Worried for the cooks...

[Gord]

I am a little concerned about the cooks. Their community which was very cohesive, lively, and exciting has now fragmented into 3. We are hosting some of them, some are loyal to Taunton, and the Breaktime crowd has created a community for them as well.

If the group is divided, I fear them losing their sense of community. I have sent a message to the Breaktime Mods and our most vocal cook (Madmom) expressing my concern.

While I love having the cooks here, it is more important that their community be protected. Over the next couple weeks I will be keeping an eye on the post count here and at Breaktime, and if it seems that our forums are redundant, I will work with the Breaktime guys to move the content over there.

I can't stress enough that preserving the community has to come before any kind of "my forum is better" chatter. I am also not saying that I am shutting out or shutting down the cooks. There has been enough turmoil, and I don't want to add more to it.

If you are a cook's talk poster/lurker/aficionado, please offer your input here. I love you guys, and I don't want you to lose your critical mass, or your key people.

[Gord]

Here is Madmom's reply to my email, posted with her permission, line breaks were lost in the cut-paste, so I have added my own.:

Hi, Gord, or Dagwood, as the case might be!

I registered at both sites, but I think that more people are going to the Breaktime Classic site, simply because it is a familiar format for them. If you could move everyone over there, it would be great. I, too, worry about fragmentation of the community.

I haven't left CT for good, but I am afraid that Taunton has left me.

I have emailed several close friends and given them the URL for the Breaktime Classic site. Perhaps someday Taunton will realize they made a huge mistake with their "upgrades" (we had to really try to come up with things we liked about it!) - no thought, no timing, no planning, simply an incompetent decision. I feel for Robyn, as she has to hold to the Taunton party line...they can't make everyone happy (how about anyone?) and we are just resistant to change. That's human nature, but when people are given absolutely no reason for the change (I could definitely respect "we're trying to save money" but no one has bothered to say that), no idea of what's being changed (other than we're working on it...whatever it might be), well, people are getting frustrated.

BTW, love your idea for starting a new forum, but I do think the Breaktime one will survive, and I, too, don't want to see the community fragmented. I have made a lot of friends on CT, and don't want to lose what we had. Taunton...not so much.
Sharon (aka MadMom)

[marty]

It';s only a guess here, but I presume "Breaktime Classic" means the BT crowd somehow managed to retain their old format? If so, perhaps there is a way to salvage the old Fence format too. My concern with what we have here is the loss of new members. We were just starting to accumulate a few on the Fence when the bomb went off. Will many search engines lead people here?

[Gord]

I have explored the forum structure over there and could have an over the fence up and running in about 10 minutes. I actually set up the forum on their server already as a pilot. If we want to move, the posts here will be lost.

All I'd have to do is throw a switch. I work off of concensus, so just say do it, and it will be done.

If we move, everyone needs to visit taunton and edit their posts to redirect folks to the right spots. Oh wait... do they have an edit function over there? (Honest question)

[marty]

In answer to your honest question I quote Kate Frank: "I'm told this is a problem they're working on as I write this." That was a few days ago, and it ain't fixed yet.

[regality]

I'd be willing to move. I consider anything I post online to be transitory, so if it disappears, no biggie for me. I realize that few others feel this way. Just.....er....please let us know when the switch is going to be thrown. *L*

[Gord]

If I get a feeling that there is a desire to move to the same format as Breaktime, I will open the forums, and lock these with a message to visit "us at our new home ~ www.theotherforum.com" That way folks have some overlap. I would wait at least a few days before taking this forum offline, and possibly just leave it running empty with the redirect.

I'll start counting ayes and nays through th erest of the day, and possibly put the porchlight on tomorrow if I sense a desire to move over to that format.

The only thing I think we would lose it the "Quote" button. And as pointed out elsewhere, advertising would be incorporated into the threads unless someone coughs up $40. As was also stated elsewhere, I'm cheap. I'll deal with the ads for a while until they grind me to a weakness that I can no longer bear.

[Gord]

I just took a closer look at the Delphi/Prospero Forums, and as host they hamstring me more than this forum does.

Here I can (and have) use stickies to hold some folders at the top of the list.

Here I can , but haven't had to lock out folders and users and easily shut down spammers. I haven't found those controls on the Delphi/Prospero template. - EDIT TO ADD: I just found a way to lock discussions over there. EDIT TO ADD: I just found the Kick/Ban/Gag control.

For comfort, ease of reference, and moving between the Taunton Communities, the Delphi/Prospero solution makes sense. For moderation and management, I like the tools here.

Once again though, this is your community, not mine. Just say the word and I'll open things up to you all. I do have a few test pilots over there making sure things work right now.

[marty]

I think I'd start a poll as a new thread (I noted that"poll" is an option), just to be sure everyone sees it. I could go either way. My primary concern is the other half of what the forum existed for, to help answer peoples questions. OTF used to function that way; obviously it doesn't any more since only two or three new posts show up each day and most of those are ours. So I wouldn't make any changes until we discover if Taunton will tolerate links to us on their site. If they did it would render their forum rather more blatantly useless than it is already. It's probably too soon to make yet another change.