And Pat Sullivan responded via Email - it seems it was inappropriate of me to call out Georges Haddad, even if he’s no longer with the company. :::shrug::: It was he (Georges) who made those wholesale changes and disregarded everything that the long-time (and all other) users had said about the inefficacy and lack of usability of the website.
I found this funny in the EMail: "When I saw you had posted, I was initially quite happy as we’d love to welcome back some of the members who left in 2015. While I know your frustrations with our changes to the site are significant, I hope you’ll consider giving it another shot in the future. "
Yeah, he was quite happy until he saw that I was just saying they knew very well WHY we left. Because they didn’t really care about the content providers as they claimed. While I know the site is free, and I know they have to sell things, to change an entire website to what Georges thought it should be (even though he messed up Flickr doing the same damn thing) and disregard those who helped build that site was a slap in the face.
He went on to say that the disruption in 2015 was not nearly as bad as previous exoduses. “…significantly more members left in 2012, in 2007, and prior to CBS’ ownership than have departed in recent years”
Hmmm, perhaps if you add up those who left in 2012, 2007 and prior to CBS’s ownership, combined.
He also said he would continue the discussion offline with me, and would love to have me back (stating that the Home Cooking board is thriving). Sorry Pat - it’s like moving out of that REALLY great, large, low-rent apartment with great views of the city specifically because you have a neighbor who stomps on the floor in the middle of the night while having fights with his girlfriend and plays the drums and smokes incessantly when he’s not fighting with his girlfriend. Once you get off your duff and look elsewhere, you find a new place to live that doesn’t have smokers, drummers, and fighting couples.
I’ve got a new home now, and I’m quite happy here.
Patsully’s explanation that it’s the 22nd anniversary is ridiculous. Sounds to me like they’re trying to bank offers their recent publication of Ed Levine‘s book on Serious Eats.
What nonsense! Numerically, this may echo my original post. However, the rapidity of the 2015 Exodus, and the caliber/activity of the posters who left, had no rival in 2012 to my knowledge.
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
165
This will depend on how calculations are made. If they can even actually be made. And attributed
On any forum, there will be folk who post for a while and then stop for a multitude of reasons. I presume what can be calculated is how many active individuals there were over the course of a year. That may well evidence that more folk “left” in, say, 2012 than in 2015. It does not address the very significant reasons why a number of folk left in 2015, some of us ending up here. I was active on 2012 and certainly don’t recall any major “dispute” that year which would come anywhere close to the 2015 debacle.
@Harters, I think it was an earlier format change by CBS Interactive (pre-Georges, which was 2015), and there were some departures. But I agree with @hyperbowler - nowhere near the number or rapidity of exodus as 2015.
As for not addressing the significant reasons - that’s been their MO. Also - if he wasn’t HERE in 2012 and 2007, what data can he provide to prove that those who left then were more than in 2015?
Methinks he’s spouting the party line. And I get it - it’s his job to do so. But it sure as shit ain’t my job to believe him.
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
167
I remember that now. The changes were insignificant in comparision with the later wholesale change. But what got me more about the later change was not so much the actual changes but the way they dealt with folk trying to make a point, upto and including banning people. For me, it was that attitude that destroyed the sense of community.
Bingo. The 2012 change, they listened to us. We were their beta testers (in fact, I was a beta tester in that change - they didn’t ask me to do so in 2015). They listened and made some changes - not all, but some that helped the site work more fluidly.
In 2015, they did exactly what you said - they “dealt with folks trying to make a point” - including myself - by putting us in Time Out for a period of 10 days or banning them altogether.
The “Time Out” was the last straw for me. That proved to me they didn’t want to nor would listen to those who had been there. They had their marching orders from Georges. Well, I had my own marching orders - over to HO.
The 2012-2014 Chowhound was thriving. 2015 September after the redesign, the site was a ghosttown for a week. Literally. The regional and national media covered the event. Boston Globe wrote about it. LA Times wrote about it. East Bay Express wrote about it.
A reasonable person cannot conclude 2012 was worse.
5 Likes
meatn3
(equal opportunity eater in the NC Triangle)
170
My response on CH to Pat since it will most likely be deleted:
“You surely know that the people who work on Chowhound today were not present five years ago, let alone ten or more. The site has lived many lives and we know far less about how the community has changed over time than you do,”
(Pat, you were here during that period. I’m surprised you don’t suffer from PTSD after going through that particular slice of hell.)
Ignorance of the past leads to repeating the same mistakes. Anyone involved with decisions that involve “community” ie those that provide free, well considered and relevant content should be aware of the history of that relationship. Fortunately, it is easy to bring your fellow staff members up to speed!
Interestingly, I was looking through “Site Talk” in order to provide a relevant link and made an interesting discovery. The oldest thread on Site Talk is from September 30, 2015. “Disappearing” history doesn’t change it. It simply makes it harder to learn and grow when TPTB play The Emperors New Clothes".
But no matter - your new staff (and oldsters with memory glitches) can simply peruse all locked threads from 2015 & 2016 on Site Talk.
But I’ll summarize - when you repeatedly and blatantly disrespect, devalue and ignore your base of long term supporters/contributors something will break that cannot be put back together.
Before then it used to be called “site feedback”, and that’s still accessible.
2 Likes
meatn3
(equal opportunity eater in the NC Triangle)
173
Thank you! I didn’t investigate deep enough. I did scroll back through Site Feedback to see posts from 5 years ago. Hopefully, they go back further! I also edited my CH post and added your info regarding “Site Feedback”.
meatn3
(equal opportunity eater in the NC Triangle)
175
And deleted my corrected post. In my correction I said that I had been alerted on HO that “Site Feedback” went back further than “Site Talk”. Maybe the mention of HO did it?
How dare folks discuss things in the open in a forum. They only wanted private e-mails in response to their private e-mails
2 Likes
Presunto
(Return To (durian) Paradise ~ Pulau Pinang 2001-2025 ... [Fleeced Taxpayer :@)) :@)) ])
178
After the “disaster” I did return once in a while just to look at “site talk”. Even my multiple advert and pop-up blockers couldn’t cope with the shit.
Blast from the past (managed to make screenshots of some posts before they got deleted by the dictators):
When you remove, or even discourage, contributors who might be considered “edgy”, you are left with milk-toast content which does not demand intelligent readers’ investment in time.
But once again, Chow, like all forums, is composed of many conversation groups, some of which are still, if infrequently, populated by keen and experienced observers not afraid to post pithy opinions. (Just don’t criticize the house,)
Now that I think about it, One of the 2012 changes is that they removed the address database in 2012 and that infuriated a number of people, including one of the most active posters on the SFBA boards. That feature, which became useless and unmanageable in the yelp and google maps era, exploited hundreds of hours of volunteers’ time, all for nothing.
