what the hell happened to this forum

i don't perticularly like the new forum but it doesn't really bother me either

what does bother me is that the activity here is almost zero
what happened this used to be a place where everyone posted all the time

i am partly guilty i have been developing new software and that has taken most of my time recently but i still check back at least once or twice a week and there is nothing new here

i suppose i could post something but i don't really have any computer problems to speak of

did the world just get boring all of the sudden?

it seems as though the forum here is dying

do we need a new release of windows or something?

well, it might be the case, that noone faces any software/hardware problems, microsoft has dealt with all non-perfect aspects of windows/office etc ...............

.......yeah right!

You are right, the forum has lesser and lesser traffic.....I have no idea why......

My personal two reasons I visit less than before

1) the new forum engine is annoying. Maybe its better than the old ones for the admins & mods, but for me as a user its not.

2) The eternal novel writing about any- and everyhing is annoying (prime example above). A lot of it is allright, the guy is definately helpful but there is much too much of it. And the darn double carriage returns...

But hey, the web is a free place, everyone votes with their mouse click. And I'm not inteding to start a flame war, just giving an honest answer to the question asked.

H.

Well, AlecStaar.... I have known you for a very long time and cant ever remember a time that you were not long winded about a topic that you were passionate about. Not to mention the cosmic twist that you put on things.

I say keep up the good work.

I am new to this forum so I don’t know if or how much it has changed… Many great topics

Over and out

VasMan

I don't like the new forum, and It aggravates me to post and read.

Originally posted by sapiens74:

Maybe you already noticed that I working currently on the forum software. Some massive updates are planned for the next 2 weeks.

What do you not like on the new forum? Please post a complete list. I will try to implement every requested feature.

I agree with Alec's general answer. Times are tough, but mostly this is a boring time to be online. Xp is stale, Linux is going nowhere interesting and relief is far off.

By the way Alec, don't be such a defensive moron, you brought this thread way off topic.

Originally posted by Philipp:



Well the fonts and colors were off makign it hard to read posts. You fixed some of that with the new color scheme. Just needs some tweaking I now, for the icons and such. Looks better though.

well it seems i have started some action up here at the forum
unfortunately just more of the same

I guess my answer to my question is that there is no real excitment in the windows world with longhorn far off xp getting stale and 2k3 working very well.

I have become much more interested in the 2cpu forums as i am an avid Dual user and the fact that they have so many members posting such a variety of things all the time. The problem with this forum is that it is so specific to NT that it only heats up when there is a lot of excitment about NT right now there is not.

Alec get real
you are not going to drop your internet connection to save money
that is F***ING rediculous.

If I stopped using the internet I would loose money because I am a software developer. (you are to last time I checked)

APK, wouldn't dropping to 56K take hours for you to upload your posts? (lighthearted gag ;))

<Shudders at the thought of losing his internet con>

Well, I've been gone for over a year, due to working way too much. But I've just come back to this forum a few days ago and see a lot of familiar names still here. I definitely notice the huge drop in activity, except for APK's posts! I'll stick around to contribute what I can.

Speaking for myself only, Internet activity has seen a decline over the past year or two. I used to have 100+ contacts in my ICQ list and could barley keep up with everyone. Now I don't even have a chat program installed. I game a lot less now also. I used to spend nearly all of my free time in MMORPG's, and before that I was churning out custom maps for Half Life and doing websites for guilds and clans. Now I have no desire to get that involved anymore. I just play UT2004 a couple hours a week. I still keep my ftp site running though.

Originally posted by AlecStaar:


I stopped posting a few months ago just out of general frustration with trolls, flaimbaiters, os jihadists,... etc. Actually, as far as forums go this one is still probably the best with regard to forum to flame ratio. I just don't post on any forums anymore, even though I still read quite a few.

Jim

I migrated to a local forum in my country, although I liked ntcompatible very much. I used to visit it at least twice a day, but now I don't like it that much. Can't find the time really.

It would be a big loss if this forum would die.

Please discuss this privately via PM and keep this thread on topic. I disabled some of the off topic posts that didn't belong here.

Originally posted by Philipp:


You simply need to remember that most people liked the way the old forum operated.

Originally posted by AlecStaar:


OK, so aside from looks...
Multipage topics need more prominent links to other pages within the topic. The long-running "Battle of the computers" thread is a perfect case in point. There are 33 pages to this topic, but the only way to navigate is a "Next page" link at the bottom of the page (and even then I missed it on the first few visits because it's not where you'd expect it to be). There's no option to jump to a particular page.
I also miss the option to jump to the newest post in a topic.

