John C: What about the feedback? 5 minutes a day is all it takes!

[Phos_four_dots]

We're giving you guys TONS of feedback. We're helping to troubleshoot, were telling you what works and what doesn't. We're reporting on problems and helping other uers with workarounds and solutions. We're offering everything we know and can figure out. Yeah, it gets elevated to some pretty noisy bitching at times. Sorry about that, Chief!

But we're not hearing much in return, or seeing much in the way of tangible results.

Example: Since we've heard nothing much about getting rid of the annoying right-side column, we'd made suggetions about putting some quick navigation links in the right-column boxes for forum thread indexes. You agreed that it's a good idea. You asked me specifically to put together a list of links. I took the time and put together a nice set of links for both of the Photoshop forums. I even formatted them in the HTML that it looks like you'll need. I sent you a Private Message about them. You asked me to send the text file via email. I did that.

Then.....NOTHING.

Seriously, how difficult would it be to just copy/paste those links I sent you into the boxes that are already there and waiting for the code? Maybe there's something I don't understand about the way the forum needs to be tweaked in order for those links I put together to work, but I really don't think so. While we're waiting for the big fixes, how about spending a couple minutes to implement those links? I mean, throw us a bone already! At least that would make things a little nicer while you work on the more dire issues.

Apart from a few things that seem very minor, we're getting almost nothing in the way of feedback from you (I use that term collectively, but YOU are the public entity who is dealing with us). Of course we can assume that you all are diligently working on things, but WHAT? And HOW? And with what goals in mind?

How about you make it a point to provide us with a regular digest of what you folks (both the Adobe and Jive people) are doing?

• What's on your "To-Do" list?

• What are you having trouble with?

• What requests just can't be met because of certain technical or other considerations?

--->How about some quick explanation about why something can't be done?

• What things are you trying in order to fix problem xyz that many have been so vocal about?

Please, think about giving us 5 minutes a day (that's all it should take ) to bang out a few sentences about progress being made or roadblocks that refuse to flatten out.

Keep us in the loop. Many of us feel like we're banging our heads against the wall. We have scant little sense about whether the feedback we're giving to YOU guys is being listened to, acted upon, relayed to YOUR bosses, ignored, sneered at or sent straight to dumper. In the absence of a 2-way dialogue, we have no idea whether we should continue to report on certain problems, or bring up new ones. We don't know whether we should fine-tune our scrutiny and the reports we provide to your team.

To quote George Carlin, We don't know whether to s**t or wind our watch.

Don't worry about whether what you report to us is too trivial, or esoteric, or bureaucratically convoluted. Please let us know what is being done.

Like Dave Milbut and others have expressed elsewhere, we're really starting to feel like we just don't matter. And that feeling keeps growing with every passing day where we're kept out of the loop and in the dark.

I appreciate that you have a lot on your plate, that your dancing as fast as you can. I'm glad for the progress you ARE making, even if it's not highly noticeable out here in Userland.

The people who make these forums EVERYTHING that they are deserve to be kept informed.

Please. 5 minutes a day is all it takes.

[joziG]

Most gratyfying reply. Thank you very much. Wish it were indicative of a change in attitude at Adobe in regard to the forums. That would be such a step forward.

As an aside. Can anyone tell me how to subscribe to a thread that one is not actively participating in without using RSS? Used to be so simple. Thank you.

[Kath-H]

Can't you just go into it and use the link under 'Notifications' on the right?

[joziG]

I am currently giving up using the Adobe forums as every single page takes

FOR EVER to either load or refresh, so I can't check if your suggestion

works for me. Thank you anyway. Shall try it later.

[Claudio_González1]

Kanguyen, I think Adobe should pay you just for periodically posting messages of this kind. We need more of this to relieve the unpleasant and unneeded tension that has been growing up.

Congratulations and thank you.

[Guest]

Claudio González wrote:

We need more of this to relieve the unpleasant and unneeded tension that has been growing up.

Very true Claudio – it's getting to all of us.

This morning I kicked the cat.   

... and I haven't even got one!

