jbe, first a caviat... as I have said before, I am bringing my past life into this discussion and as such am not a completely objective source. I also am starting to hesitate because I fear some will assume I partially represent SIs POV, which I do not.
Making claims of "complete fiasco", "unmitigated disaster" etc. are pretty extreme. Its all subject to interpretation, of course but I would say that for the beta site to be characterized in that fashion, we would see a mass exodus of some SI members on the competing sites such as Raging Bull. After all, one of the complaints frequently heard was that Raging Bull was now a better site. Is it really? I don't intend to go over there and I don't think too many others are intending to either, but I'll watch for it, you never know.
As far as signing petitions are concerned, well what does that mean? I'll sign a petition to go back to word 2.0 right now. It was the best word version, (because it was the first one I really used a lot). Can anybody think of any examples where a new software product was actually embraced by the user community? (I'm talking about something with a change to the functional UI, not a game or utility).
Before somebody suggests that software should never change, let me say that my guess on the real underlying reason for this new SI was the architecture. The old site was probably going to run out resources and collapse at some point - we know it was not designed to handle 10mm posts. There is probably a lot of under the table re-writes of procedures etc.
You know prior to this new version I was a little concerned about the lack of new people joining SI. I thought there was a lack of industry insiders from the internet joining SI... it just seemed like the same old members were here. I attributed this to the look and feel of the old site and the pricing. Personally I doubt I would have paid $200 to join the old site because it looked like an old interface, perhaps in decline. That is another complaint I hear a lot of that I take issue with "the new SI looks like yahoo". Maybe it just looks like a modern website has that ever occurred to anybody?
I'll close with my standard... flame away! |
