To Change or Not To Change - That is the Question
 

Scenario: You are the admin of a forum that has been around for years. You have a certain way of doing things that works for your members. They're used to it. It's the way things are done. (For example, you don't use redirects when you move a thread)

A vocal new member joins and starts complaining about the way you're doing things. He says he can't find anything and your way makes the site difficult to use. His comments have some merit.

Because you think the new guy makes some sense (and because for whatever reason you can't make new guy go away and new guy is VERY vocal) you change the way you were doing what you were doing.

But, some of your long-term members balk at the new way of doing things. They liked it the way it was before. They start grumping about the changes.

So, do you:
1. Keep the changes the noisy new guy suggested because they do make sense when it comes to making your site easier for new members to use.
2. Change things back to appease your loyal members but start the new guy cranking again (remember, you're stuck with him. He's not going away)
3. Tell everybody to take a flying leap and close the site. You'd rather code cool stuff than deal with people ;)

Change things back and ask the long term members to kick the new guys ass. ;)

This situation sounds all too familiar. Regular members at my site would get upset at some of the "n00bs" who'd keep asking questions about everything and would mention that things aren't easy at the site. I kinda went both ways, changing things which I felt really needed changing, while still trying to keep the site as a whole the same. Still, I got mixed reactions, with people saying things are either easy or hard. I simply just leave it as it is, as I can't tend to everyone's whim whenever they dislike something.

I like this one :D But, remember, the changes made sense - even if new guy was a pain.

Do you all find that some people are just totally resistant to change?

I had a ton of new members (maybe old members without the guts on telling things directly) asking, yelling and +++++ing about how things were and are made in some of my forums.

Sometime they were right, but most of the cases they weren't. So, i've chosen the polity and political way. Try to be veeeeeeeeery easy going with the guy, very polite and all that crap most of the admins never do. I mean, we are admins right? We usually have people with us to deal with customer complaints and stuff like that.

At the end, the guy will fly away to another board (hopefully), or be ignored by the whole community because he only +++++es.
Its a difficult situation Amy, wish you luck!

ps. wooops! sorry for my english!

I would go with OPTION 2. And if that guy does not stop to whine about things, I will put him "Tachy goes conventry" or whatever it is called in vBulletin. Already used this feature for a couple of users who started spamming and after banning them registered a new account. After that they became quiet.

Agreed, this happened at site I used to go to. Some newer people started joining, complained about the way things went (At this forum ew had all known eahc other for about 5 years, all good friends.) New peopel joined and complained so the admin changed it to accomodate for them. Then around 9 or 10 of his msot active members left. The board is still alive, but not nearly as active as it was.

And as for people being totatlly resistant to change, this was the same situation. The new people brought up valid points, but thats not how we wanted it. Everyone on this forum would insult each other, but we all took it lightly, not many rules, and that kind of thing. New people joined and requested rules and boundaries and such; it all got out of hand.

If you think the changes are for the better then keep them. Long term members will moan for a bit and then get used to them.

You need to make things good for new members, so they will eventually become long term members.

I am currently doing some major changes. What I did before starting anything was to ask my long term members in a special forum about their opinions.
So far I have to see one negative remark about the changes that I am aiming to. :)

Start a poll on said forum, the majority wins no matter what (stated clearly)

I think a poll always comes in handy to sort stuff out like this :)

Not necessarily. Some people simply refuse to let issues drop, no matter what admins say or what the majority wishes.

I can remember having one of such members. It was kind of the biggest nuisance ever on my forums. But not only that, he influenced some of the long term members aswell. At least he is unactive at the moment.

I always take my decisions on my own. People sometimes complain about stuff but if i think my way is the right way i never give a damn about what other people say :)

Don't forget who your base is - that "guy" could be long gone in a week and your regulars are left grumbling about how you capitulated to the new guy so quickly and left them out in the cold.

Most of run hobby sites. We can boot whom we choose when we choose to do so. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the forum is a customer support site for a paid product. Company image relies on how you handle the matter.

Does your opinion change?

i would say option one, if your long term members are loyal, they'll want the best for the site and userbility is a big step in moving any site forward, bringing in new members is always a great thing to do, even if some are noisy and vocal like this new guy. your older members will get used to the changes, after all, they're there for the people not the features.

Correct

Tell him to go away if he doesn't like the forum and be presedential.

Make them both happy, create a hack that prunes redirected threads after it reaches X days old. ;)

I had this too at one time. But I wanted new too. So I accidently on pupose crashed my server and my backups just wouldnt work (so I said). So I upgraded everything and made new styles and laid out the forums totally differently. The site was down for a couple of days and I made a nice page explaining the situation and apologizing for the inconvenience. When it all came back they were just grateful that it was back and didnt complain much at all. And after they were used to the changes they liked it much better. Dont let them think they have a choice. Sneaky way but its effective.

1. If it's a hobby site, then the bottom line is that the site admin believed it was a good suggestion and he or she decided to make the change. Who cares if the idea was presented by a new member or an old member?

If the membership raises the issue, just let them know that you're balancing the pros and cons of making changes based on what works best for the site/community overall.... and leave it at that. There's really nothing to be gained by "appeasing" individual members or any particular segment of the group to this extent.

2. If it's a commercial site... well then, it's still the exact same thing. Each option that comes along needs to be evaluated on it's own merits. That's got nothing to do with personality issues, popularity contests, or catering to people too much just because they complain alot.

The owner/admin has to make really tough choices from time to time. Being able to introduce a necessary change and handle the announcement along with any possible backlash is a skill we all need to develop if we want to manage a group/team/community effectively.

One should never jump to the whims of an individual (or party)

Things you should consider before making any changes.

• know your target audience (color, text-size, age, browser, etc, etc)
• check your log files (stats) and see how people use the site
• understand the psychology of "surfing the net", "using your site", etc
• your members as a whole