[Claudio_González1]

John Joslin wrote:

Claudio González wrote:

We need more of this to relieve the unpleasant and unneeded tension that has been growing up.

Very true Claudio – it's getting to all of us.

This morning I kicked the cat.   

... and I haven't even got one!

Get a toy one and kick that instead, specially if you don't have one...

[Jochem van Dieten]

kanguyen wrote on 2009-05-07 03:08 :

Every time an important issue is reported to you guys, John is asking Jive about if it can be done, how we could solve it, etc. John made a joke earlier this week about how the Jive support guys must hate him by now due to the sheer volume of questions he asks. Jive is being responsive. Some things are easier than others to fix - some are definitely more complex to fix.

I have suggested before that you could just ask Jive to mark a bunch of

issues as public and then we will gladly followup on them on the Jive

forums. Sort of like http://www.jivesoftware.com/jivespace/thread/44179

was moved from private to public.

Take the email threading issue for example. Simple in concept - follow the RFC. Difficult in practice.

I am not even going to pretend I sympathize with Jive on this issue. If

you have been trolling the Jive site a bit you may have seen that their

own import functionality for email archives in mbox format depends on

these headers. So they will gladly use them as a means for people to

migrate from something to Jive software, but they do not provide them

for people who want to integrate with Jive software.

We've come up with an initial fix that would allow better threading in email clients by removing the unique characters which show up in the square brackets

Threading or grouping?

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1885009#1885009

Fixing the email headers themselves to do proper heading is far more technically complex because it requires Jive to dive into what they call "core" functionality - basically, getting into the guts of the system. Much riskier, requires much more testing and planning.

I am very surprised by this because this runs completely contrary to my

analysis. As far as I can see it is just a matter of adding 5 lines to

https://svn.jivesoftware.com/svn/dev/repos/jive/plugins/advancedemail/trunk/src/com/jivesoftware/clearspace/plugins/advancedemail/OutgoingMessageListener.java

But I (and others) have noticed before there are some differences

between the functionality of these forums and the available sourcecode,

so maybe the drift is bigger then I have anticipated.

We're hard at work trying to find an underlying cause for performance issues - it's not where we'd want it to be, but because it's intermittent and there are so many variables, we are having trouble narrowing it down to specific scenarios where we can duplicate the issue.

So what do you need? You want to know the jsesionid.node value of the

slow requests? The jive.server.info? Just imagine that somebody has a

custom client with custom logging and can log every single request

with a full URL, full timestamp, all cookies etc. into a database for

ready (statistical) analysis. What would you ask for if somebody could

provide any logging you wanted?

Also, have you considered it might be easier if you tried reproducing

the slowness not in the forums, but in the webservices or email? I can

easily provide you with a bunch of to the second exact timestamps and

tracking codes for emails that were slow.

Jochem

--

Jochem van Dieten

http://jochem.vandieten.net/

[kanguyen]

Good suggestion on making some cases public. In some of our current open cases, this isn't feasible due to the very specific information about our setup that is being discussed, but this will be a good vehicle of helping to collect user information about specific bugs we're finding.

The fix this weekend addresses grouping. Apologies for the error in semantics.

There has been a lot of discussion/activity around the performance issue with Jive, and my technical counterpart has been largely handling that, so I am not as close to the details. I've asked Jive what kind of information that users can provide to help troubleshoot this issue further.

[Phos_four_dots]

Thanks to kanguyen for taking the time. THAT'S the type of progress report we're asking for. (At least, I'm pretty sure I expressed a desire of many of us by framing the start of this thread the way I did).

kanguyen wrote:

"...he has the support of various internal people like me, who can provide some assistance to him."

Just curious...what do you do as an employee, kanguyen? If you'd mentioned it before, I'm sorry to say I missed it. "Program Manager" is a little nebulous. It might be beneficial to know what your duties and skills-sets are a little more specifically; there could be questions we might want to direct to you, that you're especially equipped to answer.

Anyway...

Yes, of course, there are specific things we want fixed, changed or improved, and yes, we have harped, repeated, reiterated, demanded, and kvetched about them over and over again.

