[matthew]

This thread is for commenting on the announcement made here: Social Discussion is now Join Discussion

Please be patient, we are going to try to make the changes as smooth and easy as possible. Feel free to give your feedback (preferably kindly and politely worded, whether positive or negative) in this thread.

Thank you!

[OrangeCrate]

Glad to see you guys made a little money with the start-up.

I think I'll bow out now, and leave the forums to the others.

Good Luck.

[matthew]

Wow, OC. I'm sorry you feel that way. This wasn't a planned thing at all.

Life changes have forced the previous owner to step back from some responsibilities. He will still be around here for a while, maybe a long time, but he isn't able any longer to put the time into this place that it really needs to continue to improve. That's about all that can be said without violating his personal privacy.

I wish I knew of a way to prove this wasn't about "getting rich quick" or anything. We actually and honestly started these forums just for the fun of it.

[qtwerp]

I don't like this move very much either. It's not the decision to sell it that's the problem, but the timing. The forums were created only a couple months ago. To not only change hands so soon, but profit from it, makes it seem like you're selling out. Ideally, the guy that bought it should be making a post alongside a trusted member of the staff, explaining what's going on.

Anyway, it's not like it was sold to a big corporation. The guy that bought it doesn't seem to be that bad. He already has at least one successful fourm and some other websites, although... I'm going to assume that this forum will become overloaded with ads as his other one is.

Also, why the switch of names? socialdiscussion sounds better, and if you want to pretend the name to be "join the discussion", people are going to go to jointhediscussion.com, instead of joindiscussion.com... just a thought.

Like OC, I think that I too may be bowing out of the discussion, sometime within the next few weeks and am now registered at ubuntuforums, so I hope that I'll be seeing many of the Socialdiscussion forumites over there too...

[RichBarna]

Personally it makes no difference to me at all. As a forum owner myself, I will say only one thing. The members make a forum, not the staff nor the owner. So it seems silly to leave a forum just because it has been sold to somebody else.

Obviously if it get's plastered with ads, that would be a bit of a turn off, but as long as the layout and the quality of member's posts aren't affected, I see it as a good thing to keep a forum alive.

By the way, why didn't you or Kiwi buy the forum Matt? Both of you are UF and SS lifers no?

[matthew]

Originally Posted by RichBarna By the way, why didn't you or Kiwi buy the forum Matt? Both of you are UF and SS lifers no?

Thanks for the kind words, Rich. We would have loved to buy the forum, but I'm not sure either of us could afford to pay for the hosting needs of a forum that is becoming as active as this one. Thankfully we have a patron who has very few changes planned, so the community should be relatively unaffected. Hopefully we will continue on with most people not even noticing, other than a few new graphics here and a forum sections adjustment there.

[qtwerp]

Originally Posted by RichBarna Personally it makes no difference to me at all. As a forum owner myself, I will say only one thing. The members make a forum, not the staff nor the owner. So it seems silly to leave a forum just because it has been sold to somebody else.

There are always people that will leave after a change of ownership or some other major change...

In my view, I'd rather have a forum owner that I know and trust. If you or KiwiNZ bought it, matthew, I would definitely stay. Anyway, I guess I'm up in the air whether I'll leave or not; I just wish we knew more about the guy that bought it. He's sort of an unknown at the moment. Regardless, I'll be sticking around for a little while to see what changes are in store.

On a positive note, I will be visiting UF more often now

[matthew]

qtwerp: that's totally fair.

Let's all give it some time and see how things develop. No forum owner wants to lose members, so I think we can start with that as a baseline and hope for the best.

[bns]

Well. I intend to stay. If all my friends on the forum leave, then I probably will too, and will sorely miss the discussions. I hope the forum stays together. As RichBarna said, it's the members that make the forum.

[matthew]

I agree, the members make the forum. We have some wonderful people around here.

I just spoke with the new owner a little bit. You will be relieved to hear that there are no plans for ads to be inserted in the site. If you see ads appear at any point in the future, it would be out of necessity to help pay for hosting, etc. This is not going to be a "for-profit" commercial site with tons of banners, links and so on.

The forum reorganization of the front page and forums structure has begun. The dust should settle in a day or two on that.

[FuturePilot]

I don't plan on leaving. There's a lot of wonderful people around here. A lot of them I already know from UF. As long as there's not some mass exodus out of here, I don't think I'm going anywhere.

And whoa. The whole front page is messed up

[graywulf70]

Originally Posted by matthew I agree, the members make the forum. We have some wonderful people around here. I just spoke with the new owner a little bit. You will be relieved to hear that there are no plans for ads to be inserted in the site. If you see ads appear at any point in the future, it would be out of necessity to help pay for hosting, etc. This is not going to be a "for-profit" commercial site with tons of banners, links and so on. The forum reorganization of the front page and forums structure has begun. The dust should settle in a day or two on that.

I noticed in the reorganization that some threads are now mis-sorted in the wrong section headings. I can find the threads using the forum tools but it makes it hard on new users who haven't learned this yet. Don't know if this is doable as the old forum descriptions may be lost now.

I do like the new section headings and I hope all goes well for the forums.

[rocknrolf77]

Why are the threads so long. What happened to the pages?

[Extreme Coder]

So brandx/ubuntu-geek is no longer the owner here?
Oh well.
When is the new owner going to come in and post by himself?

As long as this forum's is going to stay the same(or improve), I'm outta here.. NOT! :P

[dvvel]

the change may be to bring in the discussion of all sorts, including technical not only social..

[Rasczak]

Congratulations guys! I hope you make a nice profit on the sale.

[matthew]

Originally Posted by Extreme Coder So brandx/ubuntu-geek is no longer the owner here?

That is correct. He is no longer the owner. He is still an admin on the site, but real life changes have forced some schedule modifications...he just doesn't have the time a site like this needs. You will probably see him around from time to time, though.

The new owner is currently most interested in the technical bits rather than the up front side of running a forum. He's asked me to be the primary voice for the staff, at least for now. I'm sure he will post something eventually.

Regarding the questions about the front page and finding stuff...it's still a work in progress. The dust will settle soon, and hopefully we will all like how it ends up.

[Jeremiah]

I dont mind whos running this place but the constant changes are really bugging me. Its good everything is looking in order for now though but I think I wont be as active for a little while till it is all settled a bit.

[matthew]

I

Originally Posted by Jeremiah I dont mind whos running this place but the constant changes are really bugging me. Its good everything is looking in order for now though but I think I wont be as active for a little while till it is all settled a bit.

I think you can expect everything to have settled down in the next few days, certainly by the end of the week.

[Power]

im staying for now