What About Moderators in the New Forum?

[John T Smith]

Read the spam thread for awhile and you will see that moderation works well in these webx forums

You will also see messages concerning the LACK of moderation over in the cfusion side of things

Will the new forum software/structure allow for "this" moderation to continue, or will it fall away to "that" style of non-moderation?

[_Murray_Summers_]

@pjones

I believe your assertions vis-a-vis JPG and GIF are incorrect, but I will not reply to them at this time since I don't want to further degrade the topic under discussion here. If you'd like to carry on this discussion privately, I'd be happy to explain why - you can reach me at -

forums at great-web-sights dot com

And by the way, it's JOOMLA.

[Bill12]

Whoa! 85k is not a large image, but I have the forums set to display 50 topics and messages. With 85k per avatar, that would be a download of 4.25MB. On my old 56k modem that would have been 15 mins just to see the avatars and no useful content. I consider that to be a lot of extra wasted download time and waste of bandwidth. If I have an option to turn off avatars as I have suggested, then I have no problem for those that want them. A lot of the arguments are coming down to preferences and I have already expressed mine.

However, the best approach to the problem is to provide display options for some of the viewing. Why not allow a page to be viewed without the left and right columns and in the current format if that is desired (by others like myself), and with all of the pictures and extra download time and space for those that like that format.

Actually, setting up a sample forum with the new structure is a great idea. We could look and comment (hopefully constructively). It really does not matter who would design the page layout, some will be happy and others will be disgusted. Options provide the simplest solution to it all, though some extra programming.

In the meantime, I recognize what has been said about the need to move to new software due to problems that are arising on the Adobe forums. I have not noticed a lot of problems, but understand there are some that make it difficult to maintain. I thank John and others who have tried to keep us informed.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

>there are many Community Experts who represent Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, and other programs from the original Adobe lineup.

I've never seen anybody representing himself or herself as such in the Adobe Photoshop Macintosh forum or the Adobe Camera Raw forum in the more than five years I've bee a regular there. Adobe staff who contribute are now identified as Adobe Photoshop programmers or engineers.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

>the reason the previous attempt at upgrading the systems went so badly wrong was the desire to preserve a lot of the customization.

That is horse manure. Nothing was preserved during that ultimately aborted changeover. Nothing.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

>Perhaps you would like to tell David Blatner,

Thank you for mentioning him. That reinforces the thrust of my statements. I've seen posts by David Blatner in the Photoshop forum. He's never displayed or hinted at the "Adobe Community Expert" badge. He's earned his reputation and does not need the crutch. His posts are recognized as authoritative without the need of a badge.

[Guest]

ANN Wrote:

"You apparently do not visit the Photoshop Forums too frequently or you might recognise that the very people who are most vocally challenging the appalling decisions that the Forum Development Team seem determined to foist on us, are the same people who offer their help, and answer questions, in the Adobe Photoshop Forums on a daily basis"

and are acting like spoiled brats with no thought to anyone else but themselves.

What about the members from the MM side? Haven't they also spent years offering their help, answering questions on a daily basis in the Dreamweaver, Fireworks forums? Don't they also deserve some respect and have the right to be involved in any decision making regarding the new forums?

[Guest]

In my view the beauty of the current forum design is that you can quickly scan for topics that interest you without a lot of unnecessary information cluttering up the screen. It easy shows topics that have new posts since your last visit and doesnt require you to wade through multiple pages as you review the latest action in any particular forum.

One of the problems I have with the proposed change is that there is so much unnecessary information on the subject page that only a small number of posts are visible on the first page. In many cases if the topic has moved off the first page most people will not bother to click on subsequent pages and that topic will die prematurely.

The current layout is unique in a forum culture that seems to think that avatars, signatures, number of posts, when the user joined, special expert labels, points for right answers, etc. are of any use or interest. This unnecessary additional information just takes up space and adds to information overload. You shouldnt do something just because you can. The example shown of how the new forums are going to look is a good example of this much to much unneeded and useless information that leaves almost no screen room left for the meat of the post. Instead of the professional looking layout we currently have Adobe seems to want to target the look toward preteens.

If as DorothyK suggests we should all just get over it, get in line, and accept our medicine then this current forum section is unnecessary. Hopefully Adobe will consider some of the concerns expressed here if not, just tell us and well stop wasting our time.

BTW - The idea of identifying community experts is absurd I dont care if you think you have earned the title or not. Already the tone of some of the self-identified experts in this tread alone is evidence of why it should not be allowed can you say God Complex.

[Guest]

It is inevitable that the MM people resent the attitude of Adobe users. I can only say that as a long-time user of FreeHand and Dreamweaver, I found their forums clunky and lacking in answers to my questions, and I soon gave up on them. On the other hand, Photoshop, Camera Raw, and InDesign forums are not only easier to navigate but produce rapid answers sometimes within minutes of a question being posted.

