What benefit is the new setup.

[billKY]

You apparently don't believe in the philosophy of "if it's not broke, don't fix it."

I assume there has to be some intrinsic value to the changes you have foisted upon your users. I acknowledge your right to do whatever you want with your site. No question that you can do anything you wish with the product we have all become so familiar with.

Do you think you could share with us what the value is in the new setup, is it a new system, cheaper or easier to maintain, more intuitive for adminstrators?

I feel sure you have some short or long term objective that if exposed would make the changes you are making somewhat understandable.

If not, this is the second time within a year (I think) that massive changes have taken place with little or no explanation to the consuming public. I'd also refer to that as arrogance in most situations. I generally consider this site a friendlier and happier site than your leading competitor who has not made a significant change in software for some time.

Maybe I'm not looking in the right places to get advanced notice of these changes. Maybe you've been announcing and planning this for some significant amount of time, and even envolved some of your customers in evaluation before making these changes. If so I apologize for my ignorance. Please point me in the right direction so I can stay in tune with what is happening at this site.

The changes caught me by surprise, and I like many others have had to force myself through the re-registration etc in order to continue using the site.

I appreciate this site and the content and contributions from most of the users. Thank you for a very useful information source and I appreciate the fact that the site is here and available, free of charge. I just needed to vent some frustration for being treated like a mushroom (kept in the dark and fed BS).

I'm now registered again for this iteration of Findmall.com ......... I think.

 

[Guvner]

You have a few valid points. It was pointed out to me by one of my moderators so I came over to read it expecting you to not be such a nice guy.

Anyway... One point you're right on for sure is the fact that I didn't give the majority of you a lot of heads up. There were some competitive reasons for that and I really just had to keep it on the sly. It would not be a good idea to have a date that a competitor could have some giveaway or other promotion as our users were having to embrace any kind of change. There were plenty of hints but not on any of our metal detecting forums on purpose. Sorry if you felt slighted.

As far as the reasons for doing it. It was broke. Continual nonsense of things having to be fixed to keep it running. Continual archiving of messages so the dial up people did ok. The lack of any update or support from an unfriendly egomaniac who took over the software we were using. It's been years since any kind of security updates were done and WEBBBS continued to use up our server processes as other software passed it by for good.

That's really all I care to type tonight but I think you get the idea. I think we've improved it and have added lots of new features that you will come to enjoy. It's got some things that no other forum on the internet can even touch. If you don't like threads you can view flat. Vice versa without affecting what someone else sees. Combinations of the above, float to the top or not, etc.

For us as administrators we use the same URL as you guys do with extra priviledges the normal user doesn't have. That in itself smokes WEBBBS.

Thanks for venting here as this is where it belonged. I hope I answered your questions...

And thanks again for using our site.

Guvner..

 

[billKY]

I appreciate it. Having been in the IT business for almost 40 years (yeah, I go back to the cast iron equipment days) I can appreciate what you've said.

The third paragraph especially say a whole lot. If you can't get superior service for a product that is aging and hard to maintain, it is time to look to other sources. Perhap even a little late...

Having not run a webbbs based forum but familiar with other script based forums, I have to say you mananged to keep your user set reasonably happy. Maybe now with the new product you can rest a bit.

Sounds like my earlier summary of possible reasons might have hit the nail on the head in a couple of cases.

Thanks for providing the service, I usually enjoy it, but like most people I find myself resistant to change once I'm familiar with a site. You're probably hearing from a lot of folks like me right now...........

Best wishes for a lot of success with the new board, and I'll be here for a while.