Report spam or inappropriate posts here

[Neil_Keller]

This topic is reserved to report spam and other inappropriate content requiring attention. Please, no unnecessary comment or response.

NOTE: Please click on the user name of the poster of such content and provide that link here.

Thanks!

[Peter Spier]

Claudio,

I looked at the post you mentioned, and my take is that although it was not meant for that particular forum, it was, indeed a response to a forum message, and the link to the MP3 player was provided as a courtesy by the person to whom he was responding in order to help him find an inexpensive way to get his audio to play, not a general promotion of an unrelated product.

Over in the InDesign forum, where I hang out, we see this all the time (I frequently post links to products that will help another user), and as far as I know it's never been considered spam in that context.

Peter

[Claudio_González1]

Thank you for your explanation, Peter. All I can add is that, in the old forums, I would have been told in this same thread, and probably within minutes, why the post I reported wasn't considered as spam. Although I have not used it, I doubt that the Report Abuse button provides the same feedback, and I would be glad to be proven wrong.

It wasn't nice to find by hard experience that this thread is no longer providing the service for which it was created. From my point of view, it would be better to close it. And probably delete it as well; I don't think too many people would be interested in reading about past episodes of spam or inappropriate posts that happened in the old forums.

[Peter Spier]

I'm sorry you didn't get a better response in a timely fashion. I'm watching this thread, but I didn't check the post you referenced until this afternoon, on the presumption that one of the hosts was already dealing with it.

Peter

[Claudio_González1]

Peter, we all know it isn't your fault. Thank you.

[Curt Wrigley]

I understand the purpose of the thread.   And I suspect at some point there will be some sort of announcement on how to effectively report spam.   The mechanics of the forum and mod details are still in process and not completly known to us either.

[Claudio_González1]

Curt, we were unfortunately and repeatedly told that "this time" the errors in the previous fiascos wouldn't be repeated; that all our contributions in the thread -I forgot its name- for suggestions for the new forums would be taken into account, and some other similar niceties. Unfortunately, experience has shown that all those promises were just empty words. The present fiasco is at least as big as the previous one, if not much bigger, and all our warnings and preventions went to the trash. JC and his team have done their best, but ... Such a large scale change without them and the hosts/mods knowing for certain what's going on, and at precisely the same time when Adobe personnel went on vacation!!! Pardon me, but I cannot swallow the idea that all these things have been mere coincidences. And my mind is too straightforward to try to imagine what's behind all this.

Pity, we have already lost some very valuable people, and are losing more all the time. I remember reading before this chaos begun that this was a known and calculated risk, but that lost regulars would be readily replaced by new ones. Unfortunately, this is not what I'm seeing in the product forums I used to frequent, and that I rarely visit nowadays simply because i don't have the necessary spare time.

[Guest]

agree with claudio that none of the anger and/or dissapointment in this fiasco is meant to be directed at the volunteers and hosts who are putting up with it same as us "users" and "participants", nor even john and his team, as i'm sure they're between a rock and a hard place.

i for one, just wanna go home!

[Peter Spier]

Claudio (and others),

I completely understand how you feel. I believe we all share those feelings about the new format, but I think we've all been around long enough to know that things are what they are.

Last time there was still the opportunity to go back to the old system. That is no longer true due to ended contracts and combined forums for some products, and the goal of unification of the old MM product forums with the old Adobe forums is laudable. Yes, there are glitches, but to say this is worse than last time is, I think, a bit of an exaggeration. And I have trouble believing in any conspiracy. The dicision was made to use something as "out of the box" as possible to keep it scalable and adaptable to changing needs. John and his team are acutely aware of what users are finding lacking, and I have no doubt they are looking at ways to fix these things as quickly as possible, wherever possible.

The bottom line is that we have to use what's here, just as we use our applications with their particular bugs and shortcomings until a new release is issued, and make the best we can of a bad situation. I think by using a combination of email and web (I never was an NNTP user) I've come pretty close to the same speed and usability I had before, though the experience certainly is different, and I'm still tweaking how I interract. It would be a shame to lose any long-time volunteer and I urge everyone to continue to do what you can. Though often unthanked, your efforts are certainly valued.

