NNTP Users Say Goodbye

[ilssac]

It has been four days since the turn over to the new forum and the NNTP news feed where turned off.  This was the first time most NNTP users learned of the change since the new forum was not mentioned on the news feeds.  If one used a news reader to access the forums one seldom, if ever, accessed the web user interface which was the only place the announcement of the pending new forum was.

Thus there have been some very active threads about the lack of NNTP access to these forums.

1) NO NNTP News Feed = A loss of a lot of helpful people.

2) Bring back NNTP forum or I'm quitting

3) Please bring back NNTP

4) Bring back nntp access

If you review these threads you will find a lot of people who are not going to continue to use these forums without NNTP access and detailed reasons why the e-mail and rss feed are NOT acceptable as a substitute.

This is my resignation letter.  I will not be contributing as much as I am used to doing.  I may not have been the most prolific or most knowledgeable NNTP contribuitor, but I liked helping my fellow Adobe nee Macromedia nee Allaire ColdFusion users.  I would review the CF forums several times a day between work tasks when I needed to take a mental breather.  I have tried the e-mail subscription feature.  The messages are jumbled, the subjects are unreadable, the content is fragmented and the headers do not follow the RFC standard so that my e-mail reader can not thread them properly.  I have tried the RSS subscription feature.  It is better in that the messages can be threaded and the subjects are readable, but it is one way and there is no convenient way to answer without opening a browser and waiting for two pages to render over and over again which takes a long time subjectively.  And there are 6 RSS feeds for every forum and no explanation that I can find on why one would choose the different options.

I invite my fellow NNTP users to sign off here as I think we may be underrepresented in the feature discusion of the new forum.  In the old forums we where all lumped together as a single user, it may not have been as apparent how many of us there are and how much we contributed.  Doing some basic number crunch with the data I have access to, we may have been a small group of people but we seem to have been a prolific group, collectivily contributing almost a quarter of a million posts which is over 14% of the 1.6 million posts of all the forums.

I can not find, nor have I seen any official responses to our pleas to offer any hope that NNTP may or may not be a future option.  Weather their will be any improvements in the e-mail feature and|or the web service API that would allow us to roll our own solution.  Or any other commentary to give us an inclinning on weather our needs are being considered, this will probably be it for most of us.

I wish Adobe Forums good luck in the future and may check in now and agian to see what improvements their may be.

Ta Ta for now.

Ian

[Adam Cameron.]

I think I have made it pretty clear already, but just to formalise:

"me too".

I'm going to keep an eye on a couple of topics I was helping on before the cut over, but other than that: I'm gone.

Cheers.

--

Adam

[ilssac]

A Cameron wrote:

I think I have made it pretty clear already

I beleive we have all been pretty clear in different places.  I felt like one last, collective, shouting against the thunder post before I go.

Plus, who knows, maybe if we can get enough of an informal, unscientific, nonbinding whos who of NNTP users maybe we can organize something

[ChivertonT]

I was never an NNTP user, preferring email.

But, unless something drastic happens soon (or at least someone with clout says it's being worked on) I'll be off too.

[Ildhund]

I can not find, nor have I seen any official responses to our pleas to offer any hope that NNTP may or may not be a future option...

This from Adobe employee Dov Isaacs in the Typography forum yesterday:

"...it is unfortunate that the NNTP access is not available anymore. However, Adobe was put in a position where it was absolutely necessary to migrate from the previous service provider for the forums (the old forums and for that matter the new forums) are hosted outside of Adobe itself using third party software. For better or worse, most of the newer on-line forum software packages simply don't support NNTP anymore."

Noel

[Adam Cameron.]

> For better or worse, most of the newer on-line forum software packages simply don't support NNTP anymore

And they'd have a point if not for the fact that this system does support NNTP.

http://www.jivesoftware.com/builds/docs/clearspace/latest/ClearspaceAdminGuide.html#SynchronizingContentwithEmailorNewsgroups

--

Adam

[ChivertonT]

Shame they screwed up both RSS and email as well then.

[ilssac]

Ildhund wrote:

I can not find, nor have I seen any official responses to our pleas to offer any hope that NNTP may or may not be a future option...

This from Adobe employee Dov Isaacs in the Typography forum yesterday:

"... For better or worse, most of the newer on-line forum software packages simply don't support NNTP anymore."

Noel

I am interested that there is something in a Typography forum, but no response to any of the actual NNTP threads that have been started in recent days.

I am also curious about the quote above in light of the link to the documentation of this forum provider that says it does support NNTP.

Re: NO NNTP News Feed = A loss of a lot of helpful people.

jochemd wrote:

http://www.jivesoftware.com/builds/docs/clearspace/latest/ClearspaceAdminGuide.h tml#SynchronizingCo...

Or that we could provide our own NNTP functionality if the e-mail functionality worked correctly and followed e-mail RFC standards.

