Here's an odd and unsuitable suggestion - quit tinkering! Despite what marketeers would have you believe, people like familiarity.
Yes, and they also like simplicity too - and the one thing this new software isn't, is simple. Don't get me wrong, it is very comprehensive and offers a lot of options, but ... too many for most people?
Hope some of my inane ramblings help
Thank you - they definitely do.
I've barely visited since the overhaul for two main reasons. *Cheers in the background...*
Firstly, the forum software won't work properly on my antiquated browser at work in terms of formatting my posts. I can't put in carriage returns, even when I've looked at the code on other people's posts and tried to copy+paste the formatting, but to no avail.
Secondly, I miss the old Subscribed Threads page - I could easily keep abreast of what interested me. The new My Content option is too cluttered (or at least was last time I looked), with no (apparent) way of managing it.
As an aside, I find the new software a bit variable in its formatting, depending on viewing medium/browser. Drop-down menus and the like can render the page in different ways, but don't make the whole site unusable.
Overall, I feel that forums work due to the members and the content they produce.
I agree about the members making the site work - the people are the key - and we have a very good sense of community here at CC that I'd like to maintain and foster, but if the software isn't "working" for people and they find it awkward to use, or the layout is difficult to get on with, or they can't find the things they commonly use, etc. then it takes some (
or a lot) of the shine off've CC and makes for fewer posts and less content. I want to get people
more involved and if the software is inhibiting posting, I need to know.
On that note, I've had quite a lot of feedback from people about this new software being "clunky" and I find myself asking whether the move - overall - was a good one or not; and whether we continue with putting time into this software trying to make it work how we want, or whether we consider a simpler, easy-to-use, more accessible alternative.
The post editor, which is a key part of the site and used throughout for posts, blogs, PMs etc. gives inconsistent results. That in itself, is quite a bug bear. Then there's Watched Topics. Where do you go to find your watched content? (answers on a postcard please). First unread post often plonks you in the middle of a thread, nowhere near your first unread post - and once you've entered a thread, the whole thing is marked read. Newlines are added to posted content without you even trying (as is HTML sometimes), and when you go back to edit them out, more stuff is randomly changed. How the sorting for View New Content works is a mystery to me, and it often displays the same thread over and over, just because it has had several new replies. The error system isn't very graceful and the error codes are only of use to the software developers. The user control panel is cumbersome and the categories don't make sense for some of the options - finding them isn't so much intuitive as a find-and-seek game.
All of these are things that may be fixed in coming updates, but they all have an impact on how people use the site and add a layer of intricacy that wasn't there before.
I've got to think ahead and plan for growth, and a part of that is to review where we are now and whether - going forward over the next few years - this is the platform to take us there?
I've got to figure out whether the "bells and whistles" have been worth it (
or are even wanted by the membership)? or whether a return to a simpler, easy-to-use forum system would be more preferred and be better all-round for the future of CC?
Keep the feedback coming ...
Cheers,
Shaun
... perhaps evolution is better than revolution.