[Claudio_González1]

Peter, thank you for not trying to convince us that everything is well, or well taken care of. A realistic overview of what to expect, such as yours, should have come much earlier, and certainly from higher quarters. There are well-known regulars who haven't been back, and it seems unlikely that they will.

It is a pity that so many of us have to spend so much time reporting bugs and errors, in many cases without even knowing if any host/mod has noticed our messages. I, at least, am finding I have almost no time to visit the product forums. Which was for years what I came here for.

We certainly value what JC and others we know they are doing, but from the outside, it certainly looks to me that the magnitude of the present chaos was much larger than they expected. And as if they are finding it very difficult to put off too many different fires at the same time.

[Peter Spier]

I'm sure you're correct in your thinking that there are a more or larger fires to put out than anticipated. I think I saw you on the test forums, so you know John was spending nearly every waking moment reading and analyzing problems, and though less visible now, I'm confident he's still at it, and eqaully confident that nobody wants things to work more than he.

I can't speak about all of what's wrong, or who is responsible for fixing it (but I suspect some of the problems need to be fixed by Jive, not John's team), but a decision was made to use Jive, based many factors, and we're going to have to live with it for the time being. This is still far and away the best place I know to get good help with Adobe products.

[Guest]

Claudio González wrote:

I, at least, am finding I have almost no time to visit the product forums. Which was for years what I came here for.

Claudio, like you, I am finding I don't have much time for the Photography forum, which was my main place to reside.  I have learned a LOT about Photoshop and photography from that forum and now it's nearly dead.  It's all a result of the new TOS by Adobe (which effectively killed the sharing of any photos) and then the new forum.  The combination of those two things was fatal.

Claudio González wrote:

We certainly value what JC and others we know they are doing, but from the outside, it certainly looks to me that the magnitude of the present chaos was much larger than they expected. And as if they are finding it very difficult to put off too many different fires at the same time.

And these are all fires that should have been looked at more carefully BEFORE Adobe bought this mess put JC and his team through this.  These fora have lost many contributors. 

[Guest]

the easy solution is roll back to webx. pay them properly to support the load you want to put on the system and straighten this mess out.

[Claudio_González1]

dave milbut wrote:

the easy solution is roll back to webx. pay them properly to support the load you want to put on the system and straighten this mess out.

Dave, in two messages not very far above these, Peter has stated very clearly that this time going back is out of the question. It's now up to us to accept this reality and try to make the best out of this mess, for which JC and team are working hard, or keep on daydreaming on a return to the old forums and cursing the new ones as they are until we give up.

[Guest]

If we do have to stay with this fiasco (and I fear we will) it can only be to avoid bruised egos at the top.

[Guest]

Peter has stated very clearly that this time going back is out of the question.

i'm sorry. i missed the part where he's an adobe employee at a high enough level to make or be privy to that decision.

the line that web crossing can't do it is just wrong, according to web crossing. i believe what's left out of that statement is the caveat "they can't do it at the price adobe is willing to pay".

considering what adobe has SAVED over the years in the cost of running real tech support, i'd say now it's nothing but corporate greed running the show here.

they can fix it, or lose the forums.

and as i've said all along it's not outside the range of corporate possibility that that might have been the idea all along. they COULD easily turn support into a profit center if the forums effectively closed down. what they're not getting is the fact that if people don't come here for free help and support, they won't necessarily all pay adobe for said support. they'll go to other free sites. maybe adobe only cares about the large corporations that will fork over for a sizable "free" support contract...

i don't know, but i DO know that it's not "impossible" to roll back AND do everything we've been told they want to do. the question is have we been told anything even CLOSE to everything they want to accomplish. the answer is obviously: NO.

[S_D_A_]

Well said Sir !

[Bob_Peters]

P Spier wrote:

Claudio (and others),

I completely understand how you feel. I believe we all share those feelings about the new format, but I think we've all been around long enough to know that things are what they are.

Last time there was still the opportunity to go back to the old system. That is no longer true due to ended contracts and combined forums for some products, and the goal of unification of the old MM product forums with the old Adobe forums is laudable. Yes, there are glitches, but to say this is worse than last time is, I think, a bit of an exaggeration. And I have trouble believing in any conspiracy. The dicision was made to use something as "out of the box" as possible to keep it scalable and adaptable to changing needs. John and his team are acutely aware of what users are finding lacking, and I have no doubt they are looking at ways to fix these things as quickly as possible, wherever possible.

