Rob Howard

No rotten tomatoes for you guys Rob. Thanks for the update. I was hoping there would be some note out there about what happened, but reading what you've posted, you guys have had a busy day. Yes, communication was bad on this and I'm not sure what the email failure was but distribution lists are a dime a dozen. Maybe for future updates if we could get a heads-up on things to come for those of us running our blogs. Then we can be prepared for it. This hit us like a ton of bricks and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what the issues were. As with the .Text -> CS upgrade, I won't speak on everyone's behalf but I'm more than willing to test things out before you go live with it. I think that worked well for that upgrade. Something to consider for the next release of CS ;)

One small thing:

"At the same time we rolled out a new design which was created by a design agency in Seattle (so don't hang us out to dry on the design!)."

You'll go a lot further if you accept responsibility for everything that you're responsible for.

On the "don't complain without a solution" philosophy, I offer coding4fun as an example of how to pick a new design. They proposed some choices and the users voted on it. Of course, here the people voting on blog designs would be those bloggers who use it, but you get the point.

Almost all conflicts have their roots in power and powerlessness. By not assuring that the (rather large) community was aware of the impending changes, you rendered them powerless on a number of levels:

1. Their blogs were suddenly not "theirs" anymore when the changes were made. It's like renting an apartment and the landlord comes in one day and paints it a different color and screens in your patio. Yes, he's within his rights, but he just reminded you that you're only a tenant and he's the one with the power.

2. Things stopped working. The skins that they worked on suddenly stopped doing what they were made to do.

3. They couldn't fix them. You can't get more powerless than someone else breaking your stuff and then that person not "letting" you fix it.

4. There was no "mea culpa" in your explanation. You apologized, but nowhere did you even admit that you screwed up. You referred to the conversion as "roughness", you deferred blame on the design, and throughout you say what happened, but never acknowledge that anything was a mistake.

One problem I have though is that you push the job of your team(s) on to the users. You suggest that if someone's going to complain about something not working, they should offer suggestions. I'm sorry, but that's total crap. It's not their job to determine how to fix it or improve the site. Making a complaint (and only a complaint) is completely valid. The notion of "don't complain if you can't offer something positive" is nothing more than an old device used to shut people up. Tell me, where else does that work? If you take your new car to the dealer and tell him it's riding rough, is he going to ask you what should be done to fix it? If you send a nasty tasting dish back to the kitchen, are you expected to tell the chef "I think there's too much cilantro and the shallots were still raw. And you should use more gruyere"?

Lastly, the suggestion that complaints are "rotten tomatoes" is an attempt to deflect criticism by suggesting that people making valid complaints are attacking you and that you are the victim (the one being hit by the tomatoes).

You screwed up. Say HOW you screwed up, not just what happened. Take blame and take (all) responsibility for what happened. And encourage people to point out problems without a) making them feel like they're attacking you with rotten fruit or b) implying that they need to "be a part of the solution" if something is wrong.

That was one long "one small thing" :)

In no way am I attempted to deflect criticism. Yes, we screwed up on multiple levels. As for HOW we screwed up I don't have all the answers to that just yet.

Well, I do take these things personally -- I can't help it.

However, I don't think that asking for actionable feedback is in any way wrong. Using your example: if I send a dish back to the kitchen I have no problem saying *why*, i.e. my steak is over cooked. That's not a way to shut people up it's a way to figure out what we can fix -- because sometimes we're too close to the problem to understand the solution.

I now hope the crap with logging in on forums.asp.net is logging me out on weblogs.asp.net is finally over now :)

This blogspace is given to me free of charge so I can only complain till a given limit and then I should shut up which I'll do for now :). I see the upgrade didn't went very well, and as a person who has been in such a situation years ago, I understand the least you can use right now is ranting.

I'll try again to upload the image in a couple of minutes to see if it works now. WHat I noticed this morning is that I tried to sign in (I was on a different computer) and firefox complained that the certificate for *.asp.net couldn't be verified, and the company the certificate was issued for wasn't MS (I can't reproduce it now, so it's likely that one of the servers is having a wrong certificate installed). I vaguely remember the company name started with an 'S' but that's about it, sorry it was early in the morning :). Nevertheless, IMHO the certificate installed SHOULD be from MS, I don't trust non-verifyable (which means 'self-issued') certificates.

There's also a bug in the engine: see the pingback below this blogpost: it points to your own blog!

Good luck, hope you guys get it sorted out soon.

[OT]What is the relationship between weblogs.asp.net/forums.asp.net and the new mscommunities alpha/pre-alpha preview that's out there?

I saw some links loading from the mscommunities url when you hit the main weblogs.asp.net page and to be honest I much prefer the Community Server based forums and blogs and really hope they stay on CS which probably has the world's best forum/blogging components.

The mscommunities/tagspace alpha feels like an attempt to reinvent the wheel and it's coming out square...

Within forums.asp.net I'm getting some rendering issues when searching for posts in particular.

Whilst the list of found posts is displayed correctly the area above it (where the ad banner is) appears to be overlaying an area just below the top of the page. I'm using IE6 sp2

In particular I notice this when I use the back button to go from a particular post back to the list.

The rendering is fine in Firefox

Thanks for the details bro.

Very much appreciated, and you guys rock!

Salute,

Mark

The design needs work in my opinion. I can see what you're trying to achieve, but it's crying out for a makeover by someone passionate about their work.

If anything, its significantly harder to find and read information than before. You can't just slap a few gradients on things and call it a day! And no, its not your agency's fault, you approved the design, you carry the can for it :)

But if you change nothing else, please return the font size to readable though. That point size is just much much too small.

I received one of the emails, but it went into hotmail's junk mail folder. I flagged it as not junk, but maybe you could work something out with them ;)

I think there needs to be recent posts on the home page or I will end up using MainFeed.aspx

-A

Personally, I don't like the new style of the forum. I liked having the number of views listed. There also isn't enough contrast between the text and background. I often check my posts for replies (which there still appears to not be an rss feed for), but now it is less obvious when a post has been replied to.

weblogs.asp.net DOES NOT show any posts if you are using IE 6. I've tried on several machines. I realize everyone should be using IE 7 however I bet there are some that haven't and you've now lost them if you use IE 6.

Chris the IE6 issue is fixed.

Thanks!

I don't like the way you shipped the blame for the design off to "a design agency in Seattle". First of all, if you refuse to take any credit for the terrible design, at least indicate who is responsible instead of being so vague. Secondly, I am positive you guys had all the chances in the world to review and test the design prior to it's implementation. I'm not saying you were in control of it/picked it out/wanted it in the first place, but certainly you had a chance to provide feedback on it before putting it into production. And I have no doubts that your guys' feedback would have been strongly considered.

This means one of two things, either all of those who reviewed and tested the design absolutely loved it (only possible if your entire crew is color blind), or they simply refused to speak their mind (perhaps becuase they felt they shouldn't have anything to do with the design in the first place). In either case, you guys played a role, and you most definitely deserve a share of the blame.

Peace,

-Josh

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Would you quit tracking back to your own blog post already...