Where did everyone go?

[IRstuff]

Collaboratory traffic is down, and the regular PTC boards are read-only, so everyone should have come here, but there doesn't seem to be much traffic here either. Where'd they all go?

[wschrabi-disabl]

Today the collab is read only again, but yesterday afternoon I could post. Only the forum bugs in MC14 are writeable.

Why that?

[mzeftel]

We moved all the forums to this new site. I left the two forums that are not moving, open on the old Collab site until we find a new home for them.

Mona

[RichardJ]

Where'd they all go?

Everyone is probably stumbling around in the dark because it's not obvious how to use these forums and there is no tutorial. There really should be a button for a tutorial or walk through on the home page that says, in large friendly letters, "DON'T PANIC".

[mzeftel]

There's a Need Help? button in the upper right corner under the banner. I can see it while I'm typing this message.

Mona

[IRstuff]

There seems to be a big discrepancy between this page https://communities.ptc.com/community/mathcad, which shows this thread active about 20 minutes ago, and this page https://communities.ptc.com/threads/, which has no trace of this thread.

TTFN,

Eden

[PhilipOakley]

Mona Zeftel wrote:

There's a Need Help? button in the upper right corner under the banner. I can see it while I'm typing this message.

Mona

I think they misspelt it. the "eed" should be "o" [we have a No Help IT support line at my work as well...]

Dan (etc.) needs to get some real help that actually responds to the problems folks are having. Some will need screenshots with big arrows to show where stuff is hidden.

Philip

[status unknown]

[Kevin]

When I select that I get an Unauthorized message that says I can't view this content. I am logged in when I try.

[DanMarotta]

Kevin,

Can you try again and let me know the result?

-Dan

[Kevin]

It's working again.

[TomGutman]

This is a most uninviting place. It is in no way close to providing the functionality of the collaboratory. It may be considered OK only when compared with the PHP forums, which I consider completely unacceptable. I don't think anybody bothered to compare the functionality of this stuff with the collaboratory, only with thePTC PHP forums. I don't think there is any way this thing will ever come close to having the level of discussions that the collaboratory had, Function matters.

Why this thing? Why not just upgrade the Akiva software used in the collaboratory? That is a proven success. This is just buzzwords (web 2.0, community) with no content.

[nas0k]

Well, at least you are a silver star! Doesn't that makes you a Major in the Army? Maybe everyone is a bit shy to find out their mineral content.

I'm copper. Probably not even solid Cu.

[IRstuff]

This is decidedly a step down from the Mathsoft Collab. The fact that I have to sroll through ProE and other unrelated chaff to get to anything Mathcad related is a non-starter.

The inability to have the leftside window showing the active threads and the right side with the current thread is also a serious downgrade.

TTFN,

Eden

[LouP]

DItto!!! I have wasted a lot of time today trying to get a handle on how to navigate the new forums, and trying to respond to a collab post (which I realized fell in the recent not-migrated black hole) . While having some new bells and whistles is nice, e.g., the flexible message formatting, I find the functions - finding relevant threads, what to read, where to contribute, etc. - to be much less transparent. Fancy visuals - new forum wins; no nonsense, low overhead functionality - old collab by a knockout (so far). Is a category of "Most Popular" something that's relevant on a site designed for professionals! Is this a perception error on my part?

I have gained a lot from the old collab, especially from Tom and Richard, and have tried to contribute when I could. however, unless the overhead goes way down, I just won't have the time to spend on it.

Lou

P.S. And I even have a "color!" I didn't even know I was missing one! Given my comfort level, it feels like it should be "lint."

[RichardJ]

I have mentally separated this into two parts: the substitute for what we had before and what is new.

As far as the new stuff goes, I don't have too much of a problem with it. As long as it's easy enough to ignore it one can either use the new features or not. I wish it were easier to get rid of a lot of the superfluous stuff on the home page though. I believe it can be done, but the details of how to do it are far from obvious. I would also really like a set of filters that would allow me to filter out all content from communities/groups in which I have no interest. That would go a long way to making the home page more manageable.