The bottom line is that we have to use what's here, just as we use our applications with their particular bugs and shortcomings until a new release is issued, and make the best we can of a bad situation. I think by using a combination of email and web (I never was an NNTP user) I've come pretty close to the same speed and usability I had before, though the experience certainly is different, and I'm still tweaking how I interract. It would be a shame to lose any long-time volunteer and I urge everyone to continue to do what you can. Though often unthanked, your efforts are certainly valued.

The real problem is that there is absolutely NO evidence that any changes are being contemplated, let alone what 'features' are considered bugs.

There is, unfortunately, the appearance of a "take it or leave it" attitude on the part of Adobe.  As you said, Peter "things are what they are".  That doesn't lessen the fact that some of the things that "are what they" are shouldn't have seen the light of day in the first place.

Consider this short list:

An email header that was totally screwed up and took a long time to fix.

Fixed width pages.  Far too much wasted screen space.

A right hand column that contains nothing but fluff or information that would be better placed elsewhere on the page and be accessed by a popup list of button.

The inability to return to a thread at the point where I last read an entry.  (This one is REALLY annoying!)

The IDs used here are the same as for Adobe.com.  That's a Bad Thing!

No "breadcrumbs" at the bottom of the page.

The insistence on using out-of-the-box software.  That's a great plan.  The problem is that Adobe appears to have chosen the wrong box.

"Points" for (possibly) answering a question.  (Is the original poster really in any [position to choose the correct/best answer?)

Forum participation appears to be greatly reduced.  No, I can't prove that statement but the Lightroom forum is pretty dead.

And...

"The bottom line is that we have to use what's here...":  That's not completely accurate since current participants can go elsewhere for information.

[Peter Spier]

Bob,

You at least partly missed my point about having to use what's here. Yes, you can make a conscious effort to look for another forum, and you might find one that has information as good, and that is easier or more convenient. But if you want to continue as part of the Adobe Community effort, this is what you have. Endless complaining isn't going to change that.

During the testing period there were several people who found ways to script their browsers to show and hide various parts of the page, and adjust widths and such. Ramon Castañeda was one, if memory serves. Personally, I just ignore most of it until I find a use for it (it's easier, for example to click on your avatar to get to your profile than to find you doing a people search, should I want to send you private message, which is actually a nice new feature we didn't have in the WebX forums).

And no, I don't work for Adobe, though I have some contacts who do. John Himself has said many times that the WebX forum, in its current form, was so completely customized and proprietary as to no longer be scalable, or suited to a merged forum, and that the people who had written the code were no longer with the company, essentially meaning it would require starting from scratch to accomplish the primary goal of merging the two forums. A business decision was made (and you can interpret that any way you like) to work with a vendor who could supply an off-the-shelf solution that would likely work for many years to come, and who would, one hopes, provide the talent and resources to maintain and improve the product, which is their primary focus, while Adobe's focus is on developing software for graphics professionals to do their work.

Even if it were technically possible to go back to the old forums (and splitting up the platform combined forums like InDesign would require someone to manually examine each thread), the old contracts have expired, new ones have been signed, and it would mean abandoning the primary goal of merging the old MM forums into a single unified Adobe presence. That just isn't going to happen.

Peter

[Guest]

P Spier wrote:

During the testing period there were several people who found ways to script their browsers to show and hide various parts of the page, and adjust widths and such

and just what does that say about the industry standard graphics/web design corporation that their own website users have to script their browsers to show and hide various parts of the page, and adjust widths and such?  There are no other websites that I have visited that this sort of extensive tweaking is necessary!  It was NOT necessary before and should not be now.

