This new site stinks !

I have been lurking for a bit, and now I can see why very few of the old timers are not here any more.
When I finally logged on and tried to get to the “message boards”, it put me to “community”. Then when I tried from there I ended up with some advertising.

There are only a hand full of posters and of those, there are only three or four that were long (10 years or more) on the good old P-net

I miss all those good, interesting posts.

Guy

You’re a bit late to the party; we had this discussion months ago. We’re stuck with this crap, like it or not. Many posters have either left or dramatically cut back on their activity here and the forum has suffered. I agree, it sucks, but it’s not going back.

Agree too, the only thing I like about this one is the pictures with the buy and sell which many will stop once they’re charged for it.

Actually, it has gotten better than when it was first rolled out. At least it now is workable on phones and tablets as well as puters. You just have to know where to look for stuff.

It would be great if more of the long-time members would come back around and post more frequently.

Indeed, things look different, and things have been moved, but the core functionality seems vastly improved. Once you find the pages you’re looking for, set a bookmark in your browser and drop in. It doesn’t take too long to get the hang of it.

Alas, all things pass.

My view is that old pnet was already dying out before the Change of Life, particularly because of the toleration of trolls.

This new site is very ambitious and someone worked very hard on the change. It strikes me as too ambitious, too complicated and too advertiser-centric. Perhaps all the links to articles, videos and the store are successfully serving unknown numbers of readers. I don’t know and never had much interest in those features.

For those of us whose dominant interest is in a discussion board, my opinion is that this new site fails on that account – both functionally and aesthetically. It simply doesn’t look like any other discussion site I’ve ever seen. Successful discussion sites on any subject, particularly those devoted to the outdoors, are chock full of embedded photos and videos. Here, it still seems like the photographic dark ages.

I posted my first thread recently and it took me several minutes to figure out how to do that. Never before have I seen the term “New Discussion” used for that purpose. Moreover, that rectangular New Discsussion box sits atop a largely useless list of categories that takes up about 20% of my horizontal screen space. It should be a pull-down menu.

I still don’t know how avatars work or why some days there’s a blank next to posters’ names while on other days there’s some sort of graphic icon.

Sorry to say this, but it’s just much easier to ignore the whole thing.

As one of the “old timers”, I don’t post much anymore. I do like the old site better! The blue background was appealing, compared to this drab white.

Most of the “old timers” that I’ve met or known for years I am still in contact with on another site, so that makes up for them not being here. There are lots of new people here, but post only occasionally, so it’s difficult to get to know them.

@Glenn MacGrady said:

“My view is that old pnet was already dying out before the Change of Life, particularly because of the toleration of trolls…”

Agreed, Glenn. (Like does anybody really miss the un-moderated psycho-babbled ramblings of say, a Datakoll?) In recent years, this ol’ poster couldn’t be bothered all that much with “the old pnet” mainly because of both the lack of courtesy and anything new in the way of content. (I mean, how many times can one read arguments about whether it’s better to stretch or cut drysuit neck gaskets, or whether to wear a PFD? Or answer thankless Advice forum questions like, “What’s the best kayak for someone who weighs 300 pounds?” (The answer is not a kayak, it’s a diet and a new exercise regimen first.) Many other “old posters” who I’ve actually met on the water, haven’t really gone anywhere (unless that is, they’re uh, dead.) Many have just shifted their paddle-adventure sharing to places like Facebook, where their circle-of-friends doesn’t have to include the extra cadre of anonymous total strangers. (Hey, if you gotta put up with unwelcome comments, it might as well at least be from people you think you halfway know Yes, the old Pnet threads were fun too, but there were a lot of things wrong (and dated)with those forums too. Does anybody but me remember all the grumbling outcries of when THOSE formats first changed over to something different?
Things I like about this new format?: It’s nice to be able to post pictures in the text of a thread itself, without having to pay an extra membership to do so, and just getting a brief description with a sample picture or two of a fellow paddler’s hydro-geography is also fine. (I for one, don’t need to wade through an on-line album link containing all 698 pictures from their last vacation.)

My final take on all this is that the folks who run this website are running a BUSINESS. These forums are after all, provided as a mere courtesy. .It seems to me they don’t really add any profit to that business’s bottom line, except only in that the information exchanged/found here, might make for a more informed paddle shopper. I for one, am glad of it.
I’ve picked up a lot of good tips here over the years. I’m not going to let my own lack of cyber-navigation skills hold me back from getting more tips, by knocking the messenger who brings the news.
“May ole acquaintance be forgot…” Get over it!

I don’t mind the new format. I do miss the old folks and interesting discussions, but there are some great new folks picking up at the slack. Seems about the same to me.

I know I’m an old timer, based on age.
Whether I’m a pnet “old timer” is questionable.
I’ve been around for about 10 years, maybe more; maybe I qualify.

New or old pnet? “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”!
It costs me nothing, and if I get bored with it; I get on one of my motorcycles, or my Mustang & do a road trip. Load a canoe and go paddling. Work in the yard. Go for a hike; do some photography. Watch a movie, read a book, listen to some music. Do one of my half assed wood working projects. Visit some friends.

