Everyone agrees this board started

out very good and most everyone agrees that it needed updated but this is just crazy.
to complicated, takes too long to load, you cannot see all the posts in one place, you have to go into to many rooms

Time to back off, simplify,

I found this board while it is for ATV lovers it takes care of the requirements keeps new post TTT, and you dont have to pop in and out of different catagories
http://utilityoffroad.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=14

Admit you all went overboard back up and try again

If the board looked like the one you suggest I would definetely leave here. That would be a step backwards.

I think the way the posting is laid out here is wrong. The posts list should be the main focus of the site like the old one and the extra features to the side. But unlike some people here I will give them a chance instead of going off at someone who has put their time and hard work into a free service for us.

I will be one of the first to agree that we still need to make some improvements in navigation. Those changes are being developed and will include substantially more customization in how you view and sort content. For now, if you want a simple view, I suggest bookmarking either the Recent Forum Posts page or the All Activity page. Neither view is perfect, but both provide a simple layout without all the "extras."

I also want to point out that our goal with this site wasn't to create a new forum. POB, as a magazine, has operated independently of RPLS.com for years; yet this group is largely composed of our readers. We are seeking to provide a better interface between POB and RPLS.com so that you, our readers, have more of a voice in the printed and online magazine while also having direct access to an interactive events calendar, user-driven product reviews and other useful tools and resources that we could not provide in a basic forum environment. The future for online communities is true social networking with the potential to expand your business opportunities. You will continue to see changes in the coming weeks as we improve and build on this platform, so please do continue to check back.

We are listening, and we won't stop making changes until this platform meets the needs of our community.

Kristi, I have been using the recent posts page as my starting point. I find it annoying though that every post on every thread keeps showing up. Is there a way I can just view new posts on that page?

I agree with the direction of the board in general, its just that the posting section seems a bit hidden and not the main focus. The main attraction for people (I think) is the posting section. If the posting part of the page was similar in navigation to the old with all the new features available as well people would probably flock back here. Just some constructive criticism.

Can I recommend for those who have a scroll mouse if you click on the post with the scroll wheel a seperate window opens up with the post (at least in IE8 it does). I find this makes navigation quite easy with less going back and forth.

I noticed in the last few days that mine and others post counts have dropped considerably.....what's up with that?

JP:
Kristi, I have been using the recent posts page as my starting point. I find it annoying though that every post on every thread keeps showing up. Is there a way I can just view new posts on that page?
 

After reading the criticism leveled at the old Forum over the years I find much of this current dialog amusing to say the least. The Number One criticism of the old Forum was that "it wasn't professional". "P&R scared off a lot of would be valuable contributors"

Now I keep reading "It's too complicated". "It's too hard". "Too many categories" Why? Are category police overworked now?

"Too hard" and "too complicated" for "Professionals"? And where are those "valuable professional contributors" that were turned off by P&R?

What the new board has in common with the old board is that it is populated by a collection of whining crybabies. This Board was constructed based largely on consensus of user input.What's the problem? You have had and are still getting input.

Note the first two words in the thread title "Everyone agrees". I don't see a whole lot of agreement here. But it is not nearly as chaotic as some imply. There is a lot of good content coming across. Most of the new tools work great. But you do need to experiment with them a bit. From a poster or "writers'" point of view, this new forum is much improved. "Codeslingers" could manipulate the old forum. Many of those tools are now built in. Anyone can easily load an image or a link or a video with little effort.

It's the viewing end that now requires a bit of effort. Once you get that set up most of it works pretty well. The "Search" function is something most social networking programmers typically don't have to deal with. Because they usually have a generic search engine link and don't focus specifically on internal archives. This is certainly fixable, and I anticipate it will be upgraded soon.

They say change reveals character. How would you evaluate your reaction to this change?
MLB

Hey, I've only been verbally and personally attacked once over here on this "New Board", I won't say by who and I won't elaborate to his character or lack there off....but I personally feel this board is more professional and has better posts and information...I personally like that "Survey Definition of the Day", that guy is so smart....

Too complicated with respect to too many categories because there are now several places that a person might think is the appropriate category for their post.  My problem isn't so much with the primary categories, but with the maze of subcategories.

I have complication in my job.  I don't need it on an internet forum.

Who had all this input?  I was one of the first 30 (I think it was) beta testers and I can't think of any substantive input that I dutifully supplied that was implemented.  Sure, people said they didn't like the color of the text, didn't like the word "friends" so now it's "associates", but what about the format in general.  That was decided way before I got here.  You know, whatever.  It's their board, but to say the board was based on user input is, I think, a polyanna viewpoint that is uncharacteristic of you. 

And what's this idea that this forum is destined to be the serious surveying or geomatics or geospatial haven.  Look at the posts from the last day or two.  If you took out the Lounge posts about Hitler and the Board Admiinistration posts arguing about whether there's hope for this place, this would be a ghost town.

Uncharacteristic?
I think not.. It is true once the frame went up only the flooring, paint, fixtures and furniture were open to negotiation. You need to go back farther. That framework was selected based on years of comments and suggestions posted on the old site.

The biggest theme by far was "Professionalism". The bells , whistles and eye candy were thrown in. But mostly the cry was for a "more professional environment".

I don't think I'm being Pollyanna. I just think most of those who left are lying, self deluding hypocrites and certainly not very professional at that.
Is that a bit more of what you refer to as characteristic of me?
MLB

There you go.  That's the triple-twisted logic I remember.  This framework, although admittedly fancy has not attracted a more professional class of posts or posters.  Just look back at the recent activity for a couple of days.  It's embarrassing.  Your professional attitude calling people that don't care to participate here lying, self-deluding unprofessional hypocrites is what I'm talking about with the triple-twisted logic.  Think about it.

