Lost the Audience

[Travis Sanford]

It seems to me that antiochians.org has lost its audience. I thought everyone had simply stopped caring but then I go over the alumni chat and there is a ton of activity. Personally I really dislike the organization of that list. But drop off in usage of this site seems to have coincided with the first reorganization of forum page and killed it off entirely with the last revision.

Take a look at the user stats and tell me if I am correct or incorrect. My suggestion would be to start bridging again to unify communications. I know there were technical glitches but living with the occasional glitch beats total silence any day.

Cheers.

[besbin]

I have noticed the same thing and agree with all the points you have raised.  The re-organization of the web site has been extremely detrimental, and so has the lack of bridging.  Frankly, although the original website had its problems, they were nothing compared to the problems with this version. 
Barbara

[erik]

from another thread (bold=mine)...
 

Perhaps some of the more technically adept webteam members might be able to offer a better explanation, but as I remember, the big appeal of this system was its stability and some of its features relative to overall site-integration.  You may recall that the mailbridges that connected some of the forum categories with specific mailing lists kept breaking.  We stand a better chance of performing repairs that are long-lasting in this newer format

and in fact, the mailbridges had been down for many weeks because they nearly blew up the previous forum software. and in fact, as you may have noticed, i've been working on the mailbridges on this software. it's a difficult and involved process and i can only work so many hours a night on it.

we're trying.

i don't believe the software has anything to do with the quiteness. i believe that the Agreement in Principle does.

e

[besbin]

We all appreciate the hard work of the volunteers manning this effort, but I think that the site re-design is one of several contributing factors to the drop-off in participation on the Discussion Forums.  Simply adding a button to the front page for the Forums would likely increase usage significantly.  I understand the desire to avoid "clutter" but surely not at the cost of one of the key purposes of the site:  open and frank communication between and among Alumni.
Barbara

[sgahealth]

I appreciate the mail bridge being back up....

[totally]

In my humble opinion, there are a few things contributing to the lack of participation. 
1) there are multiple systems to have conversations (mailing lists, alternative web sites, Instant messenger, phone calls etc.. ) and keeping them all in sync in one place for people to view them is difficult if not impossible.
2) frustration and lack of democratic input into both the college and the organizations trying to direct it.

Please be aware that the alumni-chat mailing list is run by the University IT department out of the new McGregor campus.  This mailing list has been around for years before antiochians.org was ever setup.  The "Mail Bridge" is basically a way to take the emails from this list and insert them into the forum and consequently take forum posts and then try to mail them to this mailing list in a way that synchronizes the conversation.  At best it's a hack and at worst it breaks both systems.  The functionality is obviously desirable and it may be easier to accomplish with mailing lists we actually host ourselves.  That being said the point of Antiochians.org was to create a single umbrella for all the various antiochians to gather and organize.  If we can aggregate the Alumni-Chat list back into the forums we will. 

How about this.  If you have complaints about the forum structure or how we communicate, make some suggestions instead of saying it sucks.  Or better yet join the web team folks so you too can exist on 5 hours of sleep a night.  Let's start with the assumption the redesign has been very detrimental. 

How is it detrimental?  What are the multitude of problems you are having and what suggestions do you have to fix it? (don't say fix the mail bridge as I pointed out it's being worked on but is not a simple fix)

Thanks for your constructive input. 

J. Greg Williams '95 (CM 95-96)

[Jane Slater]

Erik yes I agree the agreement is the problem and not the new website format.

J. Greg: I was happy to be involved as a moderator for this website and I felt my input here has always been a push to involve everyone. I am sure I sometimes come off as harsh, and I'm truly sorry about that.

One day I discovered that I was a member and not a moderator any longer so your complaint that people don't want to help but only want to criticize is not valid. I could complain I was dumped at the curb without a thank you but I am sure you have a good reason for the way you work on this site.

Off topic... the tepid response by stakeholders to the recent discovery of the board of trustees' outrageous lies has baffled me. Is it like the response to the discovery of the Bush admin's outrageous lies? Why are we not taking strong action in response? We do have a meager agreement with the board.

I humbly suggest the alumni board does not realize the power that is on our side. It just has not been fully pulled together and energized. We have the power and the board does not.

Or we can throw it away.

Jane Slater
Class of '80
Ashland, OR

[totally]

Jane:

When we migrated all the messages and all of the users from the previous software, I believe it made EVERYONE a moderator and thus we needed to drop the permissions and request people still interested in moderating to just contact us.  It was not a snub or removal or a dropping at the curb although I can see how that would be viewed that way.  Let me look into why this wasn't made clear.  You are of course gratefully encouraged to help in any way.  Start a topic thread for re-engaging moderators by specifying the forum you were moderating and we can re-add the permissions. 

Thank you.

[sgahealth]

I certainly appreciate the youthful knowledge that is pulling all these various threads/forums together.  For those of us over 50, unfortunately, when it comes to technology and change, we sometimes have difficulty.  For example, it took me a while to understand what a 'child board' was and at first those topics seemed to have disappeared.  I've now figured it out.  Personally, the first forum was the easiest, followed by the second and now the third.  I can't exactly specify why.  Perhaps it is just developing a comfort level. 

Prior to Antioch's revival, I didn't even know what a forum was and certainly had never blogged.  In conclusion, I think technologically this most recent change might achieve all the sophisticated stuff we want and it will just require patience for the novices among us to get comfortable.  My only suggestion had been to remove the karma....and it was removed.

I don't believe the 'silence' has to do with the forum change.  Most likely, it is frustration, holiday distractions, being worn down by the fight, administrative sabatoge and AB caution, and until recent meeting with donors, Univ Trustee silence. 

I salute the big donors insistence on guarantees NOW. 

[alanbenard]

i don't believe the software has anything to do with the quiteness. i believe that the Agreement in Principle does.

Yes, that makes sense. Killed my interest in the project stone dead.

Alan Benard

[Beverly]

I used to check out the forums frequently but since the most recent format changes, I find it more and more difficult to take the time. There are too many options and "cute" add ons. I can no longer easily check everything out. I did manage to change the background color of the forums, (that baby blue was murder on my eyes)  but the I haven't been able to change the type size unfortunately. I appreciate all the hard work the tech groups have put into these forums, but I would be reading more regularly if everything was easier for some of us interested but non-techy old folks

[besbin]

Some of the specifics regarding how the original Forum was more functional were requested.  For one thing, it was far easier to figure out how to reply to the poster of a specific item than it is now.  It was also visually easier to see which messages were newly posted.  The "child" boards, or whatever they are called, were not, as has been noted, immediately understandable to the "over 50" alumni.  Now, there are some new features that make editorial changes easier, but I don't think they outweigh the changes that reduce the functionality and usefulness of the site.  Finally, as I said on my earlier post, there are numerous reasons why people have stopped participating on the Forum, and I have no doubt that the vagueness of the Agreement in Principle was one of them, but that does not mean that the other reasons are not contributing as well.
Barbara

[Rowan]

I'll chime in publicly, administrator and all, and say that yeah, right now, these forums are much less apparently user-friendly. There's something just kind of off-putting about the aesthetic interactions of font size, color, icons, etc. Like a robot forum versus a human forum. I hope we can do some pretty major reskinning.

[erik]

http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/

and/or

http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?board=34.0;sort=subject

[sgahealth]

Erik,

Would you please add a link on the upper right hand corner to the Antioch College Action Network  www.acan.antiochians.org....thanks.