I've kept quiet about this whole thing until now.
I was sure the moment they announced they were going to change the site last year that it was a big mistake. I sold my GNET at the spike right after that, and I won't ever own it overnight again.
I didn't know that they would screw the site up totally. I can't tell the difference between a private message and a public message, I can't read the posts easily, I can't navigate the site quickly...etc. etc. etc.
I cannot find one thing that I thought was brilliant about the old site that they did not screw up. It's amazing how much worse it is.
I've heard the word 'crude' used for the old site.
Crude? Uh...no. No, I think astoundingly brilliant would be a better phrase. Jeff and Brad are brilliant, and their site was so much better than anything else on the Internet that there was no second place.
Now the site looks like a cross between the Microsoft Home Page and a bleached out Raging Bull. Whoever changed the UI is, in my humble opinion, a total idiot. It takes hard work to totally completely screw up a site that really had no major negatives at all. The whole idea is communication. Anything that makes it easier to communicate is good, anything that makes it harder is bad. They changed every single good thing about the site...they have no idea what they had...no idea.
So this is my first and last public post on the "new SI". I'll lurk, because the people are here, and the people are the reason I joined in the first place.
But I won't support the decision to completely screw this site up and then turn off the thing that created it in the first place...the UI.
Jeff and Brad, you guys did something that nobody else has ever done, and you succeeded. That's what the Internet is all about. It wasn't luck...you had the vision that matched the need. You got it right the first time, and that is not an easy thing to do. God bless you and thanks again for introducing me to some of the finest friends I have. |
