Bye!

I'll be off over to http://www.pentaxforums.com now then. I'll have to buy a flame-retardant suit and a good pair of ear defenders and forget about posting anymore, but I simply cannot abide this monstrosity (and I really don't much like the other forums at all).

I'll pop back once in a while to see if Pentax User has relented (and seen sense), but otherwise I'm currently pretty sad and very angry that the very place that got me into Pentax photography has been completely ruined by people who are not using it every day.

Bye.
Jonathan (not so chirpy now)

I am very sorry to read this Jonathan. Would it help if I ask you to reconsider?
As I understand they try to do something about the content width issue, and some other hot items. Lets give it a chance, please?
Martin

A bit dramatic Jonathan and such a shame if you use it every day that you couldn't have helped with the beta test as many issues (apart from leaving as it was) could have been ironed out before it came to this stage. The bits you have issues with are going to be addressed so hopefully you'll be back. Glad we in the first place.

So it's his fault?

Peter, this attitude of yours that we are all ignorant Luddites and you know best is what is causing all the frustration.

If you only got four Beta testers, why didn't you ask for more? I seem to remember that I received an invitation to be a tester, but being rather busy, and assuming you had asked lots of people, I didn't take it up. If I had been asked again, I would probably have accepted. And if I had known that you were going to re-do the forum from scratch, I definitely would have done.

G

I've don't recall saying or implying that anywhere. Sorry if that's your feeling, not intended from me or the team.

Never said that either I just said it's a shame he couldn't help when we asked for help.

I just wanted to add to this post that I, for one, am not here because of the software, but because of the community and I am sticking with it because of that community

I have worked with some bad software in the past, indeed I was a professional software tester for some time, so I know the deal. This is day one, lets see what day 3 brings shall we?

Before you ask, I did see the beta testing post but was not too keen to justify why I would make a good beta tester.

One comment I do have - bright green for new posts, how about a nice orange! And the icon for stickies really is invisible on my large screen
Oh, and can we have a few more smilies too?!

Well Adobe made a similar ‘improvement’ to their forums awhile back and fortunately quickly reverted back to the old format - so there is always hope sense will prevail here too.

I have not posted about the new forum until now because I've been trying to read about all of it! It's only now, when someone wants to leave that I feel I have to comment. I feel sorry that in response to a valued forum member wanting to go elsewhere that the beta testing is brought up yet again! Yes, you asked for beta testers (frankly I didn't quite understand what that was until now), and yes, you didn't get much of a response, but surely you must have guessed that such a massive change to the looks & use of the forum was not going to be received well?

Anyway, I'm off to rant in the other thread.

Chirpy, you will be missed.

Fiona

Re: the whole apply to be a beta tester thing

You have said that only 4 people could be bothered to send you an email.

People have said that they were offended that they had to justify why they would be a good beta tester.

The post makes no mention that the entire forum would be totally redesigned, so not surprised by the lack of response.

It was mentioned that if we didn't like the criteria that we should have said something about it. Guess why nobody did?

BECAUSE THE TOPIC WAS LOCKED!

And then you question why others think you are ignorant luddites.

And yes Chirpy, you will be missed here, see you over the pond!

Sorry to see you go Jonathan, as a pentax community this one is head and shoulders above the rest, but I understand your frustration.

I too will look elsewhere, simply because viewing the current layout for more than 5 minutes hurts my eyes and yes I am the wrong side of 50

Steve

I hope you can all be patient enough to wait and see what happens next? This is a really good community with a great spirit and it's better kept together.

I'm sure the dissatisfactions have been heard loud and clearso can we see what the response is today and beyond? Remember the dreadful change of colour a few months back? After a very short while is was corrected, so I'm sure that the team at PU are listening just as attentively now and working hard at solutions.

I'm sure they are. Indeed I notice that previewing PMs is now possible, where it was not yesterday.

So clearly there's lots of work going on behind the scenes, and I'm delighted to give credit where it's due.

It's the defensiveness and the "blame it all on the users" attitude that I find particularly irksome.

Stick it out mate, I for one would hate to see you leave Its only been a day, give them a chance to sort out the issues we have raised, I'm sure they are trying thier best to give us what we ask.
Reserve your judgment for at least a week.
Its the least we can all do

I didn't see the request for beta testers before today, I hardly ever look at that section of the site, but it seems to me that beta testers are people who do a favour to designers.

If you want people to do you a favour, you shouldn't ask them for their qualifications and experience to apply for the role! you want us to help you but we have to justify our selection? We have to apply, we have to ask "please pick me, I'm good!'. I would not have 'applied', you want my help? then ask me to help you.

To get the best out of software beta testers you have to have a lot of people using the software for a long time on many different platforms to test for bugs. You had four people (apparently) testing for a week or two. This is not going to iron out bugs. You should have restated your request for help, invited anyone and everyone to participate, asked for people with specific hardware/software to try out the site to make sure it works on all platforms and all browsers for all ages and disabilities.

it seems to me on the available evidence that you asked a few mates to have a look, they said it's ok, so you rolled out a practically untested site with no concern over what the users want.

Now this may not be what happened, but this is what I feel has happened.

I don't see much point in asking for features when it's as simple as it gets. Visit http://vbulletin.com and implement it. Such software has been developed over time to the pinnacle of its type. It's been developed by people who actually use the software. Why on earth are PU attempting to re-invent something that is commercially available now, with support and is technically extremelyeasy to implement and integrate.

To be honest, I'm disgusted with the disregard we have been shown. I'd say that just about everything in this joke of a forum script is broken:

Chronological sorting of every type
Thread listing
Image display
This absolutely horrid and broken post editor
Presentation
Fixed table widths
Notification emails

It's like stepping back into the dark ages. They seem to think that everyone is still using 800*600 monitors, whereas the minimum standard these days is double that size.

Whoever specced and developed this monstrosity should be taken out back and shot and a real forum implemented. Oh wait, we had one, and it would have been the simplest thing in the world to install a proper upgrade to a good forum application and still achieve their beloved integration. It could have been done in days, not weeks and this place would have been an even greater pleasure to visit.

As it is now, it's practically unusable and no amount of tweaking and scripting is going fix this abortion.

IMHO, of course