Community Professionals Get their Own Style?

[martcol]

So, in a thread, a Community Professional gets a style that looks identical or at least very similar to a correct answer and they get their name in red.

Accepting any reasons that a CP might need to be distinguished in some way I don't like the implication that an answer is a correct answer simply because a CP offers it.  OK, so style them differently but not it like this.

Sometimes a CP might be contributing to discussion where an answer isn't needed or they may be asking for a bit more clarification.

There, I said it!

Martin

[Jacob Bugge]

Evidently, both are among the approved clans, Phillip.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

That's a relief! The Shirt is from a  Company called Haband and the had several different color combo for this pattern. Picture was taken with PhotoBooth. My MacBook Pro has built in iSight camera and Microphone.

Let's get on to serious stuff or else we will be yanked from the forum.  Remember they don't tolarate friendly back and forth.

[PECourtejoie]

Will you two stop with the friendly back and forth?

What I'm missing is a slightly different color for the original poster (not as contrasty as this white on grey).

I also find the color of the background of the answers by Employees and ACP distractful, and that could be easily mistaken for a correct answer, even if they might often be the ones that post them. A tone similar to the one that one gets when squinting at the quotes might be better.

[Claudio_González1]

Pierre, my proposition -apparently shared by not a few- is to  completely eliminate the different backgrounds in messages. There are, or should not be, castes in the forums. If there are legitimate differences -employee, participat, moderator, even perhaps community professional- it is enough to identify them poperly in the zone near their avatars, as it used to be. Not to mention the fact that this proliferation of colors is distracting at best.

[the_wine_snob]

Claudio,

You will get a "+1" from me on about everything stated.

Now, I did like the "alternating backgrounds" of yore, as they were subtle, but aiding in reading the entire thread.

A keyline has been added to differentiate between posts, and that is an improvement, but I would campaign for subtle, alternating backgrounds.

I strongly second having one's "status" displayed below their avatar, again, just as it was, though perhaps smaller.

I sort of feel that the designers (redesigners), felt the need to "do something," whether it was an improvement, or not.

After a full week, plus a few days to digest the input, I have more "Dislikes," that "Likes," with the new design, but that might just be me.

Hunt

[Noel Carboni]

It's not just you, Bill.  But one thing is certain:  We CAN still communicate with it, glitches and all.

-Noel

[Jacob Bugge]

Noel,

But one thing is certain:  We CAN still communicate with it, glitches and all.

And right now we do it all the time.

Maybe that is the real reason for the new skin: the thread/post count here in the Forum Comments forum was getting a bit low so it was decided to do something to get it going again. That, at least, has been successful.

[station_two]

This is what the entire page of this open thread looks like to me at the moment, with all my modifications and the No Color add-on:

[Jacob Bugge]

Now that is something, station two.

All we need is getting the team to implement it as default or at least a one click option. They could call it Fair Forum Style.

[Claudio_González1]

Very nice looking. If we could also add the missing avatars, the missing message numbers and the missing "in response to" information, it would have my vote for setting it as the default style of the forums.

(As if our votes counted for anything in here ).

[station_two]

The avatars are there, they are not "missing", I simply hid them through one of my AdBlockPlus rules.  They can be restored in less than five seconds.

The missing message numbers and the missing "in response to" information, unfortunately, I can't do anything about that. 

[station_two]

These are the blockable items on that page that are in fact hidden by AdBlockPlus.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

Claudio González wrote:

Pierre, my proposition -apparently shared by not a few- is to  completely eliminate the different backgrounds in messages. There are, or should not be, castes in the forums. If there are legitimate differences -employee, participat, moderator, even perhaps community professional- it is enough to identify them poperly in the zone near their avatars, as it used to be. Not to mention the fact that this proliferation of colors is distracting at best.

Another way to put it. We all put our pants on exactly the same way, one leg at a time. when it comes to the forums we are all equals. Sure some of us have more knowledge and there should be some way of letting us know under/over or around your Avatar is sufficient.

just ditch the Grey (gray) the world dull and drab enough.  It's a downer.

[Noel Carboni]

You know that the text is not actually black either, right?

Maybe the dark gray text on light gray background is a conspiracy by all the young web designers to drive us old folks (who know what quality looks like but prefer it to be easier to see), away from the computer, in order to make their lives easier.

-Noel

[station_two]

Phillip Jones wrote:

…just ditch the Grey (gray) the world dull and drab enough.  It's a downer.

