The Big Picture

[Guest]

I think what is not being understood by some participants in these discussion is the scale of change which will follow the transition to the new forums.

Have a look at http://www.jivesoftware.com/products/clearspace-community and you'll see that the purpose of the Clearspace Community software goes way beyond the objectives that might be deduced of the current forums and their underlying software.

My personal take on things is that Adobe have decided that the whole style of the user interactions and community here is no longer appropriate to their corporate needs. There was a time when provision of a support forum was not seen as much related to the main thrust of company objectives, but those days have gone. Online communities are now one of the chief means of interaction between a corporation and its customers - and it's a two way channel. Interaction between those customers is also facilitated by within the online community but that's not necessarily deemed to be the key objective.

The forthcoming change represents, sadly, the end of this community and the creation of a new and very different one. The functional elements and the look and feel of their presentation in the Jive software are carefully designed to foster a particular style of interaction between users of Adobe software, and beween the users and the company. The functions and form are designed for an over-riding purpose and to support an overarching communications philosophy, not thrown in upon a whim.

It seems very clear to me that Adobe expects that the new community will have a significantly different flavour to the old, and that they will have anticipated that not all of the present members of this (and the Macromedia) communities will feel at home in the new one. There's no need to warn Adobe that some people will be unhappy enough not to return - they will have accepted that risk at the outset.

While there will be an inevitable loss of expertise, and it will be sad to see the last of some regular participants here, it seems clear to me that Adobe are hoping that the new style of community (moulded by the software they have chosen to create it) will bring in new members who may well have considerable expertise in the products, but who have not felt encouraged to participate in the style of community we have here now. The company will also be hoping that those newly requiring support will find the new site to be more effective and simpler to use than the old, and that the site will enable the company image and the strengths and usage of the product lines to be put across more clearly.

That, as I see it, is the big picture. There's not much point in discussing the points of detail unless in the context of the overall company objectives in making these changes - and if you disagree with the whole underlying premise of the changes, then there's little chance that you'll like much of the detail either.

[Ann_Shelbourne1]

Won't wash we all have to be "EXPERTS" if we are to level this rather muddy playing field.

Ann Shelbourne
Real World Expert

[Cindy-]

> How about Adobe Software Specialists?

I kind of like ASS (Adobe Software Specialist) as the description.

[Ann_Shelbourne1]

Actually I can see that running into trouble with Adobe Legal because it looks like an official Adobe staff appointment.

I am fairly certain that using a Trademarked Corporate name in that way would run into major problems?!

Ann Shelbourne
REAL WORLD EXPERT©

[Cindy-]

> I am fairly certain that using a Trademarked Corporate name in that way would run into major problems?!

Ok then I take it back.

Cindy
REALLY WEIRD EXPERT

[Guest]

I could use CEng MRAeS AMIMechE AMBIM since I already have those qualifications.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Forum Uniquely-Certified Knowledge-Specialists would be unacceptable, of course. :/

[D__McCahill]

We can use ASS ... the A could stand for anything (literally as well). Can't sue someone for using one letter out of a trademark.

We just won't tell Adobe what it means.

:)

[David_Powers]

> Can't sue someone for using one letter out of a trademark.

Wanna bet?

> We just won't tell Adobe what it means.

Er, I think you just have. ;)

[D__McCahill]

Naw, we know nobody from Adobe listens to the forums.

[David_Powers]

Maybe not, but I'm sure there's a lawyer somewhere just itching to kick some ASS. ;)

[Guest]

I know, far be it from me to bring something back ON topic, but here's a PERFECT example of why rating posts and marking them "answered" would be a bad thing...

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?7@@.59b81ab4/4

as i said there:

>"see, with the new proposed rating system, one answer would have gotten marked as "Answered" and howard (Ho) given "points", and all the other methods would have gone un-remarked."

[David_Powers]

Dave,

Your point is well made. It's one that has been made many times by the Dreamweaver Community Experts. The current Macromedia forums have a "question answered" button that displays a special icon in the web interface. Most Community Experts and a high proportion of the other regulars never see that icon because it's not relayed through NNTP.

As a result, even when the original poster thinks the thread is closed, answers usually keep coming in, often with alternative and potentially better solutions.

As Dorothy K points out DorothyK, "What About Moderators in the New Forum?" #315, 4 Mar 2009 6:33 am, things can be changed within the allowances of the new software. I fully expect some features to be experimented with and eventually dumped. Changing to a new system is never easy, and I'm sure there will be some rough patches; but the sky isn't falling - at least not yet. ;)

[Guest]

yup. agree with everything you said there.

