Is the new community your idea of an improvement? It is anything but an improvement. Several important threads I started have lost content. When I try and type a response, I can't see the entire response I am creating--it only allows me to see a couple of lines at a time.
I am a long-time Sonos user, and I feel that I have been slapped in the face. Sonos no longer has my endorsement.
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I know that it has only been a week, but IMO, coming from the perspective of the traditional forums, you appear to have improved or fixed little, but have broken a lot.
Firstly I want to get something off my chest. You (or Ryan) said not to worry, that everything would be brought across. And you said that you were moving away from Customer Moderators, and that you had staffed up to compensate.
If we just step over the bodies of the French Spanish & Dutch speakers, whose customer donated knowledge base you appear to have discarded without warning or apology, what has happened to our previous PM In & Out boxes? Are they coming across?
It is bad enough that you were not community-aware enough to plan for or pre-communicate about these items.
It is worse that you now just won't communicate upon the subject of our PM boxes. Sonos, you need to consider the generally accepted definition of a "community". If you want one, you need to earn one; ie act as the excellent previous Customer volunteer Moderators whom you have retired.
ie. Why has Beynym's question upon this sensitive subject sat there for over 5 days without response? And you have ignored all of his polite follow ups! He has raised the issue at least 4 times now, across two separate threads?!! And this is your opening week, where one would expect your best behaviour. Where are your staff Moderators? IMO this is a serious FAIL.
https://en.community.sonos.com/new-community-feedback-229090/pms-6730687
---- rant over. -----------
As far as your goal about achieving "the best of both worlds", well so far you don't rate much better here either IMO. I agree all this:
To compensate for things lost, I would add the following to Nick's list:
* please add a forum area for General topics of interest, ie a Lounge area
* please add a forum area for Hobbyists and Developers; ie separate it out from Advanced Setups ... IMO the Advanced Setups should be used for advanced adventures into vanilla Sonos, ie. topics at depths which would frighten the horses in the main areas of the forums. Resumption of the new area that I am suggesting would make it clearer that any Hobby or Add-on Developers are welcome in this community, whilst also making it quite clear that it is all outside of the Sonos the Sonos product, and beyond Sonos support
* please add some optional social attributes to our community profiles: our web site, or Last.fm profile link, ..
* please enable post editing upon the mobile platform; it is nuts that you have degraded my on-PC experience in favour of a mobile platform experience, but you then neuter the mobile platform ??
* please add the Show Favourites menu item to the mobile platform
* please add sequence numbers to each post within each thread, and make them a hyperlink, so that we can quote a specific linked post in a thread
* please enhance the "Recent Active" and the Active Since" displays to include facilities from the existing "Favourites" facility; ie. show the name & avatar of the last poster, and the duration since the last post (or at least show a time stamp expressed in our local time zone)
* please add the existing "Newest First" display toggle option as a persistent User Account setting
Yes. Very funny Hermie, and the situation is well deserving of some morbid humour.
Userlevel 7
+17
Its actually very sad to see how badly this has gone.
When I read some of Sonos' responses to the initial 'pre-launch' concerns on this thread (carried over from 'forums') it appears that all the doom-mongers were correct. https://en.community.sonos.com/new-community-feedback-229090/sonos-closingmoving-the-forums-a-good-idea-44247/index1.html
The new site doesnt work well at all, is badly moderated and has lost its community spirit.
Now the asteroid has wiped out the dinosaurs, time for a new species to take over.
When I read some of Sonos' responses to the initial 'pre-launch' concerns on this thread (carried over from 'forums') it appears that all the doom-mongers were correct. https://en.community.sonos.com/new-community-feedback-229090/sonos-closingmoving-the-forums-a-good-idea-44247/index1.html
The new site doesnt work well at all, is badly moderated and has lost its community spirit.
Now the asteroid has wiped out the dinosaurs, time for a new species to take over.
Userlevel 7
+26
Hey guys,
Lots of feedback the last day, great to hear from you all! Especially Barry and Kumar, some great comments here. We're working hard getting everything put together. There were unfortunately a lot of posts that weren't going to be categorized properly into the new organizational sections and we've been sorting through thousands of those threads to get them in the right place. If you find a link from ask or the forums isn't working to a specific thread, it's likely one of the threads not yet categorized. If only there was a way to get more hours in a day.
As mentioned here, we're still very early on in the new space, tomorrow will mark our first week.
