So we have been on new forum for 4 days now and I wanted to post up and let you all know why we needed the changes. If you take a look at the bugs that people are having right now you will start to see a trend. We have people using mobile phones with limited browser functions, Ipads with the same problems, Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer, firefox, Opera and the list goes on and on with many different revisions of each one. There are 3rd party plugins to browser and then different bandwidth limits to work with on top of that. We were seeing that some systems could run some functions but other couldn't, to get us to a platform where we can offer more features to everyone we needed to make a fundamental move.
We have been planning this move for over 2 years, we have thousands of hours involved in the planning and testing on test forums that we set up. We made every effort to test the functionality before we went live and you have no idea what all we were able to catch and change before the "Go Live" on Wednesday night. Since the go live we have seen this huge volume of differing systems come to the site and experience different behaviors. We are working to find a place where functionality is good and we can capture as many people as possible but in the end there will be some people that need to upgrade or maybe even find a different way to access the Org. We try to keep up with technology and sometimes that includes not supporting older operating systems or browsers.
It drives me crazy to hear comments that people don't like the new forum... It personally bothers me because of the endless hours planning and then to find out your work is unwanted... Part of me is able to see above those complaints but in the end it just means that I didn't meet my goal. I would compare this move with getting a present for a friend, your all excited about giving it to them and when you do they just look at it and throw it on the ground making a comment "I like the one I have now better." Regardless of my personal feelings we have a need to make the transition so we did, we will continue to strive for success.
Some of you have made direct comments at why all the ads, I am more than happy to let you know why....
1. Traffic on the site is down and we have lost advertisers. It's a tough economy out there, the industry is hurting.
2. I went 19 months without a job and this site did not always make enough to cover all the cost. We have strong months and weak months, we try to balance the income to cover the year.
3. I just dropped over 6k to make this move, new server, new software, new functionality and planning for the future of the site. We don't ask for money from members we simply as for involvement, don't just read but post up too. It is a tough economy and everyone is affected including me, I can't afford to subsidize the site out of my pocket like I have been able to in the past.
For those that question why the ads, I have a lot of money invested in the thing we call the org, with usage down I am trying to recover the funds as quickly as possible.
We knew going into this change that there were going to be a few people that complained about something they always do. I have been a little taken back by the number of people that have just been so direct, negative and vocal about the changes.
When the site went offline we immediately started receiving emails from people wanting to know when the site was coming back online. We tried to keep people up to date on facebook and so I read posts about how people missed the site and wanted it back up. We made a decision to go ahead and turn the site back up where people could at least use the basic functions of the site and let us work out the kinks... I have to admit there were more problems than we anticipated but we are actively working through them.
As social media changes we have to as well, the programs that are required to integrate are in this new forum. We are working late into the night to find solutions to the problems that some people are seeing. We ask for your patience to help us work through the changes... When we make a change to fix one things we might inadvertantly change someone else... We will continue to need time to work through these problems JUST LIKE WE DID IN 2008.
In the end, please be patient with us.... I have no doubt that there will be more functionality than ever, the speed wont be effected and things will get back to normal....
cap
We have been planning this move for over 2 years, we have thousands of hours involved in the planning and testing on test forums that we set up. We made every effort to test the functionality before we went live and you have no idea what all we were able to catch and change before the "Go Live" on Wednesday night. Since the go live we have seen this huge volume of differing systems come to the site and experience different behaviors. We are working to find a place where functionality is good and we can capture as many people as possible but in the end there will be some people that need to upgrade or maybe even find a different way to access the Org. We try to keep up with technology and sometimes that includes not supporting older operating systems or browsers.
It drives me crazy to hear comments that people don't like the new forum... It personally bothers me because of the endless hours planning and then to find out your work is unwanted... Part of me is able to see above those complaints but in the end it just means that I didn't meet my goal. I would compare this move with getting a present for a friend, your all excited about giving it to them and when you do they just look at it and throw it on the ground making a comment "I like the one I have now better." Regardless of my personal feelings we have a need to make the transition so we did, we will continue to strive for success.
Some of you have made direct comments at why all the ads, I am more than happy to let you know why....
1. Traffic on the site is down and we have lost advertisers. It's a tough economy out there, the industry is hurting.
2. I went 19 months without a job and this site did not always make enough to cover all the cost. We have strong months and weak months, we try to balance the income to cover the year.
3. I just dropped over 6k to make this move, new server, new software, new functionality and planning for the future of the site. We don't ask for money from members we simply as for involvement, don't just read but post up too. It is a tough economy and everyone is affected including me, I can't afford to subsidize the site out of my pocket like I have been able to in the past.
For those that question why the ads, I have a lot of money invested in the thing we call the org, with usage down I am trying to recover the funds as quickly as possible.
We knew going into this change that there were going to be a few people that complained about something they always do. I have been a little taken back by the number of people that have just been so direct, negative and vocal about the changes.
When the site went offline we immediately started receiving emails from people wanting to know when the site was coming back online. We tried to keep people up to date on facebook and so I read posts about how people missed the site and wanted it back up. We made a decision to go ahead and turn the site back up where people could at least use the basic functions of the site and let us work out the kinks... I have to admit there were more problems than we anticipated but we are actively working through them.
As social media changes we have to as well, the programs that are required to integrate are in this new forum. We are working late into the night to find solutions to the problems that some people are seeing. We ask for your patience to help us work through the changes... When we make a change to fix one things we might inadvertantly change someone else... We will continue to need time to work through these problems JUST LIKE WE DID IN 2008.
In the end, please be patient with us.... I have no doubt that there will be more functionality than ever, the speed wont be effected and things will get back to normal....
cap
, just a suggestion maybe pin a thread where users can post their issues they are having instead of you finding threads posted.
