I found that one before this one and I still go over there from time to time. It is very centered on California. This is much better, IMO.
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Hereās a frivolous question: What does it take for your return?
Me (for now):
- A sensible format.
- Whole new moderation team.
- Sensible moderation policies.
- Unban (all) members.
Thereās something of presumption in that frivolous question, Presunto. Itās that we might be thinking Hungry Onion is failing and we might be better off going back to where we started, if only theyād do this or that. Iām not at that point.
But, to play along with youā¦Iām actually now reasonably happy with the CH format. The technical things I needed are now there - a distinct regional board to post to and a workable search facility. HO is more straighforward and user friendly but Iād no longer regard it as a deal breaker.
As for moderation issues, this is not rocket science. Moderation should be there to keep a discussion on track and to ensure that the place is non-threatening. So, warn folk when they are moving to far on a tangent. And come down very hard on people who abuse others. And, with that latter point, I could not agree with you about unbanning all the banned. I can think of a couple of people who richly deserved a ban and the forum was better for them no longer beign around. If you meant unban the people who were banned for simply disagreeing with the new format, then I would entirely agree with you (unless they were personally abusive towards a moderator - in which case, they richly deserved a ban). There is no need to replace the team of volunteer moderators - they are volunteers, working to whatever policy has been set by the owners. I wouldnt mind a bit if transparency about how moderators are recruited and what their ājob descriptionā is.
I would add in another aspect that I would want to consider in any move and that would be the quality and range of discussion. By way of explanation, I used to enjoy egulletās UK/Ireland board but contributions from other folk gradually declined and it became an increasingly lonely place to play. If I was to consider a move back to CH, then I would want to know that other Britons who are now contributing here, would also migrate back.
In essence, it is entirely about ācommunityā. There was one at CH. There isnt now. The one here is still a development issue. Time will tell.
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Have they re-instituted regional boards instead of the regional ātagsā?
Nope, no boards.
I still drive through the old neighborhood from time to time, but this feels more like home. Just as it changed as it grew, , so will thisā¦hopefully in a better direction, but it will change.
I signed up for food talk cental, too, but it is so LA centric that I really dont post there. I wish them well, though.
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Yes, I still check out CH, as the matte of fact I posted on there today. Mostly just follow up on threads Iāve been involved in the past etc, but I didnāt see any new regional boards, thought I might have missed something. I too hope the growth of this site will continue, and we can have a community as Chow once was.
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Yes & no.
Technically itās a tag but the main headline places are also called a ālocationā. I have the UK location set as āmy locationā but if I want to see, say, all the Las Vegas tagged threads I can click on that ālocationā - and can then search within it. Effectively, it works sufficiently like the old boards for me not to have a real issue with it.
Just poking around and seeing this thread (started when I was MIA), and this is a perfect analogy, Gio. As a CH user, you will continue to be deleted if you post FACTUAL comments that proves there are issues with lost users, such as kaleoās manual version of new thread counts - because it could interfere with āinaccurate dataā. The data is valid - new threads are just that: new threads. Easy enough to calculate, and not really confusing to readers.
I honestly think they didnāt realize what a fuck-up the redesign was - pushed out WAY too early, and essentially, threw up the middle finger at anyone who had given very constructive criticisms when they did push the Beta to a Live version.
Thatās pretty much it.
Harters, all excellent points. I appreciate how you explain them and break-down of each. As I was writing the frivolous question I had in mind the chance of a new sensible format would be almost nil. Seems like they are determined to go down with the ship. Most of the moderation issues I have a problem with is indeed about banning unhappy users, (reasonable) complaints and criticism. Just look at all the threads they keep locking.
I am very much enjoying it here. We are building a new community almost from scratch and that takes time (and effort) so time will tell indeed.
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The latest Boardreader stats for CH show 10 threads as its most active recent threads. Their length runs from 1 response to a high of 12ā¦chirpā¦chirp
http://boardreader.com/site/Food_and_Recipe_Forums_Chowhou_197029.html
This is a bit misleading, when compared to alexa and trafficestimate; it uses the defunct chow.com url for traffic, which has shown a huge drop since being shut down. The board info jibes with user observations, though, moribund.
I didnāt pay attention to post counts prior to Beta going live but, after setting up bookmarks to get as close as I can to my old board preferences, I find very little of interest these days.
I posted a request for input on finding artisan bread where I live and have had zero replies in 2 weeksā¦ but I got the same result here and on FTC. Before this summer I would have expected at least a couple of replies on CH. Thatās the disappointing thing.
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In response to this post: http://www.chowhound.com/post/chowhound-feedback-1015-1026471?commentId=9757285 about the splintering of the CH community, I received a nice email from Marcela asking what else they should do to improve the experience for Chowhounds.
I replied with a long screed that basically rehashed what had already happened. Was it helpful? Only to me, because I got a lot off my chest. Herein, the whole dang thing:
++++++++++++++++
In answer to your questionā¦
Before this latest rollout, before the beta testing, when the Chowhound Team announced the board structure on which Chowhound relied, the structure that allowed communities to focus on their hometown or themed topic (Manhattan, or Home Cooking to name but two) would be dissolved and a new tagging structure would take its place, we begged the tech team to rethink this course of action.
