Fix this forum! Please!

[KCStratman]

I've been reading this forum for two years and posting on it for one year and it is obvious that it needs to be organized much, much better. It might be different if there weren't several outstanding guitar/amps/effects forums on the internet to serve as models. The fact that all threads within the "Stompbox" support section spill together with no further separation by subtopic makes this forum very repetitive, confusing, and frustrating especially for new users (read: new paying customers and potential paying customers). By far the worst aspect is the sheer repetition of already posted topics in new threads instead of nesting into that extant subtopic. The examples are too numerous to mention, I see several today. Next, the fact that true "problems and complaints" are allowed to float among feature inquiries, how to's, and general effects use discussions is deplorable. A separate subtopic – or even a dedicated section – for serious problems and complaints should have been instituted from the get go – there is no good reason for these serious problem issues to be allowed to infect the vibe of the product by being dragged in front of everyone amid general use topics. The whole H9 marketing debacle could have been avoided by 1. having a marketing plan that actually made sense in the first place (the black eye that Eventide gave themselves cannot be underestimated!) and 2. communicating up front clearly with current and potential customers via this forum or a dedicated page of the main website – the "Products News" page has not been updated in months-despite several important product announcements since then- so anyone looking for "Product News" has to wonder if there simply isn't any, or if "Product News" no longer means news regarding products. If the support forum is indeed ET's primary communication medium with its customer base, then it is imperative to make its quality as high as the products themselves. The support techs like Gkellum and others do a great job fielding such a diverse range of inquiries, their efforts could only made easier by avoiding so, so, so much repetition of the same old topics in new threads. The tendency to get defensive of ET's arcane and often bizzare management and marketing practices should be eliminated. Keep it upbeat, well organized, and truly informative and customer response will follow accordingly. Peace, prosperity, and good vibes for the new year!

[lordradish]

I have to agree. I think the stompbox forums all have enough interest to have their own forums. Plus a forum specifically for trouble issues would be nice, too.

Also, it would be nice to have the ability to edit our posts. 

[nickrose]

Sorry guys – changing the Forum is a VERY BIG THING.

Can you point to anybody else's Forum that you feel meets your requirements ?

[KCStratman]

Sure,

http://www.tdpri.com/

http://www.strat-talk.com/

http://www.gibson-talk.com/forum/index.php

http://www.axetalk.com/forum/forum.php

http://www.bluestalk.com/forum/forum.php

http://www.fendertalk.com/forum/forum.php

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar

etc., etc., etc.

"If the support forum is indeed ET's primary communication medium with its customer base, then it is imperative to make its quality as high as the products themselves."

[MarcoR]

Ha! This is funny… I work for the contracting company that
built this forum. They heard I was a musician and asked if I ever heard of
Eventide… I’m like of course! I use many of their products. They tell me one of
their contracts was to build the Eventide web site and forum. I’m thinking…
oh no… That is one of the worst forum layouts ever! I wished I was working on
that project!  Nick you guys should hire
me; I could work on the web site and test gear (more testing gear). Oh and
something about an Android app?

[nickrose]

Sounds like it would be a good thing if you emailed support@eventide.com, marked for my attention.

We're moving ahead with new Web things, but can always use help. As has been noted elsewhere, we are not having much luck finding someone to work on H9Control for Android, so would be glad of any expertise here.

[Bodde]

Have to agree that the H9 needs a separate forum. It is not very clear and practical that it is under the stomp boxes forum. Also I don't like it that your post has to be approved first before it appears on the forum. Each post you get two emails before you can read your post. Is this because of spam issues or something?

Also there is no editing function for your post (?).

[gkellum]

bodde:

Have to agree that the H9 needs a separate forum. It is not very clear and practical that it is under the stomp boxes forum.

I think it would be better to keep things in a single stompbox forum but be able to filter posts by tags like: H9, Space, PitchFactor etc.

bodde:

Also I don't like it that your post has to be approved first before it appears on the forum. Each post you get two emails before you can read your post. Is this because of spam issues or something?

Well, b/c posts are moderated that also means they're seen and answered by someone at Eventide quicker. If posts just showed up on the forum and we just checked the forums whenever we actually had time to do this stuff, it would be days or weeks before any questions got answered.

bodde:

Also there is no editing function for your post (?).

There's an edit function under the more menu.

[Bodde]

Very valuable arguments! Didn't know about the Edit function. Thanks!

[harmamusic]

I really like how the forum of TGP (thegearpage.net) works and related to that also the one from Fractal Audio Systems (forum.fractalaudio.com):

– Good search capabilities (full forum, forum specific, title only etc.etc.)

– More control over subscriptions to threads

– Good support for media and links to (YouTube) videos/audio

– Private messaging

– Seems to me like this is standard forum based software?

[avalanchis]

http://www.tdpri.com/

http://www.strat-talk.com/

http://www.gibson-talk.com/forum/index.php

http://www.axetalk.com/forum/forum.php

http://www.bluestalk.com/forum/forum.php

http://www.fendertalk.com/forum/forum.php

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar

etc., etc., etc.

Nearly all of these forums have one thing in common.  They use vBulletin forum software.  It is the standard that everyone is used to using.

I've implemented many forums using vBulletin and it is a very mature, very popular solution.

Although converting from your current forum software to something different is going to involve some work, I think in the long run it would be a VERY positive move.

The current forums have always seemed very clunky to me and do not present a very professional image for such an awesome company as yours.

[Bodde]

gkellum:

bodde:

Also there is no editing function for your post (?).

There's an edit function under the more menu.

Where exactly is that edit function?I am logged in in but I can't see anything that says edit in the more menu in my own post.

[gkellum]

bodde:

Where exactly is that edit function?I am logged in in but I can't see anything that says edit in the more menu in my own post.

No? I do, but that might be because my user is an admin. I also tried logging in as a non-admin and create a new forum thread, and I could edit that post. But maybe, that was b/c it was the first post in the thread…

[VmusicV]

Totally Agree!!

Eventide has GREAT gear….but their customer experince is TERRIBLE!!

[Bodde]

gkellum:

No? I do, but that might be because my user is an admin. I also tried logging in as a non-admin and create a new forum thread, and I could edit that post. But maybe, that was b/c it was the first post in the thread…

I don't see any edit option in any of my posts.

[spaceJam]

A minor glitch I found is when I was trying to create an account from the link at the top of these forums (See image 1), the link redirects me to an error page that says:

Server Application Unavailable

The web application you are attempting to access on this web server is currently unavailable.  Please hit the "Refresh" button in your web browser to retry your request.

Administrator Note: An error message detailing the cause of this specific request failure can be found in the application event log of the web server. Please review this log entry to discover what caused this error to occur.

So I had to type in a fake account expecting to be forwarded to a "you are wrong" page, and it did, then I click on the create account link there and it worked. (See image 2)

See that the URL for both links are slightly different.

URL #1 (invalid) is: http://forum.eventide.com/home/eventide/user/register.aspx
URL #2 (valid) is:    http://eventide.com/home/eventide/user/register.aspx

Same for the "Forgot your password?" link.

It's a minor adjustment, but there might be other broken links too if they are not being hard-coded.
So whoever is managing this, check your URL_rewrite or whatever it's called on Microsoft IIS 6.0

Also, I tried to register with 2 of my personal email address and I never got my confirmation email, is mail.com being blocked by your mail server?
I successfully did using my job's email account (on gmail) though.

Image 1: http://i.imgur.com/V928qzr.png

Image 2: http://i.imgur.com/cJJfX8l.png

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