It's also annoying that when you log on, or post a topic, that it doesn't automatically send you to where you want to be - you have to click on a link to get there.


Don't get me wrong, Phillip has done wonders, but there's still a bit of way to go before it's a UBB beater!

Rgds
AndyF

Originally posted by AndyFair:

Done

Mmm what can I say ...

I think the 'slowness' or 'passive' activity in this forum maybe contributed by few factors.As already mentioned by some previous comments , there is not much 'new' stuffs come out lately , especially from windows(still struggling with XP SP2??Longhorn late release issue ??).I dont know if Ic an speak on behalf of the others,but as far as I know it seems like the users avaiable in this forum is quite big( around 500 to 600 ??),but most of the problem issued already solved(or solved partly) in this forum,what you can do before you poast a new thread,just use the 'search' tool provided in the forum,and it is amazing a lot of problem already being issued before and some of it already been solved.So whats the point of posting the same problem all over again,unless the problem not sloved accordingly.And if so,some problems issued also already solved by other forums or guide(Just use google.com wisely).

The other thing that contributed to this 'passiveness' as we can called it maybe due to 'time constraint' by some software developers or students involved in this forum.Time is so precious nowadays.Outsourcing ... Job Cuts ... Fat Cat Pay by shareholders etc etc etc.

And i think worth mentioning here,everything that we do must have an aim ... an objective. For me ,this forum aims to help users that having problem regards to their mobo or hardwares etc ... and it seems like that objective have already been meet.I recommended a lot of my friends to share their problem and idea in this forum , and as results they did joined and they found it great.

About the interface,tools etc ... IMHO I think hotmail change its interface couples of time , yahoomail as i remember already been twice ... other forums??I saw lot of change in the other forums too, especially when the moderator/owner think it is time to embedded new features in their forum.And I think it is time for us - the user to embrace this new features/technology (i.e php).Maybe some of teh tools quite irritating or cause certain problem, but it isn't look that important ... the message and the services provided are important .

And for some senior member or certain users that almost 'write a novel' in here, I think some of them qualified to do so.Some of these people(s) are helping the others in gigantic numerous occasions and never asking for money for their time and help.And some computer illiterate users like me who have problem calling customers service of some hardware/software vendors and never get any help.And btw i think everyone deserves to speak freely their own mind.

Lastly , everything i said above are just my personal opinion.And for me,what 'insides' is better than the looks.Btw sorry if my opinion offending anyone.

Mmm what can I say ...

I think the 'slowness' or 'passive' activity in this forum maybe contributed by few factors.As already mentioned by some previous comments , there is not much 'new' stuffs come out lately , especially from windows(still struggling with XP SP2??Longhorn late release issue ??).I dont know if Ic an speak on behalf of the others,but as far as I know it seems like the users avaiable in this forum is quite big( around 500 to 600 ??),but most of the problem issued already solved(or solved partly) in this forum,what you can do before you poast a new thread,just use the 'search' tool provided in the forum,and it is amazing a lot of problem already being issued before and some of it already been solved.So whats the point of posting the same problem all over again,unless the problem not sloved accordingly.And if so,some problems issued also already solved by other forums or guide(Just use google.com wisely).

The other thing that contributed to this 'passiveness' as we can called it maybe due to 'time constraint' by some software developers or students involved in this forum.Time is so precious nowadays.Outsourcing ... Job Cuts ... Fat Cat Pay by shareholders etc etc etc.

And i think worth mentioning here,everything that we do must have an aim ... an objective. For me ,this forum aims to help users that having problem regards to their mobo or hardwares etc ... and it seems like that objective have already been meet.I recommended a lot of my friends to share their problem and idea in this forum , and as results they did joined and they found it great.

About the interface,tools etc ... IMHO I think hotmail change its interface couples of time , yahoomail as i remember already been twice ... other forums??I saw lot of change in the other forums too, especially when the moderator/owner think it is time to embedded new features in their forum.And I think it is time for us - the user to embrace this new features/technology (i.e php).Maybe some of teh tools quite irritating or cause certain problem, but it isn't look that important ... the message and the services provided are important .

And for some senior member or certain users that almost 'write a novel' in here, I think some of them qualified to do so.Some of these people(s) are helping the others in gigantic numerous occasions and never asking for money for their time and help.And some computer illiterate users like me who have problem calling customers service of some hardware/software vendors and never get any help.And btw i think everyone deserves to speak freely their own mind.

Lastly , everything i said above are just my personal opinion.And for me,what 'insides' is better than the looks.Btw sorry if my opinion offending anyone.