And the forums are regularly contributed to by real experts, from Thomas Knoll downwards, who don't seem to feel the need to flaunt any titles.

[Guest]

" I can only say that as a long-time user of FreeHand and Dreamweaver, I found their forums clunky and lacking in answers to my questions, and I soon gave up on them."
-----------
Which is why the majority of responses to the questions from the DW web-forum came through via posters using NNTP. An answer was always given within minutes (if not seconds). But you wouldn't know this if you used on the web interface.

No-one has suggested that the MM web forum was great - we all know it wasn't, it was slow and sluggish. This is the reason for the use of NNTP by all the regular posters - but this only brings us back full cirlce, so won't go there again.

------------------
"On the other hand, Photoshop, Camera Raw, and InDesign forums are not only easier to navigate but produce rapid answers sometimes within minutes of a question being posted. "
------------------
Answers on the DW forum are also given within a reasonable time - that is if you use NNTP to view the forum. Often times answers from the NNTP side never made it to the web -forums, maybe that's what happened when you asked your questions. I seriously doubt that your questions would have been unanswered.

------------
"And the forums are regularly contributed to by real experts, from Thomas Knoll downwards, who don't seem to feel the need to flaunt any titles'
------------
Here we go again with 'titles'. Its the Adobe users that keep bringing this up. Show me one post where a MM member has said that they wouldn't participate in the new forums without a 'title' beside their name.

The superior attitude of some of the Adobe users posting here is beyond belief.

[Guest]

Newsreaders are fine for some but there are quite a few webby things that can't be done with them.

OK, this horse is now pronounced dead.

[David_Powers]

Ramon, you have a very short-term memory. This is what you wrote:

> it's particularly galling to see people calling themselves Adobe Community Experts when they clearly have next to zero expertise on genuine Adobe products. Perhaps they should be called CEFMPBA, "Community Expert on Former Macromedia Products Bought by Adobe".

As you have acknowledged yourself, David Blatner
i is
an expert in Photoshop and has earned the respect of others. He might not use the title when posting the Photoshop forum, but he
i is
an Adobe Community Expert. Your comments are offensive to him and Community Experts with similar expertise in other products. Adobe has decided that it wants to display that title alongside their names in the new forum. That's all there is to it. It's Adobe's decision; not one demanded by "intruders".

By the way, your attempt to discriminate between original Adobe products and former Macromedia ones is childish. Adobe acquired Macromedia for a huge sum of money because Macromedia had technology that Adobe desperately wanted. Regardless of their heritage, all products that bear the Adobe logo are now "genuine" Adobe products.

As for whether my comments about the difficulties of the last attempt to integrate the forums are "horse manure", I doubt whether you're in a position to judge unless you were personally involved in handling the technical side of things. I wasn't, but I have been briefed on the situation by people who were.

Ozpeter has posted a very thoughtful comment about the implications of the proposed new forums here:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b8142c
It's well worth reading. You might not like what he says, but I think he sums up the situation pretty well.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

David,

It doesn't take an IQ above room temperature levelin degrees Celsius to spot the fallacy in your feebly twisted post.

> "David Blatner is an expert in Photoshop and has earned the respect of others. He might not use the title when posting the Photoshop forum, but he is an Adobe Community Expert".

That is exactly my point. I was referring to "to people calling themselves Adobe Community Experts" . [ EDIT: you even quote me verbatim in your post.] David Blatner does NOT call himself that in any of the Adobe forums I frequent.

David Powers, I don't know you from a hot rock, and seeing the "ACE" label next to your name would not change that one iota. I would judge not you but your posts. So far, I am not impressed. Add the ACE badge to your name and that would make it only humorous to me.

[David_Powers]

No, David Blatner doesn't, but in the new forums he will have "Adobe Community Expert" displayed under his name. I'm sure you will continue to judge him by the quality of his posts.

This is a title that Adobe has accorded David Blatner and about 200 other people, including myself. If Adobe wants to put that title alongside our names in the forum, that's Adobe's choice. If Adobe asks us to remain anonymous, I'll respect that choice too.

It seems as though opponents of this title are confusing it with the practice on many forums of designating people "senior member", "master", or "guru" simply on the basis of the number of posts they have made. The Adobe Community Expert scheme has nothing to do with such nonsense. It's run by a senior manager within Adobe; and, as I have said before, members are chosen by the product development teams not only on the basis of their knowledge of a particular program, but also on their overall skill within the relevant technology.

Anyway, you can laugh at the title all you like. Should you ever come to the Dreamweaver forum and ask a question, I doubt if you'll laugh at the answer I give.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

David, Not to worry, I can assure you that I shall not visit the Dreamweaver forum until shrimp learn how to whistle. I have zero interest in that application or any other one like it.

