The Forum has gone down hill

[Auriel]

Now, i noticed a while back that there have been some changes around here, which will lead the forum downhill!

 

Firstly, the changing of the title to asd-forum.org.uk rather than krism.org.uk

 

Why?!

 

Asd-forum.org.uk is more impersonal, is it to make the forum seem more professional? It gives the forum a lack of personality, and i haven't noticed anything announcing the change of adress, so when the subscription on Krism runs, how man people are going to be able to find us again?

 

Then there is the redesign. What was wrong with the old one. This one is more sharper, the title font more soul-less, unlike the freindly words of the last board. And a seemingly random squidly thing above the words?!

WHY!

 

Then there is the main gripe, the adition of the sub forums, some thing to split the community!!!!!

I can see the aim is to seperate it into useful groups, but it does something quite the opposite.

The average user isn't going to be clicking through all the different forums, all i know is that in the past i only clicked on general discussion, to view the latest three posts. Now i have to view two different forums just to see the three posts that would catch my attention, or scroll down two different pages for any topics with any midly exciting titles.

So, the outcome of this is that people will view general discussion and ignore the off topic, splitting them from the batcave attending public.

Please, merge the forums back. Was the seperation really nescacary? Did the off topic posts really conflict with the cries for AS related help?

 

There is also this huge influx of rules, posted dictatoresque, towering above it's underlings, the common posts? No images? Has there been any problem with images in the past, are people really that bothered? Again, its now a job of clicking numerous links in a post, hogging valuable desktop space. Not everyone runs firefox. Even the wording of this is harsh.

3. Image posting is disabled and will not be enabled under any circumstances.

 

oops i mean

 

http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/images/stalin.jpg

 

Image posting is disabled, question this posting and you will be SHOT ON SITE NOW LEAVE ME ALONE AND GO TO A MORE FREINDLIER FORUM, is what i get from reading the above.

 

Krism is no longer the freindly slightly unprofessional place that we know and love, but a grey tower of officeblocks.

 

Exageration has been used here, if only to get my displeasure across.

 

There may have been some more points, but i lost them.

 

And yes i am AS and dislike change as a whole, but that doesn't make my points any less valid, thank you very much.

 

 

Good gravy, i appear to have posted an image!!!!

[fiorelli]

Auriel, I agree with you regarding the General Board/Off Topic thing - Aren't they really both the same thing?!?!

[lindy-lou]

i can understand that the changes bother you,but i dont think its as drastic as you say,if you just click on view new posts it will give you all the posts at once without having to jump in and out of different forums,that may make it easier for you,im not sure why image posting has been disabled as im yet to read this rule,but im thinking its maybe something to do with the bandwidth,i dont think the changes have made the forum any less approachable or friendly,bear with it a while and im sure you will get used to the newness fairly soon.

[Auriel]

Yes, clicking new posts shows you the new posts, but it is more easier to miss them later on. And with cookie deleteing and all sorts, this can be problematic.

[mandyque]

I don't know why, but it seems you have missed, or haven't been sent, an email explaining the changes. The change in address is because the Krism site kept crashing a lot and we needed more bandwidth to accommodate more people onto the site.

[Kris]

Hi Auriel,

 

Sorry you dont like the changes. I will attempt to explain but apologise in advance if you disagree with the reasons surrounding the changes.

 

Image Posting

 

This is disabled on this forum (although at present this appears to be working - I will investigate). The reasons behind this are simple. The forum deals mostly with children, this is not by design but due to the people that are members i.e mainly parents of young children.

 

Any website/forum/chat room that deals with young people must employ a certain level of protection to ensure that it's members are safe and secure and that certain elements of our community aren't given a home for their activities.

 

Disabling images means that no member can post an image that might or would be seen as offensive or possibly inadvertantly become an advert for undesirable elements.

 

Whilst we accept that the vast majority of our members are beyond reproach it must be remembered that we operate a public forum, publicly accessible on a public internet service. We must employ safe surfing techniques and encourage others to do so.

 

Forum Rules

 

The forum rules ALWAYS existed under the topic 'Forum Rules' on the General Discussion category. They also existed in the forum guidelines. The only difference now is that they appear at the top of each category in order to allow easy access. If we removed them then other members might well complain that (if they broke a rule) it was because we hid the rules so well that they couldnt be found! We cant win so we have to ensure that the rules are visible to all and easily accessible for viewing.

 

New Forum Design

 

The is due mainly to the fact that we are now using new forum software which has a different look and feel. I can understand some members will feel a little awkward using the new software but members will get used to it in time and will probably forget how the old forum used to look.

