This New Forum Is A Downgrade.

I admit, I have to say I feel the same about this new forum.

I used to frequent it EVERY day, several times.  I posted on tons of threads (how else would I have gotten almost 2000 posts?), loved helping people, and loved to just see what was going on.

The new format came and I've gone from posting ALL the time, to only posting in NDR....to not posting at all.  I hate those stupid tags, it's impossible to find anything, and my topics go unanswered.  Why bother?

I don't mind answering the same question over and over again....ego and vanity I admit....I like to share my knowledge.  But the lack of a decent search feature really does cheese me off.  And I rarely share photos anymore unless I'm REALLY excited, because the forum cuts my doggoned pictures in half!

The first time that happened I was uber ticked!  I can't share pictures of my dogs, and can't view the pictures of others because the forum window is ridiculously small!

I used to LOVE this forum....now I just stick with my GSD forums, which have the format and features of our old forum... 
 

glenmar

 

I can't be the only one with enough Scotts blood in me to try to fix something if I can! As I recall, there was some "stuff" going on at the time of the change, and perhaps someone had a little more power than was wise? I do know that I was modding at the time and knew nothing about a new format, didn't beta test it like some others got the chance, didn't even know it was happening. I had to call Jaime to see what was going on.....and she told me she'd have to kill me if she told me! LOL!

And, you were the one with how many posts from the other two software situations????  My guess is that you could have given a nice historical perspective, and been a moderating influence (no pun intended) on the usual decisions that businesses make between "all the geek bells and whistles" (for the younger or more savvy users) and the "geez, they're next in line for a Jitterbug phone" people (the ones who like a quieter visual field and are more serious about practical application as it related to the messaging).   I imagine that our overall demographic will drive the final decision about how this all gets resolved.  After all, dog.com IS a business...

The thing I find most annoying is that I can't find certain threads. I always read off the "Posts you have not Read" page. I find it takes way too long to go through all the different sections. If I open a thread that seems interesting, read it and then open another thread, the thread I initially opened disappears from the list. If I want to go back and post I have to then try a figure out what section it was posted in. Not as easy as it sounds! Usually I just forget it. I must admit the old "Most recent posts" page was a lot more user friendly.  On the positive side, I do like the "My Discussions". If I did manage to post it acts like a bookmark. I hate having to search around for threads that I am following but haven't posted on.

LOL Anne!  I lost close to 20,000 posts with the first change, and with the second change, just a few membership years.

I don't like the new forum.  Don't need, want or LIKE the new bells and whistles, but I do recognize that to attract the younger, more demographically desireable crowd, stuff like that is needed.

I post less, but not because of the format, rather because of my own personal life and its descent into heck in a hand basket back in October.  Life just blew up in my face then, and keeping my stress out of my posts was hard to do.

I do find myself posting more since life has calmed down, when wifi and aol aren't conspiring to keep me OFF line!

And, I might be an old fart, but I'm nowhere near ready for the Jitterbug yet!

The issues don't really effect me so much.  I can do what I would come on here to do anyway.  But, I just don't understand, the software isn't working for you properly and might not get fixed anytime soon.  And, that's OK with dog.com??  If this happened where I work they would have people on it, fixing the issues.  You paid for software that isn't working properly. 

corgipower

probe1957

Glenda, you think someone actually paid good money for this software? 

This is the software ~ http://communityserver.org/

Interesting.  I feel like I've created and administrated forums that would better meet the needs of the members here (based on this thread) using free, open-sourced applications I've played with on my domains.

Liesje

corgipower

probe1957

Glenda, you think someone actually paid good money for this software? 

This is the software ~ http://communityserver.org/

 

Interesting.  I feel like I've created and administrated forums that would better meet the needs of the members here (based on this thread) using free, open-sourced applications I've played with on my domains.

Maybe, but I have been on forums where the advertising would kill ya.  And, once or twice, I have had to figure out how to get that darned tribalfusion thing off my computer. 

spiritdogs

Liesje

corgipower

probe1957

Glenda, you think someone actually paid good money for this software? 

This is the software ~ http://communityserver.org/

 

Interesting.  I feel like I've created and administrated forums that would better meet the needs of the members here (based on this thread) using free, open-sourced applications I've played with on my domains.

 

Maybe, but I have been on forums where the advertising would kill ya.  And, once or twice, I have had to figure out how to get that darned tribalfusion thing off my computer. 

 Yeah, that makes sense. 

corgipower

spiritdogs

Liesje

corgipower

probe1957

Glenda, you think someone actually paid good money for this software? 

This is the software ~ http://communityserver.org/

 

Interesting.  I feel like I've created and administrated forums that would better meet the needs of the members here (based on this thread) using free, open-sourced applications I've played with on my domains.

 

Maybe, but I have been on forums where the advertising would kill ya.  And, once or twice, I have had to figure out how to get that darned tribalfusion thing off my computer. 

The ads though aren't part of the software. The free hosts have ads because they don't get paid for hosting, and they need to get paid somehow. Beyond that the ads would be at the discretion of whoever is running the website. Dog.com certainly shouldn't need to use ads, as they have the pet supplies to generate income. Some of the free, open source software is quite nice as well, such as phpbb, mybb, etc. with the added benefit that if it's not quite right for you, it was free.

Yep, I've used phbb myself and we never had any of the problems people complain about here.

I belong to another very active forum with over 54,000 members (I have about 15,000 posts there and have been there for over 6 years) and I actually pay to belong there.  There are even a few ads at the top, but the admin is using a great package that most people are happy with (otherwise we wouldn't pay!).  Even with a few ads at the top, I'm happy with the setup.  I'm not sure what package he uses, but it's very different than iDog, much closer to what we had just before this.

Forums bogged down with ads are generally b/c the people hosting them are actually creating forums on someone else's domain, using free forum sites.  There's plenty of open source freeware out there, but you have to install the apps, not generate a free forum on someone else's space or they will have ads.  Like phbb for example, it comes already packaged with all of the domains I own (I'm not saying iDog should use it, just giving one example).  Not only could I download it an install it for free, it's already there.  I didn't have time to get deep into the customization so I had someone else do it for me, but as far as I could tell there was nothing we couldn't customize to our liking, and both of us are really novices at that sort of thing.  I've found that the more you *pay*, the less control you end up with...