Apology from TN

[pixy0stix]

www.thenest.com/forums/life-boards_politics-and-current-events_an-update-and-apology-from-knot-michelle

Hi Nesties.....

For those of you who don’t know who I am, I head up the message board community for The Knot, The Nest and The Bump and supervise Nest Dani and Bump Kathleen. I know how frustrated you’ve been since we converted the boards to the new format. It did not go smoothly and we’ve been experiencing several bugs since then, including threads missing, slow load times and general usability issues. Launches, conversions and replatforms almost never go 100 percent smoothly, however we experienced several issues that made the transition rougher than we expected.

I know how frustrated you are. Bump Kathleen, Nest Dani and I are frustrated too. Our goal was to convert The Nest boards, and eventually The Bump boards, to a new platform (the same platform as The Knot) so that all of our boards were hosted by the same third-party vendor. We have experienced technical issues with this third-party vendor in the past, mainly issues regarding load time and missing posts, however they provided us with several performance fixes to address missing threads and told us that everything was resolved last week before we converted The Nest boards. We would have NEVER moved forward with the new format if we knew that their solution wouldn’t hold up. Our IT team has put a lot of pressure on our vendor to fix these bugs immediately and I will begin providing regular updates to our moderators on the progress that is made.

I also want you to know that we are listening to your feedback and trying to implement it as quickly as possible. We are going to provide you with a sort feature that has more options so that you can sort by most recent post. We are looking into solutions for our mobile users. We are also going to give you features that will allow you to access your posts and delete when necessary and are looking into ways we can list more posts and threads per page without running into performance issues. Bump Kathleen and Nest Dani are forwarding your feedback to me, and I will work closely with our IT team and our third-party vendor to make sure it gets addressed. Your experience on the boards is our top priority. Please check in with your moderators as they’ll be the first to know what fixes and improvements are in the works. We will not convert The Bump boards to the new format and platform until we’ve resolved these issues and know that you are happy with the experience. Change is never easy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do our best to make this transition easier for you and to make sure you’re happy.

I want to let you know how sorry I am about all of the bugs and issues you’ve experienced within The Nest community over the past 5 days. Our members are so important to us, whether you’ve just joined our community recently or have been a member of The Nest for years. I personally apologize for the frustration that the new format has caused all of you. I want you to know that your feedback is getting noticed and that you will not be left in the dark without updates. Please continue to let me know what I can do to improve the experience for you. You can email me any time at [e-mail].

Knot Michelle

[pixy0stix]

I think this appeared on all boards.

[marie427]

Too bad, so sad.

As for them "looking into mobile solutions" - um, the time to do that is not in 2012. That ship has sailed. Do TN's staff use Zack Morris phones and Walkmans still?

[zelda25]

I am unmoved. Too little, too late.

[dev22]

5 DAYS it took them to apologize. Too little too late IMO.

[IIOY]

I want to say something snarky here but all I can do is shake my head at what a clusterfuck this is.

[decemberwedding07]

Guys, I found a picture of Knot Michelle! This explains so much! And look at how adorable she is! You can't be mad, can you?

(First time attempting to post a picture)

[pixy0stix]

First people want an apology, now it's too little too late. Jeebus, never satisfied are you people! (I say this with love and my tongue stuffed in my cheek.)

[basilosaurus]

May 14, 2012 17:18:00 GMT -5 marie427 said:

Too bad, so sad.

As for them "looking into mobile solutions" - um, the time to do that is not in 2012. That ship has sailed. Do TN's staff use Zack Morris phones and Walkmans still?

This was my exact thought (right down the ZM phone). The iphone was released 5 years ago FFS.

Also, why should we go back? Are they offering anything other than "we'll put the search option back"? Honestly, I couldn't care less whether they apologize. We have a board that works, and the people I care to converse with. Nothing else about the nest ever appealed to me. I only saw the home page if I ever had to log in from a new computer.

[JLN]

So they decide to listen now that's TN's a ghosttown, but not when they still had their members? Well that makes sense.

[basilosaurus]

Also, lol at 5 days being considered "immediately" in the IT world. 5 hours is a long time!

[decemberwedding07]

May 14, 2012 17:22:29 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

First people want an apology, now it's too little too late. Jeebus, never satisfied are you people! (I say this with love and my tongue stuffed in my cheek.)

Oh, I think it's nice of them to apologize, and I appreciate it, but I would like for them to explain how the eff this happened. It sounds like she's saying, "This vendor has sucked in the past, but they said they didn't suck anymore, so we believed them! Who would have thought that they would still suck?" And there's still no explanation for switching formats without addressing any of the issues that people had been complaining about for years.

[dev22]

May 14, 2012 17:22:29 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

First people want an apology, now it's too little too late. Jeebus, never satisfied are you people! (I say this with love and my tongue stuffed in my cheek.)

I actually am glad they apologized, its just not enough to make me want to go back over there

[meshaliuknits]

I'm going to LOL when this post disappears.

[verandah]

Bullshit.

You can keep your Bridezillas and lost BabyGaga-ers, we'll be over here.

[zelda25]

May 14, 2012 17:22:29 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

First people want an apology, now it's too little too late. Jeebus, never satisfied are you people! (I say this with love and my tongue stuffed in my cheek.)

