C+ forumers treated with contempt.

nickwill

I've been a regular poster on the C+ forum for several years and a subscriber to the magazine for a similar time. The C+ forum was a very strong community, which give or take the odd upset over the years, had grown to be informative, entertaining and comfortable.
It has now been uprooted without any real warning, and replaced by this impersonal and unwelcoming mega forum.
A good forum grows organically, and members, content and moderators adapt and grow together.
Why was there no consultation with C+ members? I can only assume that the perpetrators of these changes, didn't care what we thought.
I never visited the other forums which have been forcibly grafted on to the C+ site, but I suspect that all had different characters and members had different expectations.
There is a different atmosphere around this forum. Moderation makes no allowances for well known 'characters', and seems to be of a very different style and quality to that which we had in the last year or so of the C+ forum. Areas like Cakestop have lost their sense of community as regulars have left in large numbers, and other people have come in without any understanding of how that particular community functions.
I can only assume that this merger was proposed by people from outside the cycling world.There is an assumption underlying this merger that we all ride bicycles so we don't need to have separate forums.
In my experience the road and off road cycling communities, whilst having some overlap, are pretty separate in terms of interests, values and attitudes.
I'm not going to throw my rattle out of the pram, but at present I feel very let down by recent events, and am unlikely to spend much time on this forum.
I'm also thinking of cancelling my C+ subscription.

4kicks

+1

Eurostar

I shall keep checking in here but I do worry about the mass exodus. There is nothing going on in my favourite sections, Race and Know How. They both used to be choc-a-bloc. Some people will drift back, because Cycle Chat doesn't really have a critical mass. But I reckon quite a few people have gone to anothercyclingforum for good. It's going from strength to strength. The bikeradar project has given it a real shot in the arm.

Admin, may i suggest that it would help relations with the malcontents if you were to publish a list of some of the improvements you are working on? I suspect 90% of the anger is caused by people feeling they are being ignored. They will be much more supportive if you communicate more.

snorri

Eurostar wrote:

Admin, may i suggest that it would help relations with the malcontents if you were to publish a list of some of the improvements you are working on? I suspect 90% of the anger is caused by people feeling they are being ignored. They will be much more supportive if you communicate more.

Well said Eurostar
At the moment , the combining of varied interests into one forum appears to be more of a cost cutting exercise than anything else.

dannygcp

Eurostar wrote:

Admin, may i suggest that it would help relations with the malcontents if you were to publish a list of some of the improvements you are working on? I suspect 90% of the anger is caused by people feeling they are being ignored. They will be much more supportive if you communicate more.

Agree that some immediate communication with C+ forum users is urgently required. We need to know:
a) When bugs on the site are going to be fixed (for example the quote from Eurostar doesn't actually appear in quotes).
b) What is going to be done to address the design flaws with this site, and in particular whether Futre Publishing is interested in working with forum users to improve things.

I also have to say that what has happened with BikeRadar is a text book example of how not to implement a major IT change
- There was insufficient communication with C+ users in advance of the change - sure we all got an email but that was weeks ago, and there could have been a much clearer timetable of when the old forum was shitting down.
- The BikeRadar site appears to have beend designed without actually involving any existing C+ forum users. If a trial system had been set up before the C+ site was closed down, and users had been invited to submit feedback, then much of the anger that has been generated by the new site could have been avoided. Indeed the whole point of a Beta system is that it is supposed to be a trial system, not the real thing.

Whoever was responsible for this fiasco at Future Publishing ought to hang their head in shame, and then get themselves onto the forum to explain how they intend to retrieve the situation.

Aunty Rubbish

As far as I understood it Future were planning a common portal leading to the various individual fora. In principle this isn't a bad idea. I think the main problem with the actuality is that the fora appear to be appended to each other in one big mega forum. Better separation would probably solve most of the problems but it's probably too late for the large numbers who have left for other pastures.

Hackbike 6

I don't like this.It seems like a bad idea from the start.I get this at work all the time people thinking they can change things because they know better than everyone else.

This whole forum is a mess.I wont be saying whether I will be buying the mag in the future because that is bad form to "blackmail" because I have the hump with this mess.

Willl look in every now and again probably wont post much but will get used to the fact things have changed for the worse.

Dont like the layout as it seems all wrong and hard to find things.

Cheers.

To BentMikey best of luck for the future mate.

Royal Dragoon

Nobody getting out and riding any more :roll: :roll:

yenrod

This is a beautifull place:

http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=225

cooper.michael1

Fist thing i knew about the change was when the other forum was locked. I do not like this, not so much the design (although my eyes do hurt!) but the community spirit seems to have gone.