Message was edited by: Ian Skinner

[Michael_H__Phillips-25llKp]

I, too, am very unhappy with the cessation of the NNTP feed. It was by far the most efficient method of reading and participating in the forums.

The RSS feed is poorly implemented - not only are posters not identified, but I have noticed that some messages do not appear. And, as Ian pointed out, it is not possible to contribute via RSS. The email subscriptions leave a lot to be desired too. Subjects are unclear and topics are not threaded. At the very least, an email digest should be provided. I'll hang around for a while to see what, if any, improvements are implemented.

Michael

[Guest]

Count me in.  I mean OUT!

[Mark_A__Boyd]

I invite my fellow NNTP users to sign off here as I think we may be underrepresented in the feature discusion of the new forum.

OK. I'm out as well.

I gave the test forum a good run while they were active and have given the live forums a good run, too. Today, I have spent too much time in just one of the forums I read regularly, trying to read the messages that are new since yesterday (4 pages of message headers at 50 headers per page - I think. That 50 keeps jumping back to 30).

With a newsreader, I would already have scanned all of the messages and would likely have posted several suggestions by now. I would have clear and obvious indications of threads I'm already involved in and of replies to my messages that may need further clarification or assistance. As it is, I have only made it to the second page of messages and have not posted a single suggestion. Just too much click-wait-load for my liking. And, as I feared, finding "unread" messages in threads of any length turned out to be the real deal-breaker for me.

As mentioned, the non-threading emails are of little help - in the threads I am participating in - and I don't even want to try subscribing to an entire forum without proper headers.

I may stop in once in a while in the hopes that they've enabled NNTP or to see of Jochem has managed to create one, but I don't hold much hope.

So long.

[Edit: Changed with proper headers to without proper headers.]

[Christopher Glaeser]

Yet another easy-to-use protocol bites the dust.

Best,

Christopher

[DHLipman]

This front-end sucks and NNTP was so much better.

I agree with Ian !

"We" just got an email Today stating why we should upgrade older Acrobat licenses to v9.1.

You bet I'll be replying how Adobe screwed up in killing off NNTP access.

[JolieKatana]

for many of the reasons already cited above I will no longer be an everyday reader and poster here

cya

[DHLipman]

Instead of sending email, I used the direct phone number in the email of the "Demand Center Representative" and discussed this with him.

I hope this avenue of "feedback" will bear some fruit.

[Erik Lord]

Lifelong NNTP user here. I participate in other web forums and have nothing against them in general, but those are all pretty much 'hobby' forums.

I don't know how much time or control Adobe had over picking the forum replacement. This seems like decent software that just needs to abandon some silly components for some effective ones.

So hopefully over the next month they'll be made more usable.

My biggest complaint, however, is slowness. Adobe's servers were never fast. Putting heavy web forum processing on top...well, it's as expected. What ever happened to the minimum wait time for web content?

I'll still try to participate but the volume definitely won't be as heavy as it used to be. I still like to help where I can...but I can't afford to double/triple the time.

So here's to hoping that these web forums will be made efficient and, someday, NNTP access will return (because, as noted, it IS possible).

Erik

[Manuel091988]

I agree with Ian the NNTP should be inserted...

[Charlie Choc]

I'm a former NNTP user and, while I'm trying to give the new forums a chance, I find them very clumsy to navigate much less figure out which ones have new topics, etc. I expect my usage will continue to taper off.

[MikeV99]

My 2$ (inflation) -- bring back NNTP.

[Skysi]

Yes, bing it back. BTW, there are other Adobe groups on the USENET. I'll be just using those. Bye!

[srjacobs]

Yes - I would agree - the web is really a very inefficient interface for newsgroups when compared to newsreaders. I don't have the time to waste on this interface - slows me down too much - so for now the only time I will be checking in on any of these forums is when a new release of LR or other products is available so I can determine if there are problems with it that might warrant waiting....

Listen up Adobe - get the provider to turn on the capability that is there with this software - otherwise you will lose a large # of readers who don't want to/refuse to slog through this web interface.

--Scott Jacobs

[Christopher Glaeser]

We need a *user* forum.  Adobe is going to continue to jerk us around on this company-controlled clunker.

Best,

Christopher

[JolieKatana]

well I can't find any reply button on the page this email refers me to, not

very user friendly is that?

so I am attempting to reply by email

Here goes:

my new ISP (Comcast) has discontinued support for NNTP, formerly I signed on

with Bellsouth

I found a free service: freenews.netfront.net

and have re-joined alt.graphics.photoshop

If most of you NNTP readers will join I know we can make it better..as of

now only a few cranky old guys and a couple of long time regulars are left

over there & unmoderated will mean using your blocker options more often for

the jerks trolls and spammers

Look forward to seeing some of you over there

(KatWoman)

[JolieKatana]

not logged in = no reply button visible

have to go to front and login even though I have automaticially remember me selected

UGH one more petty annoyance

[Kath-H]

'Remember me doesn't keep you logged in, just fills in your user name.