Apology and request to support your Parallax troops through forum improvements!
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,392
Hey there,
Our team has read through the all of the requests relating to the forum release. I apologize for a release that needed more testing, configuration and user testing. We understand your frustration and support much of your input. Having participated in nearly a year of forum tool review, attempted upgrades, and configuration I requested that we make the new system live and configure it as we go. We were not making enough progress otherwise and our prior system was severely broken from an attempted upgrade that left us in a non-reverting state, as you know. Ultimately, I take responsibility for the release.
We've reviewed all the comments and Courtney has filtered out the issues and preferences. She's keeping track of them publicly here http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161405/new-parallax-forums-issue-report-list. At this stage, we're working to address the various issues one at a time. We're doing this through forum settings, some database work, etc. with a goal of avoiding any customization. We believe that this tool can do most of what you'd like it to do. Some of our key staff have cancelled or delayed vacations in order to get the tool in a better state before they leave.
You can help us, too:
- Understand that we're communicating internally and knocking out the issues.- We may not have time to reply in the same detail you write to us, in PMs, forum posts or personal e-mail. - Address our team with respect. Everybody here deserves respect, no matter what! A good measure I use for writing posts is to ask myself if I'd be willing to say the same comments in person to the intended recipient. - One bug report per thread, please. No need to sprinkle them throughout the forums because we've become agitated.
While the team is still motivated, your recognition and support of their efforts is going to help those doing the work a whole bunch!
Thank you to Bump, Jen, Jim, Courtney and Stephanie for your continued work on this project.
Sincerely,
Ken GraceyParallax Inc.
Our team has read through the all of the requests relating to the forum release. I apologize for a release that needed more testing, configuration and user testing. We understand your frustration and support much of your input. Having participated in nearly a year of forum tool review, attempted upgrades, and configuration I requested that we make the new system live and configure it as we go. We were not making enough progress otherwise and our prior system was severely broken from an attempted upgrade that left us in a non-reverting state, as you know. Ultimately, I take responsibility for the release.
We've reviewed all the comments and Courtney has filtered out the issues and preferences. She's keeping track of them publicly here http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161405/new-parallax-forums-issue-report-list. At this stage, we're working to address the various issues one at a time. We're doing this through forum settings, some database work, etc. with a goal of avoiding any customization. We believe that this tool can do most of what you'd like it to do. Some of our key staff have cancelled or delayed vacations in order to get the tool in a better state before they leave.
You can help us, too:
- Understand that we're communicating internally and knocking out the issues.- We may not have time to reply in the same detail you write to us, in PMs, forum posts or personal e-mail. - Address our team with respect. Everybody here deserves respect, no matter what! A good measure I use for writing posts is to ask myself if I'd be willing to say the same comments in person to the intended recipient. - One bug report per thread, please. No need to sprinkle them throughout the forums because we've become agitated.
While the team is still motivated, your recognition and support of their efforts is going to help those doing the work a whole bunch!
Thank you to Bump, Jen, Jim, Courtney and Stephanie for your continued work on this project.
Sincerely,
Ken GraceyParallax Inc.
Comments
More power to Bump. Jen, Jim, Courney and Stephanie I say.
As a Moderator, I await more instructions to help this move along quickley.
I should've also stated that I look forward to us returning to the technical issues related to the products you like, not the kinds of things that have taken all of our attention lately. Parallax has so much in the queue at the moment - people will be excited to talk about their new ideas relating to these efforts.
Speaking of, Chip should be here in a few minutes to talk about the Propeller 1-2-3 FPGA Board revisions. And to figure out what to do with the batch of fully functional Cyclone A-7 boards. . .
Ken Gracey
New and fresh and new technology would be something like disqus: Like here: http://talk.resin.io/t/what-is-this-forum-software/77
Complete with wysiwig markdown editor for posting. Sensible code block formatting, quoting etc.
Oh, and note the sensible default avatar!
-Phil
The basics I need are here, desktop and mobile.
Truth is, not having the go live and fix as we go in advance amplified feelings. Now that this is the expectation, it should be easier to "play on."
Since the US women had an epic match for the Cup, a futbol reference seemed to make sense.
As a Moderator, I await more instructions to help this move along quickley.
Thanks Jim - Bump and I discussed this topic early today. We agree that we need to make sure our Forum Moderators know what to do. As soon as the dust clears we'll get together and communicate with our Moderators. - Ken
Standing by.
Jim
Ken & all Parallax: Thank you for your diligent efforts, great things don't happen easily by themselves.
Before you had no success searching using words 3 letters or smaller.
So if I searched on 'PCB' and 'Bluetooth', it wouldn't find anything with 'pcb'.
Just that problem alone is worth switching to a new forum.
Full steam ahead!
P.S. I think the timing of this forum changeover was probably not best timed? Right before everyone wants to think about the holiday, and on vacation during mid-summer nice days, where no one wants to spend the nice days indoors scraping away at forum code.
(mid-winter January is ideal, since were all stuck inside anyway.)
However, this now gives you all the excuse to crack open the basement door and peer out into the bright and amazing planet, while the forum is twerked. Right when you get sick of all the humans that you find outside your basement door, the forum will be much more developed.
P.S.S. Step away from the basement twerk bot. It will be there when you get back.