PJ, that is easily achieved with a single Firefox Add-on: it's called "No Color".  You can toggle it on and off with a single click, and it doesn't slow you down all.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/no-color/?src=search

[PECourtejoie]

Claudio, I think that indeed, most of us are in agreement.

I also liked the subtle alternating backgrounds, but the new uniform look with a line grew on my, given the title of the post that participates in the separation of the posts.

The grey is in line with the rest of the Adobe site, the creative cloud, Adobe.tv, etc.

[Noel Carboni]

Phillip Jones wrote:

Remember they don't tolarate friendly back and forth.

It's a nice thing to see pleasant interactions.  Up to now it was only a theory that such things could exist in this universe.

But you're right, it's quite out of character on the Adobe forums, where smart, creative people collide all the time.  So just in case, I suggest ending all pleasant posts with the phrase "You idiots!"

You idiots! 

-Noel

[ALsp]

Adobe's Community Professional "members" are probably fairly proficient in how a particular application operates. In a forum that is prone to many transient posters, people would tend to react to a "badge" and to the frequency of posts by the person answering them. Does a Community Pro label and a counter that says "10,000 posts since 1864" mean anything? In reality, no. But this is not reality. Not that I want a label, but take me for example. I wrote the first Dreamweaver Magic book. I was one of the original Dreamweaver evangelists (precursor to ACP and by invitation only - you could not "apply") and I made over 10,000 posts on the old Macromedia Dreamweaver newsgroup - which are not counted as forum posts. Do I care about any of this? Of course not. If I did, I would mention it in every post I make. Does it amuse me? Sadly, it does.  There is a lot of misinformation on technical issues, such as CSS for instance. There are still "professionals" sending budding web designers off to places like w3schools.com where they are as likely to get erroneous information as anything else. There are still people whose main goal in participating is not necessarily the general good or the joy of doing a good deed. From my observations, the odds on getting a good answer are fair. The odds on getting an expert answer are rare. But most people wouldn't know the difference if it hit them on the chin . Anyway, there's no sense in getting upset about things that will not be changed.

[martcol]

Hello Al,

I think that you help make my point.  I knew nothing about your history although I quite believe it, but the value of the contribution you make on the DW forum is substantiated by the quality of the information you offer to people posing questions.  It doesn't need any fancy styling or label to validate, it stands (or falls) on its own merit and is supported over time.

Martin

[ALsp]

Your point is spot on. As for the full history of Dreamweaver, its contributors, and its benefactors, Google Groups maintains a record of historic posts on the original Dreamweaver forum.

[Nancy OShea]

A while back some guy was using a DW look-alike logo for his Avatar.  I think he may have had a web site that used the same logo, too. His advice on the forums was helpful about 20% of the time.  80% of his answers were mediocre or completely out of touch with web standards of the day.    Transient forum users just saw his Avatar and assumed he was a knowledgeable product expert.  

I don't think any forum can keep people from gobbling up bad information.  But I think some distinction is valuable -- especially when its noticeable.   IMO using the same colors, etc... for Community Professionals & Adobe Employees doesn't make the forum better.   It simply divides the forum into 2 groups: peons and non-peons. 

Nancy O.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

I thought all Application Icons were copyrighted. IF so the person should be contacted by adobe and forced to change the Avatar.  Though I have some experience, with Acrobat or DreamWeaver, I wouldn't pass myself with such Avatars as an expert.

[Nancy OShea]

As I said, it was a "look-alike" logo -- not exactly the same but close enough to give a false impression to new forum users.

Incidentally, the "guy with the logo" (can't remember his screen name) dropped off the radar quite a while ago. Adobe might have put the kabash on him & his website. Or maybe he got bored and moved on... 

In any case, I only mentioned him in follow-up to what Al said about "badges" being important for some.

Nancy O.

[Dave Merchant]

Only Adobe employees can use product icons, box shots and the 'red tab' logo in their forum avatars, and only members of the various Adobe programs (ACP/UGM/etc) can use the program badges - this is policed through the image approval system, but there may be a couple of old accounts which have escaped our attention. If you find any, please report one of their posts (saying why) and one of the mods will remove the avatar. The same applies for anyone using "Adobe" as part of their username.

Adobe product icons cannot be altered as they are copyrighted and trademarked. "Lookalike" icons are not allowed, period.

[Jacob Bugge]

Argh.

It seems that we are back to this dreadful contrasting background style.

I thought we were just about to see the last of it for certain staff, as implied by post #5 here by John:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1043280?tstart=0

I hope this is just a temporary issue soon fixed.