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Pastimes : SI Beta Site Launch - 7/01/99 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 10:58:00 AM
From: appro	Respond to of 2340

Thanks, BryanB. I wish I could move the Toolbar/Navigation from top to bottom of page, especially when using an H/PC such as the Hewlett-Packard Jornada which only shows top half of normal monitor screen. I have to scroll further down on every post to see message. The top half is static and only useful when leaving a thread. Yet, I have to move it out of the way every time I want to view a post. I know the difference is only a few lines, but I really believe this is a major annoyance. Otherwise SI Beta is looking good. I miss the "Don't Show Original Post" when returning to SI Classic.<g> But that is only in the way on every thread, not every post.

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 11:09:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Respond to of 2340

>For those of you who wish to continue using the old SI, you can do so by visiting talk.techstocks.com, or by using your old bookmarks (other than bookmarks to the old SI home page). Any messages posted to either the old SI or the new SI will appear on both sites.< Does this mean that the previous 30-day Electric Chair estimate is being pushed out? Even better - have plans to shut it down been put on long-term hold? pleasepleaseplease

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 11:12:00 AM
From: incomep	Respond to of 2340

I do not like the Beta version. If arm is twisted, I would rather go to Raging Bull.

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 11:21:00 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 2340

Bryan, since SI has deemed the beta "ready for prime time," let me reiterate something I reported as a bug a while back. With classic SI, the browser's history shows "SI: SI 7/01/99 Beta Site Launch (#1077/1079)." The same page on the beta shows up in history as (Silicon Investor - Stock Talk)." All the pages look exactly alike. If one wanders off on some tangent, it's hard to find one's way back to the point of departure without the additional information, at least the thread name if not the message number. Maybe the change was intentional and is not considered a bug. If so, I would appreciate knowing that so I won't continue looking for the fix. Karen

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 11:25:00 AM
From: jbe	Respond to of 2340

Bryan, you folks "forgot" to restore the "posts by this person" search feature! Good that you remembered to restore the "search this subject only" feature. But we also like to search for back posts on specific subjects by individuals -- especially in view of the fact that the New SI automatically displays only about 20 back posts, as opposed to the 100 that the Classic SI displays. And that leaves the whole question of why you lopped off so many of the best features of the SI messaging system in the first place. But I'll save that for another post. jbe

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 11:26:00 AM
From: kaydee	Respond to of 2340

Hello, Thanks for allowing me to express my opinion here. I notice that you answer to only those messages, which you find very convenient to answer, while ignoring many genuine concerns/questions. I hope you have at least an iota of respect for the SI member's opinion. I want to be very sure you read this thread siliconinvestor.com Here my 2 cents,,, - I am willing to receive ad banners and may be an anual fee also if you don't shove beta on us... - If you force beta on us, IMO the number of page hits will reduce, adversely affecting your stock price - You are giving a chance for Raging bull to come to market early and even Motley Fools will consider coming to market now... Please take feedback from the top 100 bookmarked SI members on an individual basis. If majority of them like beta, I will take it as I respect their opinion Dryer brothers had really developed an excellent site, which is being totally ruined by GNET,,, Why do you care when the stock is at a PE of 150+, based on next year projected earnings... I had to get this out... Thanks for your patience, DB

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 12:14:00 PM
From: jbe	Respond to of 2340

A new (I think) question: Why are messages dumped from the Trash Can after 48 hours? If you have already gone into this, I apologize, and ask that you direct me to the post responding to the above question. Perhaps I should precede it with another question: Why are these messages dumped in the Trash in the first place? Because you don't approve of dilly-dallying? <g> But once they are in the Trash Can, why do you give people only 48 hours to empty it? Some folks travel a lot on business. Others go on vacation. Many do not take a portable computer with them; others (eeek!) do not even have a portable computer. Still others have only a local server, and do not want to pay long distance charges when they are away from home. And many, I would guess, are in too much of a hurry to catch the plane to file away all their messages in the proper folders before they leave. Not everyone's life is centered around SI, after all. And what happens when they are away for any protracted length of time? New SI's inboxes accommodate only about 40-45 messages. If they get more than that, do the extra messages, or the old messages, get dumped in the trash, and then wiped out after 48 hours? This feature -- like many others -- does not strike me as being poster-friendly. jbe

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 12:59:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 2340

