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It's not the glass, it's the content!

Martin Kieltsch
So this brand new MSC FB knock off is what you guys think would attract more users ?
 
The "old" Forum that had more than 200.000 members and only one or two posts a day. That's suspiciously low participation and I donÄt think it's due to young people not knowing how to use a forum.
 
I  can tell you why I prefer a "classic" Forum over let's say FB:
1)
Did you ever try to dig out an old thread on FB that you remember it was there ? Impossible thing! The philosophy here is fire and forget. If I stumble over valuable content here, I immediately save it on my HDD.
If you participate in a forum for long, you remember threads and you can pretty easily dig out what it was if you remember things like keywords or who wrote it.
If this system is capable of doing this - fine. If not - fail.
 
2)
Being flooded with info: If you have FB on your mobile phone and more than a dozen "friends" you get pretty many pop-ups saying xxx has liked something, yyy has started a new topic and all this fuss.
You don't have that on a forum. I'm having a look there if I have the time and not because somebody I don't even know tagged me in a post.
 
3)
Smooth transition:
Ever thought about the "old" forum threads as a valuable source of solutions/information? So which genius had the idea "hey let's just piss off everyone with an unannounced radical change within one day"
 
4)
Attachments:
Ok this can only  become better, as on forums you're always limited with file types and sizes or visibility only for logged in members and all this unnecessary stuff.
 
Test attachment:
explaining_math_to_a_blonde
 
 
 
Parents
  • 0
    Hi Martin,
     
    We had to move tools for a number of reasons (many IT-related) and the first question we asked when looking at the various tools was "would this work for Martin (and other valuable contributors like him..)?".  I share your lack of enthusiasm for some of the FB-like functionality, but some of it is useful. Here are some things that guided us and some things that looked like a step in the right direction:
     
    1. Old forums: we HAD to preserve the information because there's so much valuable stuff in there. That system is now in 'read only' mode and, while it pains me to have 2 systems, the old information is intact.
     
    2. Some new functionality looks helpful, for example:
      i. topic tags using hashtag characters. I'll tag this thread with #CommunityFeedback and that will help in categorization/search.
     
     ii. 'likes' on answers: these 'votes' on answers will be helpful in guiding people in the future when they look at old questions/answers. Let's use them..
     
    3. IT benefits for us: not an end-user concern, but we can more easily manage our data and realize future product enhancements. I'm sure our community will share their enhancement requests.. In addition: we now have the possibility of integrating our community forums with our SimCompanion (simcompanion.mscsoftware.com/) site and other Support resources. This will be helpful for us and we expect it will be nicer for the users, too. 
     
    4. Utility: our old forums were fine in my mind, but this new interface is easier to post images & attachments.
     
    5. Search & info retrieval: this had better be really good. Our initial testing of this system (and a related tool from the same company) showed good results..
     
    6. Community involvement: we want to keep our valuable contributors happy, so we're listening to your feedback. Our old system was static, but we have a bit of control over this new system. We'll work hard to get the kinks sorted out; thanks for the feedback.
     
    Thanks,
    Kent
     
     
     
     
     
Reply
  • 0
    Hi Martin,
     
    We had to move tools for a number of reasons (many IT-related) and the first question we asked when looking at the various tools was "would this work for Martin (and other valuable contributors like him..)?".  I share your lack of enthusiasm for some of the FB-like functionality, but some of it is useful. Here are some things that guided us and some things that looked like a step in the right direction:
     
    1. Old forums: we HAD to preserve the information because there's so much valuable stuff in there. That system is now in 'read only' mode and, while it pains me to have 2 systems, the old information is intact.
     
    2. Some new functionality looks helpful, for example:
      i. topic tags using hashtag characters. I'll tag this thread with #CommunityFeedback and that will help in categorization/search.
     
     ii. 'likes' on answers: these 'votes' on answers will be helpful in guiding people in the future when they look at old questions/answers. Let's use them..
     
    3. IT benefits for us: not an end-user concern, but we can more easily manage our data and realize future product enhancements. I'm sure our community will share their enhancement requests.. In addition: we now have the possibility of integrating our community forums with our SimCompanion (simcompanion.mscsoftware.com/) site and other Support resources. This will be helpful for us and we expect it will be nicer for the users, too. 
     
    4. Utility: our old forums were fine in my mind, but this new interface is easier to post images & attachments.
     
    5. Search & info retrieval: this had better be really good. Our initial testing of this system (and a related tool from the same company) showed good results..
     
    6. Community involvement: we want to keep our valuable contributors happy, so we're listening to your feedback. Our old system was static, but we have a bit of control over this new system. We'll work hard to get the kinks sorted out; thanks for the feedback.
     
    Thanks,
    Kent
     
     
     
     
     
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