We're still gathering all the feedback and suggestions we can, and working to determine what can and can't be changed. There have been some highly valuable concerns raised here and we're on it.
To address some specific questions: The private messages unfortunately couldn't be carried over due to privacy concerns. We're taking a look into the other language boards from the forums to see about potentially bringing them back, but there are of course some complications there. We've also talked about adding a new board or two to here depending on interest.
Some features weren't available on the platform currently but can be added in the future, so even if it isn't possible now, we'll be pushing to add what we can later.
We're trying to build a community here that everyone can use happily, so stick with us and mind the dust, it's still a work in progress.
Lots of feedback the last day, great to hear from you all! Especially Barry and Kumar, some great comments here. We're working hard getting everything put together. There were unfortunately a lot of posts that weren't going to be categorized properly into the new organizational sections and we've been sorting through thousands of those threads to get them in the right place. If you find a link from ask or the forums isn't working to a specific thread, it's likely one of the threads not yet categorized. If only there was a way to get more hours in a day.
As mentioned here, we're still very early on in the new space, tomorrow will mark our first week.
We're still gathering all the feedback and suggestions we can, and working to determine what can and can't be changed. There have been some highly valuable concerns raised here and we're on it.
To address some specific questions: The private messages unfortunately couldn't be carried over due to privacy concerns. We're taking a look into the other language boards from the forums to see about potentially bringing them back, but there are of course some complications there. We've also talked about adding a new board or two to here depending on interest.
Some features weren't available on the platform currently but can be added in the future, so even if it isn't possible now, we'll be pushing to add what we can later.
We're trying to build a community here that everyone can use happily, so stick with us and mind the dust, it's still a work in progress.
+18
One of the largest benefits of this platform over the forums is single sign-on. On this site, you login with the same account you use to sign in to Sonos.com. It probably wasn't a big issue for most of you, but people don't expect to have to create separate accounts for the Sonos website and the forums. It was confusing, clunky, and Sonos staff dealt with password recovery and account management problems from the forums for years.
A single account is simple, seamless, and opens up some intriguing possibilities in the future, like possibly tying into system registration or beta participation. It was an overdue and necessary improvement.
I'd also keep in mind that we've migrated to a single, unified platform which combines all the content from both ask and the forums. That was our number one priority, and migrating the content remains our focus even a week after the launch. Having two separate spaces was not ideal, and each site had it's own strengths which we believe have been combined to create the best of both worlds (forum style layout with clearly marked question and answer capability).
In addition to that, there was no mobile version of the forums. I know the mobile version has some issues now, but issues can be identified and corrected. I never found reading the forums on my smartphone to be a great experience. I managed with a lot of scrolling and pinching. There's been a huge shift since the forums were first founded and having a true mobile version is now a fundamental requirement of any site.
+18
I'd also keep in mind that we've migrated to a single, unified platform which combines all the content from both ask and the forums.
In addition to that, there was no mobile version of the forums. .
The first was a problem Sonos itself created by bringing about ask though, and if as I remember the main reason for ask has now been junked here, it sounds quite funny - and I hesitate to concede going backward as a benefit. I suppose it is one of sorts though, although outweighed by losing the much higher user friendliness of forums.
I can't comment on the mobile aspect, I don't use that route.
There's a bit more to the situation than how you've characterized it. One of the key reasons why ask was implemented was because there were many people who found the forums to be user unfriendly. The older look and feel, the inability to quickly find answers in threads, the separate login...there were people who found these to be barriers to using the site. We turned to ask to help bridge those gaps and compliment the forums, and it was successful in that regard.
What we're working towards with this change is a solution that satisfies both groups. We knew it was going to be hard, and acknowledge that the transition hasn't been perfect, but I'm hoping that the people in this thread will try to work with us before resorting to walking out the door. I say this sincerely and without agenda: the people on these boards have contributed to making Sonos what it is today. Please don't give up yet.
On a 1920x1080 screen the new forum uses about 1/3 of the screen. See attached.
You make some good points about the benefits of the combination of the two forums which I hadn't appreciated.
There still is no effective mobile platform is there?
ie. no favourites navigation method, no post editing, no "me too" voting facility, no "me to" visibility, no "link to url" facility for referring to prior posts, no "Newest first" sequencing option.
And I could repeat myself, and come up with a list of similar length for important facilities now lost from your traditional forum facility.