As far as the old stuff goes, that is of course the forums. Despite my mineralogical superiority I agree with you guys entirely. It can't hold a candle to the 10 year old Collaboratory software. The problem of knowing what is new will supposedly be fixed, but I don't know exactly what form the fix will take. Even if this is fixed though the threads are much harder to follow. Most obviously, we don't have the left hand browser pane. But the text boxes are also way too narrow, and suffer further from an Alice in Wonderland shrinking problem if there are are large numbers of sequential responses. It would be an improvement if they used all the available screen real estate rather than just a stripe down the middle. When I'm in a thread there's nothing but white to the left, so there's no real reason that space couldn't be used. Then if the stuff on the right were moved up to the right of the (overly large) banner the text boxes could extend to the right too. Then we could see a lot more posts at the same time.

I have pushed for changes, but I don't know what is actually possible, or when or even if we will get changes that are possible.

[ptc-3148802]

I finally found you guys(and gals).

I can only conclude this was created by a government intent on helping me.

TD

[rnislick]

Hi everyone just want to make sure you know we are listening and tracking all your feedback. I never expected the migration from the Collab to PlanetPTC Community would be super smooth from the users' perspective. However, I do think being part of the "Planet" with the added features in terms of networking and sharing with others can give you more as the community takes off. I mentioned this in another thread, but we are working out the kinks (of which there are many) on this brand new website and after that we will start to compile and prioritize the enhancements. I also mentioned the idea of getting on a call together in that other thread. In any event, I just want to make sure you know I/we are listening.

[TomGutman]

Buzzwords like "networking" and "cummunity" and "sharing" are no substitute for a decent forum management system. This isn't it. What was so wrong with the Akiva software that it could not have been used as the basis for the forum? Why go for a laousy "web 2.0" (more buzzwords) system, apparently modeled on the completely unacceptable PHP forum structure rather than upgrade and possible tailor a known well-working system as used in the collaborator?

Historically moving to poor software has resulted in the pemanent loss of much of the traffic. When AOL moved the Compuserve forums to their web based system (not quite as bad as this one) they lost at least half their traffic. Permanently. And that included many of their best posters. What's left is just a shadow of what was, with much less traffic, and much lower quality. I see this going the same way.

[IRstuff]

There is also an issue with the "Popular Discussions" list on the right hand side. While "popular" has many meanings, in this context, one would expect that to mean something that is currently being heavily viewed or discussed. A posting such as the Kalman Filter thread on the list fails in that regard, with its last posting more than 3 1/2 years ago.

[DanMarotta]

Eden,

The Popular Discussions are working as expected. The algorithm is based on Views and Replies. So although old, other members are curious about this thread and continue to click on it to view.

-Dan

[RichardJ]

BostonDan wrote:

Eden,

The Popular Discussions are working as expected. The algorithm is based on Views and Replies. So although old, other members are curious about this thread and continue to click on it to view.

-Dan

I feel a strong urge to create a thread with the title "How to get the girls using Mathcad". Or perhaps "Sex, lies, and Mathcad worksheets".

[DanMarotta]

Richard,

Perhaps a less racy title so as to not offend anyone? I'm sure you're joking but it's hard to pick up on sarcasm and sentiment sometimes when using the written word.

In any event, I'm still interested in seeing worksheets or uses of Mathcad that would amaze and impress other community members.

-Dan

[RichardJ]

BostonDan wrote:

Perhaps a less racy title so as to not offend anyone? I'm sure you're joking

Of course I was joking.

BostonDan wrote:

it's hard to pick up on sarcasm and sentiment sometimes when using the written word.

I thought that was the point of Smileys.

Maybe I should have gone for two laughs:

Rather than only one grin:

[glardner]

I have to agree with what Tom has said. I too find this "forum" interface all flash and hard to search or navigate around. Indeed, I have had a conversation by e-mail with ptc support when they first launched the forums and it was definitely not working. I was quite explicit about its failings in comparison to the collaboratory. Even now its is working, to the extent of letting me log on and read and post this, it is not a useful tool for exchanging ideas and tips on using a technical tool like Mathcad.

