I’ve been here in Knots and the other Taunton forums for a few years. The changeover on the forums’ software has been going on for a couple of weeks now, so I thought I’d make some observations.
• Some need or problem drove Taunton to do this. Organizations don’t generally change over software unless there’s an issue. We’ve no idea what the issue(s) that drove this changeover to occur.
• The format of the new forums is driving users away. From what I’ve seen so far, the major complaints are:
1) readability, poor separation betwixt postings
2) poor navigation of the new format
3) poor indexing – which ties into navigation
4) lack of a usable search feature
Hopefully, Taunton’s IT people will address these issues, but that will take time. I’ve gotten a lot of knowledge from Taunton’s forums over the years, I don’t want to see this place die from lack of users, however, the new software is so difficult to navigate that I won’t be dropping in as often at Breaktime, should Taunton migrate it to Knots un-repaired that will affect my presence here also.
Best of luck to the Taunton IT team, I have the feeling they’ll need it.
Replies
There seems to an unexpected delay in changing the knots forum. Perhaps Taunton is rethinking their changeover.
Don't count on it. They've made a commitment, financially and emotionally.
Denny
I agree, I expect the change to happen.My personal theory is that they didn't expect it to be as much of a problem as it has been and that as a result, they're looking at a bunch of really pissed users and want to minimize damage.Hence, I think Knots will change over when most, if not all, of the complaints/bugs are worked out.Were it me and were I given an adequate budget (always a factor), I'd set up a trial site, announce it in Knots and ask users to go there, try it out and leave constructive comments.We'll see.Leon
MKenney did explain why Taunton was changing to different fourm software.
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=48994.75
Life is what happens to you when you're making other plans.
When your ship comes in... make sure you are not at the airport.
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