I accept the honesty of this. What would help would be if Sonos soon summarised those shortcomings which they have accepted & are working towards repairing. This problem is that there is a lot that is now impaired due to the move. A lot of people have made a lot of complaints and suggestions. Nobody has any idea which parts you heard, which parts you accept, what importance you apply to things, nor what you intend to do about it.
If left like this it will be running sore.
I would like to see a list of accepted issues, and then some periodic reporting identifying progress, and any shift of the goals due to hurdles.
It is no good if this handled in the "ask.sonos" way; ie. an idea as marked as "Under Consideration", and then sits there growing cobwebs for 3+ years, gaining more customer votes, complaints and comments, but without update nor any further commentary from Sonos.
Neither is it any good just saying "Trust Us, we know what we are doing". Frankly, I don't think that we do. You said this that would be good and exciting. It isn't. The pleasure coming from being a part of this is evaporating. You said that workshopped this with a group of Regulars. I don't think that you did. ... Does anyone want to self-identify as being part of that process
In my view "working with us" would look something different to the usual level of conversation that Sonos enters into with its customers. In the case of the rebuilding of a community forum this would appear be a good idea, and should energise faith, patience and support. ... Are you up to it?
+18
On a 1920x1080 screen the new forum uses about 1/3 of the screen. See attached.
Thanks for sharing the screenshot, it really is helpful to see firsthand what you're describing. On a 1920x1080 resolution, I have to say this is what I would expect most websites to look like. Namely, a fixed width with fairly large amounts of white space on either side. Take a look a look at the two screenshots I've attached as an example.
If the forums did not limit horizontal width this way, I'd expect that's a side-effect of the age of the system, rather than a deliberate choice.
ie. no favourites navigation method, no post editing, no "me too" voting facility, no "me to" visibility, no "link to url" facility for referring to prior posts, no "Newest first" sequencing option.
And I could repeat myself, and come up with a list of similar length for important facilities now lost from your traditional forum facility.
I acknowledge that mobile isn't at 100 percent parity with the desktop version at the moment. There's still a significant difference between having a mobile platform which can be built and improved upon versus having none at all.
Heard and understood. We'll focus on an issue round-up and a more effective way to communicate with you over the next week. It might be helpful for us to create separate threads to discuss specific issues and really focus in on certain areas of feedback. Will keep you posted.
That's not our intention and not what we want either. There's a big difference between what we're doing here with this community platform as compared to the product development conversations in Idea threads on ask.sonos.com. There's some necessary restrictions on how much we can comment on product development and we admit the idea topics weren't a natural fit for Sonos. We aspire to engage in more open and transparent communication but the trappings of the Idea system (accumulated voting, fixed and inflexible statuses) weren't the right way to do it. We learned and moved on.
Emphatically, yes. More communication and feedback was one of the number one themes from the forums over the years, and we're taking what we learned from the experience with ask and applying it to this new, unified site. I won't ask you to simply trust us to know what's best for everyone, we need to hear it from you, but I will ask that you reserve judgement until we're further along than just over a week.
+18
Sorry to add another negative post here, but I also am struggling a little. My suggestions for improvement would be:
1. A "New Posts" button as per every other forum I use, which lists the threads with simple information showing thread title, started by, latest post by, total number of posts/reads and an indication on if I have posted in the thread already.
2. Easier to read pages. I also am seeing far too much white - it is hard on the eyes and doesn't make me want to stay here reading for long.
3. Make it easier to find. I'm a two or three times a month user and this was my first visit since the aforementioned asteroid. It took me a while to find the right link and work out which email I needed to use to sign in. I think I used to sign in with my username?
Keep it up, I have seen IT types with major forum changes struggling under the pressure, but IMO if you are open about resolutions, then most will understand.
Thanks for the support Legnum Nick. We don't mind reading criticism and I don't think your post is negative at all. There's a big difference between calling out what you don't like, or what you'd like to see improved, and negativity just for negativity's sake. We truly appreciate your help in setting the tone here.
As to your specific points, we'll be rounding-up everyone's feedback on the new site in the coming week to see what the common points are between everyone. New topics and white space are definitely the top trends so far.
Definitely a "must have" for me!
Yes, there are other issues (preview, editing etc.) but for me the big issue by far is that there is so much here in an unsorted mess! I used to go to the forum every day or so and there was normally only one or perhaps two pages of new post. So it only took a couple of minutes to find and read the posts of interest, now I do not even try to review them all just the first few pages!