We've reviewed all the comments and Courtney has filtered out the issues and preferences. She's keeping track of them publicly here http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161405/new-parallax-forums-issue-report-list. At this stage, we're working to address the various issues one at a time. ..
You can help us, too:
- Understand that we're communicating internally and knocking out the issues.
Missing is any indication of a priority queue ?That means readers have no idea of knowing what is about to be fixed, and what is being ignored.
FWIW, my priority would be * Immediately flip Search over to Google, until present Search can be fixed.* Get CODE posting working, - examples posted suggest markdown is the best, as that has language highlight support.* Cosmetic fixes can come after the key operational fixes of search and code.
Once again I remind you that any bug reports must be in their own thread to be considered an actual, honest
bug/issue/error report. I truly do not have the time to search through threads to find snippets of problems.
I also want to address the fact that this speculation on whether these forums will survive is not constructive. As previously stated, we will not be moving back to vBulletin and we will not be moving to another software. Our focus now is on making Vanilla work for Parallax and for all of you, but it will take time and understanding from all sides. Our company forum crew is small, and all of our tasklists are already heavily loaded with non-forum-related projects and deadlines. Please remember that while our forums community is very important to us, our resources must also be split into efforts in other areas of our business like
education and hardware development.
I will be updating the task list momentarily with new reports I find. Be patient, be open-minded. This new system is an adjustment for our business as well as for our forum community, but it was necessary.
Appreciated,
Courtney
'Got it. I can put that thought to bed now -- permanently.
-Phil
@Courtney: Once again I remind you that any bug reports must be in their own thread to be considered an actual, honest bug/issue/error report. I truly do not have the time to search through threads to find snippets of problems.
I put together a laundry list of 27 issues in this thread. Are you sure you want me to open up 27 threads? A few more have cropped up in that thread, and I can probably rattle off a dozen more. I probably shouldn't second-guess your bug tracking methodology, but it seems like I (we) could overwhelm this forum.
Here's a suggestion: start a new forum ("category"?) strictly for forum bug reports and let "General Discussion" return to it's normal state.
Another suggestion: Ken has to live with a UBB signature as a reminder of the forum issues until the issues are resolved. :-D
Figure out what to do with the A7 boards? I thought they were going to be used to test out the P2 FPGA images. I understand that the whole P2 won't fit on the A7 anymore, but it can still be used to test out 99% of the functionality. My understanding is that the P2 will fit if some of the pins are not smart pins. I'm looking forward to seeing Chip's post in a few minutes.
The following might at first confound new people. It really is stale material for so prominent a place as Announcements. Some may even overlook the date and actually think a Forum update is still pending.
I am merely suggesting that Parallax keep the Announcements up-to-date and pro-active in order to make the best impression on new aquaintances.
"A follow-up from this thread:
forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/160376-Forum-is-broken-and-considering-a-fresh-install-your-input-requested
We will be taking the forums offline to prepare them for their glorious new face-lift.
When?
June 29th, this upcoming Monday, at 4:00 AM PDT"
Then the P1V subforum is gone
Your opinion mirrors that of other forum members regarding the 'look' of the current forums. If you look in the announcement issue list you'll see that theme is on the list for review/revision.
Also, the P1V subforum is indeed gone. Many forums lost their lives in the June '15 switch and will be remembered fondly. I suggest making use of the tagging feature to differentiate topics in the Propeller 1 forum.
Loopy:
That's a lovely idea. I'll see what I can do about updating the announcement about the upgrade.
Your opinion mirrors that of other forum members regarding the 'look' of the current forums. If you look in the announcement issue list you'll see that theme is on the list for review/revision.
Also, the P1V subforum is indeed gone. Many forums lost their lives in the June '15 switch and will be remembered fondly. I suggest making use of the tagging feature to differentiate topics in the Propeller 1 forum.
Loopy:
That's a lovely idea. I'll see what I can do about updating the announcement about the upgrade.
If the P1V subforum is gone for good and has to be handled with tags then why did the Projects forum get renamed to Robotics? Why not handle that the same way with tags? This seems inconsistent.
Robotics was eventually deemed the winner based on tracked usage over time in the previous forums, so Projects became Robotics. You're welcome to use tagging to tag projects posted in Robotics, the same way you could use tags for P1V posts in the Propeller 1 forum.
There has been a debate over Projects vs. Robotics, internally, since the switch to the new forums.
Robotics was eventually deemed the winner based on tracked usage over time in the previous forums, so Projects became Robotics. You're welcome to use tagging to tag projects posted in Robotics, the same way you could use tags for P1V posts in the Propeller 1 forum.
If I am working on a music generator project, I should put it in Robotics? Surely not all projects belong in Robotics. Why not go back to Projects and make a subforum for Robotics like you did for "Propeller 1" and "Propeller 2" under "Microcontrollers"?
Of course in the extreme all categories are redundant and should be merged into one and the tag system can be used to filter what you want to see out of it.
This has turned off-topic from the original post. Please create a new post if you wish for further discussion on this topic, but until further notice I do not consider the lack of Projects or P1V to be an issue and I will not be adding it to the issue-tracking thread.
Of course in the extreme all categories are redundant and should be merged into one and the tag system can be used to filter what you want to see out of it.
That seems like a poor idea to me since "General Discussion" usually ends up with lots of off-topic threads. It really makes no sense to me that there is no "Projects" forum.