I am not saying that Adobe must go back to webx, but I am saying they should try, in as many ways as possible, to duplicate the user experience that webx presented.  Up to and including the clean web page display - this particular display is clunky, cluttered and not user friendly at all.  I've said it before, just because they are using Jive for the back end does NOT mean that they cannot make the front end more friendly to the users.  It's just HTML folks.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

P Spier wrote:

Bob,

-------------------snip-------------------

Even if it were technically possible to go back to the old forums (and splitting up the platform combined forums like InDesign would require someone to manually examine each thread), the old contracts have expired, new ones have been signed, and it would mean abandoning the primary goal of merging the old MM forums into a single unified Adobe presence. That just isn't going to happen.

Peter

Who said the two camps wanted to be merged. From my impression of users of Macromedia They were very unhappy campers at prospect of Adobe taking Macromedia over. (Yes I know, it was mutually agreed upon deal that made the Macromedia Stock holders happy.) But the customers were not. Usually, a talented company creates great products. and a great fan base of customers. Then a Large company with more money, but Products that are beginning to get old, wants to polish their image. So they either forcibly take over another company or Offers the Stock holders, so much money they can't refuse. The the Customers, are let down, because they know eventually products they have become accustomed to using be folded into another product they don't like or want, or outright abandoned.

DreamWeaver is an example for me. I haven't updated studio 8 yet. Because I look at the problems acrobat has splitting PDF's into parts every time they encounter MS Word Page and sections breaks. This has been an on going problem since Acrobat 1 and Word 6/95. And Finally MS gave up and installed their own PDF converter that removes those problems except when a section or page break is accompanied by a page orientation shift.

Frankly I never wanted the two camps to be merged. It was the customers suggestions.

[Peter Spier]

I couldn't care less whether or not the forums are merged, but I can understand why a corporation would want to unify its branding after an acquisition.

[Guest]

P Spier wrote:

I couldn't care less whether or not the forums are merged, but I can understand why a corporation would want to unify its branding after an acquisition.

We can all understand that but if the "unified branding" in the Support Forums results in a load of crap, common sense says abandon the exercise and revert.

But protecting bruised egos brushes aside common sense.

[Peter Spier]

I probably shouldn't have gotten involved in this thread at all, and it's a shame that it has wandered away from reporting spam into a general complaint session.

I wanted to give Claudio another perspective on why hosts who are monitoring spam reports might not have considered his last link to actually be spam.

Apart from that I don't give a rat's rear end what the forums look like. I'm here because I want to help users who ask for assistance, and Adobe seems to think I'm good enough at that to appoint me as a Community Expert. If I have to learn to do it using a text-based monochrome interface from the days of MS DOS, then that's what I'll do. It's the message, not the medium, that counts here.

I made my comments about the new forums in the threads where they would do some good, I know they were seen, and if action is taken, great. I have no intention of spouting off in every thread I see about what I like or don't. It's a waste of everyone's time.

Peter

[Guest]

I won't continue the complaining in this thread but I just have to take issue with: "It's the message, not the medium, that counts here."

That is 100% totally and utterly wrong!

What use is a message if the medium stops it getting through?

Halloo-o!

[Bob_Peters]

P Spier wrote:

Bob,

You at least partly missed my point about having to use what's here. Yes, you can make a conscious effort to look for another forum, and you might find one that has information as good, and that is easier or more convenient. But if you want to continue as part of the Adobe Community effort, this is what you have. Endless complaining isn't going to change that.

During the testing period there were several people who found ways to script their browsers to show and hide various parts of the page, and adjust widths and such. Ramon Castañeda was one, if memory serves. Personally, I just ignore most of it until I find a use for it (it's easier, for example to click on your avatar to get to your profile than to find you doing a people search, should I want to send you private message, which is actually a nice new feature we didn't have in the WebX forums).

{snip}

"But if you want to continue as part of the Adobe Community effort, this is what you have."  In other words, 'take or leave it'.  Fair enough.

And I hardly think what is going on is "endless complaining".  This forum is for raising issues with the forums.  That is precisely what I am doing.  If our friends and neighbors at Adobe don't want to hear this stuff then they should close this forum.  Or did I mess something?

Specialized scripts are NOT the answer since they don't work with all browsers.  What a lot of us are requesting are some USER options to get more flexibility in the visual presentation.

So, if I may summarize what I place din my previous post:  Much of the current functionality is worse that the WebX forums.  Worse still, is the total lack of information about what is planned, what will not be considered and what is just plain impossible.