Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

DELL-Bob P — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:56:37 GMT

Ledswinger, I'm reading all of the comments we are receiving and we realize we need to move with speed and keep listening to what you and our other community members are saying so we get it right. No other way to say it than to say that I'm sorry we haven't hit it right with this relaunch of our community site. We are absolutely listening, writing down the changes we need to make and, quite frankly, taking a fresh look in real time at what we need to do. If you want to email me direct now or in the future, I'm at bob_pearson@dell.com Thanks for your comments....all taken quite seriously. Bob

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

Ledswinger — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:17:46 GMT

"Thank you for the feedback". Yeah, like I believe that. Not only have Dell managed amongst the worst on-line mess ups of all time, but they won't even admit it. The "improvements" that have been implemented are insufficient to restore the functionality of the old forums, and most of them show that the new DCF simply wasn't tested properly. The new single log in was done in such a half baked fashion that you still expect most of us to create new user IDs if we wish to make suggestion on Ideastorm (and then, when it suits you we'll presumably have to link the two logins ourselves, again). Saying "we accept that the site is not complete and not finished" is WHOLLY INADEQUATE. None of the Dell representatives appear able to see that DELL MESSED UP, that the rationale for bringing all of these users and sites together is flawed. Look at what I see as a home user - a tag cloud occuping a large part of my desktop real estate, with tags like Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Strategy, Virtulaization, none of which have relevance to the home user. You've added value-free new content like the media galleries - Wow - looks like the Dell sysadmin has finally found a final resting place for the 10,000 least accessed files on your intranet. You're mixing channel partners, enterprise buyers and home users on the one web site - where's the commonality there? You trashed the old XPS forum for no good reason at all (unless you're planning to can the XPS product line....). The new community starts with a summary of my activity - didn't the developers think that I might know what my activity is - far more useful would be to show where there are responses to my previous activity. New users are dumping tech support queries all over the shop because the navigation is so bad, old users are beginning to realise that the DCF has been so comprehensively ruined that maybe it isn't worth persevering. AND STILL YOU WON'T ADMIT THAT IT IS A TOTAL DISASTER. What's wrong with Dell and its people? The blog responses suggest you really think that you are going to tinker your way out of a mess of not-quite biblical proportions, when common sense says that the only way to to clear this sort of foul up is for the Cat in the Hat to ride in on that machine of his. And meanwhile, you're posting interviews by Bob Pearson (VP of Great Web Disasters) with Forrester. Do you think Forrester know what's actually happened? Or have they taken the corporate hook, line and sinker, and believe that the new DCF is some radical, back-to-front baseball cap wearing, youth oriented Web 2.0 success? So, the original logic of creating one single DCF site was wrong, the site design was and remains badly flawed, functionality and site speed and availability continue to crawl along at a level of inadequacy, we people who buy Dell and pay your salaries are annoyed and frustrated. You know how it looks from here? THAT YOU DON'T LISTEN TO US, AND THAT YOU HAVE NO INTENTION OF LISTENING TO ANYTHING FROM US, OTHER THAN EASY TO IMPLEMENT DETAIL CHANGES.

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

queball — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:39:39 GMT

Feeds are working again but you need to delete your old subscription and resubscribe

The new URL for the Direct2Dell RSS feed is http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/rss.aspx

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

queball — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:49:06 GMT

RSS Feeds are still not working

http://feeds.direct2dell.com/Direct2Dell?format=xml

Still lists a story from Nov 19 as the newest item.

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

queball — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:27:28 GMT

RSS feeds on my Direct2Dell blog bookmark are way behind.

Feed location is: http://feeds.direct2dell.com/Direct2Dell?format=xml

The newest story listed right now is:
Dell talks fourth wave of supercomputing at S...
That story was posted days ago. Please fix RSS feeds.

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

Robin24k — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:16:40 GMT

I don't think I've mentioned this before...the site is way too wide. I have to do a lot of left/right scrolling, which is very annoying. Fluid width would be nice, but if you want to preserve formating, you should make it narrower. The "categories" on the left side is completely useless and very messy, and the navigation links could go across the top.

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

jasemccarty — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:39:22 GMT

As an avid forum user, I appreciate the effort in trying to make things better. I truly wish that there would be a way to give everyone what they want. Unfortunately, I think the powers that be are missing one point... That point is... The people that are the most upset with the change, are primarily concerned with the forum side of things. I know that many companies are looking for the Community environment... And that's great, in its own right... But the forum is only a piece of it. If you guys could integrate them... And what I mean is... Keep the Community content, and link/tie into the forum content (and engine). As an IT Architect with 20 years experience, I know it is possible. I dare to say, that with a 70% disapproval rating, the biggest thing you are going to do is... alienate those that are you are trying to please. This is a bad thing for any company. I hope you bring back the old forums. And with the likelihood of repeating everyone else: 1. The old forum was simple, fast, and worked well. 2. The old forum was easy to find just about anything you wanted to find (if the content was there) 3. I often suggested to users and colleagues looking for information to consult the old forum 4. The new forum is cluttered, and has more types of content than I'm looking for. 5. The new forum may have rhyme and reason to it, but as an IT pro, I don't have time to learn a new system 6. The new forum is so cumbersome, that I would never suggest that anyone attempt to find any information here. In closing... I know how projects go get implemented... I know how money is spent on this "new" whatever, and how "things are going to be so much better". I know how when a project flops, people keep pushing it, especially when trying to "save face". I also know how customers and brand satisfaction are lost when the above occur. Please bring back the old support forums, or simply let them coexist with this new monstrosity.

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

julzie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:55:21 GMT

What's with all the error messages? I keep getting THIS... Address Not Found Firefox can't find the server at en.community.dell.com. The browser could not find the host server for the provided address. I've tried links that worked before, different browsers, typing it in manually, everything! Sometimes it works and sometimes- more often- it doesn't! Looks like I picked the wrong day to run out of my blood pressure medicine!

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

Lionel_Menchaca — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:00:57 GMT

julzie: Thanks for taking the time to respond. I agree with you that we need to fix the speed and the errors as well as line breaks not showing up. All of those things are being looked at. Thanks again for the constructive feedback.

re: Community Update: Fixes and Enhancements

VCraig — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:59:39 GMT

I've been checking in hoping the overwhelming "update" 70% disapproval rating caused a reversion to the previous DCF format that the "participating community" - not Dell personnel - are asking to be restored. Wishful thinking obviously. The parties responsible for this disaster are bound and determined to continue cramming a round peg into a square hole until it fits regardless apparently. For the past 3 or 4 years my prime DCF penchant was the gaming forums and based on the near total absence of new posts there since the imposition of Dell's DCF "improvement" (with the few new posts only from recent newcomers) I think it's safe to say this format change has rendered the two remaining "gaming" blogs (can't call them forums any longer...) all but useless. There's no rationale for a decisioin this bad where Dell previously benefitted from essentially free tech support of such a volume via the "old" DCF format. But having endured a working lifetime of corporate business decision logic (an oxymorom to be sure) I know once the decision has been made, barring a major leadership change it's done. What a shame...