[geoffalter11]

Head-Fi.org is a great community tool. I love being a daily user. More than anything it is a business with its members ultimately the customer. To anticipate your customers needs will always be the backbone of any great business. You anticipated the need to modernize the forum platform which is fantastic. To not alert your members is a big mistake. This is the first time I have seen this happen where a warning, and reasons aren't accompanied by the change. Generally before the change occurs. The new platform will over time become easy to maneuver, and remembering what was will drift away. In the meantime, the new platform is hard to navigate and not nearly as intuitive. Please keep your members in the loop in the future.

 

[jazzfan]

@jude - I've stayed away from Head-Fi for the past week because I strongly feel what has been, and continues to be, severely lacking from the chaos that ensued following the upgrade is a comprehensive communication to the Head-Fi community about what specifically is broken, what is being worked on and what is fixed. Secondly, a formal list of new features, especially around Privacy, on the new platform would be very welcomed.

On the first issue, I suggest a small dose of Project Management in the form of an Issues Log would go a long way to help the community understand the current state of affairs, and would allow members to decide if the situation has sufficiently improved or is still in a state of flux. I urge you to consider using something along the lines of the sample Issues Log template below, update the information daily and post it prominently at a single location for all to see. This simple tool would eliminate the frustration of having to search numerous threads to find nuggets of information regarding the status of the many issues members have encountered.

Sample Issues Log

Personally, without this information, my frustration level with the site is high enough for me to decide to stay away from Head-Fi at least until the dust settles. This thread is a step in the right direction, but Head-Fi should and must do much more to help its members through this transition.

 

[geoffalter11]

No offence Jude, but I think you've managed this very badly from a PR point of view.

If you'd have just said something to the effect of this prior to the change then you'd have gone a long way to avoiding the fall out that's happened. Don't try to kid me that there wasn't time for that.

I am fully aware of the technical difficulties of moving from one platform to another, and it must have been obvious to you and your team at least 2 weeks prior that the forum was simply not going to come back on line with full functionality. So, why not say something to the effect before hand.

Head-Fi has taken a serious blow in credibility as a result of this, and all for the want of a forewarning.

Nevertheless I'm still sticking around, and I really hope you get the forum working as slick as it was before hand, and that Head-Fi's success continues.

Couldn't agree more. A simple letter of less than a hundred words would have sufficed.

My boss always says... Why is there always enough time to do something over, but never enough to do right the first time?

I, too will not be going anywhere. I love the site and the community. Best of luck as it evolves.

 

[PsychoS]

I'm digging the new look so far, especially when I'm viewing the site from my smartphone. The earlier mobile version was a bit clunky for me.

 

[mikek200]

just wanted to say-thank you guys ,for all the hard work ,you've put into this upgrade
I'm sure over time,everything will be smoothed out.

 

[stellarelephant]

Jude,
Thanks for the explanation. As a designer, I'd say the site lost a bit of readability somehow, probably due to font/font size changes and/or the increased brightness.

The condensed quotes are pretty cool, and things are looking clean.

A more a obvious way to jump to last unread from thread subscriptions would be helpful. I also used to love seeing my subscriptions list immediately upon logon.

 

[Currawong]

Something to consider regarding communication is this: If Jude had pre-announced the change, he would have been flooded with communication, even more so than he is now, when he needed to maximize the focus on actually making the change work. It's a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Another thing to consider is: We are here now. It has happened. Nobody died and at least the site loads blazingly fast.

 

[Dino2000]

Think how much worse it would have been if Jude had taken ten minutes to give a heads up, a brief explanation as to the necessity to make the move quickly and state that discussion would have to wait until after the changeover.

This site migration would have been ten minutes worse. Think about that.

 

[DigMe]

Think how much worse it would have been if Jude had taken ten minutes to give a heads up, a brief explanation as to the necessity to make the move quickly and state that discussion would have to wait until after the changeover.

This site migration would have been ten minutes worse. Think about that.

Mind blown.

 

[Dillan]

@jude - I've stayed away from Head-Fi for the past week because I strongly feel what has been, and continues to be, severely lacking concerning the chaos that ensued following the upgrade is any comprehensive communication to the Head-Fi community about what specifically is broken, what is being worked on and what is fixed. Secondly, a formal list of new features, especially around Privacy, on the new platform would be very welcomed.