But actually stating and addressing those issues is not what this thread is about. This thread is about the importance of keeping us in the loop.

So Phillip, Harbs, Jozi, Kath and everyone else who might want to use this thread to bring up, discuss and get answers to specific issues...PLEASE DON'T. To use the lack of response about specific issues as an example is one thing (as I did in my first post), but to use this thread to rehash problems of functionality is off-topic, and dilutes the more important point I’m trying to make here.

I started this thread PRECISELY because I was tired of seeing the same issues brought up time and time again, in a dozen different ways and in every other thread in this forum. I also understand that keeping track of bugs is made all the more difficult for you guys if the reporting of them is all balled up with an intense and negative emotional context.  I was suggesting that regular reports from John C. and/or anyone else working on the forum problems would provide a bit of a salve for the anxiety being felt and vehemently expressed by everyone who visits this forum to complain or point out a problem.

I started this thread because it seemed to me that the concepts spelled out in the "Something Adobe Corporate needs to pay attention to..." thread (and the similar thread I missed that Dave Milbut started -"hey adobe" ), as well as the longer articles they linked to should be of enormous importance if Adobe cares even one little bit about keeping and building upon the richly important resource that these forums have become. That some of us might be worthy of the title "super-user", and some might not—those are designations better left to others to pin upon us. But the point is, we're complaining because we care about the health and functionality of these forums. The wealth of these forums' resource is undeniably embodied in the people who participate; the script and code and functionality and hardware and bandwidth is merely the vehicle...and a relatively inexpensive one at that. Further, it kind of worried me that those concepts were either unread, or ignored, or dismissed by John C. and company, and therefore tacitly deemed unworthy of even a quick reply, except by a few of our user peers. And even though they go hand-in-hand, I believe that the overarching idea of catering attention to customers' wants and desires is even more important than the actual nuts and bolts of functional operation, especially in light of the ever-more-malleable playing field that technologically-focused business has become in the past 5 years.

I can only deduce that Adobe (The corporate entity) has some sort of interest in maintaining, building upon, and improving the forums. Otherwise, why would enormous changeover job be tackled at all? There are likely broader considerations about the direction and scope of the forums that we can only guess about. And if past is prologue, we will never be told of them, because the high muckety mucks rarely see a benefit in sharing that corporate vision with us. And pardon me if I'm a little out of bounds by saying so, but I don't think it's a good idea for that sense of propriety and insularity to trickle all the way down to affect the way the men and women in the trenches deal with the users.

It doesn't need to be pointed out that the most active and vocal participants in these threads is comprised of a relatively small group of people. That condition is exactly the same as it is on any forum you care to name. Many of us—certainly a lot more than are making most of the noise lately—have made these forums a part of our daily lives. Many of us (and certainly not solely the main actors in these threads) have been at it for upwards of 7, 8, 10 years, or more. I dare say that those of us who have been around for so long have every right in the world to speak out on behalf of the majority of users who don't have the time, or the desire, or who don't have the long-view tenure to understand pretty intimately how changes that are made can have a heavy and long-lasting impact on the value of this place to them, to every new user discovering it for the first time. By integral extension, that value acts as a mirror held up to Adobe itself.

The changes being made can either be largely positive, or they can be largely negative. We can all have a hand in how that plays out.

I'm still idealistic enough to believe that Adobe would prefer that the forums be a positive reflection, a feather in the corporatre hat, the current hassles being attended to notwithstanding. And I'm idealistic enough to believe that most of the noisiest among us don't want to come off as nasty, redundant haranguers. But without an active and open two-way feedback loop between us, it feels to me like we are being treated as an annoyance. I feel this whole process we're all involved in—employees and users alike—would be a lot more productive if it exhibited the sense of being a united effort instead of what I feel is a currently building adversarial storm.

If we users continually feel like Adobe doesn't care to deign to keeping us informed, to let us know that our opinions, our desires, our concerns matter, it could be that we start reflecting that attitude right back. If Adobe doesn't give a clown's butt about us, why should we continue caring and contributing?

