This message contains graphics. If you do not see the graphics, click here to view.
| 
|
| - |
| 
|
This message was sent to fiatfan@frontiernet.net.
Funny–I’ve been using IE8 this whole time and still have not seen this pop up----must be AD-Blocking it—heeheehee.
I’d really like to see whether the word censor thingummie is going to be a little upgraded—heeheehee
If it ain’t fixed, don’t break it… or sumpin like that.
So our playground is about to be upgraded. I hope the contractor has a vague idea of what needs to be changed, improved or, perhaps, deleted.
As for me, I’ll take the open-minded (empty-headed???) approach. I’ll wait until I have a chance to play in the new sandbox. Then I’ll cheer or complain as I think appropriate. After all, this is a FREE site…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Gee will it be as good as the new Walthers upgraded website…not!
It seems just when I get used to how to navigate my way through a website the geeks go and change it, it’s a conspiracy I tell ya!
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
-George
The new website is probably why the magazine index went away, the Indian programmers could not understand how that old system worked!![soapbox][oops][;)]
Rick
When I started out as a Fitters Helper back in the mid '50’s, I was 16 years old and knew everything. NOT. One of the first things that the older, (and wiser) fitters drilled into my noggin was, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it”. That was especially true when servicing appliances. In those days, the appliances did not have these new fangled computer thingies to make them work. They just worked just fine for the most part all by themselves. Thank you very much. Repairs consisted of a little dusting and cleaning until something mechanical ACTUALLY BROKE. Then we would repair it or change it. I worked by that motto for 41+ years at the same company and probably saved the Company and customers many thousands of dollars by not changing things that were not required.
Just my [2c] worth.
Blue Flamer.
A previous post suggested that we could lose our saved favorites when the new web sites are in place. Before learing about the favorite feature I saved important threads on my hard drive but now have many saved via the forum.
Has anyone experienced a previous change that affected favorites or have an expectation as to what will happen to our favorites??
Thanks,
Happy Railroading
Bob
I suspect the “improvement” is primarily for the purpose of increasing ad revenue somehow. Otherwise, why spend money when it ain’t broke?
Mark
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” never has and most likely never will apply to anything whichi is visually oriented, like shopping, advertising, and now, web-navigating. The human brain very quickly adapts to patterns and ignores extraneous information. That’s why the end caps on supermarket aisles are different every time you go in, and most merchants move things around from time to time – to force you to look rather than go by force of habit to grab.
The Net works the same way. Once you become familiar with a website, you can navigate it by habit, and the owners have to refresh it from time to time to make you look again (and yes, by doing so, actually see the advertising that you have trained yourself to ignore.)
I never received an email either alerting me to this upcoming action. Maybe the moderator would like me better if I changed deodorant.
It also works on the assumption that it isn’t broken as you perceive it. For me, something is broken: everything is optimized for a fairly low resolution monitor. Maybe their data suggests the bulk of their users use a resolution of 800x600. But for someone with a widescreen monitor, almost half the vertical space is going to waste. The end user has no idea what’s going on on the backend of a site. Sometimes you change enough back there to fix actual problems and you’re forced to change what the users see even if they perceive little or no problems in the first place.
Guys - a while ago Kalmbach grabbed a bunch of regular forum posters (including me, for some reason), and asked us to look at the beta version of the new forum software and comment on it.
We looked, tried things and commented on both things we liked and things we didn’t like. Kalmbach took the feedback and pondered it. I do not know what (if anything) they will change based on the feedback - time will tell.
But at least this time they seem to be doing some serious testing before making changes in production.
They of course also have the notes on what went wrong the last time - especially the migration issues - stuff like changed URLs, search system re-indexing being done in a terribly inefficient way and such things.
I would suggest just relaxing and waiting to see how things will work after the forum upgrade.
It might also be a good ideas if some people refrained from making up stories out of thin air (like the “Indian programmers killed the old magazine index when they made the new forum software” post a few posts back).
The software used for the forums (Telligent Community Server) is made by a company in Dallas, and configured by people at Kalmbach in Wisconsin, not by Indian programmers.This is just an update to a newer version, with some extra functionality that Kalmbach’s people think we might like.
The old magazine index website seemingly was a separate website using old technology, not a part of the forum site. I would expect that the only “integration” between the sites was that you could click on a link at one site, which would cause your browser to go to the other site.
Kalmbach has stated that the reason they killed the old magazine index website was that they expected it would cost more than it was worth (to them) to develop a new version that would run in a stable way a newer and supported platform). Annoying for those of us who liked the old magazine index, but not very hard to believe f
I did not either, but will happen will happen, nothing I say will change that [8D] . This is not the best forum I have been on (from a user point of view, not content [;)] ) but its not the worst either.
Anyone have a date for the roll out?
It seems like we all just got used to the current forum and BANG…here we go again; let the chaos ensue…
Most search engine’s are good but they need parameters to work well, an example Union Pacific, the search engine views it as two words. You need to able to tell it that you need both in exact order. Sometimes you need a couple of exacts to narrow down the search. Also you need to add excludes, etc.
I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t know if we were supposed to talk about it or not, but since Stein did, why not. I guess it’s not quite as cloak and dagger as some serious software closed betas that I have participatedin, where participants were under strict non-disclosure. People might stop buying Windoze 3.11 if they know Windoze 95 is right aroudn the corner, but are peopel goign to stop visiting the forums so they can wait until the new version rolls out? [:P]
Anway, there are a bunch of new things that make posting messages much quicker and easier, and I think people will like it. The overall structure of things like the button names and locations isn;t really any different so don’t worry that you will click on Cancel when you meant to Post or somethign crazy like that. Relax and wait for it, change is NOT always a bad thing.
–Randy
I for one am excited about the changes. It is time we embrace the new technology available to make this site better. This has to be the best resource on the net that is free for Model Railroaders.
Welcoming changes with open arms.
Mike
My Dad taught me:"If it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it! John