But what I'm saying is that most of the early whiners were at best disingenuous and at worse cruel, dishonest charlatans. This isn't buyer's remorse. This is more like the reality of a sub-prime mortgage coming due.

Here's the truth. The constant recurring complaints that P&R was driving people away was totally bogus. It was the main attraction. The fact is it was like a "Gentlemans' Club".  And most of the complainers probably would have no trouble standing before some planning commision decrying having one in their neighborhood and putting on a wig and dark glasses after the meeting and sneaking in the back door of the club holding dollar bills in their sweaty , shaking hands.
Professionals indeed.
MLB

As one of the beta testers, I find that I have to agree with several others and some remarks that I have previously made.

While technically this board is better than its predessor in many areas, navigationally and in keeping up to date with new posts more than a few hours old, it is a nightmare. 

I find that the larger the new thread base becomes the less time I spend here.   It has come to the point that I almost cringe before signing on.   Please visit a few up to date boards and improve the navigation.  I have already pointed out a few places to look.

SJ

....and other features, if only the site wasn't so slow.

As an example, from the moment I clicked my bookmark for RPLS.com this AM, it took me a full two minutes to get to this thread. Doesn't sound like much when you say it, but try sitting in frontof your computer with nothing happening for two minutes. (And I have a fairly fast system......).

That includes the wait from clicking the bookmark icon, the wait to gsign in, the wait after clicking "All Activity".

""Waiting for RPLS.com...." seems to beon my screen longer than my screen saver these days.

".....That framework was selected based on years of comments and suggestions posted on the old site."

I've got to say, I find that hard to believe. I know I certainly didn't ask for this.

While not privy to POB corporate policy, I've got to doubt that the choice of framework for this board was a result of poster suggestions. Certainly, there were other, more practical motives behind the choice of this type of board. Once that framework was decided upon, user input became limited, and in fact, because of the structure of the new site, seems at times to have actually caused more problems than it solves.

Let's face it, it appears that POB wanted something that looked and acted more like an e-magazine, and that's what they got.

I can't believe that after years of suggestions (and criticisms) from posters on the old board, THIS is what POB decided would be the solution, based solely on user input.

Now, maybe it's a problem with the software, or with the company running it behind the scenes, or maybe it's just that what sounded good in meetings doesn't work so well in practice, but one has to admit, the drop-off in postings would seem to indicate at least two things:

1. The time and trouble it takes to get here doesn't make it worthwhile to be here. Maybe if posters could sign on and could get to their destination quickly, there would be a lot more traffic here. After all, the bulk of posting comes during the workday period, when folks don't have a lot of time to sit around and watch the same screen for long intervals waiting to be sent to the next page.


2. A substantial majority of posters at the old POB site were happy with what they had, and would have accepted some tweaks, along maybe some more intense moderation. A quick perusal of that "other board" which sprang up (not an advertisement, just a statement of fact) and seems to be doing fairly well is an indication of that.
Seems to me that a "Facebook"-style site is not what most poster were looking for.


Let's be realistic.....just as the magazine has been evolving from a "Surveying" magazine to a "Geomatics" magazine, so has the board.
There have been many complaints about POB Magazine, how it is losing touch with surveyors, how it has become an organ for GIS and other disciplines. The world of surveying is changing more rapidly now than ever before. The old Board served it's purpose, for those who were more "surveyors" than "geometrists".....now it is becoming someone else's time, and perhaps someone else's board.


There are those, like Mike and Deral, to name but a few, who have moved on and widened and expanded their horizons. Guys like that will continue to come here, and they will be joined, eventually, by others, who are willing to move onward from surveying to wider fields.

Is the board s   l   o   w   today, or is it my TRS80?

I guess keeping the site running in the background and checking the recent posts list throughout the day is one way to keep track of items of interest.  But I typically visit anywhere from as little as once a week to as often as 2 or 3 times a day, depending on workload and other activities.  I don't want the distraction of having this, or any forum being constantly in front of me.

I want to be able to call up the site, have it load quickly, and be able to go to a handful of places within the site to check updated activity.  If I were to rely on just the recent posts window, as infrequently as I sometimes visit, I might miss out on discussions of interest as they get buried quickly.  That is similar to what sometimes happened on the old site.

If there were half, or even 1/3 of the number of categories and subcategories as there are now, one could visit once every few days, fairly quickly check each of a few categories of interest, and still have all or most of the recent threads within that category shown on one screen.  Less places to look equals less loading time, would make things easier to find, and would leave less room for confusion as to where the appropriate place to post a thread is.

The speed of the site hasn't been an issue for me over the past couple of days.  I was on a few days back, maybe a week ago and experienced some slow load times, so just went somewhere else.  Hopefully that issue will soon be a thing of the past for all of us.

The thing to remember most of all is.......it's only a chat board.



Oh wait.....it's not anymore.   ;-)

I hve all the settings streamlined to view and post( all activity, automatic sign in etc). I have a fast  'business' connection.
but face it.
The board at this time and for quite awhile is NOT BROWSER FRIENDLY at all.

I know Kristi is working on this and I wish her luck. I hope that someone is not pulling her chain though.

Yo, to  reply here, I have to go somewhere else to sign in and then go back here etc etc etc.
way too much navigation to reply

don't click that "back' button on your browser.... you will be 'stacked up' in cyberspace somewhere awaiting a landing.

"Come on man!" Are you trying to deny all of this category controversy is not the work of poster input? Read Rusty Chain's post.
MLB