 

We could expend a huge amount of time getting the new forum to look exactly like the old forum but we just dont have the time.

 

The logo was designed by one of our forum members (in response to a competition topic) in an attempt to generate a more branded feel to the forum so that members had a logo as well as a name to relate to. I'm happy to say that (based on the emails and PM's that we have got) quite a few members like the new logo.

 

New Categories

 

The 'Off Topic' category was in response to member demand. It will be merged back if the user demand for this is such. The 'Techie Corner' category will no doubt be removed when everything has settled down from the move.

 

New Domain Name (ASD-Forum)

 

There are two reasons behind this:-

 

1. Is to make the forum more professional. I know that this is an arguable point.

 

2. And the main reason is that I WANT MY DOMAIN BACK AGAIN

 

The forum was created using some spare webspace that I had lying around under my own domain name (krism.org.uk) Elefan and myself could never have dreamed that the forum would grow so large so fast. Neither could we have guessed that krism (or krismites etc) would have become a household name amongst so many. Had we been setting up the forum from scratch again, we would not have used krism. With the move to a new service providor came the opportunity to correct this.

 

The name may have changed but it's still the same forum with the same members.

 

... and finally

 

Your points are certainly very valid and no doubt shared by others. I hope I have been able to provide insights to some of your points.

 

Change is always a difficult thing to manage. Most people (AS or otherwwse) do not always respond well to change however, from time to time change is necessary.

 

Please always keep the suggestions coming but please remember that we are never going to be able to keep all the people happy all the time. We will do our best though.

 

Regards,

 

Kris

[baddad]

Exageration has been used here, if only to get my displeasure across.

 

There may have been some more points, but i lost them.

 

And yes i am AS and dislike change as a whole, but that doesn't make my points any less valid, thank you very much.

 

Hi Auriel -

Thanks for making the above point about exaggeration as a deliberate measure... hopefully that'll take the sting out of some of the more barbed sections of your post as a whole. Thankyou, too, for highlighting the very real issue that your AS makes change more difficult and challenging for you, something I'm sure all members will take into consideration...

I'm not going to try to answer your specific points about the changes, because in all honesty I don't know the full reasons behind them myself, or which changes have been made through necessity and which through choice. I would, however ask you to consider the following:

The 'old' forum WAS hitting technical problems. I don't have to know anything about 'puters, websites, hosts or anything to know that - i know it 'cos I was repeatedly frustrated at not being able to access it!

The aestetic changes, such as they are (and I actually quite like Nemo's Celtic Knots!) are actually quite minor, when you consider that the software has undergone a major update... I suspect that most of the changes in the 'skin' come down to that change, rather than a re-edit(?)

I think the speed of the changes has caused problems for many people. I think there are two lines of thought about this: 1 - get it all done at once to get it all out of the way as quickly as possible, 2- take it in staged steps over a period of time so users can get used to one thing before needing to adapt to another. While not without difficulty, I can see several advantages to taking the all at once route, even before consideration of any technical advantages...First and foreskin foremost (sorry, had been a bit to serious for a bit too long there!), there are NEW members arriving by the bucket load all the time, and it certainly wouldn't help them to feel comfortable if something ELSE changed everytime they used the forum. Hopefully the new version will be static for some time to come, and allow newer members to get comfortable before updates become necessary. The additional threads are again an indicator of how rapidly things are growing - If i'm honest, I don't entirely like them (particularly the OT area, 'cos it implies an ON topic area, and while the overall 'flavour' of the forum is - by definition - AS/ASD, there are a myriad of off topic/on topic topics that still fit within that, even my own gormless ramblings in the batcave...), but i accept that with so much STUFF to filter, an extra couple of areas may make it easier for newer members to find what they're looking for...

 

In closing, I'd just like to say the following is MY response to your post, and has nothing to do with my 'moderator' role. I will take another look at your post in a while to double check there's nothing that actually does need an edit, but I thought I should give you a 'baddad' response first of all. If K, E, or L are checking this thread, I hope I haven't trodden on your toes in any way - I have tried to avoid answering anything in a way that could be construed as a 'forum statement'.

Hope that addresses some of your concerns, too, Auriel, even if it doesn't offer any solutions... I think as a final thought i'd ask you to give it a while for things to settle - it has obviously been a VERY hurried move and revamp, under difficult (technical) circumstances and at a time of year when most people are least in the mood for either change, or burning the midnight oil to facilitate that change.

