New Management

[Chantal]

I'm getting very tired of all the offensive (and sometimes personal) postings concerning the staff of Mortens and the guys trying to sort out this website and forum. It's not so bad; sure there are teething problems, but can I remind you that it's not so long ago that everyone was banging on about the problems with the old site. As I recall it was so slow some of us were making cups of tea whilst trying to log on. There were double postings everywhere because of some mysterious problem not to mention the forum being off line, sometimes for a day or two at a time. It now seems that the old site is being worshipped as the be all and end all of forums. How soon we all forget.

There are complaints that our old forum is "lost". It isn't. It's all there, it's just a slightly different format that makes no difference to the content.

So for heavens sake give the new management a chance and some support instead of this incessent whining. If I was on the receiving end of all the vitriol that's being posted I would have no inclination to be helpful, I'd feel more inclined to pull the plug on the whole thing! I work in a service industry and if you are pleasant to people you get far better results than if you are RUDE!

[Johnboy]

Oh well said Chantal!!
It is abundandly clear, as you say, that there are quite a few people with exceedingly short memories.
They talk of the lost Archive but the really important Archive was lost with the last attempt to speed the old forum up a bit.
This new forum is such an improvement.
All it takes is to sit back and find out how things work. I am a great believer in the use of the back button and even with the new forum I log on and scroll down to see what is on offer from the Kitchen Garden Forum Index and I can scoll up and down very easily go into a posting back button and out again. To me it could not be easier.
What has really suprised me is the amount of 'Read Only' people there are. This figure we didn't have before and I feel it is up to all of us contributors to try and encourage the 'RO's' to become contributors.
Quite frankly there should be a very large vote of thanks to Leigh and Jason for setting up what I hope and pray will be a rip roaring success!!
Come on all you oldens iffing and butting it's time to dip a toe in the success of our new forum!!

[Chris]

Johnboy

It was not age that led me to make suggestions as to how the new forum could be better organised - but just a wish for it to be excellent rather than just OK or good. It seemed sensible to contibute ideas during the formative month. But I now agree with you and others like Chantal that we need to appreciate the improvements and learn how to make best use of the forum's potential.

Allotments were important in my childhood and also in parts of my adult life. I know the sense of community that existed there. The old foum re-created this and I fully understand why people feel a sense of loss.

The main problem is that there is no central meeting place on the new forum - no communal facility where you can raise a big issue which transcends the posting categories. The other problem is the time it takes to find the good stuff, especially for those of us still working full time.

In other ways the new forum has addressed major issues such as speed of access and, hopefully will lead to a much better tie in to the magazine. You should have your own column!

But this IS time to be positive and make good use of everything we have.

Chris

[sue-the-recycler]

Its taken me a while to get the hang of the new style but I too have found some of the negative comments a bit OTT. One plea though (Chris) please spare a thought when posting photos for us poor souls who dont have access to BroadBand yet. On dial up large pictures (beautiful though they are) make the pages load even more slowly than the old forum! Most sites restrict the size of photos to a fixed pixel count to avoid this problem. The lovely picture of Chris with his sythe(?) took up over a 1/3 of my screen and took 3 mins to load.

[KGAdmin]

Hi Sue

I've just corrected Chris' avitar - in theory the board should only allow a small (120x120pixel) image in there, so not too sure what happened!

Best

Jason Williams
Kitchen Garden Magazine

[Jim]

I'm glad to see that voices of reason are starting to be heard at last! It's very easy to sit back and criticise, especially when it's other people who have the job of acting on the "advice" (given oh-so-freely by people who will never have to actually do anything about it themselves). In my humble view, the world is full of negative knee-jerkers, and the interesting thing is that, once they realise they've been rumbled, they tend to jump the fence and join the positive thinkers, just as though they were full of GOOD intentions all along and their whingeing was merely being misunderstood! People, eh? You can't live with 'em, and you can't legally push 'em off a cliff...

[Chris]

Hi Jason

Thanks for sorting the picture - it was a first go and I had no idea what went wrong or how to correct it - very embarassing.

Apolgies to others - are the small pictures a problem? (Not sure I like them on normal postings)

Jason - an afterthought - can I have a smaller picture on my postings like Lizzie?

Chris

[lizzie]

Hi All

Well said Chantel and JB. I think that this new forum is great. Ok, had to get used to it but with the sub-headings it's far easier to find what you're looking for.

I think a round of applause to the staff for all their hard work. Also for the fact that they actually listen and take on board the users point of view. Not something that's done elsewhere. Well done to all.

[sue-the-recycler]

Hi Chris - small pictures are no problem at all. Dont be embarrased! I havent worked out how to do it at all yet but am working onit

[FEN NOT FEN]

is that the Management is obviously reading and heeding the forum, and putting in stuff we may be interested in - previously there was no (apparent) communication between the mag and the forum.