12483 why is this forum changing

I have obviousy missed something, what on earth is going on, and why is the forum changing. I couldn't even get into the new community, I don't like it - can't find anything, and the one thing I really enjoyed about the "new postsw" was that I could be away for a while and come back to find out interesting posts.

Please, please why can't we keep what is an original and great format. I do hate change for change sake. If it ain't broke, don't ment it!!!!!

with great regrets

Pam

Category
Circolo di Conversazione

Hi Pam,

You'll find more about the background to the changes in this post by Ronald, the webmaster;

[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/general-chat-about-italy/12481-arrivederci.html#post121458[/url]

Some of the features of the present forums will be lost and other, newer ones, introduced, but I'm sure that Ronald is keen to receive suggestions like yours. Hope to see you over in the new piazza!

Its one of the most user unfriendly sites I've ever seen. Beggars belief really. I have just logged out, as I will be doing here in a moment and will not be logging in again. Whoever is responsible for the shambles of a new site has really cocked it up and I for one will be e-mailing the magazine to tell them so.
Best wishes to all.

I'd like to know if anyone thought to email members informing them that the community would change? I know from the post cited above that Ronald says they did not want to notify people until the new forum was ready to go live, but I submit that this has not been well handled.

Some background: I was in Italy last week and urgently needed to find some information that I was fairly sure I could find on the forum so I went to an internet cafe, went to the normal forum URL, and was directed to the [U]new[/U] forum which simply looked like a revised interface. I tried to log on and was denied access without much of an explanation. I managed to work out that I had to re-register and was sent a response saying that my membership application would be "reviewed" before being activated. So there I was stranded with no obvious way to find the information I wanted and not even an indication that this was a new forum. I got home to find that the forum [U]is[/U] still accessible on this URL (presumably because of cookies, because I used the same address). So it looks as if somebody set things up so that anyone accessing the forum address from a new computer would not be directed to the old forum. That seems daft to me and, as it happened in my case, very annoying.

Capo Boi - some like it and have taken to it - others haven't. I am sorry the interface doesn't work for you. I am not sure it "beggars belief" - I for example find this interface far messier. But both ways (these forums and the new site) represent two of the most popular ways of doing community sites (there are literally thousands that work on either one or the other basis) but still one can never please all. I would really appreciate a bit more about what you don't like so that we can perhaps improve.

Licciana - the forum address has never changed. It is and will always be [url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums[/url] and the content will always be accessible here. However, people will not be able to login. So if you are looking for some information you will always be able to find it here.

What has changed is the link from the top of the page (the one that says community) that now takes people to the new community. There is now a note to forum members on the front page of the new community that explains what is going on and provide a link to these forums. However, I understand that for someone caught in the couple of days where things were in real flux that was annoying and a problem. It has nothing to do with setting up cookies or anything of the sort so you can access the forums at [url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums[/url] from any computer.

There will be an e-mail to all forum members notifying them of the change.

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Changes are difficult but the more you get used to them, the more you can achieve :)