Important Site Changes for Community Members....

Are you by chance the same baddog who used to be a member here and liked to stir the pot?  You've attacked Tina and Jackie now, and oddly I can't find any of my posts, so what's up with that?  I've also clicked for email notifications of this thread and

am not getting them.

When I think of all the stuff that this community has been through, all the love and support that have come to all of us to help us handle the grief of serious and life threatening illness or injuries, the death of family, two or four legged, and now it's just gone.  It makes me want to cry.  

You didn't cause the mess, but the attitude you've shown in this thread makes me, perhaps us, think that you don't want to fix it either.  None of us comes here to be abused, and many of us won't come at all , as you should be able to see by the shrinking number of posters, if we continue to be treated with no respect.

And, one other thing...who the heck is going to want to log in with their long winded email addy?  My user name was changed to glenmar, which I don't like, but, at least we USED to be able to have sigs that that told everyone who the heck we were.

hi glenmar I can confirm that I am not a previous member and I have no intention to stir the pot, my intent is to get information from the current community members on changes that are being made.  I'm sorry if you feel I have attacked Tina and Jakie however all I have done is respond to try and keep the negativity that has peculated through this community from hijacking this thread, which was intended to be a conversation about how things can be improved and not a place to come and hit the pinata.  

With regards to your posts, can you share a screenshot so we can investigate?  And as I keep saying we can't fix everything at once but some small fixes we can action pretty quickly if we are alerted to them.

You say we don't want to fix things and yet we have already fixed:

The size of the notification popup

The messages section so you can read them

Paging on the forum theads view

What we are after from the existing community members is constructive information that we can use to rebuild the community structure and layout.  

glenmar we can change the logon to be an either or option, most sites these days use your email address, we have taken note.

Bad Dog, You can ask me not to post but unless you choose to ban me from the site, I've as much right as anyone to state my opinion. I might have had a more positive attitude toward you if you hadn't gotten so snarky with Tina right from the get go.  You really don't expect all of us who have stuck with this forum through thick and thin to not have some feedback that is less than positive, do you? I also had a bad attitude to some extent because of your poorly chosen avatar. Many of us do a lot to fight BSL and your avatar is like waving a red flag in front of our faces.

The previous people who had your position may have been ineffectual, for whatever reason, but they were understanding of our feelings of frustration.

We understand your feelings, if the avatar offends you I apologize it was to represent that the community had failed and we were a bad dog, however I can understand the confusion and we will change it.  

You do have as much right to post as anyone  and we are happy that you do which is why you would not be banned for expressing your opinions.  Our response to the replies have been measured and in proportion to the attitude that was presented and with an intent to try and drive this thread to constructive debate, rather than picking holes in something that we have already accepted as not fit for purpose.

At the moment, we have learned about a few bugs in the system and that IMHA would become a group in the site.  We have had no feedback on any other aspect of what we are suggesting and without that there is no way to improve things.  We have created  a poll for Rainbow Bridge and we could create other polls for the items above if y'all feel that this is a easier way to drive change?

Amen to everything Jackie said.

I attempted to respond on my smart phone, but keep getting validation errors.

Since I can't SEE the avatars anymore, I can't say that I'm offended by it, but just the darned user name gets my back up.  There are no bad dogs, just bad owners.  Jackie is correct.  Many of us are actively involved in fighting BSL, rescue, transport, fostering and trying to educate people.  Again, there are no bad dogs.

I haven't seen a poll for Rainbow Bridge.  The site is simply too difficult to navigate to stroll around looking for things.  However, I would suggest that you go back, before the last "upgrade" and really look at those threads, and the ones in Spiritual Corner (connection?)  Really read carefully and see what kind of love and support members of this forum have given to one another over the years.  Perhaps if you do, you'll see that we are family here, that like any family, we have our differences and our favorites, but we are there for one another when the chips are down.  And then, perhaps you'll understand why we get cranky when we see another member being rudely and disrespectfully treated.

Neither Jackie or Tina would consider me their "favorite" family member, but, to me, they are still part of the idog family, and as such, deserve to be defended, whether they need the defense or not.  Reading your responses to both of them ticked me off, and made ME cranky as well.  As I see it, the admin should be able to stay above it all, and NOT react in a snarky manner to justifiably skeptical and maybe angry forum members.  Oh great, here comes another "improvement" to the forum.....the last one gutted the darned thing and just got left unfinished.  By reacting as you did, you're dropping a match in a pile of dry pine needles.  Soon, the entire forest could be burned beyond redemption.

And, no, screenshots of stuff that posts and then vanishes, just can't be done.

glenmar your points are accepted, but please also see it from our perspective. No one is saying that this process is going to be easy or that everyone will agree with any changes that are made and indeed there will be disagreements.  However if we all work together to improve things and discuss how to improve and not how bad things have been or become the whipping boy for complaints about issues that everyone is aware of already.

here is the poll

community.dog.com/.../122608.aspx

We will post up other questions as polls to hopefully create some proper debate about the changes coming.

glenmar I've just tried using a mobile phone and I experienced the validation error when trying to post so we will look into that.

