So who is officially done with HCGJ?

Done with HCGJ?

  • Yes

    Votes: 23 38.3%

  • No

    Votes: 9 15.0%

  • When is lunch?

    Votes: 28 46.7%
  • Total voters
    60
I'm done with it.

It's clear that they had (and continue to have) no idea what an asset the community was when they bought it. Anderton had no idea how to manage it, and really was never the right person for the job in the first place. I have no idea what went on behind the scenes before this disaster was deployed, but I can guess that it was just as poorly planned and/or thought out as any other decision that was made when I was volunteering my time there.

I've tried giving it a chance and it's clear that this thing is being used for a purpose it was never designed for. It's not really "harder" to use per se than vBulletin, but people reporting stuff like hundreds of unsolicited emails in their inbox, being unable to log in due to email accounts no longer existing, and stuff like that are just further evidence of how poorly this was managed.

I don't think any of this is a result of active contempt for the user base. I just think it's due to the fact that whoever is in charge of this mess at MF is genuinely incompetent. I also don't care enough to offer them any feedback to make it better, because they've made it clear how much they value feedback in this process. It could get better, but I'm not going to waste my time sticking around and waiting for that to come.

There are people from GJ and the bass forum who I genuinely like and care about, and it's nice to know that they're here or on other sites. Hi.
 
Last edited:
HackedByChinese! said:
I'm done with it.

It's clear that they had (and continue to have) no idea what an asset the community was when they bought it. Anderton had no idea how to manage it, and really was never the right person for the job in the first place. I have no idea what went on behind the scenes before this disaster was deployed, but I can guess that it was just as poorly planned and/or thought out as any other decision that was made when I was volunteering my time there.

I've tried giving it a chance and it's clear that this thing is being used for a purpose it was never designed for. It's not really "harder" to use per se than vBulletin, but people reporting stuff like hundreds of unsolicited emails in their inbox, being unable to log in due to email accounts no longer existing, and stuff like that are just further evidence of how poorly this was managed.

I don't think any of this is a result of active contempt for the user base. I just think it's due to the fact that whoever is in charge of this mess at MF is genuinely incompetent. I also don't care enough to offer them any feedback to make it better, because they've made it clear how much they value feedback in this process. It could get better, but I'm not going to waste my time sticking around and waiting for that to come.

There are people from GJ and the bass forum who I genuinely like and care about, and it's nice to know that they're here or on other sites. Hi.
Click to expand...

:Wave:

I've never really understood who was really in charge over there. I always thought Anderton was in charge of editorial content like gear reviews and whatnot but that there were other people who were really "in charge" of the site.

I've said it a few times but it really does seem like things were laid out by someone who doesn't actively use a forum.
 
The people who can't log in because of expired email acc'ts have only themselves to blame.

The forum layout and interface is inexcusable. Just try to paste a link over there - I mean, it don't get no more basic than that.
 
Mark Wein said:
:Wave:

I've never really understood who was really in charge over there. I always thought Anderton was in charge of editorial content like gear reviews and whatnot but that there were other people who were really "in charge" of the site.

I've said it a few times but it really does seem like things were laid out by someone who doesn't actively use a forum.
Click to expand...

Anderton is definitely the head honcho with regards to content and editorial matters. The technical side is handled by the same people who do that work for Musician's Friend, though I have no idea what the relationship between MF and these Jive people is. There is no clear "org chart" that was ever made available. There was never any communication from higher-ups beyond Anderton re: changes to the site or anything like that until they happened. There is nobody at the administrator level on the site who is also invested with any technical authority from MF, as far as I know. In short, it's a disorganized mess. :grin:

In contrast to this awful mess, another well-respected tech site I read with a large forum just finished migrating off a hosted forum platform with no lost posts, virtually no downtime, and almost no complaints from users. They've obviously got some highly skilled people behind the scenes there, but it shows that big changes like this don't have to work this way.
 
matou said:
The people who can't log in because of expired email acc'ts have only themselves to blame.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is really fair. It's a situation that could have been easily foreseen, yet no warning was given that your password would need to be changed before the switchover occurred. Some people have been on HC for five years or more - I know that I've gone through more than one primary email address during that time, and the only reason I changed mine on HC was that I became a moderator. Otherwise, I would have been sunk with zero warning when this happened.
 
Do you know about what went down recently at Taunton Press' fora (Fine Woodworking, Fine Gardening, etc.)?

-same deal, but even worse
 
HackedByChinese! said:
Anderton is definitely the head honcho with regards to content and editorial matters. The technical side is handled by the same people who do that work for Musician's Friend, though I have no idea what the relationship between MF and these Jive people is. There is no clear "org chart" that was ever made available. There was never any communication from higher-ups beyond Anderton re: changes to the site or anything like that until they happened. There is nobody at the administrator level on the site who is also invested with any technical authority from MF, as far as I know. In short, it's a disorganized mess. :grin:

In contrast to this awful mess, another well-respected tech site I read with a large forum just finished migrating off a hosted forum platform with no lost posts, virtually no downtime, and almost no complaints from users. They've obviously got some highly skilled people behind the scenes there, but it shows that big changes like this don't have to work this way.
Click to expand...


It just shouldn't be that hard if this is what you do for a living. I've said it a few times but I run this place with ZERO IT experience. This started as a Simple Machines Forum, I migrated it to vBulletin 3.8 with only a small glitch (I had to reset everyones passwords but we didn't lose a single post) and then to vBulletin 4.0 which was a much bigger deal but still nothing that someone with a high school education couldn't do. You would figure a company like MF that relies on the internet to do business would be able to handle something like this including the realization that reinventing the wheel with new software was not a good idea.
 
matou said:
Do you know about what went down recently at Taunton Press' fora (Fine Woodworking, Fine Gardening, etc.)?

-same deal, but even worse
Click to expand...


I didn't know they had a forum. I have a ton of their books from when I went through my woodworking phase a few years ago.
 
If you could have seen it six months ago, it was totally unworkable.

Essentially the same story as HC, They got sold a package that promised all these great new capabilities - only thing it lacked was a workable forum system.

I was on Fine Homebuilding since '02. They had a wealth of knowledgeable people and a real community - it's all gone now - dust in the wind.
 
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