Normally July is the busiest time of the year, why launch the Beta version now?! As a protest i will not buy C+ this month, as what was good community is on the rocks. Whether i stay here and carry on buying C+ depends on what happens.

beanzontoast

New forum? Not good, C+. Though I'm generally in favour of change when it brings positive results, the closure of the C+ forum has few benefits I can see. There are more categories on the 'new' (i.e. 'other') forum, but much less of appeal to those who make up the majority of your readership, I suspect. No, we don't all spend time on MTB's thanks!

This hasn't endeared me to you C+. Hard to support, or continue to buy, a magazine that takes such a backwards step and destroys something that was actually rather nice and gave a lot of advice, encouragment and fun to many people. If finances drove this decision C+, think again - how does it help your finances (or attract advertisers) by alienating a huge section of your readership?

nicklouse

i love they way you all say you knew nothing.

on the forum 13/06/2007 http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/forum/topi ... _ID=133012


from the news pages of the home page http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/newsdetails.asp?id=754 which was also shown on the forum first page.

all the other forums were told at the same times.

what i find amazing is that you lot buy the Mag.

the amount of consultation was neglegable. the few that heard about it early were just told what was happening. there was now how or anything.

fluff.

quote from above:

You will have the choice to see both mountain bike and Road forum sections, or specify mountain biking or Road. In fact, you will be able to select favourite sections from each of the forums if you choose.

*In the event of duplicate user names we will contact users to re-register

...

Steve Austin

Shush Fluff or is that Fluffcp, or nicklouse will ban you

nicklouse

stone cold why would i? as it happens i can not.

as it says there you WILL be able to. it will get sorted. when f*** knows.

the roadies seem to have probles with it. and the MTBers seem to have a problem with it.

the ones that just ride bikes dont seem to have a problem.

compared to the last big change to the future forums this has been very smooth.

i was reminded that the forums were down for months at the last change.

Gavin Gilbert

was reminded that the forums were down for months at the last change.

Not true. I am one of the tiny handful that has survived since the C+ v1 forum. Now that one went smoothly and was a great improvement. I was there for the glory days, and witnessed the way Future ****ed it up.

The spineless treatment of the self-mods when Turtle Neck Smiffy complained to da management, the stupid and pointless banning of FatBloke, the even more stupid and pointless locking of ljerams and SimonL234. So Future treated us with contempt moving us to this souless dump? Of course they did - they have previous form.

Yorkshireman

nicklouse wrote:

stone cold why would i? as it happens i can not.

as it says there you WILL be able to. it will get sorted. when f*** knows.

the roadies seem to have probles with it. and the MTBers seem to have a problem with it.

the ones that just ride bikes dont seem to have a problem.

compared to the last big change to the future forums this has been very smooth.

i was reminded that the forums were down for months at the last change.

Well I had a pleasant 4 hours out on the bike today (I`m out at least a couple of hours most days now that I`m retired ). I`m sure that things will settle down as the forum gets sorted, but to be fair it does seem to have got off to a less than `glorious` start. I think that you are misinformed about about the forum being down for months at any time in the past (certainly as far as C+ is concerned). The only downtime I recall was a short spell when Sugarstreet changed the servers (perhaps a day or so) and a weekend and maybe the following Monday after a particularly severe `infestation` by the infamous `Cat Crew` (and in my and others opinion that one was due to a particularly spineless course of action taken by Future). If I may make a comment here (and I mean this in the best possible way). I realise that you probably have your hands full and being a mod is at best a thankless task, but I assume that you are a volunteer and are not therefore paid to do it, but you do come across (at times) as either very stressed or rather rude - take a look at john_stevensons replies. I for one think that there is a great potential here (and I`m getting used to writing that now ). Thanks to all the behind the scenes workers who seem to have been given the wrong end of a shitty stick (seems to be a Future thing to me) :x .

Aunty Rubbish

Nicklouse -->"the ones that just ride bikes dont seem to have a problem. "

The whole point of C+ was that it was more than just a forum for people who rode bikes. I'm sure the same goes for MBUK. There were complex social networks and relationships built up off the back of it. Hell, I met my wife though C+! It's like pulling down a back street boozer, replacing it with a trendy wine bar and telling people that it's just a place for drinking alcohol, so what's their problem?

Flying_Monkey

I've stuck out all sorts of changes to this forum over the years.

But, can someone tell me who on earth is 'Nick Louse' and how someone who is apparently (at least to judge by his posts) a semi-literate, foul-mothed teenager got to be a moderator of this forum? To put it mildly, the instructional posts and replies from this individual do not exactly seem to have been taken from the pages of 'How to Make Friends and Influence People' and he does a rather good job of breaking his own rules everytime he posts...

People keep telling me what a great guy John Stevenson is and how he will do a good job of running this place. Maybe so. Perhaps he can show it by telling his moderators how to talk to the members in a way that isn't alternately patronising or downright rude.