We regular users bring an almost incalculable value to this forum; indeed we (those of us here now, and those who will participate in the future) ARE the value. Period. So, let's say some of us current regulars get more up our noses than we can handle, and quit participating. Individually, it might not mean a whole lot. There are plenty of folks around who are just as knowledgeable and thoughtful and dedicated as any one of us. Collectively, though, just as our value is virtually incalculable, so the loss would be as well. And who among us is naive enough to believe that the steadfast, reliable resource which has been built up over the past 10–15 years can be easily replaced?

Our asking for a regular dialogue about the progress of improving and fine-tuning should be considered part and parcel of a mutually beneficial relationship here, part of the basic infrastructure of interacting with valued customers. It shouldn't be merely tolerated as an afterthought, or as something that might be gotten around to if the thought occurs, and there are a few minutes to spare while the afternoon pot of coffee is being made.

That whole "5 minutes a day is all it takes!" business? Simply a metaphorical in-joke of sorts. Maybe it'll take longer, maybe not. But once regular reporting is established, and we're all able to follow along with the progress in context, it shouldn't be too unreasonable a burden on time and energy.

—Respectfully submitted,

Phos....

[Guest]

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

Winston Churchill

[Phos_four_dots]

Fun quote, and perhaps appropriate.

But not all planning will fit on the back of a business card.

(I knew I'd attract derision for my writing. No big deal, Josh... At least it wasn't jk3, whose sum thoughfulness would fit on the edge of that card.)

[kanguyen]

Phosfourdots,

A couple of points in your message to address.

John is your permanent, full-time employee dedicated to forums. I am one of several resources assigned to the specific project to migrate the forums to the new platform; specifically - my role has been one of project management. Right now I can help to address any questions about what's being worked on. Going forward, these questions are best directed to John as he is your prime contact.

Regarding the Slashdot article that you posted, this is the exact philosophy that drives Adobe to provide support forums and to have invested in this project to migrate our forums to a new platform. I cannot speak on behalf of Adobe on this topic, but I can speak for the resources that have been assigned to this project when I say that we have spent the last year planning and executing this plan because we share the same views about forums that are discussed in this article. This forum community is a huge source of free support to users and most definitely deflects support contacts into our other support channels. As such, you guys are a huge asset as an extended part of our support organization. We care about what you guys think and we want it to be a positive, constructive area where people feel safe asking questions and getting help.

As John's the ongoing prime contact, he will be best equipped to provide updates and I know he strives to do so in the most honest way possible without overcommitting and making empty promises. Sometimes this may be perceived as radio silence, but it's not indicative of the amount of work going on behind the scenes or John's continued commitment to making these forums successful. Realistically, given all of what's on John's plate, it's not feasible for him to give you (literally) five minutes a day to update, but I know he will do his best to keep you guys updated as best he can and as frequently as we can provide meaningful updates.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

What Employees at Adobe could possibly do, is once a week or every two weeks, come on and give:

a list of items reported on this forum,

a list of items definitely being worked on,

a list of items being considered,

and a list of items that are impossible to do.

You could use the same list and just move to appropriate category and strike through when completed, or double strike  item considered but not feasable to do (on here you use trike throug and undline to double strike - example)

[Kath-H]

Thank you Kanguyen, you're a breath of fresh air. (Do please listen closely to Jochem though, I understand about one word in five of what he writes when he gets technical but having looked at his blog I'm quite sure he knows what he's talking about).

And I agree with Phillip

[kanguyen]

Phillip -

You guys have asked us to be upfront about the things that we simply cannot do. This level of detail is not possible for us to do, for a number of reasons, but the key one is that management is not comfortable with us giving that level of transparency. I have asked John to give some thought as to the frequency of the updates that he wants to provide and set the expectation with you guys so that it's clear from the get-go.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

kanguyen wrote:

Phillip -

You guys have asked us to be upfront about the things that we simply cannot do. This level of detail is not possible for us to do, for a number of reasons, but the key one is that management is not comfortable with us giving that level of transparency. I have asked John to give some thought as to the frequency of the updates that he wants to provide and set the expectation with you guys so that it's clear from the get-go.