On the first issue, I suggest a small dose of Project Management in the form of an Issues Log would go a long way to help the community understand the current state of affairs, and would allow members to decide if the situation has sufficiently improved or is still in a state of flux. I urge you to consider using something along the lines of the sample Issues Log template below, update the information daily and post it prominently at a single location for all to see. This simple tool would eliminate the frustration of having to search numerous threads to find nuggets of information regarding the status of the many issues members have encountered.

Sample Issues Log



Personally, without this information, my frustration level with the site is high enough for me to decide to stay away from Head-Fi at least until the dust settles. This thread is a step in the right direction, but Head-Fi should and must do much more to help its members through this transition.

An organized, official thread for bugs would be so amazing.. especially if it included an "issues log" that tracked them individually so we wouldn't be posting the same ones over and over and we could see the progress etc.. Jazzfan I think that is an absolutely wonderful idea.

A few bugs really bothering me -
auto logging out all the time on mobile, constantly making me sign in
If I create the item in head gear I can't review it
Duplicate posts sometimes
(Not a bug but on mobile it's small buttons and text and hard to use in general)

I use latest Android OS, latest Firefox app.

 

[Currawong]

Think how much worse it would have been if Jude had taken ten minutes to give a heads up, a brief explanation as to the necessity to make the move quickly and state that discussion would have to wait until after the changeover.

This site migration would have been ten minutes worse. Think about that.

I did, since you requested. Based on long-held experience (going back to 1994 with online groups and almost as long with workplace computer systems) the difference would be that there wouldn't be a bunch of "Why didn't you tell us?!?" posts that there are now. The "This new software sux", "I can't find anything" and "XYZ is broken" posts would still be here. Maybe there'd be a bunch of posts instead saying "Why didn't you tell us even earlier/ask for our help/beta test with members/something else" instead.

I agree that a bit of warning that some functionality wouldn't be available straight away might have helped, but I'm pretty sure that the people who are very vocally unsatisfied would have posted their satisfaction in some form or another because the transition wouldn't have 100% satisfied them. Welcome to human nature.

The transition has happened. We're here now, not back then. Let's move on.

 

[winders]

Something to consider regarding communication is this: If Jude had pre-announced the change, he would have been flooded with communication, even more so than he is now, when he needed to maximize the focus on actually making the change work. It's a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Another thing to consider is: We are here now. It has happened. Nobody died and at least the site loads blazingly fast.

It is ALWAYS better to communicate with your customers versus leaving them in the dark. Period!

 

[winders]

I did, since you requested. Based on long-held experience (going back to 1994 with online groups and almost as long with workplace computer systems) the difference would be that there wouldn't be a bunch of "Why didn't you tell us?!?" posts that there are now. The "This new software sux", "I can't find anything" and "XYZ is broken" posts would still be here. Maybe there'd be a bunch of posts instead saying "Why didn't you tell us even earlier/ask for our help/beta test with members/something else" instead.

I agree that a bit of warning that some functionality wouldn't be available straight away might have helped, but I'm pretty sure that the people who are very vocally unsatisfied would have posted their satisfaction in some form or another because the transition wouldn't have 100% satisfied them. Welcome to human nature.

The transition has happened. We're here now, not back then. Let's move on.

You clearly have no customer support experience if you think leaving customers in the dark is better than giving them a heads up. Doing something like this would get your fired in corporate America, that's for sure!

 

[The Monkey]

The great thing about this community is that it is far stronger than any software platform. No one likes change--as Jude noted, the cut over to Huddler was painful and there was much gnashing of teeth. But the community got over it and in fact thrived beyond any reasonable expectation. And so it will again. It's the membership, not the buttons, that makes this place great.

Jude, I'm curious about the current platform and the relationships with any vendors, if you are in a position to discuss such things. Is this Head-Fi's proprietary platform now, or is there a new partnership (i.e., a new Huddler)? Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere.

Everything's gonna be ok.

 

[castleofargh]

It is ALWAYS better to communicate with your customers versus leaving them in the dark. Period!

the audio industry didn't get that memo.