I am not an "opponent of this title", I just think that using in a forum is, at best, laughable.

[Kath-H]

The more I think about it, the more I can actually see some sense in having these people identified - with a *small* badge 😉 When the title started popping up in here, for instance from a Dreamweaver 'ACE' in the Golive forum, I too thought it smacked of self-promotion and I didn't like it.

On the other hand, the person in question is immensely helpful and knowledgeable anyway, because so much of web-design is not application-specific. Maybe he could wear a 'Web Design Guru' badge instead :)

Although I know which people know their stuff in forums I visit regularly, if I decide to do more than dabble in Illustrator or Acrobat, say, I'd quite like to know that the person answering my first questions has some credibility. Without a badge I'd of course have to wait and see, but for a beginner or relative one it might be good to be sure the person answering isn't just one of the well-meaning but annoying people who love to supply answers but don't actually know what they are talking about.

The unbadged experts become known fairly quickly.

I do think, though, that if a person is only an official expert in Acrobat, they shouldn't be wearing a badge in the Photoshop forum, for example. Should be forum/application-specific. However good a car mechanic is, you don't necessarily want him/her fixing your plumbing.

I do see why immensely knowledgable people without a badge might feel pretty miffed. Maybe that's what the points system is meant to help with, but I don't see it working well. Depends who's giving out the points, it's easily abused where I've seen it.

[_Murray_Summers_]

Does it matter in the context of this discussion that ADOBE *suggested* to us that we identify ourselves as "Adobe Community Experts"? It's really not a self-imposed affectation....

[PJonesCET]

In the MS Office furums (NNTP based) they have various people with the title MVP (most Valuable Persons) they are required to use in their signature file and on the MS website. There is a Page show a Picture in most cases of the person and a brief background showing why that person is designated a MVP in a given area. (word or Excel or PowerPoint).

There person designated doesn't mention th title. unless someone ask. (like people use to ask what the designation CET after my name represented.) Usually the answer is brief but enough to let the person that asked know what it represent. None of the MVP except one who stays on the Excel group is even a Microsoft employee.

I see the ACE designation no different that MVP. Its just a Title bestowed upon a Person by MS or Adobe to show they have a little more expertise than the average person. Nothing else. They all put their pants on just like everyone else does, "one leg at a time".

[PJonesCET]

> Whoa! 85k is not a large image, but I have the forums set to display 50 topics and messages. With 85k per avatar, that would be a download of 4.25MB. On my old 56k modem that would have been 15 mins just to see the avatars and no useful content. I consider that to be a lot of extra wasted download time and waste of bandwidth. If I have an option to turn off avatars as I have suggested, then I have no problem for those that want them. A lot of the arguments are coming down to preferences and I have already expressed mine.

The avatar I displayed in one of the thread here was about 20K and was a Jpg image. Had I used and equiv gif image it would been half the size.

[Kath-H]

>It's really not a self-imposed affectation....

I realise that now. It needs explaining to people though, I think, so they don't get the wrong idea.

Sorry Phil, I think you're hopelessly confused about file types and sizes.

[David_Powers]

> With 85k per avatar, that would be a download of 4.25MB. On my old 56k modem that would have been 15 mins just to see the avatars and no useful content.

I've just taken a look at a sample Jive Clearspace forum ( http://www.jivesoftware.com/clearstep/thread/1049), and checked the size of five avatars at random. They ranged in size from 1.97KB to 5.73KB. The biggest was a colour photo of the participant, so anything larger than that is unlikely. If all avatars were the same as the largest, you would be down to 286KB - a far cry from 4.25MB.

But that's assuming there are 50 unique avatars. Ever seen a thread containing 50 posts where no one participates more than once? What's more, browsers store images in their cache. A large part of the time, you won't even download the avatar. It will be on your hard disk.

That's not to say I want avatars. In fact, I don't. And if they're there, I would like the option to turn them off. But when discussing issues like this, there's no point bandying around unrealistic statistics. It detracts from the strength of your argument.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

I have to side with Kath, Phil...

You really do need to spend some more time experimenting with and comparing quality::file-size results for the various "Save For Web" image compression schemes, if you expect to be taken seriously about your opinions in these matters.

That avatar you displayed ( and it was earlier in this thread) wouldn't have to be anywhere near 20KB to look good. 2.5 - 3.0 KB would serve nicely.

Please, everyone, pardon these digressions. I apologize.

[PJonesCET]

This more like it. This image is 4K 72pdi and slightly over 1x1"



Of course its so small There is almost fine detail.

[Kath-H]

Phil, do you think we should take this to the Web Design Forum ?

[PJonesCET]

If you wish would be fine.

[Guest]

>This image is 4K 72pdi and slightly over 1x1"

dpi is meaningless on the web phil. that's a printer term.