The new dog.community: the testing is almost over

@jbrayshaw

For years now, we’ve made this service available to anyone free of charge. In order for it to continue and evolve as we believe it can, we need you to spread the word. Tell members about the community and invite them to join. Share links to your posts on your other social networks. The faster we grow, the more we can invest in the community and its members, so please do tell everyone and anyone about our community and encourage them to join.

You’ve all helped us to get the community to this point. Why not play a critical role and help secure its future success and make dog.community the most successful online forum for dogs in the world?

 Most of the long time members of the forum understand that the forum community is a service provided for free.  The moderators are unpaid volunteers who are appreciated by most of the members.  I understand that the site is a retail site interested in attracting people who will hopefully purchase something they see.   I do purchase from this site as a way to show my support for this forum.

What I don't plan to do is share my posts here on other social networks.  I am on FB.  I have two type of "friends" on FB.  Dog people and family.  Some family members are dog people and some aren't.  Most of my dog people friends on FB are from this forum.  Inviting them to join would be pointless. Many of those dog friends have drifted away from this forum.  I don't have any interest in trying to woo them back.  They left for their own reasons and I respect their choices.   My privacy settings on FB are such that only those I have as "friends" see my posts.  I don't use Twitter and never will.  Just as many don't use FB and never will.  We all have our level of comfort as far as online interaction is concerned.

This community was much more active when I joined in 2008.  This was my first ever forum of any kind.  The changes that have been made may very well be attractive to the market you're trying to draw to this site.  Whether it will ever be as active a community as it was previously remains to be seen.

I will probably remain an active member because I've made good friends here and some aren't on FB.  Yes, I could email or text them but it's become a comfortable habit to share things here. :)

Thanks for listening to our concerns. 

For the most part I'm going to nod in agreement with Jackie -- particularly with regard to trying to woo old members back.  The ones that want to are waiting to see what develops.  The ones that don't want to?  um ... let sleeping dogs lie??

However, I also have a different perspective.  I've gotten on FB **only** with regard to IMHA.  There are at least two large FB "groups" devoted to IMHA or AIHA.  They are actually vastly different.  A lot of the folks who have historically been active on Dog.com's AIHA or IMHA thread are there.  some have dogs  who survived IMHA, some who simply are willing to share their knowledge and experience with others dealing with the monster disease.  

Largely because the AIHA or IMHA thread on here has been running since 2008 and it also contains the "index" to help people find specific topics -- I have been continuing to refer people back here -- if not to post, but at least to find information.   Being able to share on FB ... for me ... will be a good thing.  I don't like FB (and to echo Jackie's words about Twitter "and never will"

Most of what I do is health-related.  I will continue - as I've always done -- to point to Dog.com's forum as a really good place to find and exchange information and support.  

Just because I only play "one tune" doesn't mean others wont.  I know several folks who are literally hanging back just waiting for you to get this in final shape so they can come in (and hopefully only have to re-learn new software once).

I have also deeply appreciated the opportunity to give input.  That was completely missing with the last change-over.  (and it was that "we don't care if it's broke, live with it";) attitude that cost a lot of members way back when.

Ijn fact, to be honest, one of the things I have tried to convey to others is that I particularly like how the new owners think and how they have tried patiently to listen to us ... but also that the general impression I got was Dr. Tab isn't just interested in "how cheap can I do this so I can reap more profit" ... but rather that he's really interested in helping all of us make the world a better place -- particularly for those animals in it.

Let's go!!

@JackieG

This was my first ever forum of any kind.  The changes that have been made may very well be attractive to the market you're trying to draw to this site.  Whether it will ever be as active a community as it was previously remains to be seen.  I will probably remain an active member because I've made good friends here and some aren't on FB.  Yes, I could email or text them but it's become a comfortable habit to share things here. :)  

Like Jackie, this was the first online forum I'd ever joined (back in 2005).  It was incredibly active then, to the point that I couldn't keep up with all the threads.  I'm not sure it'll ever grow to that level again because that was before Facebook and other social networking sites that most people prefer these days.  I do hope it becomes a bit more active, because it was a great resource when I really needed it (for health concerns, specifically).

I won't be sharing my posts either.  I don't use Facebook, Twitter, or any other things like that.  It's possible I will someday, but it's highly unlikely.  I enjoy interacting with the friends I've made here.  I will continue to do so, and I hope that some of the folks who've migrated away in recent months will return when the final version of the format is "up and running."  I miss seeing them here.

