OPEN LETTER TO HCEG Administration

[LeftyTom]

I've got no axes to grind with Anderton or other mods/supermods. I've found all to be approachable and open

 

I cannot remember how I found HC. I do recall that I wanted to get in on the fun and community. The ideas and videos posted by others have been helpful and amusing

[kayd_mon]

I think the place can bounce back, dave.

[photon9]

Anderton - you've always had my deepest respects and I know you tried your ass off to make this place great. And I respect you jumping out of a burning building before the whole thing collapses even more. Best if luck to you.

[tnburg]

I heard now that the new site has rolled out, our 357 customs guitars will start shipping. Fingers crossed!

[GilmourD]

 

---

kayd_mon wrote:

 

@anderton

 

 

 

Sincerely, thank you for that post. It's good to know that people "higher up" do care.

---

 

To be honest, I think Anderton's now bald due to pulling all his hair out over this. If it were his call I think things would be VERY different.

[kayd_mon]

@dendy

 

I look forward to the upgrades, and I appreciate the work you're doing for the forum.

[Northstar]

The proof is in the pudding as they say. There seems to be good intentions at the top although I don't buy Anderton's view that there's a general clamp down on the internet from many powers. My response to that line of thinking is to fight the clamp down. Always.

 

Back to my line of thought, I may come back if the interesting conversations arise anew but so far, I haven't seen a lot. I stayed after the migration to Haunting Mids, I stayed after 2.0 but this last one, as much as I wanted to, the technical difficulties of last fall drove me away and when I came back, there was nothing to come home to... the damage had been done.

 

My two cents:

• move back Guitar Jam to the Guitar forums but keep your restrictions if you wish
• make the stickies at the top of all forums a very contrasting color from the actual posts
• add a button that brings you to the last post of a thread
• bring back the subscription list which tells you when a new post has been made in a subscribed thread
• streamline media insertion in posts (I don't even know how to post a pic anymore and I've tried...)
• I see that people are quoting other posts and I don't know how to do that either anymore...
• if you listen and implement this short list, be prepared for more...

[Elias Graves]

Fight the man!

Because he's coming to audit your taxes!

[DaveAronow]

 

Ok. I really appreciate the responses. Both from members, and from Craig, Phil, and Dendy.

 

I'll do my part to help

 

Dendy, do us a favor, give us the benefit of the doubt of knowing where the decency line is and don't be standing on the other side with a machete when we try to stick our toes across it. At least wait till we get the whole leg over before you start whacking.

 

And don't forget, that a good {censored}storm thread always increases traffic, and as bad as things look like they are getting, we almost always end up coming to some resolve and everyone involved pretty much walks away from it contimuing to be friends. These types of things often become legendary,  part of our inside culture,  lore and are part of the glue tgat holds us all together and continuing to come back.

 

 

I understand, maybe not with an insiders view, the challenges you face and will continue to work on in the future and I really appreciate the response to this thread. It was written with all sincerity in concern for the life, health and future of this once awesome community.

 

So thanks and, thanks in advance for not forgetting that we members, real people, will continue to come here with enthusiasm unlike other forums only as long as we are continued to be permitted to be us. If not, then the best you could ever hope for will be a forum similar to other forums and that includes their numbers in traffic.

 

So I'm encouraged to stick around do my part and see what happens.

 

If you can do this for us, then we promise not to forget everything you guys are doing on your end to bring this forum back to its former glory.

 

I will need to let you know though, that if everything goes extremely well, at some point we are going to eventuallydemand to get paid, but we can talk about all that later.

 

Once again, thanks to everyone for all the responses in this thread!

 

I think we all have a much better understanding of what got us here and what the plans for fixing it are but as you can see, the time had come for all of us to hear it though.

 

Ill continue to be cheering for you.

[PunkKitty]

 

Dendy, thanks for your response. This forum is huge. So upgrades don't always go smoothly. This was a data migration between two very different platforms. There are bound to be some problems.

 

I may not be as active as I once was. But I still check in once a day or so. I sincerely hope that the forum is able to rebound.

[Elias Graves]

I drank the water out of the toilet an hour ago.

[steve_man]

 

---

kayd_mon wrote:

 

@dendy

 

 

 

I look forward to the upgrades, and I appreciate the work you're doing for the forum.

