A huge step backward--what are you guys thinking?

Not even mentioning the casual way in which Sonos decided to eliminate the Dutch, French and Spanish forums, in doing so showing blatant disregard for many users.

Yup, they flushed continental Europe and large parts of the Americas down the loo, just like that. But then, I still get email from that rather annoying Dutch localised Sonos site trying to sell me stuff. In Dutch, even when I set my preferred language to ze Queen's English because of the rest of the household here.

So they're localising Sales what I definitively don't want, while ditching "foreign" discussions over here. The other way around please, Sonos.

Time to move on. I will probably visit from time to time but my daily visits are over. I feel like I'm losing an old friend but things change. Sometimes changes are not positive and I've learned over time that you cannot go back.
Quite right.

This change is a corporate decision made by Sonos executive management, that Sonos staff that post here have to defend as best as they can, and accommodate user needs to the extent possible within the straitjacket of the new platform - executive management will never come here and take any flak. Those of us forum people that will continue, will do so in spite of the change, and in time one can get used to anything.

In many ways, the change is on the same lines as that for the new handheld device controllers, the difference being that the easier to use PC/Mac controllers are still around. How much longer, I can't say, I am sure their clock is ticking too.

I had said this on the forum too - competitors are struggling to catch up with the total package of services that Sonos offers, and the forum was an important part of these. One way Sonos can make things easier for competition is via self inflicted damage, and I have seen executive management do this in other companies in different fields, in a hubris driven attempt to make a mark and impress the boss.

PS: Hermie, the post asteroid comment was hilarious - and unfortunately, apt.

Maybe the new community will be like new Coke was in the 80s and they'll bring back the old forum. Though I doubt it... Coke management seems smart.

Look at the reviews for Insided, the software chosen for use here. Not pretty.

I suppose it takes some experience bought wisdom to understand the truth about the "if it ain't broke..." saying.

Like you said... the suits make the decisions and leave it up to the front lines to pick up the pieces.

Know what's awesome? Used to be able to click the 'new posts' link on the old forum from anywhere. To access it here easily, the easiest thing to do is go to my bookmarks for Sonos, which takes me to that page when nothing around here easily does. Convenient, right?

That's a good workaround. Which one though, recently active or posts since last visit? How is last visit determined? The last time I moved to another site while remaining logged in here, or does that list restart only with logging out?

If my memory serves me well, ask was created as a platform to capture, assess, and keep track of ideas and suggestions in a structured way, in place of the Sound Ideas section of the forum where this wasn't easy to automatically do.

The funny thing is that this functionality has been discontinued here, because it never worked on ask, as Sonos has reported here - somewhere.

Other than a merging of two communities, and very occasional responses here by Sonos staff, what is the benefit - if I may used a MBA beloved term - net net? Anyone?

We don't want to fix/break what isn't broken, but one of the things we are aiming to improve on is having multiple communities split up in different places that function in different ways. Hence, our goal of getting 'the best of both worlds' in one place.
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:

Seems this site has been rushed out with (seemingly) very minimal user feedback before launch so missing even some basic functionality (Add to Favorite from mobile site, no content in email notifications, cant sort by date in results, cant navigate to your last read post under 'Active Since Last Visit' or 'Recent Active Topics' double DOH !). For a company that goes to great lengths with alpha/beta testing their own software they did a pretty pi$$ poor job on 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

PS: Hermie, the post asteroid comment was hilarious - and unfortunately, apt.
Yes. Very funny Hermie, and the situation is well deserving of some morbid humour.