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It makes me really sad that the migration to the new interface appears to have effectively killed off discussion on these forums - they have now become even more clunky and hard to use, and it's hard to find anything in them, and some of the stickied posts at the top date back to 2011 and are no longer relevant. Is there any way to rejigger things so that the boards become easier to use and conversation might possibly start up again? Or is this a lost cause? Things had been drying up on these boards for a while, but this change appears to have delivered the coup de grace. I'd love to hear what other people think and whether a moderator might be able to do anything about it.
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It has saddened me to see our once thriving community in a lull. For me, ever since crick left, it hasn't been the same
The change in forum software certainly could have been better. It also seemed like the new owners had a lot of turn over in admins.
With no moderator accounts, the site has been horribly neglected (not giving the admin a hard time. one person can't stay on top on everything). In particular
* spam was out of control
* solicitations and scams - once strictly regulated - are on pretty much every subforum
* impersonal/rude posts were tolerated/ignored
Add to these, a few technical design flaws:
* new posts no longer list all posts from the last 24 hours
* latest post in sub forum is cleared when latest post is deleted (spam removal does this)\
* reordering of some sub forums makes it hard to find previously popular sub forums
* the ability to easily see post history on any user
* inability to message people who have not accepted you friends
Has removed one of the forums strongest features - the ability to foster communication across all part of the triad
I actually had decided to leave. as well. I would go a couple weeks without stopping in. But this community means to much to me.
When the admins got moderators added an asked me to help, I decided to dedicate some time to a.com (as have a couple other long time members).
Spam and solicitation will be managed. You should notice a difference
Moderating rudeness is a work in progress. I'm hoping all the long time members can help us reset some of the older standards. EVERYONE here (minus a few trolls and spammers) is a person for whom the adoption world has impacted directly. Its personal, it matters. Rudeness hurts and makes it impossible for us to learn from each other
The moderators with work with the admins to see is anything can be done regarding the other missing features.
In the mean time.... even if finding things is harder, i don't see any reason we can't start fostering conversations again.
Please feel free to add any other enhancements or concerns
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I wonder if a thread (properly managed) was created that only has comments that clearly identify specific problematic aspects that need to be fixed would work? And by properly managed, I mean comments should only be constructive to a specific problem...
wcurry identified the New Posts that many of us used to see what was happening, who'd updated when we come on the forum - it worked. It no longer works. The fix, selecting the Community header only brings up new single posts that you can't respond to, and must go to the original thread to get what the topic is. The other problem is that it doesn't identify the forum the post is from, I had no idea this was posted in the General Adoptive Parent forum (I think that was the forum but I can't see it now)...all to say, it makes everything dis-jointed when you have no idea where you are, which sector you are talking too...dots need to be connected automatically, you shouldn't have to wind your way through a maze to figure out where you are...
D
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No, it definitely hasn't been the same since the new owners took charge. There's now a much more diverse group of voices and experiences being shared here.
I credit Spud for that, and truly appreciate that she's attempted to make this an INclusive, rather than an EXclusive, site.
I'm glad that the former moderators are back on the job and only hope that, if more moderators are chosen, they come from a variety of subfora. The people "in charge" should be representative of ALL the members.
Other than that, I like Dickons' idea of a central thread, which would probably be best sited in the Community area, where everyone could post issues, concerns and suggestions.
I will say that this new format leaves a LOT to be desired. Absent the login issues and double posting, the old platform wasn't so bad. It had a clean and non-confusing layout and was easy to navigate. I can't say the same about the current board. :(
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I am thrilled to see answers here (yes, you ARE still out there!), and I'm also really happy to hear your view, Abused Adoptee, that it's a more diverse group these days. I frankly haven't been able to navigate the new boards to figure out that there was any kind of active group at all.
I think these responses show there are a lot of us who are eager to help reanimate these boards, and I hope the mods are able to help make the forums easier to navigate so we can all jump in and resume the conversations.