And you can ban me if you like, I don't mind, this is my last post here unless things get a whole lot better and Future start paying some attention to what the ex-C+Forum people want. You've basically killed what used to be a civilized friendly community and replaced it with an ersatz online version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. I'm off elsewhere.

From one of the last original members of this forum....

Mister Paul

nicklouse wrote:

i love they way you all say you knew nothing.

That's not true. Some people said they knew nothing. Others of us were told what was happening. The C+ forum was suspended a couple of times with no notice. The whole thing was migrated over last week with not much notice.

I'm disappointed in that kind of comment from a moderator. It's not accurate, nor constructive.

Aunty Rubbish

E-mails about new and exciting changes to your favourite mag count as spam. Hands up everyone who binned it unread?

jimmythecuckoo

Having come over from the procycling forum I can honestly say this is far better.

Better software (BB code being turned off excepted), more posts, better community.

This C+ forum must have been nirvana the way some of you lot eulogise about it. The way to make this place better is to post and contribute, not have a stroppy and headover to proboards and set up your own site.

colint

As far as forums go jimmy, it was Nirvana. But that didn't happen by chance, it happened by people building the forum over a long period, it really was about as perfect a forum as you could find. this is a shambles in comparison, and I for one can't be bothered helping to rebuild something when the changes were completely unnecessary.

cycle chat, where most seem to be heading, is much more like what the old forum was. I don't think youre comments about this being better than pro cycling forum have much relevance as it was almost never used by anyone. why ? because they were all on c+

This is my last post, future have completely messed up here but it ain't gonna change so good luck everyone and gbye

John Stevenson

"it ain't gonna change"

Odd. The several hours of discussions I have just had with our developers, their mortification at people's reaction and their steely determination to fix things must all have been a figment of my imagination.

sophiad

sarcastic replies, way to go John, thats how you'll woo people back.

Mister Paul

john_stevenson wrote:

"it ain't gonna change"

Odd. The several hours of discussions I have just had with our developers, their mortification at people's reaction and their steely determination to fix things must all have been a figment of my imagination.

So rather than giving us a positive update, you instead have a sarcastic moan?

Thanks.

nickwill

john_stevenson wrote:

"it ain't gonna change"

Odd. The several hours of discussions I have just had with our developers, their mortification at people's reaction and their steely determination to fix things must all have been a figment of my imagination.

On a positive note, it would appear that attempts are being made to improve things. That has to be good.
It would be good to know what the proposals are.

From the reaction of moderators and admin, I would suspect that you feel backed into a corner, and the natural reaction is to become somewhat defensive and aggressive.
To claim that there is no problem from those that 'just ride their bikes', is insulting.
Like many of the other disgruntled members, I am a regular rider. I ride around 5 or 6000 miles a year, including some of the harder sportive rides. I've also made friends via the C+ forum, some of whom, I ride with several times a year.
I really want to stay part of this forum, because I have greatly enjoyed it over the years.
Perhaps we need rather more sensitive moderation, and a little more information and understanding from admin.
I would like to think that we are in this together, and that together, something can be achieved in getting the forum back into shape.
The C+ forum has been one hell of a resource over the years. Lets hope that the new forum can become at least as good.

John Stevenson

Sarcastic? That was an attempt at humour. Sorry if it fell flat, it's late here in Sydney and it's been a long few days.

Please take a look at the posts in the BikeRadar Office over the last few days. There's bucketloads of information there about what we're doing. Well, it was what we were going to do when it was posted - it's now actually happening.

Mister Paul

john_stevenson wrote:

Sarcastic? That was an attempt at humour. Sorry if it fell flat, it's late here in Sydney and it's been a long few days.

Please take a look at the posts in the BikeRadar Office over the last few days. There's bucketloads of information there about what we're doing. Well, it was what we were going to do when it was posted - it's now actually happening.

That's part of the problem. This place is so big that it's much harder to kep tabs on what is going on.

John Stevenson

Mister Paul: "That's part of the problem. This place is so big that it's much harder to kep tabs on what is going on."

Yep, we know we have to improve the organisation. I have moved most threads like this one to the BR Office. In fact, it's probably time to move this one too!

Yorkshireman

john_stevenson wrote:

Sarcastic? That was an attempt at humour. Sorry if it fell flat, it's late here in Sydney and it's been a long few days.

Please take a look at the posts in the BikeRadar Office over the last few days. There's bucketloads of information there about what we're doing. Well, it was what we were going to do when it was posted - it's now actually happening.

OK John ... . Seriously though ... The reason I spotted the stuff on Radar Office was due to error on my part, I intended to go to C+ office :oops: .