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 :)