing the Updates!
pcgs_social
Posts: 161 admin
Hi collectors,
Thank you for sharing your candid feedback following our recent forum update. We understand these changes disrupted your daily experience, and we truly appreciate your patience as we work to get everything running smoothly again.
We have compiled your reports and escalated them to the Vanilla Support Team. Here is what I told them so far:
Critical Fixes
1. Report/Flag Button: Functionality is currently disabled.
2. Gear Menu: Button is unresponsive.
3. Post Editing: Members are currently unable to edit posts after publishing.
4. Header Navigation: Key top links (PCGS, PSA, Collectors Corner) are missing.
Usability & Layout Enhancements
1. Mark as Read: Feature is missing from the interface.
2. Sort & Filter: Sorting and filtering controls are non-functional.
3. Signature Formatting: Oversized signature text is impacting overall page readability.
4. Section Spacing: Forum group headers are positioned too close to divider lines.
5. Category List Layout: Text needs left-justification, inline post counts, and improved margin spacing.
6. I'm also just now finding out that creating a post is difficult because you are unable to scroll up or down in your own text box, lol.
Let us know in this thread if you have any other concerns, suggestions or flags. I'll pass this link along.
Thank you for helping us make the Collectors Forum the best it can be.
UPDATE (9/28/26 11:46am): The forum seems to have been restored to its older version, at least on my end. Thank you all for your patience as we worked with the forum host on their recent updates.
Isa (she/her)
PCGS Marketing
Comments
Thank you.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Many thanks social
The left hand justification leaves lots of white open space center and right on a (my) pc
Thank you
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Why did PCGS launch this change unannounced that has been broadly regarded as regressive by dealers and collectors who rely on these forums for useful information?
If you click in the box where you type your message, you can move the cursor up or down in the box with the arrow keys.
I don't like anything about it. Sorry for the negative post. Please create an option to "view in legacy version". Otherwise, as much as I like to read, learn and occasionally post, I won't be here often.
Respectfully,
Big Frankie
Thanks for the update. You have a lot of work to do. Lots of white unused space. Makes reading unpleasant.
Also, maybe clean up the topic link area to the right. They used to be larger, bolder, uniform and orderly. Now they look like an after thought.
files don't attach
the lack of spacing above the Post Text negatively impacts readability
the gear icon doesn't work.
true.
whatever that circle with 3 dots inside doesn't work either
no whitespace between the dark grey number and the forum name
the numbers obviously don't fit the space provided. (why not put it on a separate line when necessary. I'd imagine "999.999M" would need to fit in the year 2047
is this color really the color of Collectors, Inc ?
Thank you, Isa! The notifications drop-down doesn't work well. Many of the notifications that someone posted somewhere simply look like this:
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
what happened to all the links to other Collectors, Inc properties?
it had pcgs, psa, coinflation, more
it was easy to select PCGS then Verify. now? i guess i'll be opening another tab and leave it on cert lookup?
Appreciate your attention and quick response within 48 hours to everyone's concerns. Kudos to you & your team, great job! Now, can you stop the madness with 3 new posts a day on this same topic, lol
Sorry, 3 new threads
it's on page 4, but it's hard to tell because there's not enough contrast between the numbers and the current page number. also, it looks like a grey background to the 4. but it's hard to tell because there's not enough contrast
also the numbers are small, i'm on a laptop and they are small
the avatar is too small
I choose The Penny Lady because hers is text. If you can't read it, then it's too small
PCGS is barely readable
fr totally new threads there needs to be a "NEW" cue like there is with the new number of unread replies
"Closed" still needs to be in red
Why wasn't there any QA prior to deployment?
How about, just make it work like it used to?
How about banning those users whose constant bickering brings down the mood, enjoyment and information exchange of the entire site?
>
The ignore button still works.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I am a professional software engineer. I have developed and delivered commercial software as as my day job for a very long time. A lot longer than I've been a member here, and I've been a member here for a long time. In short, "I have some experience with this subject".
There are several reasons that a bug might affect users:
I can't think of any other reasons. Can you?
Those aren't necessarily as bad as they sound. I can't count how many times I shipped software and then found a bug only after people started complaining about it. Or how many times a bug was more serious than I realized. People make mistakes. Bugs happen.
FWIW, we've experienced bugs here before. There have been other updates to this board in the past. Some of those updates also had bugs. I considered the bugs in earlier updates as "normal". Or at least normal-ish. I didn't love seeing the bugs, but I didn't post about them either. Credit to the company that they fixed those bugs and we didn't have to keep dwelling on them.
The difference this time is the scope. The first post in this thread lists 10 bullets, all for major problems in major features. Other issues have been mentioned in later posts. I could add even more.
