That's good to know. Generally newer site designs are heavier on older hardware such as the PPC Macs I occasionally use to visit MR.
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Migrating to Xenforo
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That's good to know. Generally newer site designs are heavier on older hardware such as the PPC Macs I occasionally use to visit MR.
What I hope Xenforo fixes isn't the general navigation, but the "Reply to Thread" page. I get storage lag on that when using an iOS device.
Just to let you know, there's a lot of ordinary people out here who are very excited about the new fora. Hope you get to change the colours and make it sans serif.
Good luck, Mr. Gorsky
Good luck, Mr. Gorsky
Well, really, it depends on a number of things.
People will handle change when a number of issues have been addressed and acknowledged:
Thus, they will accept change when, 1) the reasons for initiating it have been clearly explained to them, 2) they feel that they have been consulted and that their concerns have been taken into account, rather than having the changes unilaterally dumped on them, 3) their concerns are not belittled, and 4) the nature of the changes are clearly explained and flagged in advance so that they don't feel as though they are complete morons for not grasping what this is all about immediately.
Once those who seek to initiate change take the time and the trouble to engage with those who will be affected by the change, the number of negative responses and their intensity will be reduced.
What change seekers (in every walk of life) fail to see is that the onus of persuasion - the onus of making the case - is on them, not on the defenders of the status quo; there is no point in dismissing the concerns - or mindsets - of others, that won't win the battle of hearts and mind, because the default setting of most people is 'not change' - it is easier, less hassle, and besides, it is what they are used to. Change is - or can be - unsettling, and challenging.
Therefore, if you want change - any sort of change - (political, social, economic, technological) you must make the case for it, in a way that does not belittle those whose default setting is inertia or the status quo. Your arguments must be strong enough to either win them over, or render them indifferent to the status quo.
Change only becomes considered compelling and desirable and necessary when the status quo is dire, not when it is tolerably mediocre, and casually competent. In other words, the status quo must be pretty poor, to give people the motivation to seek change of their own volition, rather than being obliged to accept change.
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When another site where I hang out was going to Xenforo, the admins and mods spent a fair amount of time in preparing everything, including a sort of tutorial with screenshots prior to the actual changeover so that members could get an idea of how screens would look, etc., and what the differences were between the vBulletin setup and the new Xenforo setup. They had a special thread ready to go once the changeover was made, too.
There were surprisingly few complaints and very little confusion once the actual Xenforo version of the forum went "live," much to everyone's relief and pleasure. Admins and mods were on tap to immediately respond to questions and concerns or to explain how to do something if a member were not able to figure it out. It was a pleasantly smooth transition all the way around. I very much hope the same for MacRumors!
There were surprisingly few complaints and very little confusion once the actual Xenforo version of the forum went "live," much to everyone's relief and pleasure. Admins and mods were on tap to immediately respond to questions and concerns or to explain how to do something if a member were not able to figure it out. It was a pleasantly smooth transition all the way around. I very much hope the same for MacRumors!
Why do I feel like you've given this lesson many times over?
Actually, strange to relate, I haven't - not in quite those terms.
Oddly perhaps, mulling over possibly posting responses has sometimes made me see some things and think about them in a different way, and from a somewhat different perspective, and that is always an extraordinarily interesting thing to do, and one that I am grateful for being prompted into thinking about doing.
Now, I have thought about why people are naturally resistant to change from a political (or economic/social/cultural) perspective - I haven't had to think about it from a technological standpoint, but it is useful to ponder it, and to consider reasons why this might be so and ask whether it has equal validity in other areas.
Sometimes, posting on here allows me to clear up stuff I have been mulling over in a different context, or to clarify thoughts I have had in my mind.
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It just struck me as a very relevant lesson to communicate in other contexts you may have been in. And I think it is very relevant in this one too.
Um, yes, it is.
But sometimes, looking at a topic such as the 'challenges of change' on an online tech forum can make you see challenges of change in a new light when applied elsewhere and in other contexts and settings.
However, I have noticed fairly frequently that the obvious (and pretty dismissive one dimensional response) of those seeking change when seeking superficially to press for change when attempting (miserably) to work out why they are resisted is to:
1) minimise - or, fail to recognise - the fear that the very thought (and sometimes fact) of change can induce;
2) fail to see that sometimes, people are psychologically threatened by change;
and 3) - the obvious one, this, that sometimes vested interests are challenged and undermined by change.
However, one of the lessons to be learned is that the onus of persuasion and making a persuasive case lies with those seeking change.
Interesting thread, it's the first I hear about vB dying
One way to look at it would be that Xenforo is the continuation of vB.
I like that it's the same people working on it but I'll always love the classic vB look & feel :-/
I'm one of those guys
How do you feel about vB 4 and 5 then? I'd say these version of vB doesn't look and feel classic vB, either.
Does search support exact phrases only? (2013-10-13) vaguely helped me to find XenForo Enhanced Search.
Please, will that add-on be used?
Those people might respond better if we have readily available examples of how other groups have worked through comparable changes.
Moderators, please: will it be acceptable to link to answers/examples beyond the macrumors.com domain?
Please, will that add-on be used?
Those people might respond better if we have readily available examples of how other groups have worked through comparable changes.
Moderators, please: will it be acceptable to link to answers/examples beyond the macrumors.com domain?
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I would love better search for this site. I don't even use the forum search, I use site:forums.macrumors.com withe Google.
Yeah, me too, sometimes.
The Google suggestion is also in a MacRumors Forums topic about seeking exact phrases (it's not recent, so I shan't link to it).
Unless there is an available plug-in, or the admin decide to get their hands dirty in PHP, there's not really a whole lot the staff here can do about that.
Above
Please see above, my post about the add-on, which I guess can be treated as a plug-in …
Please see above, my post about the add-on, which I guess can be treated as a plug-in …
On schedule; but less positivity in recent months?
Those things are understandable, no cause for complaint. From the opening post
so from the outset, in November, it should have been no surprise to find things ongoing in March or April. I don't view things as behind schedule.
A minor downside: I decided to cease up-voting months ago (probably early December 2014), with an optimistic assumption that the disappearance might occur before Christmas. Prior to that decision I voted very often.
I have no idea whether other people took a similar decision but I guess, there might have been a noticeable drop in positivity (up-voting) across the forum as a whole in recent months.
Those things are understandable, no cause for complaint. From the opening post
so from the outset, in November, it should have been no surprise to find things ongoing in March or April. I don't view things as behind schedule.
A minor downside: I decided to cease up-voting months ago (probably early December 2014), with an optimistic assumption that the disappearance might occur before Christmas. Prior to that decision I voted very often.
I have no idea whether other people took a similar decision but I guess, there might have been a noticeable drop in positivity (up-voting) across the forum as a whole in recent months.
Most people on this forum don't even know about the impending switch, and those who do don't care and go about their posting and upvoting as normal. This is my guess
Most people on this forum don't even know about the impending switch, and those who do don't care and go about their posting and upvoting as normal. This is my guess
I'm curious, what is the relationship between the forum switch and upvoting?
The issue with voting is that the new forum software shows you who voted, so arn decided to try to carry the current vote totals over anonymously, with only new votes showing who voted.
That's made more work for the transition, but it preserves the anonymity that some users assumed they had when voting (even though arn said otherwise from the beginning).
That's made more work for the transition, but it preserves the anonymity that some users assumed they had when voting (even though arn said otherwise from the beginning).
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