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John,<br>
<br>
I don't know all the ins-and-outs of why this was chosen over other
packages. All I know is that my wife who works with this sort of
stuff and has been in high tech her entire career took a look at it
and said that it is pretty routine, is used widely and that most of
the problems people are complaining about are just bugs that should
be straightened out. She also said that she probably could have
suggested various alternatives - she has been in this field (as a
programmer and in marketing) since the Internet began and her
business is to know or be able to find out about all available
technologies. So I guess that was a missed opportunity - she had
made her expertise available to the PTG before... <br>
<br>
Be it as it may, this is what we have, lots of money and effort has
been invested in it (wisely or not - I don't know) and I sincerely
hope that the bugs can be dealt with in due time. The alternatives
would be very, very expensive - both in terms of money and time. <br>
<br>
Israel stein <br>
<br>
On 11:59 AM, John Formsma wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:%3CAANLkTiky2OwT+KXd1AX6+Pf1Rm+HjYbzr-AK58NCYbmf@mail.gmail.com%3E"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:36 PM, Israel
Stein <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:custos3@comcast.net">custos3@comcast.net</a>></span>
wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
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>
</blockquote>
<br>
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