General comment on the use of the Actinic forum

[leehack]

Once again opinions are polarised on a unsolvable issue - a community.

One thing that stands out like a sore thumb to me is that both Dolly and the anonymous poster are both unhappy with what they see on the forum at times. Yet they will both happily sit in the background doing nothing about it, extensively using the resources without putting anything back in. That to me is what Gypsys do when they move onto your local wasteland, get what they can and then move on, having added nothing positive for the area.

If you think that the forum is a bad place, why not sign up, join in and help to try change that - with both of your attitudes (undoubtedly the easy way out) you are effectively walking past the old lady who is getting mugged and hoping someone else stops the thief. If you think it is that bad, as a member of the community you have a duty to help out the good guys. If the bad guys are the minority, they will become largely ignored and besides 2 more people to help other users would be a great asset to the community.

It's easy to throw stones, help tape up the windows instead.

PS - anonymous posting does make a difference to me, you could just as easily be Dolly, her son, someone with a gripe or anyone from the same company trying to back her up. If you firmly believe in what you have written, you certainly shouldn't be worried about a few names being thrown, it's your opinion and you have your right to voice it.

[Sean Williams]

I've got a boy of 24 and a girl of 4.

I think Polly may not be used to fora / fori / forums ?? in general - in my (quite wide) experience of them in all sorts of areas, the mix of useful responses, perfect information, complete rubbish, kindly souls, utter so and so's with both general good humoured and irritable banter to be fairly typical.
This is what makes this Forum so good!

I'm a self-builder and spend most of the day running my business rather than building my new replacement sites, which explains why I bought Actinic nearly a year ago, joined this forum last December, but have only just got to putting up the first 'proper' site (and that isn't even populated yet ..)
Which then goes on to explain why occasionally I ask for help with things which are actually very basic and once or twice blindingly obvious! The reason is, at 52 I find learning and retaining all this quite difficult (you know how it is - in order for one thing to go in now, something else has to go out!) and so often I'll get back to Actinic after a gap of 2 or 3 weeks and of course have forgotten stuff.
And I have realised that if there are no replies to a post of mine, it almost always means I need to pull my finger out and do a better search as the question has been answered before.
The replies I do get are always helpful, not always completely correct, but useful even then to get to the right answer. How cool is that?

Which brings me to my negative point; I pay for Actinic Support and although I have had some very good, quick, accurate help there, mostly the support has been only averagely competent, occasionally not helpful and once utterly lamentable - it took four weeks to get useless 'solutions' to my request and only after I finally spoke very firmly to senior chaps within the company did I receive the help I was looking for, which was perfect when it came.
Only this week I made a support call which was left unresolved because the person in support didn't know and 'would get back to me'. I solved it myself about ten minutes later and was then shocked to realise that I was being blind and the person in support should get another job because to not know the answer to my query was laughable.

To summarise:
I always come to the Forum first, Knowledge Base second and Support third. Three cheers for the Forum I say
If you can't take the heat in the Forum, don't visit it. None of it is personal is it?
Actinic need to beef up their support - particularly for those who have paid.
The Forum should be daily sieved for useful, accurate, innovative etc pieces of advice and these pieces used to add/update a proper database of Forum Knowledge. I would have thought it would save Actinic money in the long run to have a support person doing that job.
Don't try something new in Actinic when one has just done a day's hard week, because one just spends hours missing the bl**ding obvious

Hard Work, obviously

[RuralWeb]

One thing that stands out like a sore thumb to me is that both Dolly and the anonymous poster are both unhappy with what they see on the forum at times. Yet they will both happily sit in the background doing nothing about it, extensively using the resources without putting anything back in.

My thoughts exactly

[dave_finlayson]

What a bleeding waste of time this thread is. Everyones opinions are probably correct in one way or another but until Actinic moderate the forum properly, remove any posts that are deemed cheeky, rude, offensive or whatever nothing is going to change. In fact no, they should remove any posts they don't want on the forum, after all, it's theirs to do with as they please! If I post a cheeky message, I am not going to cry if it gets removed!

Otherwise, this will keep on coming up and frankly, I'm sure most of us have got better things to do. I help people if I know the answer, otherwise it gets ignored. If they annoy me, I ignore it full stop. Sometimes I might get stroppy (not that I think i do), but only when people don't help themselves. That's life people, I don't claim to be a saint!

Once world peace has been resolved, we can all move on and start discussing important things like whether Stephen Donaldson's epic Thomas Covenant chronicles are the best fantasy books ever written! Or, who shot Nice Guy Eddie?

[Mike Hughes]

whether Stephen Donaldson's epic Thomas Covenant chronicles are the best fantasy books ever written!

You mean this is open to debate!

Mike

[dave_finlayson]

Actually, no it's not, clearly they are!

[RuralWeb]

until Actinic moderate the forum properly

I think we all agree with that -

[gabrielcrowe]

I accept your problems Mr Cranium. I even understand that this forum is not constructive, towards the Actinic software.

However, it is the best software in its field. I think Actinic is an amazing piece of kit. I dont think that anything here is really that bad. the bugs and such are managable. The ones that are bad are being fixed. I dont think that people will be as swayed by this forum as you are sir.

To be quite honest, I dont think your opinions on this forum matter. Since you're obviously a lurker. It was I who looked into your profile. I wanted to find an email to explain some things to you, but instead I found a company name. I'm not about to apologise for that, you shouldnt have posted it in there, and then i couldnt have found it. If you are mebarrased or insulted by your own website, then its time to either change it, or change your jiggy pieces. This isnt an attack Jack. You leave yourself open with shallow debate, of course there will be a counter strike, you're slapping the wrist of the denizens. dont expect to get away with it without comment.

I know from experience, that you dont sound like forum people. You dont sound like people that understand how a community works.

As mr hack rightly pointed out, this is a no win situation. You cant 'win' becasue this community will continue to be itself forever. and I cant win becasue you'll never see the bigger picture about communities. Some of the communities i am part of and have previously moderated are downright anarchy compared to this one. Actinic community is an idyllic place, you really have no idea.

Quit posting your long winded complainy drivel on this forum and harping on about what you think is wrong and please do something about it. Contact Actinic right now, use your fingers to dial them up and demand moderation on the community.

Instead post soemthing that will help someone. Get a real account and help some noobs yourself.

[los_design]

Instead post soemthing that will help someone. Get a real account and help some noobs yourself.

**gives gabe a standing ovation**

Nothing more needs to be added, well said sir!

[RuralWeb]

Nothing more needs to be added, well said sir

Gabe gets my vote - make him a mod.

[gabrielcrowe]

Right, now i'm off to DJ. Wish me luck.

[completerookie]

is there no end to Mr Gabe's talents??

[gabrielcrowe]

um, actually I suck at it.

...sadly, the musical tastes of this particular generation of alternative music lovers, tends to sway towards the emo pop crap.

I cant stand whiney little goth kids.

[Luddite]

I've signed up with false credentials,

Keep telling yourself that squire!

I actually agree with some of what you say, but the bottom line is that the community works. Don't bite the hand that feeds you I say. Although I do have a recollection of my daughter biting my hand when she was a baby - I still feed her though.

Did you see what I did there - I neatly merged the OP with the baby sub thread.

[gabrielcrowe]

clever. hehe.