You had mentioned how nothing was asked or discussed with the community. That is not true. We have be asking for ability to post pictures for ages. We asked to not lose data. Now both have been met.
Tom,
Just to elaborate, we first need to understand that everything with the Inliners is on a volunteer basis, but just because people volunteer their time doesn't mean they are not required to do things. I get that, all of our time belongs to us, including you!
Now I wanted to describe a real world situation, where a person lost their job because they didn't let people know what they were doing. It became hard for the management and engineers working on the project so they got rid of the guy. Lucky for me, as they hired me to take his place.
The client is like the 900 pound Gorilla, actually in this case it's more like the 1800 lb. or 2700 lb. Gorilla, but that's besides the point. The point is that this client is so big they can be very demanding, so it helps everyone to plan out schedules when everyone knows what's going on. This is merely a communication with all the people involved.
Think of the Inliners community as such a project, people need to get more than one opinion in some cases, but not to the point that it starts holding back from progressing. But there is one piece that we must realize, is that without a strong community the forums will never thrive.
I pointed out above that
if the Inliners forum had a track record of implementing the correct things, there would be a great community here and we would just expect them to do the correct things. There is some community, I will give it that, but not a very active community. And my understanding is that some of the folks that are here have even gone off and tried to create similar forums, only to fail to embrace a real gathering. I'd like to see the Inliners embrace some of those people, there's some smart dudes here, IMO, so it would nice to bring those members into the fold as they will help the community more in the end most likely.
The Inliners have the potential to be a great community. But to date they are not, period. This is just a fact, nothing more.
I think something needs to change. More than upgrading the forum software, but the software was a logical first step...I think I've been pushing for this change for quite a while if memory is still good. If the Inliners want to embrace the community they need to start going about things differently, the first of which should be an openness with the members and open dialog about their future plans. Maybe members could offer suggestions or contribute effort to help those plans to happen, or maybe a member will actually have a better idea on how to make something more efficient. And even more so, we should welcome everyone, member or not. I get very little out of the 12 Port.
I could also ask why the Advertising hasn't been able to reach out with a digital version, or in getting vendors to offer a member discount. I bet some of the Inline vendors would love that. You do need a stronger community to make that work better. However, I'm not trying to just point fingers here, I'm trying to convey that without a community you really don't have very much.
I hope this makes sense, just trying to have an open discussion without getting emotions involved.
Do you have any thoughts on building the community? Or do you or others have opinions on that being important or not? There's a lot of web out there to choose from...that goes for all of us.