---

 

^^^THIS^^^

[Elias Graves]

I thought we were all juvi? I know I am.

[seven58]

With toilet water comes potty humor. Electrolytes be "condemned, especially to eternal punishment."

[Pine Apple Slim]

@Dave

Kudos. At least you got the attention of the staff. 

But I have to say, given the track record I don't believe the paid help has much of a chance to cure the stupid of the people who own this place. Our only hope is that our corporate overlords forget about us and leave this place alone. Then there might be a chance of a comeback.

But I plan to hang around. If it becomes unbearably boring I guess that will be the end for me. But I'm gonna give it a few months at least, checking in at least once a day or so.

 

[Elias Graves]

I got electrocuted on the toilet once. Singed all the hair right off my ass.

[knotty]

 

[Elias Graves]

The old hc woulda just said "fuk this forum" and break out the ponchos.

[black blade]

Why did they kill Guitar Jam???

That really psisses me off.

 

[Elias Graves]

This is what hail clouds look like.

 

http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z352/ElijahGardener/16C405C7-DA8B-40E5-A29B-12AF5B6A4A5F-9909-00000D7A319B0FF8_zps3155bc60.jpg

 

 

 

 

That storm was wicked. Over 3" of rain.

The tornado went six miles to my south. Fukin scary.

 

 

 

My hailstorm. Not too bad. Ill have to look tomorrow but I don't think I have any serious damage here.

 

Gonna be another big damn mess to clean up all over town, though.

[spleender]

I could care less about the PG-13 aspect of it. The worst part about the changeover is the look of the new forum. So much wasted space. It just doesn't feel inviting when I'm browsing this forum. It has a cold, sterile feel which i can't get used to. TGP, TPDRI, MyLesPaul, and LPF have a much better UI.

The funny thing is they left VBulletin because it couldn't handle the traffic. I bet it could handle it now given the mass exodus in the last couple of months.

 

[kayd_mon]

The layout is being worked on.

 

What I will say about the mobile layout - while it sucks that you can't quote, post pics and video, etc. via the mobile interface, it looks good and loads fast. Once those issues are fixed/upgraded, it'll be good.

[Dendy Jarrett]

Thanks Craig: I are from the South.

If you've read Craig's letter or mine, you'll understand that the internet is becoming more and more 'regulated' (for lack of a better term).

This was inevitable.

 

The mobile experience here is changing 3rd quarter (we are told) to a new robust UI that will allow all the functionality you would expect on an i-device.

 

As far as the UI here. In the last 6 weeks, there have been significant changes made to bring the UI back to the experience we enjoyed with vB.  When you say wasted space, I would need clarification to understand if anything can be done about that. Our forum (just the forum interface) is the standard 1000 pixels wide. The grey ribbons on each side simply frame the page. I have asked if we can expand to 1200 pixels wide and have those frames be half their width. It is being researched to determine if it will affect pages on the other tabs of the nav bar (Articles, Reviews, etc.)

 

Thanks

D

[Grant Harding]

I think both Craig and Dendy have done a very good job of explaining their part in all of this and you'd have to be pretty cynical to not notice that they're passionate about making the place work.

 

I certainly won't miss the "bully brigade" that gang up on anyone that threatens their popularity. A good house cleaning is always refreshing.

[DaveAronow]

Yeah, I can be an ahole just like anyone, but it is never just to bully for the sake of being a pinga con queso. It is always either yo try to put another ahole in their place even if sometimes I am wrong about it, or trying to fix a situation that I think could be better but isnt, either because someone refuses to or doesnt agree it even nees fixing. But so far Dendy and Craig are making a great effort to catch us up on everything and it all sounds encouraging. What a huge difference, to me anyway, just letting us know you care about it and are working on it with what seems to be a lot more optimism that they can fix things compared to a year ago when it seems they were just hiding from us because they appeared to believe it was hopeless.

To be totally honest, when I started this thread, I was almost certain harmony central was dead and burried and I absolutely never expected any sort of response from anyone except othervmembers. I wssbhoping the murderers would at least see it though and realize there are a lot of people that cared alot about something they ruined and then they could decide to whatever ectent they felt guilt or even cared at all. Maybe even laugh at us, who knows, but I am really pleased at the outcome of the thread now.. Ill give the benefit of the doubt as so far, looks like all the progress reported in this thread is actually happening.