I'm not saying to come up with a list off the top of your head of things that can't be fixed , added or subtracted. But after conferring with everyone at Adobe and ClearSpace (Jive) and you determine with absolutely certainty its impossible to do, and its okay to say so, say so.

You don't have to give away trade secrets.

It was just a suggested guide.

For instance, as an example, say there is no possibility with the technology in use , you can provide NNTP Service. Say so.

Hiding stuff because of confidentiality, I can understand. But some Transparency with Forum users is needed. Otherwise it breeds mistrust, and low expectations, and defections

I'm sure you've viewed some of the various comments, some border on exasperation; and wonderment why someone is not acknowledging the complaints. They are not directed at you or John. You just work for company the comments are about.

In any event I am looking forward to the changes coming up. And am thankful for what is being worked on.

[Guest]

Perhaps a solution to the repeative posts (noise to Adobe) is to do as some suggest and create a list of issues that are being worked on, issues that they will get to next, issues that in infeasible, and issues that they would like to do.  But rather than have  endless replies to the post have a "vote" box so we as users can register our priorities, which may be different than the perceived priorites of Jive and Adobe.  Not that is will do a lot of good, but at least the users can resiger their desires without all the noise and endless posts on the same topics.

[Guest]

I think people telling Adobe what to do is as bad to them as all the complaining, moaning, and whining that we are advised to stop.

The next thing you know, they'll make this forum R/O!

[Dave_Evanson]

That’s if R/O works.

[Guest]

You apparently don't buy into the Ghandi quote either, or at least accept reality that Adobe (or any large company) does not.

[Guest]

curt y wrote:

You apparently don't buy into the Ghandi quote either, or at least accept reality that Adobe (or any large company) does not.

I don't follow your logic.

For my entire time on the Adobe forums I have criticised the attitude of Adobe corporate to it's customers; the crazy policies dictated by Marketing rather than Engineering, and the poor support furnished outside of these forums.

I also think that the continual repetition of the same problems and the litany of log-in misfortunes is obscuring the usefulness of this forum. 

[Guest]

John Joslin wrote:

I also think that the continual repetition of the same problems and the litany of log-in misfortunes is obscuring the usefulness of this forum. 

That is exactly my point.  Everyone wants to have his say on the issues, and that means repetition, endless repetition.  If there was a list of issues and a vote tally perhaps they could accept that as having their say, but without pages and pages of written responses.

[Guest]

frankly, and no offense intended, but bull. this piece of cr&p rollout deserves all the derision heaped on it and more.

boo hoo. poor adobe don't want to read all the tiresome complaints?

TOO BAD! It's way past time to  FIX the damn thing or ROLL BACK.

[Guest]

dave milbut wrote:

frankly, and no offense intended, but bull. this piece of cr&p rollout deserves all the derision heaped on it and more.

boo hoo. poor adobe don't want to read all the tiresome complaints?

TOO BAD! It's way past time to  FIX the damn thing or ROLL BACK.

If I could give you a correct star for this answer I would.

[Guest]

Buko. wrote:

dave milbut wrote:

frankly, and no offense intended, but bull. this piece of cr&p rollout deserves all the derision heaped on it and more.

boo hoo. poor adobe don't want to read all the tiresome complaints?

TOO BAD! It's way past time to  FIX the damn thing or ROLL BACK.

If I could give you a correct star for this answer I would.

and the star/points system is stupid. plain stupid! it discourages forum participation and group discussion to arrive at a good answer, to try and discuss differnet way to do things and weigh the pros and cons of each approach. now it's all about getting "points" whoopty trucking doo.

adobe has turned a great learning resource into a question and answer site. great job. who's going to answer the questions when those of us who hung out here to learn leave because that's no longer prossible in an efficient way?

i know rants like mine fall on deaf ears except for the chior. but i guess that's the real point. when the last person in the chior leaves the building, don't forget to turn off the lights.