Bryan, why are there so many people who "are not yet fans of the New SI," to use your description? You may be wondering why there has been so much grumbling about -- indeed, opposition to -- the New SI. And you may even feel hurt that some of the criticism is downright hostile. After all, you have tried to respond to suggestions, to accommodate them when possible, and you have always been courteous. Why, then, is the spirit of rebellion rising, rather than subsiding? It is not because people are always resistant to change, and will "come around" in time, reconcile themselves to the inevitable, and even grow to like it. Your description of the rebels as "not YET fans" seems to indicate that you incline towards this interpretation. I would offer a different interpretation, based on my reading of posts to this and other threads. The over-all theme is that the heart of SI has always been the message boards, and that this has been forgotten in redesigning the site. Change, in short, has been for the worse. Some specifics: 1) Only one change in the messaging system has been generally recognized as a positive one: the feature that allows you to view 10 messages at once. Every other change has been on the minus side, e.g., elimination of both the "this subject only" and "posts by this person" search functions (only one of which has been restored); reduction of the number of posts displayed on the profile pages; reduction of the number of posts "allowed" to remain in the Inbox; elimination of the Clubhouses. And people have gotten tired and irritated by having to complain, over and over again, about such poster-unfriendly changes, simply to get some action on them. 2) The focus has been on the "frills" designed to make SI a one-stop service, even though most SIers use, and will continue to use, other sites to get their real-time quotes, to keep their portfolios, to get their stock news, etc., etc. It is the message boards, and the message boards alone, that make SI unique. Other sites may have more of them -- Yahoo, for example, covers many more individual stocks than SI does -- but posts to SI are generally of much higher quality, and SI has a much broader range of forums on general topics. SI, in short, should have focussed on what makes it unique. Let me conclude with a comment about format. Although a lot of folks complain about this or that feature of the New SI's format, I personally don't think that format is the fundamental issue. If you had kept the messaging system just the way it was on Classic SI, and if you had improved on it -- for example, by expanding the search function -- I think folks would have reconciled themselves pretty rapidly to format changes. As it is, people sense a change in philosophy -- and they don't like it. jbe

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 1:50:00 PM
From: Justin C	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2340

Bryan, the SubjectMarks listing screen looks much better now without the alternating gray bars. But the bars are still appearing on the Reply Message Preview screen, which makes it difficult to read (IMO). Will we have an Option to turn off the alternating gray bars on the Reply Message Preview screen (and any others that I haven't encountered yet)? Another helpful feature would be a Mute Button Option to tone down the bold dark colors which continue to be a little eye-jarring (IMO).

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 2:14:00 PM
From: Cheeky Kid	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2340

Bryan, Please see: techstocks.com I wanted to add that I really appreciate the changes your team has made to the new SI. They have been quick, and your service excellent. Over the last month, I would try the new site, and find myself returning to the old site over and over again. I just can't get use to it. I could go on and on about the reasons why I prefer the original site, but I think many have already covered that here. SO, my question is, can those of us who want to continue to use the old site, do so, not just for 30 days after the roll out of the new site, but forever?

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 3:09:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 2340

Brian, can you guys add the "clear all messages" button to the inbox? It isn't there - I have to delete all my messages manually. Thanks

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	7/31/1999 11:59:00 PM
From: Cheeky Kid	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2340

Think of SI as a park. The Original SI Park: We were here when the trees, flowers, and grass were first planted. We watched them grow. Every time we visited the park we met our friends, we talked business, current issues, and some just came to blow off steam. The wooden park benches, washrooms and the gravel parking lot, served their function well. Some of us came every day, while others visited once and a while. It became a part of our lives, and to some, this park was almost like a second home. Well, the park now has a new owner, and this owner wants to make this park bigger and better for us. The New SI Park:. They bulldozed the trees, flowers and grass. Replaced the trees with large concrete and steel sculptures, concrete benches and fountains. The new grass is like that of a golf course. The washrooms are now like the ones you would find in a 4 star hotel, we now have a 10 story concrete parking centre for our cars. The new management says, it's not the park, it's the people and conversation that matters, that's why you came to the park, to meet each other, talk business and have fun. But they don't understand, it's not just the conversation, the spirit of the original park is gone. The new park just doesn't have the same spirit as the old park, nothing looks the same. They did so many changes, some people can't find their cars after they parked them. Sure the washrooms could have been upgraded, and the parking lot could have been paved. But, those improvements would not have taken away from the spirit of our park. Our park is dead, it's not the same anymore. I see the same people, but I feel so out of place. If you are new to this park, you wouldn't understand.

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	8/1/1999 4:05:00 PM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2340

even the folks that are not yet fans of the New SI. That's corporate delusion at its finest. I'll become a "fan" of New SI a week after I become a fan of New Coke. And Coca-Cola is still waiting on that one. New SI does appear to be a good way to clean out a lot of us goldbrickers who have been wasting bandwidth for free all these years. If that's your strategy, I think its going to work. Let me be the first to say of SI: It was fun while it lasted.

To: BryanB who wrote (1077)	8/4/1999 3:19:00 AM
From: BryanB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2340

All, First of all, the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I know I'm quoting someone famous on that one, but I forget who (although I'm sure one of you out there will remind me). <g> It's about 12:15 am where I am, and I've just spent the last 2 hours reading through every single one of the last 200 or so posts. Gee, y'all have been busy the last couple days - as have I, and so I apologize again for not responding sooner. I have made several notes as I read through all of the input, and I am going to respond in a series of posts here (until I finish or fall asleep - or maybe both), rather than one long post. Although I may respond directly to a couple of posts, I am going to attempt to summarize what I've been reading and respond to the group in general. I will also try to "categorize" my posts so that individuals can more quickly discern and review the topics which are of most interest to them. So, without further delay, here we go.... Bryan