Pnet is not my life; it occupies a miniscule percentage of my time.
If I choose to post, or respond to someone else’s post, I do.
I don’t post with the frequency I used too.

I suggest that some people are too dependent on others for entertainment.
Turn off pnet, facebook, your cell phone; ignore Twitter, Snapchat, etc
Get a life.

BOB

A lot of Internet website forums are dying out. Many people are leaving them for Facebook, where there are numerous groups for every activity, some specialized by region. I see this not only here, but in the backpacking, geocaching, camping, fishing and other outdoors forums I’ve frequented

I haven’t been around that long so don’t know who the missing “old timers” are. Yes, initially there were some challenges in dealing with some of the quirks of the new site, but hey, mental challenges are good for you!

I’ve asked a lot of questions and have gotten super responses from terrific mentors, for which I continue to be grateful because they’ve taught me to be a better and safer paddler.

So, what’s really important to me are the knowledge, guidance and ideas here. The aesthetics of delivery not so much because
I’ll never turn my back on an opportunity to learn.

BTW, I sure wish new folks joining the site would read the instructions on how to use the message boards. A few of them post their questions on their personal profiles instead of one of the discussion categories. I imagine they wonder why they’re not getting any answers.

Agree with BriansNat that in general forum traffic has declined. It’s very obvious on the sites run by my several paddling clubs. I think there are a number of reasons.

Lots of people spend lots of time on Facebook and other platforms. That time has to come from somewhere.

People don’t write. And they don’t read. The tweet n text set have conditioned their brains to lock up after 140 characters. Their grammar and punctuation are embarrassing, not something they want to leave on public display. And their eyes fog over when faced with a paragraph.

Pictures and video get the nod over write and read sites like p-com (doesn’t have the same ring as p-net, does it?).

Just seems to be the way of the world. On the bright side, pcom is still here. I hate it when “they” change up my technology. It’s always aggravating to learn how to use the new stuff and get used to the look. But, there is still a pretty good community here, still a lot of good info to be exchanged. Let’s move on.

~~Chip

Unintended consequences

If you access P’Net via an iPad, it is easy to overlook that the message boards exist. I’ve been coming here for about eight years for the paddling conversations, but since the new site rolled out, it is extremely difficult to find the boards.

Clicking “Community” shows a beautiful picture, but no apparent links to message boards. Since I knew they existed, I used the search feature to locate.

If I were new to P’Net (P’com?), I would not know they exist. No offense to the photographers amongst the group, but photos are not my reason for coming to this site.

Usability testing is done for a reason.

@abz said:
If you access P’Net via an iPad, it is easy to overlook that the message boards exist. I’ve been coming here for about eight years for the paddling conversations, but since the new site rolled out, it is extremely difficult to find the boards.

Clicking “Community” shows a beautiful picture, but no apparent links to message boards. Since I knew they existed, I used the search feature to locate.

I still operate in the dark ages (no i-phone), so I wouldn’t know if what you say is true, but I have seen something when using desktop machines that makes me think of suggesting something. With a desktop machine, if you click on “Community” (instead of just hovering there), that “beautiful picture” that you speak of shows up, and there’s not even a hint that you could scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and find the link to the message boards, but it is there. Maybe that’s also true when using an i-phone or i-pad. Maybe the layout of that page simply doesn’t jive with the i-phone way of thinking and the user simply doesn’t keep looking to see the whole page.

That said, even the way it works with a desktop machine illustrates your point that things aren’t set up very smoothly on the new site. It even took me a while to figure out that hovering would produce the drop-down menus, because there’s such an unusually long delay before they appear, at least compared to other drop-down menus I’ve seen, including the ones on the old p-net.

I’m not complaining though. It really doesn’t matter at all to me personally whether the site is intuitive or not. Still, obviously that’s something to consider when attracting new participants.

The “net” went missing
the coconuts loose
Papillon’s midst the sharks
playing Duck, Duck, Goose.

These cyber escapes
buy nary me a clear
pathway in dis-“com”-cussions.
But, “Hey you bast…”, errr, the paddling’s still here!

I logged on the other day for the first time in months and was surprised by the change—I agree with the posters above, the older format was more entertaining

@BoozTalkin said:

People don’t write. And they don’t read. The tweet n text set have conditioned their brains to lock up after 140 characters. Their grammar and punctuation are embarrassing, not something they want to leave on public display. And their eyes fog over when faced with a paragraph.

–Or, as I heard a millennial once put it: “Message boards are like, sooo Nineties.”

The millenials were never a big part of Pnet anyway. And THEY are not “embarrassed” by their lack of basic reading and writing skills. I skip over posts that are barely intelligible or unintelligible, so if that is how millenials write, oh, well, I guess they don’t get heard to the full extent possible.

If they don’t care about the consequences of that, it’s their choice.

Like it or not, we’re all being manipulated by the web. BoozTalkin is right, the newer generations don’t have the experience, knowledge, or command of grammar and punctuation to stay with conversational posts. Makes one wonder what conversation will be like in another decade or two ?