Community Forum Restructure Workshop - Please apply here

[Emoke Csikos]

Dear Community Members,

This is where we ask you to send your replies to apply for the Community Forum Restructure Workshop to be held on Friday, November 11th.

Thank you.

[Emre Senoglu]

Would be happy to be a part of this.

[4hotshoes]

Looks like that there will only be three community people selected to be a part of this workshop. It would be good to give other users a place to offer ideas prior to this workshop. I know that I am not highly qualified to speak about forum formats. But I do have thoughts on things that I would like to see. There seems to be many limitations of this current platform. My first suggestion is to change the platform. Second, we need a wishlist, certainly a better one with polls. Third, we need a way to see how active a thread is and who saw it, who are the major contributors. This is vital to give a sense of a living community. Forth, navigating the current forum is really strange, and discussions seem to die too soon while users questions seem to go unanswered. I don't have a lot of experience with forums, but the format of the one before this one was better. This one looks nice graphically, but that is not more important than good communication and a sense of community.

[Emre Senoglu]

I agree entirely Todd. When the switch was made, I found myself not bothering to check the forums anymore, for a long while. It's gotten better over time, but I still think a lot of the 'detailed' parts of the forum was lost mainly for looks. Also, all the data about the polls were lost. I know 'GS has this data' somewhere, thats great and all, but very useless if other users can't see it.

[JaredBanks]

I would be very interested in participating, but this meeting takes places from 3 am to 6 am pacific time, so it's impossible for me to attend. It seems like no one in North or South America will be able to attend.

My suggestions would be fairly straightforward though, look at the old Archicad-Talk forum, figure out all the missing functionality and organization that was lost, and bring that to the Graphisoft Community. The community moderators should also have all the answers you need.

[DGSketcher]

I don't know enough about other forums & their pro's & con's to participate, but personally I feel this forum was a step backward. Too many post are missed, hard to find & follow. Also the fact we are still waiting on a Wishlist, and a roadmap after a year of promising isn't great. Ok the old Wishlist wasn't ideal [Post, Rant, Forget, Buried], but at least there was a poll to gauge reaction to an idea.

[Erik Bjornhage]

Yes, I would very much like to be part of this.

Based in Sweden (so right time zone) and fairly active on many AC-related forums.

Simply haven't been so active here due to the lack of overview and other issues (which is what this workshop is about).

I would happily put my 2c in the bucket to help imrpove the community.

[Emoke Csikos]

Dear All,

Thank you for your replies. Please let me respond and clarify the goals of this workshop.

This workshop will only be about the forum structure. Currently, we only have seven forum boards (Design, Document & Visualize, etc.), and these are not enough, it isn't easy to decide where to post. Some of the forum boards host too many areas and topics.

This time we can only deal with the issue of the forum structure. We want to work on the following:
- how many forum boards we should have
- how we should organize all topics under these boards and
- what should be the names of the forum boards.

We won't be able to discuss the following:
- other generic user interface/user experience issues of the forums
- a better way to handle wishes
- the top navigation/main categories of the Community (Design, Document & Visualize, etc.)
We plan to work on these later.

What we don't expect:
- to create The Ultimate and Best Forum Structure that will work perfectly forever and for everyone.

What we expect:
- to gain insights on what forum structure would work best for most users
- to create one or more drafts of the future forum structure that could be further discussed and validated.
- to learn what we share the same or similar views on
- to learn where the differences in our approaches are
- to learn if the workshop format is suitable to tackle this kind of problem.

In the future, we also want to work on those many other issues already mentioned by the Community.

Thank you again for your thoughts. Please keep sharing them.

[JohnJay]

---

@Emoke Csikos wrote:

What we expect:
- to gain insights on what forum structure would work best for most users

---

If this is really what you want then why are you ignoring everything that users are saying, and focussing instead on how many boards there are?  The answer to fixing the forum is to bring back the old functionality (and the same functionality that most forums have), not create more of the same mess

We are telling you what structure would work best

You are choosing to ignore it and focus on irrelevant stuff

I don't know anyone that thinks this forum is an improvement on the old one, but i see many that think the opposite

[4hotshoes]

I am very disappointed in this response. After two years of users complaining about the bad format, GS is just now trying to add topics. This is not what we all hoped for when the word "restructure" was applied to this post. GS is missing the mark enormously! We are not looking for a perfect forum. Just give us back the old one. It was not perfect, but it worked. The current forum is damaging GS credibility in a huge way. I hope this fact came out in the workshop on Nov 11.

