i feel the current incarnation of the forum discourages participation

Thanks for all the contributions!

It’s been a while and personally I have grown somewhat used to the current degraded state of the Fora.

I continue to contribute (if I should do so less frequently it would be primarily due to my work-load and not deliberate protest) but I have the impression that participation is not what it used to be.

Sometimes I take the time to go beyond page one of the Content and it seems more threads stick at 0 replies than previously.

Edit: I should have mentioned that I am referring to the General Photoshop Forum.

Naturally, again, I cannot ascertain if my impression is quantitatively correct or just self-reinforcing prejudice …

Been reading the comments on this Forum since Jive updated from 4.x to 7.x.  My conclusion from all the comments is that Adobe is in a hole which it can not extract itself.  Can't go forward or back.

The current Jive web is not user friendly for a User to User answer Forum.  Seeing who was last responder, time in minutes since last response, breadcrumbs, jump to last post, and number of responses no mater which tab one uses would seem to be a  bare minimum to make Forums useful for responders.   Neither Jive nor Adobe wishes to spend the time and money to write new code to make this happen.  It appears the ample modifications would make version "non-standard" and then Jive would not cover in agreement.

Adobe can not jump ship and choose another vendor as all the response history would be lost.  So users are stuck with whatever Jive throws at them, no matter how bad it has become, or will become.  And if you are an old time user you will remember the thousands of comments on this Forum about how bad it was when Jive took over from the previous vendor years ago.  It took at least a year of complaining before meaningful changes were obtained.  I do not believe that will happen this time as the major players have either quit or accepted changes as fate.  The least Adobe could do is demand a reduced rate as they are getting a reduced service.

Like my old boss once said about workers like me complaining about the great working conditions of "the good old days".  He said only the old timers complain about loss of freedom to do their job.  The new hires don't complain, and in a few years will look back and say when they were hired "those were the good old days".    In 3 years will Jive 7.x be "the good old days?"  I hope not, but then  - - - - - .

So new blood will fill the Forums and maybe that is a good thing, gets rid of the complainers.

curt y since 2007

I could not agree more with the title of this thread. Every mouse click now takes 20 seconds or more before anything happens, impossible to tell who the respondents of a thread are and each page of threads is now an extremely short list.

These forums are no longer fun or easy to participate in.

Though you do not need another "me too," I feel the same way.

My participation is way, way down, and will likely be so in the future. I find the new forums to be all work, and little fun. It is so hard to get work done any longer.

Perhaps for a first-time poster with a question, or problem, things ARE better, but for me, a contributor, I am horribly frustrated.

Hunt

Yes, I have quit.

I have been answering questions mainly on the Bridge and Photoshop Forums since 2007.  Since then the Forum has gone through many changes.  I have also been active in the Forum Comments Forum over the years to make changes so the forums are more friendly.  It seems like each time the forum format is "enhanced" many useful features are eliminated.  Through the constant repeating of comments of the heavy hitters many of the features were reinstated, only to be eliminated with the last change. 

Major Forum changes occurred about two weeks ago, and of course negative comments flowed on the Forum, but this time this time the heavy hitters seemed to say "we have lost the battle, the Forum is not going to be changed, so just adjust or quit".

We responders are volunteering our time and knowledge to benefit the Adobe users.  Many of us feel Adobe has much to gain to keep us happy as they get excellent user feedback with almost no outlay of money.  But many of the omissions make it difficult to read and respond to the Forums.  We are getting NO positive help from Adobe or MVP's to indicate anything will be done to correct critical omissions.  In my opinion those are:

1.  Point system fouled up and broken.  Only top 6 responders listed, down from 10.  There is some satisfaction to make the top 10, although points hard to get now.

2.  Can not see who  responded last - useful to know as some responders are a must read as one can learn from them.
3.  Overview tab does not list number of responses

4.  Content tab does not list list time since last response, only time of response (useless).

5.  There is no (updated) after thread you have visited.   Makes it more difficult to see if there has been a response since your last visit.
6.  Huge amount of wasted space on page

7.  Can not jump to last comment - how long did it take to get that included last time?  Have to scroll through the entire page(s) to get to last comments

6.  No breadcrumbs at bottom of page - how long did it take to get that included last time?  The back arrow does not always work the first click. 

For me these items makes it difficult to read and respond to questions.  So just want to you to know I am dropping out of the Forums.  It has been fun, but the changes no longer make it fun.

I don't like the new iteration. The lack of a 'Mark All Read' , lack of 'Last Contributor', and the slowness of moving from one page to the next means that I rarely look beyond the first page. As you say, it is discouraging.

It's a pity Adobe haven't implemented the same iteration of Jive that McAfee are using - that's slick and fast.

Cheers,

--

Neale

Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

If this post or another user's post resolves the original issue, please mark the posts as correct accordingly. This helps other users with similar trouble get answers to their questions quicker. Thanks.