Didn't quite know where to put this but since the China group has the most members, I guess it can go here.

I just wanted to see if anyone else expressed the same feelings as me when it comes to the presentation and ease of use over this site. In my opinion the site is a bit of a shambles with confusing 'groups' and bad presentation.

Its a site with lots of little communities, rather than one big one.

I hear people talking of an update to the site, but I never see it implemented. I mean, how hard would it be to just use a slightly glorified regular old forum?

I like the people here, and enjoy helping likeminded people, but the site is kinda like a really bad, old myspace, and in my opinion needs updating as soon as possible because it makes repeat visits here harder and harder.

The very fact that there has been no response to this topic, not even by a moderator, within 2 days kinda backs up my theory.

I posted that on the Thursday morning though Steve.

Surely you of all people can see that there are only a handful of members who actually keep coming back to this site (excluding moderators)?

Just read it and agree completely. Although what I will say is that the design of the site makes it just as hard for me to come back because, as mentioned above, it splits what should be one large community into many smaller and completely disconnected ones.

Of course this is just my opinion, but how long do you think I would have waited to a reply on this topic had you not come along when you did?

Being completely honest, I could have bet my whole head of hair it would have been reliable Steve that was the one whole replied to the topic, because let's face it, who else is here?

Hello FilterAngel,

My hands are up! I'm guilty! I saw your post come through and I usually watch to see who else comments so it doesn't look like the i-to-i staff are suffocating everything! With all the excitement of moderating every single post, blog, picture and video, I have to confess I am guilty of not responding to your post, I'm sorry for this error.

The main change that was implemented with the latest update is that we made it harder for people to be distracted by newer groups that are created by Chalkboard users, and we're therefore keeping things nice and central with the existing groups that are on here.

It's our intention to split the groups in to relevant destinations and topics, to ease with overall clarity, but I'll keep your feedback in mind for the next update planned, because nothing is ever going to work for everyone and we always want to keep the site moving.

When you mentioned that there isn't one big community, are you thinking about one big wall where anyone can post about anything? Or am I reading that differently to how you meant?

I've just deleted a few older groups today that haven't had any recent activity in an attempt to stick to the basic groups on here, which is where I kicked myself for not responding to your original post as I was running through all of the groups and all of the discussions...

Thanks again for your feedback!

Katie

I think you just need to have a regular old forum type setup.

Sure, spice it up and give it the I to I trademark, but at least then everyone can see what's happening in all the other groups here without having to click on multiple pages just to find things.

It's just my opinion of course, but it's tried and tested and it would make the site much more of a pleasure to visit. Not to mention give it the feel of one larger community.

Thanks for the feedback, I have more of an idea of what you mean. I think the trouble is that we used to have a forum a few years ago before Chalkboard came along, and the forum itself got so messy that it was harder to follow than having different groups and different pages to click through.

Perhaps there are ways that I can look at simplifying the groups pages, maybe we've gone too far with the pages and it's become less user friendly, I could see why that would be frustrating. However, I do think there are benefits to having it split out to find what you're looking for, so I guess we might never get to the perfect layout, but we can try!

Katie