This sums it up for me perfectly. And the fact that Ryan and the crew have stated numerous times they are working on fixes, none are forthcoming, so it appears to me they bought this 'community' software without really doing all the necessary research and are hoping the software company is going to provide fixes for them. I, like you, would come in every day and click 'New Posts.' At LEAST once a week I would find a tip or trick that I didn't know existed. I loved the forum. Now I only show up if there is a response to a thread I posted in (because of the notification email received, that STILL doesn't have the content of the post listed) to see if hopefully something changed and I can start reading here again.
Did you actually test these designs with any real live human beings other than smelling your own farts? Yowsa! This new fora is absolutely awful. So many great community software packages out there and you went with this?!?!?!? Why didn't you give Jive Software a call if you want something corporate?!?!?!
The shortcomings of the InSided platform have been called out in detail and in various locations. Here we are 6 months since inception yet still stuck with basically the same features, give or take a bit of tinkering round the edges and a grafted-on attempt at highlighting unread posts on a per-subforum basis.
Is there actually any development going on at all? Forgive me but I have my doubts. On the face of it we're lumbered with a bespoke wheel reinvention with missing spokes.
Is there actually any development going on at all? Forgive me but I have my doubts. On the face of it we're lumbered with a bespoke wheel reinvention with missing spokes.
We're looking forward to working with them to make the community the best it can be, and the best Sonos community we've ever had.
Why am I not surprised to read that first sentence quoted?!
Many of the regulars have given up complaining and are doing the best of a bad job. What Sonos will never know is how much better the community could have been with better choices than what seem to have been made. 'Nuff said.
As always BarryM expresses things with articulacy.
At the risk of repeating myself I'll summarise what I'd consider 'fitness for purpose' capabilities in a board:
- quickly identifying new posts of interest since the last visit, including author, time and so forth
- searching and filtering historical threads, to mine the wisdom of 10 years' worth of past visitors
- easily composing and previewing posts, including the usual forum tools for BBcode insertion
In all of the above the InSided platform has fallen short. The confirmation that the necessary features don't exist in their platform and therefore require months of dev/test pretty much reinforces my view that it wasn't up to the job.
At the risk of repeating myself I'll summarise what I'd consider 'fitness for purpose' capabilities in a board:
- quickly identifying new posts of interest since the last visit, including author, time and so forth
- searching and filtering historical threads, to mine the wisdom of 10 years' worth of past visitors
- easily composing and previewing posts, including the usual forum tools for BBcode insertion
In all of the above the InSided platform has fallen short. The confirmation that the necessary features don't exist in their platform and therefore require months of dev/test pretty much reinforces my view that it wasn't up to the job.
We're looking forward to working with them to make the community the best it can be, and the best Sonos community we've ever had.
You must be joking. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I was a regular in the old forum, I hardly ever visit anymore. It has become infantile, almost impossible to search and even the most basic things it gets wrong. One example only: I was reading this thread without having logged in. I had to go back to the main screen to log in and find my way back to this page. Months ago I already concluded that this forum is not there to help customers and allow them to share their views but to stifle that as much as possible while pretending otherwise.
Vacuous remarks like "We're looking forward to working with them to make the community the best it can be, and the best Sonos community we've ever had." are particularly galling since you have had quite a bit of time to set things right and nothing substantial (as far as I am concerned) has happened.
Oh I just spotted Ryan S's response to Barry. He completely agrees and the usual garbage about how they will improve things. Ryan S. did it ever occur to you that this sort of behaviour might actually alienate customers and make them look for alternatives?
Userlevel 7
+17
PS - Does anyone know of a better way to reference earlier posts other than my ham fisted "(near the top of page 8)" attempt at the start of this post?
PPS - Ratty, how did you embed the link to the other thread?
in the top right of each post is a small icon looking like a figure of 8 /chain link. Click this (or right click and copy) and it will give a link directly to that specific post and page.
A bit like this to your post 'near the top of page 8'
https://en.community.sonos.com/new-community-feedback-229090/a-huge-step-backward-what-are-you-guys-thinking-6730677/index8.html#post15995484
This site really continues to be very poor as a community platform as is really missing the most basic of features like the ability to go directly to the unread posts in a thread or sort/narrow search results according to ANY criteria at all !
Not very impressed either by the changes imposed in recent software revisions. They seem more geared to new customers, with scant attention paid to the needs of the older and longer term Sonos client base. Lots of promises to pass on comments to "the team", but nothing very much ever happens.
