<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:36 PM, Israel Stein <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:custos3@comcast.net">custos3@comcast.net</a>></span> wrote:</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
There is one thing for which I will fault the PTG administration with regard to this rollout. Much greater efforts should have been made to prepare the membership for it in terms of explaining exactly what is happening and why and offering tutorials in how to operate in this new environment. I suspect that had this been done, the change would not be so traumatic. Change is difficult, and people need to be prepared for it. It is not too late - an internal PR campaign needs to be launched explaining all these changes andn offering members help in adapting to them.</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Thanks, Israel, for the explanation of why a new forum was a must. That makes sense, and is good to know. And I agree, change was essential.</div><div><br></div><div>Before tutorials are offered, or we spend more time to learn how to use this new forum, can we back up and rethink just the discussion part of the new site? </div>
<div><br></div><div>Is what is in place now the best type of discussion forum? I took the suggestion from someone to look around at other forums. Most of the ones I saw use vBulletin, which is the one with which I'm familiar (a cycling forum to which I subscribe). Was that looked at? It would certainly work better for discussion. I don't know how it would work from an integrated "Social Media" standpoint. (Something I'm not opposed to, but something I'm not primarily needing/looking for either.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>However, there are probably integration issues with which we are unfamiliar.</div><div><br></div><div>Why was this particular type of forum chosen? What does it offer that other web forum software doesn't? E.g., what Pianoworld uses? (Not my favorite, but it's better than this ... again, for discussion.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am all for change, but it needs to be good change. Not being able to easily find new discussions really turns me off immediately, as does the lack of automatic threading and the bolding of thread titles with unread messages/replies (sorry I sound like a broken record already, but they are standard features in any other forum software). And I've noticed there just isn't much discussion going on in Pianotech, so others must find it unsuitable.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Perhaps what we have now can be tweaked in ways that haven't yet been discovered. If so, I'm willing to wait and see. I know that more than just a few of us are frustrated; there are probably quite a few of the leadership who are frustrated that they also don't know the answers yet.</div>
</div><br>-- <br>JF<br>