Bring back Ande's Blog!

I apologize for the length of this post, and most people won’t read it anyway, but I wanted to express my opinion. I first discovered this forum through Google search results from Ande’s blog. I read it all the time, but never responded in the thread (more of a lurker). It is a great resource and the culmination of 3 years of work. My understanding (and I understand very little by the way) is that the administrators didn’t do a good job of communicating with Ande. It’s funny that the administrators of a crowdsourced forum utilizing web 2.0 features didn’t reach out to its community about the changes. Ande stated: “I was given no choice, I was ordered. I was told the thread would be closed and I had to move. I didn't close the thread.” Ande was given mandates and never afforded the opportunity for discussion—which is what this forum is all about. The community as a whole didn’t even understand why the changes were being made until this thread arrived. Matysekj stated: “Given that the new capability is here, why not use it? There are some advantages to using a blog tool instead of a forum thread. Blog tools allow for comments to be left on specific blog entries. Viewing that entry includes viewing the comments in context, relative to that entry. Forum threads don't work that way. Ande has very often had to quote lots of posts in his old blog thread in order to put his answers in context. That's not necessary in the blogs - you comment on a particular entry and your comments are kept with that entry.” These are good points, and why they weren’t communicated before the changes were made to everyone is somewhat confusing. I also don’t mean to sound negative regarding the administrators—it’s not an easy job at times. One of the most telling points about this whole thing for me occurred when Ande stated; “I've been posting in it for more than 3 years. I wanted to continue posting my workouts in the thread where they started to keep the body of work together.” Ande wants all of his work in one location, not busted apart and linked to. I totally agree with this and can understand his frustration. Did the administrators offer to migrate all of Ande’s old content to the new platform? No. This to me is one of the underlying problems. Sure, it would take a lot of time and maybe some money, but it could have been done. To me, this is a loss for the forum. Ande is the most accessible person on here. Couldn’t a phone call have been made beforehand? Can’t the administrators take the time to do the migration? Knelson also downplayed the navigation effort when he stated: “True. About one additional mouse click!” In the online world, one additional mouse click can be quite a difference. That’s like saying what’s a couple of extra tenths in a 50. But if we can’t fix the location problem, maybe the administrators would consider a migration.

I apologize for the length of this post, and most people won’t read it anyway, but I wanted to express my opinion. I first discovered this forum through Google search results from Ande’s blog. I read it all the time, but never responded in the thread (more of a lurker). It is a great resource and the culmination of 3 years of work. My understanding (and I understand very little by the way) is that the administrators didn’t do a good job of communicating with Ande. It’s funny that the administrators of a crowdsourced forum utilizing web 2.0 features didn’t reach out to its community about the changes. Ande stated: “I was given no choice, I was ordered. I was told the thread would be closed and I had to move. I didn't close the thread.” Ande was given mandates and never afforded the opportunity for discussion—which is what this forum is all about. The community as a whole didn’t even understand why the changes were being made until this thread arrived. Matysekj stated: “Given that the new capability is here, why not use it? There are some advantages to using a blog tool instead of a forum thread. Blog tools allow for comments to be left on specific blog entries. Viewing that entry includes viewing the comments in context, relative to that entry. Forum threads don't work that way. Ande has very often had to quote lots of posts in his old blog thread in order to put his answers in context. That's not necessary in the blogs - you comment on a particular entry and your comments are kept with that entry.” These are good points, and why they weren’t communicated before the changes were made to everyone is somewhat confusing. I also don’t mean to sound negative regarding the administrators—it’s not an easy job at times. One of the most telling points about this whole thing for me occurred when Ande stated; “I've been posting in it for more than 3 years. I wanted to continue posting my workouts in the thread where they started to keep the body of work together.” Ande wants all of his work in one location, not busted apart and linked to. I totally agree with this and can understand his frustration. Did the administrators offer to migrate all of Ande’s old content to the new platform? No. This to me is one of the underlying problems. Sure, it would take a lot of time and maybe some money, but it could have been done. To me, this is a loss for the forum. Ande is the most accessible person on here. Couldn’t a phone call have been made beforehand? Can’t the administrators take the time to do the migration? Knelson also downplayed the navigation effort when he stated: “True. About one additional mouse click!” In the online world, one additional mouse click can be quite a difference. That’s like saying what’s a couple of extra tenths in a 50. But if we can’t fix the location problem, maybe the administrators would consider a migration.