[Guest]

John has also been exploring the question of whether hosts or admins might be able to change the answered markers. The new software (out of the box) includes 1 "best answer" and 2 "good answer" markers for each topic.

[Ann_Shelbourne1]

No! No! and No!

Please do NOT allow any of these nonsensical "1 "best answer" and 2 "good answer" markers for each topic".

They are meaningless (at best!); misleading and almost always WRONG as they fail to consider the whole picture because unfortunately the people who are doing the "marking" are usually not very well versed in the subject if the MM Forums are anything to go by!

And that is putting it politely.

[David_Powers]

The only person with authority to do any marking in the MM forums is the original poster, who almost certainly is not qualified to judge whether the answer is the "right" or "best" one. The idea of grading answers *might* work if done by someone trusted by other members of the forum. However, I would be reluctant to participate in such grading, as what's "best" is often subjective, and the value of a solution often depends on a range of factors.

On the other hand, one idea that might be workable is to create a grading for "bad" answers. But that's also a potential can of worms.

[PJonesCET]

On apple Forums they have a way to mark a question answered or not and whether the answer given is helpful. (which means helpful to the person asking the question.)

[David_Powers]

The problem with "helpful to the person asking the question" is that it ignores whether it's the most efficient way to do something.

To take the example of a question that frequently gets asked in the Dreamweaver forum, wrapping an image in a hyperlink results in a blue border around the image. This is standard browser behaviour. Versions of Dreamweaver prior to CS3 suppressed the blue border by adding border="0" automatically to image tags that were wrapped in a link. The border attribute is deprecated. So, since CS3 the border attribute has been omitted, confusing the hell out of inexperienced users.

The beginner comes along, asks how to get rid of the blue border, and slightly more experienced beginner comes along and says, "Type 0 in the Border field of the Property inspector". Bingo, it works! The original guy is happy. But it's the wrong answer...

The correct answer is to create a simple CSS style rule in an external style sheet like this:

a img { border: none; }

This not only creates valid code, it's applied automatically to every image wrapped in a link throughout the whole website.

So, although the person who originally asked the question thinks the first answer was helpful, it wasn't. That's the danger of this sort of points system.

[Guest]

When it comes to things like colour management, plausible but often totally wrong answers are not unusual. Sometimes it takes corrections, contributions and amplifications from three or more members who do know the subject from different parts of the industry before a matter is put to bed.

Sometimes after over 100 posts the debate still goes on!

[Guest]

What has happened in a number of places on this side is that a small group of regulars in a forum get volunteered to grab the good info and turn it into the FAQ folders that you see in many places.

They very literally take ownership of the FAQ's by being given host rights in the area to grow, change, and update them as appropriate.

Then people in the forums get to just point those often asked questions to the FAQ's.

That does take regular maintenance tho, so can fall into disrepair easily. Don't know if that will change going forward, it sounds like John wants to make greater use of the knowledgebase articles if I heard him right.

One thinking outloud thought might be that it would be possible for hosts to edit the opening post to add a link to a knowledgebase article that answers it appropriately.

Of course one fault with doing that is when they change the URLs to articles on us. That has happened uncomfortably often also.

Again, no really good answers.

[David_Powers]

Yes, FAQ folders would be useful. One problem will be training people to use them on the MM side because they have never existed there.

[Ann_Shelbourne1]

You just have to point them to a FAQ, when one exists, instead of answering their question in the thread.

Some of them do eventually get trained to look in the FAQs before posting with others it remains a continuing battle.

But having the FAQs does save the Helpers from a lot of repetitious typing; or from having to re-post the same boiler-plate answer time and time again.

[D__McCahill]

If they have to have something in the right/wrong answer method, then I would prefer a "Was this response useful to you" with a yes no. Anyone (logged in) could respond to it once, and it might give the effect of validating good answers, when a person sees 145 yes to one answer, and 130 no to another.

[Günter_Schenk]

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If they have to have something in the right/wrong answer method, then I would prefer a "Was this response useful to you" with a yes no. Anyone (logged in) could respond to it once
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which would also enable this "feature" to those who can´t stand this person for personal reasons such as animosity -- guess what option they´ll be deciding on ? ;-)

[Guest]

That would be almost totally dependent on whether the software has an option like that, Don. It would be preferable in my mind too, I just don't know if it'll exist like that.