I know you're being TIC, but I've seen more than a few Nest apologists around our new boards in the past few days and to that point, I would like to say that if TN had posted the above apology by Thursday morning, it would have meant more--but it still would have been bullshit since they already knew from the local boards that the change was a disaster. They were trying to wait us out with some digital version of "chicken" and they lost.

Fuck'em.

[pixy0stix]

May 14, 2012 17:28:42 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

I'm going to LOL when this post disappears.

I thought about this. :beer:

[meshaliuknits]

Shit, she still didn't say they are going to fix the search feature

[Velvetshady]

May 14, 2012 17:25:45 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Also, lol at 5 days being considered "immediately" in the IT world. 5 hours is a long time!

I work in the real world where meeting a 99.999% uptime on web sites is common--99.99 is reasonable grounds for contract termination *and* for receiving compensation from the at fault vendor.

Not requiring the vendor to fix the issues after the first implementation and actually prove they have fixed the issues before proceeding with the next go live release: 100% Knot Michelle's fault.

Allowing for a major release to be scheduled and released during high-traffic hours, counter to basic IT SOPs: Knot Michelle's fault.

Not having a recovery plan/roll-back plan if vendor screws up again: 100% Knot Michelle's fault.

Waiting 6 days to try to disguise deflecting fault as an apology: Useless.

[meshaliuknits]

May 14, 2012 17:48:34 GMT -5 Velvetshady said:

May 14, 2012 17:25:45 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Also, lol at 5 days being considered "immediately" in the IT world. 5 hours is a long time!

I work in the real world where meeting a 99.999% uptime on web sites is common--99.99 is reasonable grounds for contract termination *and* for receiving compensation from the at fault vendor.

Not requiring the vendor to fix the issues after the first implementation and actually prove they have fixed the issues before proceeding with the next go live release: 100% Knot Michelle's fault.

Allowing for a major release to be scheduled and released during high-traffic hours, counter to basic IT SOPs: Knot Michelle's fault.

Not having a recovery plan/roll-back plan if vendor screws up again: 100% Knot Michelle's fault.

Waiting 6 days to try to disguise deflecting fault as an apology: Useless.

:Y:

I think I love you

[basilosaurus]

BTW, I can do this in chrome, and I couldn't on TN. Also fun formatting.

• And I now get keyboard shortcuts!
  

If their only promise is to get the boards back to their previous level of 1998 functioning, they're still entirely not getting it.

[KateAggie]

It's kind of like when you go to the same hairdresser for years, and then you try someone new because they're not available. When you leave the new hairdresser, you realize just how sub-par your hair looked everyday. You have a sense of loyalty, but come on. Now your hair looks awesome. You can't go back once you've had awesome. You just can't.

[broc]

I like how they're throwing an outsourced message board design vendor under the bus rather than their backup recovery vendor/team, who could just do a roll back if they're doing their jobs right. It's not like there's been any action on the boards since they 'upgraded' that they would lose by doing so. WTH is the motivation here?

'mobile user support' sounds less like an app and more like 'hay, we'll make it so you can disable java and press HTML and then post something with zero formatting like before,' so don't get your hopes up.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

May 14, 2012 18:00:01 GMT -5 KateAggie said:

It's kind of like when you go to the same hairdresser for years, and then you try someone new because they're not available. When you leave the new hairdresser, you realize just how sub-par your hair looked everyday. You have a sense of loyalty, but come on. Now your hair looks awesome. You can't go back once you've had awesome. You just can't.

Your extended analogies have been killing me lately, KA. :Y:

[caden]

This just makes me said since I asked why they hadn't apologized earlier today. I believe that TK/TN employees are upset at the non-functionality of the new site. But then I'm reminded of all the other nest issues beyond basic functionality and the fact that it took a community exodus to finally get a sincere-sounding apology. This is just words. Where was the emphasis on the end users when deciding whether or not to run a beta site on the new platform? Or when we asked for a working search feature for the eleventybillionth time?

[mcgee]

I literally just joined here today. I don't have any particular loyalty to TN, and I'm willing to stay here if the cool people stay here.

[UMaineTeach]

May 14, 2012 19:17:29 GMT -5 mcgee said:

I literally just joined here today. I don't have any particular loyalty to TN, and I'm willing to stay here if the cool people stay here.

See, we did attract a new member!

welcome aboard :Y:

[StrawberryBlondie]

Given where I work and what I do, I like to think I'm pretty understanding about tech and functionality issues with web-based platforms. This apology screams of corporate BS and not actually anything resembling a sincere apology. What's worse is that all of these stated problems were 100% fixable before they actually went live. The fact that they didn't discover them before implementing the changes just seems like general ineptitude. And what's worse is that the apology/explanation took 5 days. I mean, come on. Did they think the issues would just randomly solve themselves?

[sparrowsong]

I still post on the knot sometimes where they've had the new format for awhile and it has had problems on and off continuously, with entire days of posts just vanishing, never to be seen again. It's an ongoing problem that they certainly had not addressed, much less solved, in the months and months since implementing the change there.

Seriously, I was a member on online forums in 1998 that worked better than anything the knot/nest has used more than a decade later, eons in internet technology time. It's just embarrassing that this is all they've got right now.

[Deleted]

Still be friends, my ass.

This is like your exboyfriend apologizing for being a dickbag five days after you move out and get a new boyfriend.

It's more like, well, I'll stop torching your shit on the front lawn but we are not getting back together, chode.