I've appreciated being able to offer input and feedback during the test phase, and I'm very grateful that our concerns were heard.  I'm most excited about the date/time stamp on posts.  I'm also very happy to hear that an improved "thread" format will be available for people like me who prefer that traditional appearance versus the grid format.  But I will try to use both!

Thanks for the update, Jonathan!

I hear all your points, JackieG. And, I will do my best to address as many as I can.

Actually, we want people to view social networks as front and back doors to our community. There's no expectation that you HAVE to share, but we do want to encourage people where it makes sense to share threads and content they like. Why? So that we can grow the community and entice new users onto the site who may be using Facebook and are not aware of this community. As to wooing people back, let us try to do that. We know many things have changed since the first dog forum was launched, but we're going to do our best to 'sell' the benefits of this new community.

That said, I want to make very clear that, of course, we respect individual choices not to share or to manage their social profiles however they want.

As to making this site as successful as it once was, we think it can be, but only by pooling a whole range of different experiences under the banner of 'community'. We do live in a post-Facebook era, so you do have to try and take what's best about those kinds of sites otherwise you will lose some of your users and be less appealing to prospective new members.

Calliecritturs, you make loads of great points too. As you may have gathered by our current site, we do want to be more than 'just a forum' and that's why we talk more about community than forum. That said, we know we moved too far away from the core of the site with this design. I'm confident that once you see what we've done for the non-test version, you'll be pleased and hopefully pleasantly surprised.

As for your input, we've loved reading it. The good, the BAD and the - meh. We listen and act on everything we can. I've always been determined that this would be run as a collaborative project where you help to shape and shine up the experience. So let's keep those lines of communication open and of course, we're all looking forward to sharing with you the complete experience in the coming days and weeks.

Best as ever, Jonathan

I've been a part of a lot of forums/messageboards in the past.  New software is always a pita ... and yet we gotta grow.  Most of us don't like change (and yet somehow I keep hearing myself as a 17 year old despairing that my parents just "hated ANYTHING that was new and I would NEVER EVER be that way!!!!";).  

I've got my life jacket on and I'll roll with the tide!!  LOL

(PS today -- the three 'blue' buttons below where I type my post have "green" labels and I still can't read the words.   That per my query of Monday)

So basically, the forum is going to be just as confusing as it is right now?  And visually over stimulating?  I'll check back to see what it's like, but have a feeling I'll be deleting my account.  

@micksmom: Well your comment reminded me of an old saying, that I believe you will recognise. “You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”

Mr Lincoln really was quite a man. All I can say to anyone is that we're doing our best to help you make sense of the new features and functions on the site as well as making it a community fit for 2014 and beyond.

I am disappointed that you read my post and decided that the confusion will remain. I don't believe that will be the case. And anyway, as I said, if you wish to just use the forums, you can do that by clicking on the discussion forums link. We'll also be on hand to help you understand how everything works. But as they say, proof of the pudding is always in the eating, so let's see how you get on... We'll be on hand to help you.

Jonathan

I think one of the things people don't understand (and I hope I'm not totally off base with this) ... rather than "fixing" things one at a time, you are literally going to overlay the "improved" software over this.  So where folks have been assuming something hasn't been fixed .. it has, but we haven't seen the result of it yet.  

Honestly -- I got so perturbed "last time" because you couldn't get hold of anyone, you couldn't get ANYTHING changed or fixed after the 1st day and no one cared you just had to DEAL with it -- I find it really decent that you've poked your head in and become a known quantity to us.  

micksmom, I agree--the new version of the forum is very intense visually. The site does not yet meet accessibility requirements and the code still contains errors (which may also affect accessibility); hopefully, that will be fixed very quickly. It is still slow for me--likely because there is so much stuff on the site. (This is common for a lot of sites I have to visit; they are not designed for folks who do not have super-high speed internet access--a down-fall of living on the island.) I don't post often because of the time it takes just to log on, but that's just the way it is.

Jonathan, I realize you can't please all of the people all of time.  :)  My biggest problem is the visual "over load" of the forum actually makes it painful for me to come here.  I could deal with learning how to navigate a new lay out (or whatever you call it) if I wasn't already frustrated by my discomfort.  It appears that more emphasis has been put on the things people find convenient (post dates, last post by, etc) than things that really affect people.  As I said in my last reply, I'll check back periodically for awhile to see how it's going.  Buy it's not worth it for me to check in/post as often as I used to if it's going to cause me physical discomfort.