To start on a positive note, my first comment is to say I'm really glad the page number issue has been fixed quickly.  Sure, there are loads of things I don't like about the last format change, and I realize some of them are probably complex fixes, but not being able to click on page numbers within a specific thread was driving me batty, so I'm thankful that was addressed quickly.

I'd also like to say I wasn't fond of the OP's avatar either, so I'm glad that has been changed.  I understand if there were good intentions behind the choice of the name and avatar, but as someone who has a pittie mix and who tries as best I can to do things that don't feed the negative stereotypes about pitbull type dogs, the original avatar rubbed me the wrong way since it looked like a pittie silhouette.  Thanks for changing it.

When I first saw the thread title, I thought of a few things I'd like to suggest for the "to be addressed/fixed" list, but I had to wait until I had time to type a longer post.  When I went back to it yesterday, I was shocked to see the tone taken by the OP in response to members comments.  I think Glenda and others have given a good explanation of the history here, the reasons why most of us feel the way we do, and where some of our cynicism and frustration comes from.  Yesterday was the first time I've seen LONG-TERM members being treated rudely, rather than with patience and professionalism.  I hope it was just a bad start and that the OP aims to keep the discussion positive and productive going forward, with members being able to give honest feedback without being berated.

Having said all that, the first couple things I'd suggest are probably things that have already been mentioned.  Mainly, I dislike all clutter -- I don't think it's helpful to users, it makes a site less user-friendly and impossible to navigate.  I understand some level of ads and such are needed, but please keep them to a minimum if possible.  

Also, I know everything is about graphics and motion and color these days, but I believe simpler is better.  Heck, the old fashioned linear format would suit me fine, but I know I'm a dinosaur.  So, my suggestion is a happy medium -- a less cluttered layout, fewer graphics and images (except for photos and such people want to post within threads).

Finally, is it possible to have fewer "subject areas" instead of dozens of categories and sub-categories?  I would like to see when I log in fewer than 10 categories/sections I can visit.  For example:

General Chat (dog-related)

Medical Issues

Nutrition

Behavior & Training

Competitive & Recreational Activities (agility, rally, flyball, etc.)

Puppy Specific Issues

Senior Specific Issues

Rainbow Bridge/Spiritual Circle 

Non-Dog Related Chat

Obviously, there could be sub-categories under some of these major groups as needed (for example, the IMHA thread flagged right at the top of Medical), but again -- simple is better, IMO.  As someone else said, there may be a ton of new threads started all over the place, but in the clutter of it all, I tend to ignore all of them and just find the one or two threads I'm interested in.  

A key thing in reducing the clutter is to eliminate the spam posts ASAP!  It's like grafitti - you've got to cover it up right away or the offenders will keep spraying paint. Too much junk has been posted here and allowed to remain for weeks - it is unacceptable.

Honestly, even if some real improvements are made, I'm doubtful the "old-timers" would return, as everyone has found other means of keeping in touch (e.g., Facebook).  But, maybe there's a chance the forum can become something useful for new people who find their way here, even if the handful of us hangers-on go off into the sunset.

@tacran thank you for posting, you points are good and I think we have captured most of them with our plans above.  

We can't make everyone happy and please consider that this is free site so advertising is required to keep it going.    We do still have 2 staff members that should be moderating and we may give training to allow others to moderate at some point, right now there are many other tasks that need doing.

Please do post a vote on the Rainbow Bridge poll!

Hello everyone. I have taken time to read all of these responses and the one thing I can gather from all of this is that we have a lot of people that care about this community. This is true for both sides, and that can raise tensions a bit. The one thing that we must all remember is that we are working on this community with a common goal which is to bring a comprehensive experience to all dog lovers from across the web. In doing that, many users have found a community that speaks to them on a higher level beyond educational dog information or cute pictures. This is a contributing factor to the strong voices held within this conversation among many others. Please know that I (and we) want nothing but to keep this community surviving, but more than that, THRIVING.

 In the upcoming weeks, Michele and I hope to regain our hold on moderation on the community at large. This will include less spam and more answers on dog related questions. We look forward to working with community members and baddog to obtain a comprehensive understanding of our moderation responsibilities.

I will let Baddog continue to take your opinions into consideration but I ,myself, cannot wait to see what the future holds for this community and it's members. Let's all( EVERYONE) take a second to breathe , smile and take a step forward into a better tomorrow for the DOG.community.

We are going to post more polls so please remember that  not voting on any poll is not having a say on the direction of the site and you lose your voice.

Thank you for posting the link.  NEVER would have found it.

One of the biggest things for me would be to make the forum easier to navigate.  I tend to post on the fly and can't do that if I can't find stuff.  Without notifications, I wouldn't be likely to take the time to find threads.  My time is limited, but not as much so as many of our members.

In our original plan above we have suggested flattening the forums and simplifying, however if we were to put each forum in its own group we could introduce the concept of membership.  By doing this you could filter down the content that you see from the groups/forums that you are interested in so your home page when logged on would become tailored to you?  This would be the same principle as the Kennels section.