This New Site

Bye...

There is always going to be growing pains with a new release.  It always happens with any web site and/or software.  Happened the last upgrade.

This is a FREE site that is basically friendly and supportive with great advice.  There is a good community of people and the amount of functions this site has is amazing.  Forums, calculators, logs, plans, routes, nutrition, messaging, etc.

If all of that doesn't make up for a little discomfort of learning a new site and having it take a little time to get back up to speed?  Yeah, bye.

I knew the site had to roll over and why--though I, too, have been frustrated by being unable to reach out as easily as I used to, and to me this was the heart of BT.

However, it helped to read this, from Ron's blog (I think it's also in a State of BT post that's either stickied in Tri Talk or the Bugs forum):

Don't let the door hit you...   #firstworldproblems

Seriously though, I've had minor usability frustrations but nothing major.  My biggest complaint is that I don't have a link at the bottom of the page to take me back to the parent forum.  When I post I have to scroll all the way to the top to click on the parent forum link.  Other than that, I'm fine with everything.

I own an IT company and it's never fun to work on a 747 while it's flying through the air.  No matter what, something is going to get missed or be "buggy" and overall I'd give the BT crew an A- on the issues I've encountered.

If I were paying hundreds of dollars a month for this service I may be a little more picky, but I'm not.  BT is a free service to me and I really appreciate the efforts of the staff and volunteers here.

I can barely operate a computer to begin with.........nothing new here for me.   

 "You would need a team of about 6 programmers at least, running a completely new development live site not on a subdomain, on it's OWN server (not shared with the live site), with mirrored development environments on the servers and local machines...to possibly pull this off any better...."

This is exactly what I have been trying to tell people.....wait..........what?  

I have some minor gripes, I can't inspire folk anymore - unless I want some kind of eplileptic seizure while my screen does a strobe light show.

Everything else on the computer works well.

The phone, well it's not ideal as a medium for this kind of site anyway, just for when I need to post something and i'm not near a computer.

I like the new 'look and layout' of the site.  Agreed don't like scrolling all the way to the top for some stuff.

And in threads to change pages the option is only at the bottom not top and bottom.  I'm pretty sure they are easy fixes anyhow.

I belong to another triathlon training thingo and their site is way worse.  Just sayin.

I hadn't read Ron's piece before now, thanks Yanti.  For me, this is a free site. One way I could give back was testing, and as one who beta tested, I could only test what I use.  And it is being worked on and getting better, so what seems to be the big problem?  

In life we have choices, we can complain, we can adjust, or we can be part of the solution by helping out. If you leave, you are going to have to adjust. If you stay you will have to adjust. Your choice. Maybe next time you can be part of the solution.

Ron, thanks for all your efforts and those of your team.

I'm surprised to read this, as the "community" aspect (friends, inspires, accessing other blogs) is one of the biggest draws to BT - as evidenced by all of the comments in the "site bugs" area and here. It's interesting and a bit perplexing that Ron and the team didn't know this or see how big of a deal it was to the users before the switch.

Thats what I'm finding.  a lot more navigating and more clicks.  Did things need to be redone? It just seems less friendly too, more businesslike.

I'll get used to it, but yes, I'm like the grumpy old man that doesn't like change...

Metathesiophobia - Fear of changes

I doubt that.  The biggest draw to BT is that it's a resource for people who are new to triathlon....."community" may happen for a minority of the people who register on this site, but I think to call it "one of the biggest draws" is a pretty big leap.  In fact, I would bet that all of the people who feel some kind of "community" here could leave and the number of new members would barely drop off at all.

As far as a business.....the folks who stick around a long time most likely pay less and less to the site, because they don't need the help like they did when they first signed up.

Look at the number of posts by the avg. user on the main Triathlon board.......lots of double and triple digits there.  It's the nature of triathlon in general....most people don't last very long.

Thanks to Yanti for posting the note from Ron.  I hadn't seen that, and it certainly gives us an idea of what a nightmare it must be to work through a site overhaul like this.  Site overhauls are horrific amount of work.  Our non-profit is due for one, and I just can't bring myself to do it for all of these reasons. Ugh.

As a newish user (started in April), who hadn't yet developed a strong attachment to the old site, I thought I'd offer my $.02. 

I like the new site.  Admittedly, I hadn't been using the training logs, I still don't  know what an "inspire" is, and I don't have any "friends", so maybe I hadn't been using the site enough to really feel these growing pains.  I like the new aesthetic more than the old.  I like the new quoting system in the forums and I like how you can now see who a response is to without quoting.  These seem like improvements. 

I think LB made some good observations about community in general, but Lisa I also agree with you.  I have found the BT community to be EXCEEDINGLY nice and supportive, lots of people who reach out via PM--to just say hi or to offer specific help or a training suggestion.  That is a very noticeable difference between BT and ST.  The community here is very inclusive and supportive, whether you use it as such and build from that is probably very individual.

One thing that I don't particularly like is that there are so many separate subforums.  I think that can make traffic seem slow even when it's not, and there are posts that I miss, but would like, because they are in a forum I don't check frequently.  I think "strength training" and "nutrition" and "weight loss" are all categories that seem to be a part of "tri talk" but this is a small thing, and, again, probably just personal preference.

Overall, I find the site to be very navigable and intuitive, especially for a complete Luddite like me. 

I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon and say deal with it or don't. Your choice. BT has been a wonderful resource for me! (Personal and tri-related)

I appreciate your re-post of Ron's blog Yanti. I was looking for something like "why the upgrade?" Not that I didn't believe it was needed, but I want to know WHY I'm dealing with the inconvenience. It also would've been SUPER helpful if there was a "how to" for popular things.