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Hi Everyone,
Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate that everyone on this thread is being constructive and not complaining because "change is hard", but out of honesty and love for this place. I am taking it in. Thanks for having my back AA! :)
After we launched the new community, it was pretty apparent that it was a maze to find threads, we went back to the drawing board to redesign the forum section. Then...we heard that PHP Fox (the software of the new community) will soon be releasing a new version. We took a look and the forums are better. So we made the decision to wait it out and update the version instead of making even more custom changes to the layout that would take longer. They say it is releasing in about a month and then our developers should be able to update it pretty seamlessly we hope. You can check the demo of Version 4 on their site here: It will look different skinned and customized to Adoption.com but you may be able to get the idea. It should make the home page of forums more concise and it has a clearer recent conversations section.
WCurry66 is right...I think the spam situation is under control now. If you would like me to request that they show conversations from the last 24 hours (instead of 12) I can do that. Anything else major to keep in mind?
Thank you,
Spud
My one suggestion, now that I know there will be other updates, would simply be toreeorder the forums so the major support forums are at the top. So much simpler to find that way.
Um getting used to this.Change is hard.
Btw, thanks for taking care of that nasty abbreviation Apid! If nothing else happens that did so I'm happy haha.
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I'm glad to see people still around and hear that things will hopefully get fixed. I've been in the same place of being about to leave because the spam and lack of people were really gett to me.
I completely agree about having the general support forums at the top. I Also find it cumbersome to have as many layers (if that's the right word) as we do now. It used to be that if I clicked on a category, like adoptive parents, I saw ever sub forum. Now there are sub-subforums, and it's really hard to remember where things are. I also miss having anything with new posts since I last read a forum marked.
I'm Really glad to hear your view, AbusedAdoptee, that the forums are more diverse. They have felt less diverse to me, but that may very well be because it's hard for me to find things and because some of the folks I've known for a long time from various parts of the triad have left.
I Didn't know you couldn't message people you weren't friends with. I also didn't know there was an option to become friends with people. Is there some sort of quick, user-friendly guide to how to do things and how the site works? If so, it would be great to have it more prominent. If not, poor schmucks like me with not the greatest computer skills and frequent distractions and demands by small people with sticky fingers would be great.
I Didn't know you couldn't message people you weren't friends with. I also didn't know there was an option to become friends with people. Is there some sort of quick, user-friendly guide to how to do things and how the site works? If so, it would be great to have it more prominent. If not, poor schmucks like me with not the greatest computer skills and frequent distractions and demands by small people with sticky fingers would be great.
Yeah, not a fan of the whole "friends" thing. Most boards allow you to message anyone, and to set your profile to determine who gets to message you. And we should be able to send a message to administrators/moderators at all times -- being "friends" with someone who has the power to (virtually) slap others' hands can be problematic, IMHO.
And I'd like to be able to be "invisible" when I'm online. Seriously -- how can I "lurk" when everyone can see me? ;)
Last update on July 2, 6:57 am by Angry Adoptee.
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Since a lot of us seem to have similar concerns, I wonder if there's anything that can be done in the interim period before the site migrates over to the updated version of the software. Just culling out some of those ancient stickied threads would do a lot to make the place feel more inhabited - scrolling down past all of those long-defunct topics is kind of disheartening. And the fact that you can't tell which posts are most recent in a thread is really confusing to me. Spud, is any kind of housekeeping possible before the next shift?
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Diva,
Spud posted a picture asking for how to make it better.
https://adoption.com/community/communityadmin/
Spud - this is a part of the problem - if you just check forums vs community you aren't going to see pictures shared, things people write on their walls. Perhaps a SITE map describing how things work would be a good place to start. If this is a forum then it should have everything under forums...
I really don't know but without knowing how things interconnect, how and when people see things - I suspect that is the starting place -understand how the site works...
Cheers
D
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How about making the forums so that links like the one above actually work when clicked on rather than requiring a copy and paste into a browser? How about explaining how to navigate multiple pages of threads? FWIW that is not doable on a tablet. How about making it so original join dates are listed for posters along with an easy link to read previous posts by a member?
I feel so sad about how many questions from new members are going unanswered. I used to log in here and read multiple times per day. Now, I get so frustrated with how remedial the format is that I rarely come here. Maybe I'm just slow...but I've never seen a forum that is as user unfriendly as this one.