Gerard Lardner

[ELSID]

Please change the attitude "However, I do think being part of the "Planet" with the added features in terms of networking and sharing with others can give you more as the community takes off.". If people don't use the forum, then there is no forum. Change for change sake is not good. Adding features to the forum that no one wants, cares about, or uses puts PTC in the same mindset as Microsoft. Adding features to their software when 98% of the people only use 1% of the programs functionality.

[RichardJ]

-

Please change the attitude "However, I do think being part of the "Planet" with the added features in terms of networking and sharing with others can give you more as the community takes off.". If people don't use the forum, then there is no forum.

I think everyone needs to be a little more objective (i.e. PTC and the current Collab crowd). Some of the new features might be useful, and if they aren't we don't have to use them. You can customize your homepage so the stuff you don't want doesn't clutter the place up.

However, while the new features may (or may not) have some benefits, they are in no way a compensation for the fact that the new discussion forums basically suck when compared to the Collaboratory. So perhaps the thing to do is to concentrate on what can or can't be done with the discussion forums, and worry less about whether or not the new features are useful. Time will be the great tester of the utility of the new features.

[DanMarotta]

PlanetPTC Community is not a 1:1 replacement of the Collab. We evaluated the Akiva platform and it too had shortcomings. The upgraded version did not have the tree hierarchy everyone was use to, so even staying with that paltform would still yield some distaste. But an upgrade was necessary nonetheless due to the unstable environment. In the end, the intent is to bring all of PTC customers together. But I agree with you, concentrate more on the content and less about whether or not you'll utilize all the features available to you.

I understand not everyone likes change, but life moves on. If it didn't, I'd still have my summers off and be listening to my 8-track tapes.

-Dan

[glardner]

I understand not everyone likes change, but life moves on. If it didn't, I'd still have my summers off and be listening to my 8-track tapes.

A lot of the criticism of the new system relates to the loss of functionality and ease of use of the old Collab. Can you not at least try to understand, try even to find out from us users, what it was about the old Collaboratory that made it so much preferred to the new forums? If you can do that, maybe you can configure the forums interface to provide the most important parts of that functionality. Then perhaps you will see the criticisms disappear and comment about the forums system turn to an appreciation of the better new fetures. But as long as you fail to even acknowledge that the Collab had its advantages over the new system, you will either continue to see criticism of the forum system, or users will disappear and ignore the community you appear to be trying to build.

Gerard Lardner

[Ninetrees]

Because it was so easy to use and convenient, I found myself checking the old collab forum much more often than I would other technical fora of interest that looked like the this new Mathcad forum. (I had to chuckle a bit: I was one of those CompuServe users that bailed when the service moved to the clunky new interface...) I found it interesting, too, that someone referred to "changing it doesn't necessarily make it better." I recently posted just exactly that on a hardware-related (real hardware, not computer parts 😉 site. One of the products that my company produces has been in use for the past 15 years, much to my surprise. Two competitors have spent over $500K trying to reverse engineer it and produce a viable competing product. No joy. (This is not an ad - currently not looking for more business 😉 The point is that the original product was so well designed, with lots of interaction with its potential users during development, that it is standing the test of time in an era when every product is in the spotlight for its 15 minutes (with apologies to Mr. Warhol).

I will spend some time here trying to figure out how to use this to my advantage, but I agree completely with the criticisms already advanced. I recall discussing these very points with PTC personnel before the move to the new system. And I support the "buzz words do not a quality experience make" POV. Surely no one @ PTC is under the illusion that this product would have been met with anything other than the current criticisms. I'm looking forward to seeing what this new forum has to offer.

~R~

[IRstuff]

Oddly, I consider us quite lucky in some respects. This is ostensibly a 3rd generation of this type of software. Doctors are just now coming online with the 1st generation of electronic medical records (EMRs) and the criticisms of slow, poor interface, etc. abound, but there is little to compare against. So, it that respect, we have ample examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There but for the grace..., go us...

TTFN