When an earlier update a few years ago caused problems for people with large Sonos installations I got very little sympathy here on the forum. Back then I predicted that eventually Sonos would change something that my critics would find unacceptable and then they would see how it feels to have features they were happy with get disrupted just to appeal to new users with no attention paid to the needs of existing customers. I think with this most recent change many of those people are finally seeing that this is indeed the case.
Not unicorns or Bigfoot, just asking for some strategy to solve the problem. Saying "solve the submarine problem" is perfectly legitimate if not solving it leaves you sunk and it doesn't imply draining the ocean. That is your embellishment to try to belittle the validity of a concern you don't share.
Userlevel 7
+22
Your not endorsing Sonos because of a user forum not being as user friendly as you liked... that is a new one. I am still under the impression it is a home audio system company.
It is a work in process obviously and there is content that is still filtering in. It has been up now for only a few hours and they are still migrating old posts - trying to tie together 2 different forums.
IF you have important threads you have concerns about I'm sure if you explain here the Sonos guys will do their best to get them back to how they belong.
I too do not find the mobile version very user friendly. Hey may cut down my post count while out and about. But as far as serious questions or concerns as far as a user having issues with their system I'm not sure the mobile app is necessary.
It is a work in process obviously and there is content that is still filtering in. It has been up now for only a few hours and they are still migrating old posts - trying to tie together 2 different forums.
IF you have important threads you have concerns about I'm sure if you explain here the Sonos guys will do their best to get them back to how they belong.
I too do not find the mobile version very user friendly. Hey may cut down my post count while out and about. But as far as serious questions or concerns as far as a user having issues with their system I'm not sure the mobile app is necessary.
Userlevel 6
+16
SONOS warned users that posts after Sunday 2nd would not get migrated.
Userlevel 7
+26
Unfortunately the way we were able to get all of the topics moved over here we knew we were going to lose some of the replies and tried to make sure that message was spread around.
I'd be happy to help you troubleshoot your system if you're having trouble Austin, or to get you setup to work with a technician over the phone to get it resolved quickly. Why don't you PM me or create a new thread (if one exists just point me in the right direction) and I'll be happy to assist.
We're still making some adjustments to the site, and would love to get your feedback in this section of the forum, so if you have any specific suggestions or notes please share.
I'd be happy to help you troubleshoot your system if you're having trouble Austin, or to get you setup to work with a technician over the phone to get it resolved quickly. Why don't you PM me or create a new thread (if one exists just point me in the right direction) and I'll be happy to assist.
We're still making some adjustments to the site, and would love to get your feedback in this section of the forum, so if you have any specific suggestions or notes please share.
Userlevel 6
+16
They are sorting threads that were posted to General Discussion and they will appear in the appropriate forum over the next few days.
On your profile page, click the number next to topics and it will show you a summary of your threads
See active since last visit under Activities in your profile. But it doesn't take you to the last post of the thread.
Userlevel 1
+1
For me, I came in daily to the forums, clicked "New Posts" and read through topics of interest. I learned a lot that way or could occasionally help others. And That way I could quickly just stay up to date on the forums. Is there something comparable here?
Also all this white space, and then the design trap that sites think is right (white is clean), so you give us a page with white, grey, and lighter gray. check out http://contrastrebellion.com/
My 2 cents.
I expected a learning curve to the new forum but from my standpoint, it certainly is not as user friendly as the legacy forum. The new forum topics are not terribly logical although that may be because I was familiar with the old forum topics and I generally knew where to look for topics that interested me. I also preferred the way the legacy forum handled new topics and responses with BOLDING (it made looking for new topics or posts easier for me).
This new forum represents a significant change from what most of us were used to. I think we all realize that SONOS' key objectives was to reorganize and consolidate their limited web resources. I have to believe SONOS also wanted to continue to support their very active user community. I'm not so sure they have fully achieved the user support portion yet. I hope the new forum will continue to evolve and improve but it is clear from the comments in this topic that there is still much work to do on that front.
This new forum represents a significant change from what most of us were used to. I think we all realize that SONOS' key objectives was to reorganize and consolidate their limited web resources. I have to believe SONOS also wanted to continue to support their very active user community. I'm not so sure they have fully achieved the user support portion yet. I hope the new forum will continue to evolve and improve but it is clear from the comments in this topic that there is still much work to do on that front.
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