L&P

BD <'>

 

PS: Having just posted this, I've noticed that Kris has already responded directly... please ignore the 'Iwill check the post again' bit and anything else i got wrong!!

L&P

BD

Edited December 28, 2005 by baddad

[littlenemo]

While I agree with you on a lot of points, Auriel, I feel I ought to justify the new logo:

"Then there is the redesign. What was wrong with the old one. This one is more sharper, the title font more soul-less, unlike the freindly words of the last board. And a seemingly random squidly thing above the words?!"

 

The title font came about because i was trying to recreate the original, but there wasn't the space to make it 2 lines without it being too small to read (being white on mid blue). This meant that it had to be a narrow font and bold to be legible. I wanted to use a font closer to Democratica or The Nightmare Before xmas, but as there are several dyslexic members, it seemed a tad unfair. Finally I've only just got this computer and there aren't nearly enough fonts installed yet

 

As for the random squidly thing, it's a celtic knot, one of my personal obsessions - it's a graphical representation of a number (the fractals of the Dark Ages), it's a form of meditation, and it seemed an appropriate symbol for the interconnection of the members of the forum. The reason it's in rainbow colours was partially to represent the autistic spectrum, but mostly to give back some colour and life to a site that had been clinically chilled by the removal of virtually all colour except gun-metal blues. Colour psychology predicts that this will make the site less lively and optimistic; it will be interesting to see if the forum members will be able to resist.

It has been said before elsewhere that there are other skins available for these boards. Maybe there could be a poll for the favourite skin?

 

nemo

[Kris]

While I agree with you on a lot of points, Auriel, I feel I ought to justify the new logo:

"Then there is the redesign. What was wrong with the old one. This one is more sharper, the title font more soul-less, unlike the freindly words of the last board. And a seemingly random squidly thing above the words?!"

 

The title font came about because i was trying to recreate the original, but there wasn't the space to make it 2 lines without it being too small to read (being white on mid blue). This meant that it had to be a narrow font and bold to be legible. I wanted to use a font closer to Democratica or The Nightmare Before xmas, but as there are several dyslexic members, it seemed a tad unfair. Finally I've only just got this computer and there aren't nearly enough fonts installed yet

 

As for the random squidly thing, it's a celtic knot, one of my personal obsessions - it's a graphical representation of a number (the fractals of the Dark Ages), it's a form of meditation, and it seemed an appropriate symbol for the interconnection of the members of the forum. The reason it's in rainbow colours was partially to represent the autistic spectrum, but mostly to give back some colour and life to a site that had been clinically chilled by the removal of virtually all colour except gun-metal blues. Colour psychology predicts that this will make the site less lively and optimistic; it will be interesting to see if the forum members will be able to resist.

It has been said before elsewhere that there are other skins available for these boards. Maybe there could be a poll for the favourite skin?

 

nemo

 

Thanks for explaining that,

 

I will look into the prospect of new Skins for the site. They are out there but will require work to get them site ready. It also increases the amount of work that myself and Lufty have to do when we make technical changs to the forum so we will need to talk about it.

 

Hopefully we can provide some though. Fingers crossed.

 

Kris

[Guest flutter]

it is gonna take us all time , as or not to get used to the changes,

i am happy tho:

i can get here anytime i wish,

it is more accessable to those in need, and i want them to have the suport u guys gave me

chidlrne have to be protected, so yes images should be unable to be put on, ( kids dont get it tho and never will i have a perenial discussion with my nt son about this)

We have brilliant moderating, which is genreally not that necessary, but in this wolrd there are peeps who take pot shots for the hell of it, and forums are easier, cos u dont have to worry that iff u offend you get a punch on the nose people dont really know each other,tyhe internet is easy we vcan " make up" ourselves, if we wihs. I feel that most peeps on here are genuine, but there will be some who come and are not!

those in charge have to be able to say stop! whether we like it or not, they made this space and they are in charge, and we have to accept that, adutls kids and all.

gawd that was long for me

 

tc all

C xxx

[nellie]

Auriel,

 

I'm sorry you don't like the changes to the forum. It's good of you to let us know how you feel about it. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

 

Nellie xx

[lil_me]

<'> As long as the people who use it don't change I don't mind a bit, don't care what it looks like (sorry I know you are all putting the effort in with it) but its the people that are the reason I come on here, not what it looks like

[DAS999]

The changes are neither good or bad for me, I am lucky things like this do not bother me. I would just like to agree with the above post that the people have not changes neither has the reason for this site. It is a place to help and support all of us. I understand this can be stressfull for some and I am not trying to say its not just wanted to agree with the above post.