We Chowhounds worried this would dissolve the community āfeelā of the place. I held out hope that the tagging would take place on top of the existing structure, maintaining an easy to navigate hierarchy. That hope has been dashed and indeed the community has splintered, due in part to how management handled vocal critics by booting them, (I know thatās not the whole story) and more importantly how management ignored our feedback during testing. Again.
The beta testing went just as badly, if not worse than the beta testing from a year ago when new post types were rolled out. We users were right about how awful the Q&A format was. So right in fact that youāve done away with Q&Aās.
A rather large problem was the announcement of the rollout. Iām not sure what management school Georges attended, but giving himself the moniker vipgeorges was his first misstep in dealing with the community members. In looking him up it seems heās had this handle for a while. My advice is that changing it would make him seem less like a douche. Heād previously posted one single question on Chowhound, and never thanked anyone for their advice. His next post was the āNew Chowhoundā announcement. Perhaps this was a calculated move in order to take the heat off you and Pat. That gamble backfired. Instead, the rather smug announcement went over like a lead balloon and you guys had to clean up the mess.
One incident was just a fluke, but it hardened the hearts of many Chowhounds who were already skeptical. The joke about how tags users had been complaining about being too big. āWe know. Arenāt they pretty?ā It was a silly nothing, and truth be told I dismissed it as such. But iron entered the souls of some users at that point and no amount of apologizing was enough. Users were out for blood, and sadly Marcella, you became their target of blame for everything. I had to step away for a while because people that I thought of as friends had turned into childish whining monsters and I couldnāt take it anymore.
I will tell you and all the staff, something Iāve found to be almost universally true: When rational adults act like children, itās usually because they feel powerless. Like they are not being heard. In the last few weeks youāve been doing a great job attending to complaints. Had the same level of attention been paid to our concerns during the beta and the plans for rollout shared with users, I think we all would have better weathered the storm. But, thatās looking back. Maybe next time.
The schism, the disintegration of Chowhound has everything to do with users not being heard or listened to. Users donāt handle change well. We all know this. Even when users ask for change they initially hate the result. In the case of this redesign, I understand the tech team was trying to modernize the design, increase flexibility and ease of administration while complying with Googleās mobile and SEO guidelines. What I do not understand is how, with all the planning and testing, you ignored Googleās guidelines when it comes to navigation:
āCreate a naturally flowing hierarchy
Make it as easy as possible for users to go from general content to the more specific content they want on your site. Add navigation pages when it makes sense and effectively work these into your internal link structure.
Avoid:
- creating complex webs of navigation links, e.g. linking every page on your site to every other page
- going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (so that it takes twenty clicks)ā
I truly believe that if youād completely done away with the board structure and used a reasonable hierarchy for tags, we users would have flipped out, but we would have made sense of it. Instead, creating mega-tags for all restaurants and bars coupled with the sheer tonnage of tags was just not very well thought out and was overwhelming for users new and old. Now, finding what we want is almost impossible. It also leaves us feeling like our communities have been done away with. I know theyāre still there. Sorry, I know Iāve already talked about this within Chowhound. Still, itās a point I feel pretty strongly about, so while I have your earā¦
The old Chowhound is dead because many of the old Chowhounds left. When I said thereās no way to put the old Chowhound back together I meant it, but I donāt see it as all gloom and doom. I agree with Jim Leff ā itās not necessarily a bad thing. Here is where I worry though: I am hoping that somewhere thereās an advertising campaign to bring in new users. We need more people to generate content. And, it would be nice if new editorial content was more informative instead of just listicles. Once the post content bounces back, the new Chowhound could really be as good as the old Chowhound ever was.
Sorry Iāve been blathering on. This was originally intended as a blog post, but Iāve decided to just keep it between ourselves, (meaning you me and whoever you want to share this with (you might want to delete the douche reference though 
)).
Thanks for reaching out. I appreciate all your efforts.
Mary
+++++++++++
That was almost a month ago. Funnily enough, I never heard back. 
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New users donāt seem to be a CH problem. New content providers are, and they typically take time to develop.
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Iām honestly astounded that you got no reply. I guess there was nothing to sayā¦but still. Good for you for trying.
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Incredibly rude to request help/suggestions from you and not respond to such a long, thoughtfully detailed summary.
I suspect that VIPās narcissism got stuck on the word ādoucheā which is as good a descriptor for his behavior and tone as any.
But she should have thanked you for responding.
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Really, what could she say? I didnāt actually answer her question on how to make Chowhound better. Instead I lit into the team.
Theyāve been busy, probably in closed door meetings every day since the rollout.
Another random thought:
The announcement thread was I think actually written by Pat and edited by the team. He has a writing style that is perfect for internal PR type memos, but I find it very grating. This coming from someone who has a hackneyed writing style that probably makes a lot of people want to hurl, and whose sentence structure ignores all the rules. I know! Who made me Queen? (I did. Mary Land is very nice, thankyouverymuch)
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The lack of response is truly astoundingly rude to say the least. For her to specifically solicit your thoughts and not offer even an acknowledgement is an affront on a personal level. Just mind blowing, regardless of how you see it.
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She could have said āthank you.ā
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Got a very nice email today, thanking me for my suggestions.
I truly think Marcela and the other mods are doing their best. But I think that about most people.
~ Mary the cockeyed optimist
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