[Brad]

Originally Posted by Shelley_c

I partially read your reply brad and what you say is very much sound. On the otherhand, Actions which followed would contradict what you say. Take the graphic database for example, Most importantly the placement. From a contributors perspective vbulletin made it very hard for designers to get a foothold in this area. I made a suggestion on ways of improving this area and with much contributing from myself after a solid month and being told it was being structured for the better it took a turn for the worse. I even suggested about naming the sub headings and posted them (which were sound) and still they are left empty. If indeed staff want the community to work together you need to work with them. So far, Staff aren't. You are told that progress is being made and when it is it's for the worse (I'm speaking of the graphic database).

Again, I am pointing to the graphic database and speaking as a contributor that the people behind the scenes didn't take a blind bit of notice and took it upon themselves to totally shatter the gfx database.

IMHO The staff would have a deeper respect for the graphic database if (from the start) you had dedicated staff to contribute into it. Heck, check invisionizie.com to see what I'm saying. For a resource site vb.org have possibly the worst structed, placement, content driven graphic database for any board software which was a shock to me when I first visited. Who do we blame for this, Well, I can only blame the people who neglected it and when feedback was ignored you only continue to pave the way for a shabby looking database.

Sure enough If progress in this area was taking a turn for the better you would be more obliged to have made something from it and take feedback from the members who have experience in graphic databases. You didn't which leads me to think people hold back in giving suggestions and feedback which also means you shouldn't be surprised why contributors get fustrated.

Actions speak louder than words brad and although your reply makes for good and sound reading you only have to take a look at the gfx area to see what I'm talking about and the ignored feedback I and others tried to give.

You were heard, and I did attempt to make it better when I had time. The problem with this was many things. There were on-going plans to improve the site, that included a new style and lots of additions by the coding team. As such I did not wish to make radical changes to the style or the code currently begin used to power this site, I knew that work would just be thrown out in a couple of months.

I did what I could: I gave you an installation button and 'hack style' thread layout for these threads. I gave the graphics it's own page and linked to it from the 'portal' I made for hack releases. I planned on doing more (showing them in your profile for example) but I had to take my leave before that could get done, if you continue to express your opinion the current staff will keep trying to improve this area of the site.

I agree with you, actions speak louder than words, but action does take time. Please realize that I had a lot going on at that time, and could not devote 100% of my time to your requests. I was busy dealing with other users, training a bunch of new staff members, answering day to day questions from staff members about current issues, breaking in a new admin, and I was speaking to Jelsoft (and it was working) while doing all of this.

I was also the only one could make changes to the code here at the time, heck I was the only on with any kind of access to the server after Erwin and Stefan left. In about a week or so I went from having a small role as an admin here to begin "the man in charge". When you're the man in charge of a site like this there are a ton of things you have to do daily, you guys don't see this so you just assume it does not happen...to top all of this off, I was doing everything from a connection that takes upwards to a minute to load a thread. How many of you are still on dial-up by the way? How many of you that are on dial-up dial in at about 12kbps? That's what I use to get on the internet everyday.