Since no one at WCG seems to care about the impact this grossly substandard software seems to have on the community here in general and the importance of retaining new members in particular, I would like to point out the fact that if you would simply bite the bullet and upgrade to commercially supported software, perhaps you wouldn't have to waste so much of your valuable time fixing bulls*** problems like these. Wouldn't that make your lives a whole lot easier in the long run?

Just a thought.

jhindo: You seem to stubbornly ignore the fact that your poll had an inherent bias - one I've pointed out repeated and which you seem adamant in ignoring. How many people come here to use the forum and either have trouble navigating it or do not wish to participate in it because it has none of the features they want and are accustomed to?

Of course the people who have been here for years have no problem with the software. They've simply adapted to it - but only because they've been forced to. What about the people who have simply left because the forum was more trouble than it was worth? How do you even begin to gauge THAT phenomenon? You can't.

You have heard people here complain about the fact that we don't have private messaging for example. THAT is is just one of many features people joining a forum expect.

For example, let's say I come here and have a question. I peruse the forum but don't want to post for whatever personal reasons I might have. However I might be bold enough to contact one of the posters privately - except that's not an option, is it? And that is just one possible example of many.

You think everything is copacetic because that's what you want to believe not because it actually is. This forum software is so hideous and slap-dash that NO ONE coming here will be willing to acclimate to it unless they have a very good reason to. But what reason could that possibly be? We are a charity project and therefore it is incumbent upon us to make things as easy and user friendly as possible - NOT do precisely the opposite, which in fact is precisely what we are doing - whether you are prepared to admit that or not.

The fact that you can't or won't see that simply boggles my mind.

If you check my posting history you will see that prior to the last cancer-GPU project, I had been absent from here for a few years. When I returned, I had to re-learn how to use the forum and the new "features" you had implemented. I was appalled not only at the grossly substandard nature of the software but by how many important features it lacked.

No one coming here who is accustomed to using modern forums will have any patience whatsoever with this piece of cr*p. To pretend otherwise is self-delusional.

Yes there will be many people who won't want to participate in the community we want to create. But as I have already pointed out multiple times, the last thing we should be doing is creating roadblocks for the people who do. Your persistent denial of this obvious reality is disturbing and indicates to me that you have your own reasons for opposing any sort of upgrade - reasons that have nothing to do with whatever flimsy justifications you can manage to propose.

As someone who seems to be familiar with circular reasoning, I'm surprised that neither you nor jhindo can see the flaw in that argument.

Let me give an example that you might be able to understand.

If you have a business located in a fourth floor walkup, does that somehow limit the number of people who will actually come into your business? Take your time answering that.

Ready?

Of course it does. That's what this forum software is like. Instead of putting our forum on the ground floor where it is easily accessible to everyone, using this software is like putting in a dumpster in the back of an abandoned strip mall. Sure, people can get to it if they really, really need to, but a) who really NEEDS anything we have to offer and b) how many people will actually WANT to visit our dumpster?

Does that make the argument plain enough for even you Astrolube?

Astrolube: Honestly, I'm surprised you understand anything at all. In fact, I'm slowly becoming convinced that you don't.

As long as you're willing to reprimand others for doing exactly the same thing, I don't have a problem with that. Otherwise I tend to respond to people the way they respond to me.