This is far beyond "people make mistakes". Problems at this scale are a sign of a company in trouble. PCGS is obviously not a software company. My guess is that they think these bugs are normal. They might not realize how not-normal these bugs really are.
I hope I'm wrong. I fear that I'm not. I think it would be an excellent idea for PCGS to have a heartfelt discussion with the company who provides this software.
and make more than 5 ignores.
Make it unlimited ignores! my list was already full before the bickering people started!
max width across the entire page has lots of whitespace to the right and left, but not enough room in the middle to fit an entire thread title?
The comment box is too small. I use the forum on a cell phone and I can't scroll up or down to check my work.
Looking at the list of threads, it is no longer as easy to distinguish between read and non read threads. They are just a different shade of grey now. The previous version seemed to work well with just a glance. Now I have to really look at them.
wouldn't the simplist fix be to return to what worked? If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. - Bastiat
The difference between what you describe and what we experienced is no QA. No testing. That indicates unstructured and improperly managed software development.
You say PCGS is not a SW company but I would argue that they are. Dominoes is more of an IT company than they are about pizza, and the same applies to PCGS. Yes the product is grading services, but software drives every facet of the operation and the value that they bring from the submission platform to the price guides and pop reports to the registry sets. All software and data.
Realy ugly and unusable, cant see anything, why did you change something that was working? To alienate the long time users?
Why, why, why?
PCGS is obviously not a software company. My guess is that they think these bugs are normal.
Are you referring to the "company" that provided the software, or the company that purchased it?
+1
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
Sure hope the " Vanilla" team is taking notes and doesn't " fudge" things up further. Peace Roy
BST: endeavor1967, synchr, kliao, Outhaul, Donttellthewife, U1Chicago, ajaan, mCarney1173, SurfinHi, MWallace, Sandman70gt, mustanggt, Pittstate03, Lazybones, Walkerguy21D, coinandcurrency242 , thebigeng, Collectorcoins, JimTyler, USMarine6, Elkevvo, Coll3ctor, Yorkshireman, CUKevin, ranshdow, CoinHunter4, bennybravo, Centsearcher, braddick, Windycity, ZoidMeister, mirabela, JJM, RichURich, Bullsitter, jmski52, LukeMarshall, coinsarefun, MichaelDixon, NickPatton, ProfLiz, Twobitcollector,Jesbroken oih82w8, DCW
I clicked on BEST OF and only two columns were used, 60% of my screen was just blast white empty. Perhaps it looks better on a phone, but I usually visit the forum on my home computer and it doesn't translate too well. So much white on the new update, an award seems to be in order:
...but not sure if Ricko would have approved this "white".
Fix the auction date field in CoinFacts. It does not sort by ascending or descending order correctly when viewing all auction records for a coin.
I appreciate that you are updating the forum. Im sure that when everything is complete the site will be better than before. I appreciate the input of my fellow members.
Student of numismatics and collector of Morgan dollars
Successful BST transactions with: Namvet Justindan Mattniss RWW olah_in_MA
Dantheman984 Toyz4geo SurfinxHI greencopper RWW bigjpst bretsan MWallace logger7 JWP BruceS bigjpst
JWP PROMETHIUS88
I don't see a way to access our comments if I want to go back to a specific post. Also I don't see a link back to the home page from this forum page.
If you click on your name/icon, then click on it again in the pop up box it will take you to your account with all past activity including posts. It took me awhile to figure this out.
Sorry cannot edit my previous comment, but it does show you all previous comments that you can click on to go back and view thread/post/comments
Curious as to what exactly was wrong with what we had before? Why did it need to be fixed? I don’t like this new forum package at all.
Successful transactions with: wondercoin, Tetromibi, PerryHall, PlatinumDuck, JohnMaben/Pegasus Coin & Jewelry, CoinFlip, coinlieutenant, bigjpst, and joebb21.
If this upgrade had a negative impact on revenue, you would have imminently gone back to the old software until the new software was functional. Give the users of this site the same respect as revenue generating users. Bring back the old software and announce a rollout schedule of the new software when it is functional.
There’s no way that they’d be able to tell so quickly whether there’s been a negative impact on revenue.
And many of the users on this site are revenue-generating users.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Most likely it was end of support for the version they had been using forcing an upgrade and they weren't sufficiently prepared to migrate. Vanilla may have also changed feature sets available at different levels, although I'd find it hard to believe that PCGS wouldn't use the most full-featured enterprise-level software here. There could also be new differences between internally served and cloud-served versions of the forum software.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
And many of the users of this site probably haven’t submitted a coin in years.
ok ty for that