[JaredBanks]

Since this meeting already occurred, it'd be a good sign for those in the meeting to share what the outcomes were.

[DGSketcher]

Probably buried under a huge NDA to limit adverse discussion of the results.

[JaredBanks]

If this workshop isn't about fixing the community's structural issues and instead is just about minor tweaks regarding number and type of categories, then again I'd refer you to my original comment, but in simpler terms. Go back to the old Archicad-talk forum, look at all the categories that were there and add them all back. Those different categories were great. For reference, I've attached screenshots of the old forum. These categories were easy to search, focused on USER needs, and there was never a time where one couldn't figure out where to post or where to look.

The current community's structure does not foster collaboration, communication, or learning like the old forum did. Also the current community's structure has nothing like what the attached screenshots show: a full visual list of conversations that's explorable and searchable.

Please listen to the users. We loved the old Archicad-talk forum. It was clunky, it needed updates, but it was our community. It felt like a place for users, by users. So many long term users became experts by using that site. So many long term users met life long friends and colleagues through that site. This new community offers none of that.

[gavinNZz]

Why do a Forum restructure workshop and not address the problems being throw at you every day? Graphisoft you never cease to amaze me!

[JaredBanks]

Exactly.

[DGSketcher]

It does sound like a diversion, why throw so much enthusiasm and engagement into the forum format when the main focus should be Archicad, which now looks to be a secondary issue. Enough points have been made about what is wrong with this forum. I for one have more pressing issues than trying to fix this unwanted forum format and its buggy macOS issues because someone at GS didn't do their homework and made a bad decision. There is a question of resources and priorities here. And just in case the point hasn't sunk in yet, where is the Roadmap, Wishlist and timely support from GS employees to the bugs and interface / workflow issues in AC that are posted everyday that need fixing.

Rather than debating forum formats, GS should spend some time helping users and then they might start to appreciate what is actually wrong with AC. And I don't mean taking the easy option of "We added DEF-9999 or Idea-9999 to the list"; that should be a last resort. We have to deliver to our clients today, GS should also try providing an immediate solution rather than leaving users stuck or waiting for the next buggy update. A lot of time is given freely helping each other on this forum, it would be nice to also see GS Employee Engagement address some of the more common technical difficulties they create in AC.

I know many of us have local support, some do not, but even I find it helpful raising issues here rather than waiting a week for a response that has been round the globe waiting for a response from GSHQ.

[jl_lt]

Excellent excellent posts. And it applies to many things.  

[Eduardo Rolon]

Somebody at GS needs to read this:

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115310124539904

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

How long has this disaster been going on? GS can create a committee, with a consulting body, a poll system with a weighted evaluation algorithm, and any imaginable way to dilute responsibility and impede action.

Since for many years GS had had a working forum system, probably the best in the BIM-CAD world, and its destruction produces *daily* damage to both users and GS, a sensible approach could be: 

- give yourselves a (short) deadline for producing something that has significant advantages over the old forum system,  in the eyes of a majority of the users or of several previously appointed long-time forum users on whose advice GS is willing to bet their image,

- if that new and improved forum system is not there by then, just backtrack on this experiment and restore the old forum system, giving yourselves all the time you need to come up with some improved system without destroying what you already had.

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

And: whenever Facebook Ads or Amazon FBA go for a change in interface, which is a disruption in itself, they give the user for quite a while some button up top with the option of trying out the new or sticking with/returning to the old. And with that they weed out the problems, get feedback, everybody gets all the benefits and nobody gets any pain. In the end this is a database –just keep the two presentations running for a while, until just about nobody wants to stick with the old.

[Greg Kmethy]

Thanks for those participating in the "Community Forum Restructure Workshop"! The aim of this workshop was to improve this Community's usability with the involvement of its users. Admittedly, it had a narrow scope and that may be dissappointing.  We clearly have a lot more to do!

A lot of people here at Graphisoft are reading these forums and are painfully aware of your concerns regarding the forum, and also our products, roadmap and wishlist. These are all things we care a lot about.

We made some baby steps earlier this year, (organizing product webinars, sharing our high-level product roadmap), and there is a lot more we want to do. It will take time but we are on it! I appreciate all your past and future contribution here on Graphisoft Community!