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

Also the website (Ars Technica) which you used to illustrate your argument, also illustrates another point under discussion. See that the site offers the following theme toggle.
...
I have a lot of trouble with black on (lots of) white for the reasons already covered by Buzz.
Ref my earlier two posts, see 'before' and 'after' pics.

I have tried to avoid too many Chrome extensions due to instability
I'm similarly wary and, with the exception of ABP and a couple of security-related items, only load a handful of Google authored extensions.

Good to hear that. I am finding that the experience here isn't very enjoyable though, so I will take a break and see if things are any different and less of a work in process when I drop back in next - unless I am forced to earlier for some troubleshooting assistance.

Well, Kumar, you're doing something right; 26 likes! You can't leave now. 😉

Can anyone advise me how I can review my posts?
Your profile. Click on your avatar or username.

Well, Kumar, you're doing something right; 26 likes! You can't leave now. ;)

I had forgotten to turn off the emails so I got this reply - I have just turned those off:-).

I am pretty sure that many of those likes, which I notice are shrinking like violets for some strange reason, are to posts moaning about the poorly implemented change, so they don't really count.

I'll stop by once in a while to see if Sonos has made a significant upgrade to what is a lousy UI at this time, but I haven't the interest to stick around till that is done. It could take months, even if that happens.

I prefer to maintain my anonymity, and it becomes increasingly difficult to do that when you have an outside party aggregating all the information about you and your hobbies, beliefs, etc, across every site you frequent. When I first signed up for the Sonos forums, I was pleased to see that Sonos had resisted the "Disqus" movement. I abandon sites that move to that system.

After getting my initial questions somewhat answered, I left off the forum for a month. When I came back, I couldn't find the forum. I searched all over the site and couldn't remember exactly how I got into those forums. There was some link for an eye-searing, hard to read thing called the "Community" which looked nothing like the forum. I finally figured that I must have lost my login somehow and tried to re-register. I ended up getting sent to some kind of outside site, which proudly proclaimed that I was now a member of some "family of sites", that my information would be spread across these sites, one login for everything, and that they would be happy to use my information and posts for their own benefit. In short, Discus all over again.

I complained loudly to both Sonos and the other party. I said that I signed up under Sonos but ended up farmed out to this other site and never had a chance to read or approve of their misuse of my information. I demanded that the account be closed, deleted, and excised from any backups. Allegedly this was done.

Now, here we are on yet another forum, and this one is a "community" (I dread buzzwords, whether its in the real world or online). Its "powered by" some new company, InSided. Is this simply software that replaced vBulletin? Or have the forums been moved into "the cloud", and the whole thing is a redirect to their servers? I would hope Sonos has still kept some control over their forum, but I have no idea. We've been migrated, but there has been no disclosure about who controls our info. I certainly hope that InSidious, or whatever they're called, is simply a server software provider and not that other bunch under a different name.

So.. who has our info?

Hi Proton, thanks for raising this issue here. Privacy is usually at the front of my mind when signing up for a new site as well, so I share your concerns. I am contacting InSided to get you a clear statement on how your information is used (or not used) since I want to make sure you get the answer you deserve. In the mean time, you can review the Sonos privacy policy here:

http://www.sonos.com/legal/privacy

The new platform doesn't support a preview mode but if this is a must-have to you, let us know.

Definitely a "must have" for me!

One other thing I need to mention...

After I sign up for a site, I always turn cookies off to help reduce or eliminate tracking. They will perform their function, which is to identify my ID and password to the host site, but the cookie can't be altered to modify tracking info, and new cookies can't be dropped either. I've done this with every forum I'm a member of, and with the exception of a couple of really archaic phpBB sites, I'm always able to read, post, search, and edit. I can also modify my profile. No problems, and some of my sites have had the same cookie on them for years.
I found that this forum will not let me have access to posts - even to read - if cookies are blocked for more than a day. There is no technical reason for this to happen.

John, thanks for the response. I appreciate you contacting InSidious on our behalf, but there is one part of my post that you should be able to answer without their involvement: where is this forum really located? Is the current forum simply software that Sonos is using, on Sonos company servers? Or is this whole forum really being served by InSided from a remote location and the Sonos site is merely a front end? You should be able to ask your company webmaster or IT person to get this answer.

These forums are hosted by InSided, who also developed the software itself. It's an arrangement for licensing and distribution commonly called SaaS (Software as a Service). Ask.sonos.com was SaaS and hosted by a company called Get Satisfaction, but the forums were not, they were hosted by Sonos on a variety of servers over the years.

The answer on privacy turns out to be considerably more simple than I previously thought, but when your personal data is being discussed, one can never be too careful. All information hosted on this site, including any personal data you've input, is covered by the Sonos privacy policy I linked earlier in the thread. I would recommend you read the section of the policy on information use yourself if you have any questions on how your data is used.

Can I put in a plea for easier navigation between pages of a thread, byputting the links to page numbers at both top and bottom of the page? This would mean not having to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page before choosing which page number to navigate to.

Thanks,
Steve.

I also want to add about the navigation tool. Make the arrows for > page bigger. Now they are almost invisible because of size and lack of contrast. (light grey on white!!!)

Lennart

Ok, I have given the new forum / community a bit of a go over the last few weeks and for me it is a big (if not huge) step backwards. Although I think Sonos will Improve things over time.

To me the big issue is that the posts I would be interested in seeing are "buried" or far outnumbered by the shear volume of questions from new Sonos users. In the old forum these were collated in the "getting started" area and I could chose not to go there. But here everything is piled in together only sorted by date/time.

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!

I like to look at different things; like what problems people were having and what the solutions were, so that I could avoid the issue or solve is quickly if it happens to me or to see what cool ideas other people were having. Now when I go to the Community it all seems to be "can Sonos do this" or questions already answered in the Sonos literature/FAQ/instruction manuals (must drive the Sonos staff nuts!!). Finding interesting stuff is so much harder now (for long time rather new users).

Just my thoughts - YMMV.

And I gotta add... this 'Just Now' or 'Yesterday" or 'Two Weeks Ago' as a posting date is annoying and useless. Why can't you just post the actual date and time of a post?