05-15-2020, 06:53 PM
Like you, I come to this site for the forums. I love to fish, and I enjoy reading about others' adventures fishing. I like the fishing reports, and the community that is represented here. We have a camraderie that extends well outside this forum into the real world. I appreciate the owners of bigfishtackle.com for hosting a forum on which we can build and strengthen our community.
That said, the problems with the site itself are approaching intolerable. The old version of the site was certainly not aging well, but it worked. I can appreciate that a new system will have bugs that take time to iron out, but I'm not seeing much improvement. I appreciate that the owners invested in the new site but it simply isn't working out. At this point I have no idea how many times I'll have to refresh in order to even see a post (or if I'll be able to get past the errors at all). I'm certain that a significant percentage of former participants have given up on even trying to get to the site, with all the database errors, timeouts, browser incompatibilities, and username issues.
I've spent more than 20 years in IT and IT security. I know my way around these things. I offered to help with the old site - pro bono - but was turned down. This community is important to me and I'm willing to volunteer my own time -- and even some expense -- to have a place where we can focus exclusively on Utah fishing and not have the technology get in the way of it all.
I'd be willing to commit personal skills I have (IT, security) to have the collective knowledge of the group stay vibrant (so that I can work on my less-than-outstanding fishing skills). I'm not sure this will be possible on the current site. If we don't figure out something soon, I'm afraid our community will decay until it is no longer sustainable. Too many other sites have suffered this fate.
That said, the problems with the site itself are approaching intolerable. The old version of the site was certainly not aging well, but it worked. I can appreciate that a new system will have bugs that take time to iron out, but I'm not seeing much improvement. I appreciate that the owners invested in the new site but it simply isn't working out. At this point I have no idea how many times I'll have to refresh in order to even see a post (or if I'll be able to get past the errors at all). I'm certain that a significant percentage of former participants have given up on even trying to get to the site, with all the database errors, timeouts, browser incompatibilities, and username issues.
I've spent more than 20 years in IT and IT security. I know my way around these things. I offered to help with the old site - pro bono - but was turned down. This community is important to me and I'm willing to volunteer my own time -- and even some expense -- to have a place where we can focus exclusively on Utah fishing and not have the technology get in the way of it all.
I'd be willing to commit personal skills I have (IT, security) to have the collective knowledge of the group stay vibrant (so that I can work on my less-than-outstanding fishing skills). I'm not sure this will be possible on the current site. If we don't figure out something soon, I'm afraid our community will decay until it is no longer sustainable. Too many other sites have suffered this fate.