Originally posted by Philipp:

Perfect! We ask, it happens.
What could be better?!

(well, apart from free beer :x )

One other thing I've just noticed is that if I click "Preview" rather than "Post Reply", I get a screen saying "Private Forum - Error. You have not the permission to access this forum" Is it just me, or does that happen for others?

AndyF

Originally posted by AndyFair:

Please try it now

Originally posted by Philipp:


Works perfectly fine now, thanks.

AndyF

Well I just spent some time going through the posts in this thread. The title most certainly caught my eye and I did wish to add a few comments to this fray.

Firstly, the caliber of people that participate here are not the typical script kiddies who just got their dell cause their father maxed out the credit card. I believe that user base is growing far faster than the one that this board caters too. Correct me if I am mistaken, but arent most of us power users, developers, administrators, and engineers? Its difficult to find a forum that is as professional as this one.

Just look at neowin, activewin, and iexbeta as examples. If I read one more post about "pictures of your workstation" or "photoshop this" I would cry

Secondly, with regard to the posts of some of the members here. Look at it this way, we learn something everyday. Be it from the tangents of a posted idea to a direct answer. If you dont wish to read the post, I'm sure we are all capable of pushing the down arrow button

Finally, most of you are correct in the fact that some of us have experienced points in our lives where we werent able to fully pariticipate in this forum. I myself took a year to finish a degree among other personal ventures. But hey, we always come back for more lol

Whew .... well that was refreshing. Hope you folks dont mind the $0.02 I wanted to throw in. 8) And Philipp, you are doing a damm good job.

Just want to add my lil bit in

I like the people here- they are great. You can post without getting flamed. You can get good solid responses to problems... and usually all of the many ways to skin a cat.

I see that some changes are on the cards. I'd like to maybe list a few little enhancements that would really make me happy (user cap on!).

It's really hard to find an 'old' post. By old I dont mean years old- just maybe a week or so. The recent forum topics thing is good however if the topic isnt in that then the search yields no results even when I put in the correct criteria. By correct I mean me folloiwng the syntax that is there underneath the search textbox.

So I guess maybe a better search would be good- or stick to using Google only?

I dont think anyone uses the 'Mark as Solution' button? I never have (I think Im scared of it!).. maybe a bit more awareness could be a good thing. In fact I'm gonna click the FAQ link and see.....well ok its an OS FAQ. Is there a forum guide anywhere??

One thing that I have seen generate ALOT of traffic (as in number of posts) is a points/league table. If you post the solution and the originator marks it as a solution u get points.

This site gets lots of new users- and seems to be picked up in the search engines really well. So it's not an attraction problem it is more of a frequency of postings problem.

Maybe this is down to a general slow down..... XP is kinda old hat as nearly all problems have been sorted out- I mean solutions posted ont he net. Windows Server 2003 posts are increasing however theres 2 probs with that- not many people have it and also not many people have used it. Of course most people are on XP, 2000... the desktop platforms. The only other traffic generators are new games (grrr@Sims 2!;)). So maybe we are in need of some more desktop OS excitement!!

"KER PLONK"

sorry could not resist... sure you will get it if you remember the game....

s

Originally posted by thatsteveguy:


Now you're really starting to show your age...

AndyF

Just a couple of quick comments to make ya smile.



Good glad someone got a laugh out of that.



LMFAO!! That Alex made my night. Thank you for sharing what the "plonks" were all about. I had an insane day with the HelpDesk being "slower" then usual. That statement made me choke on a chips a hoy lol

I agree about the search function, though as you said, google has done quite well in indexing this site. Hey those novels you write maybe the next Dilbert 8) Ya never know

haha, unfortunately i didnt mean slow as in lack of calls. I meant slow as in the field techs forgetting how to build mailboxes, to run ad-aware, to looking at event logs. As if they all rode the lil yellow bus to work that day ;-). I am of not poking fun at those who do this as a living. I myself still do it when a "forklift" operation occurs within our IT department.

In the end, I suppose I only have myself to blame since I didnt build a bulletproof environment and then fully train those techs to support that environment ........ nah lol 8)

Well I am impressed the clutch got his MVP in directory services. I see those guys floating about on the net and their knowledge of said MS products is profound.

Put me down for NOT liking the layout!

1. Too much space is wasted in the forum name on the home page with the first and last poster. Not enough space for the title and first line. It's hard to read.

2. As other posted, there is a huge drop in responses from the old format. I use to post here all the time. Now I have dropped it and this is the first post for over a year or more.

This use to be one of my favorites, now it dropped to the bottom of the list................ ;(

P.S. Just how do you delete a PM?