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Subject: The quality of your forum software is not....


Morkonan ( ) posted Mon, 02 March 2015 at 9:21 PM · edited Sun, 24 November 2024 at 10:25 PM

Using Firefox, latest release.

I don't know where to begin. I suppose the first thing I should ask is "Did you pay anyone for the software that you are using to host your forums?" If so, I recommend that you don't do that anymore.

Please correct any of the below if it happens to be a mistaken assumption:

I can not multi-quote posts.

I can not separate quotations in a post in order to address them, individually, even if they're from the same user.

Pasting anything within the body of a message deletes the entire contents of the cell, replacing it with only what was pasted.

The message box likes to insert double carriage returns, no carriage returns, or just decides that whatever it is displaying as I type isn't going to be the format that I end up with, for whatever reason it decides.

I can't look up an archive of messages for this forum past the beginning of this year. (I did this to see if anyone else had started such a thread so I could avoid starting another. Not much of a view "archive" function, is it?)

And... "other problems." I include this because of the just plain general terribleness of the forum software. Stuff like having to reload the entire thread, from the subforum page, in order to reflect the presence of a post I just made. (Despite the cute "Oh my gosh, your post was successful!" message that pops up...) Disabled links are are also a curious issue. I can understand, I suppose, the paranoia that might fuel a desire to disable hotlinks, but it's just not a sensible thing, in my opinion.

I would hope that it is no mystery that this forum software is substandard, at best. I remember seeing a thread about this before, however I won't post in it because it's not in the appropriate place to post such things. (I assume this is the place to post website-oriented concerns and not certain general sorts of forums.) I think Renderosity knows that this forum software is substandard. I know that the users know it is substandard. I also know that forum software is a very significant contributor when it comes down to the encouragement of forum interactions between customers, members, vendors and, of course, the hosting agency.

So, what gives? Why? Consider this a well intentioned complaint. I don't expect it to have any results, but that's not one of my issues. My issue is that I have had repeated problems with this software today and in the past few weeks as I have increased my general interactive footprint with the 3D community in the past couple of months. Because of this substandard forum software, I do not look forward to coming here and interacting with the community, despite the fact that I would like to.

That isn't my problem. It's your problem and it could ultimately not only effect your "community efforts", but your bottom-line in regards to sales and a customer base. Loyal community members are usually community members that buy things. If you don't serve them well, their loyalty will suffer and when that suffers, so does their willingness to buy. It's a pretty simple formula. These forums are much less active than they used to be and I think one contributing factor is what I consider to be bad choices made in forum software changes. I'm not being nostalgic, just being observant.


Daffy34 ( ) posted Tue, 03 March 2015 at 7:29 AM

Well put. I agree.

Laurie



JenX ( ) posted Tue, 03 March 2015 at 11:26 AM

I would like to add to the list of "broken" things...search is...weird.  

For example, searching for "Poser Pro 2014 Library" brings up posts (not threads!) that contain any of those 4 letters in varying combinations, with the exact input at the top. Sometimes, they will be posts in succession in a single thread. Not always. And it's confusing. 

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Miss Nancy ( ) posted Tue, 03 March 2015 at 12:36 PM

in safari, trying to paste txt deletes entire msg, and fails to paste anything.

quote don't work properly.

I do like being able to post giant pngs in forum msg, which is wayyyy better than before.

search func works if you already know msg contents or location (same as before).



TinaK ( ) posted Wed, 04 March 2015 at 11:05 AM

Yes we are aware of these issue and our programmer is working to get these things corrected.

I know it is a pain and we do hope to have it resolved shortly.

Once they report back to me I will let you know and at this time you can try it out and make sure nothing was overlooked.

I do apologize for the inconvenience  this is causing everyone.

Tina Kaylor

Community Manager


Morkonan ( ) posted Wed, 04 March 2015 at 12:08 PM · edited Wed, 04 March 2015 at 12:10 PM

Yes we are aware of these issue and our programmer is working to get these things corrected.

I know it is a pain and we do hope to have it resolved shortly.

Once they report back to me I will let you know and at this time you can try it out and make sure nothing was overlooked.

I do apologize for the inconvenience  this is causing everyone.

I appreciate your reply.
I hope that these issues get fixed, but I won't hold my breath! :) "Forums" are a dying breed in today's overcommercialized age, where Twits and FB'ers dominate the landscape and where user-tracking seems to be more important to any website than user-generated-content ever was.

But, in this particular commercial atmosphere, user-generated-content is King. Without user-generated-content, most of this particular industry segment, recreational 3D art/modeling, would not exist. Without communities that create not only for themselves, but for each other, this commercial opportunity would fade. The only reason that websites like this one and its "competition" still have forums is because these forums serve to generate sales and an atmosphere that more intimately promotes the formation of brand recognition and user-comraderie. Other forms of social "medium" do not do this as well for this sort of complex subject matter.

"Forums" are necessary for this site and others like it. I only stress this because there is an unspoken "push" across many different sorts of sectors to gain additional revenue by commercializing their communities using popular social-media sites, sites that do not support the type of communication such a community as this one really needs. In the case of this particular industry, that wouldn't work well to help promote their true business - The selling of application-targeted electronic content. So, some care must be taken to ensure that what does "work well" for the enterprise is stewarded well.

In my experience, when commercial webforums begin to show signs of disrepair, it's almost like a self-perpetuating prophecy, an "excuse", for the host to use when attempting to convince their communities it's "much better to move to a social-media outlet." I'm not saying Renderosity would be so silly as to try to cut their overhead and monetize on their community, at the same time, using such a doomed-to-fail scheme. But, it's always best to speak early, before such nasty thoughts begin to rise out of the muck, unheeded and without warning... :)


Razor42 ( ) posted Thu, 05 March 2015 at 12:35 AM · edited Thu, 05 March 2015 at 12:35 AM

Agree with all of this, not to mention there are so many issues using the forums on my Ipad.

Also email notifications for replies are very hit and miss to.



keppel ( ) posted Thu, 05 March 2015 at 8:08 PM

Removing the Facebook "Share" button on gallery images was put on the list of things to implement back in August 2014 and it still has not happened even after assurances were given that it would happen in the "next week or two for sure" back in mid January.  Question about sharing links and Facebook

What are the chances that the forum faults described in this thread will be fixed this calendar year?

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