Re: Old and New Forums
There is no argument that neither the announcement nor the transition was well handled. Part of that is as you say due to the lack of understanding about what PSW is. You are correct that there is a difference they are only beginning to get between publishing and social media. It is also true that there was no user input into the decisions that were made about where the site was going to go. Was there user input when we moved to FUD? I was there and I don't remember being asked for my views on the move. I don't really know where the users were told to fuck off. As with the move to FUD, the move to SMF means having to only have an archive of the forum history. The only time when there was not going to be an archive was before the first conference call where Doug and I and Tom Young, and I think Dave Dermont, along with Brad Blackwood from R/E/P were first told about the plan. At that time every single one of us told them that the value of the forums was in the historical data and the people who created it, and that to abandon that was to abandon the forums altogether. We were assured at that time that the worst case scenario would be an archive, and that they would try to port the old data into the new software. When it became obvious that that was not going to happen they suggested moving individual topics of great interest manually into the new software. The idea of the archive did not go away as far as any of us know.
AFAIK the FUD site has been taken down every night since it was first implemented. This has certainly been true as long as I have been a moderator. There was going to be an issue somewhere in the world no matter what time it was. A big part of this change was to get rid of that behavior. The new site is online 24/7.
I'm sure some valuable members will move on. Some valuable members already moved on over the past 5 years. Some valuable members moved on with the move to FUD. New members will join. They're doing that now, as they always have. Old members are always welcome.
See ya on the Interwebs
Mac
ps. I'll be in Vegas 2/3-2/12, I'll call ya.
