Topic: Is Interact Worthwhile? (Read 9916 times)

JimH · « **on:** August 04, 2005, 10:10:05 am »

Maybe it's the hot weather, but we've had a lot of complaints about Interact lately. Is it worth continuing?

This isn't a call for opinions about how Interact should be run so please don't use it to repeat a complaint you've already expressed.

LonWar · « **Reply #1 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:17:18 am »

Hi Jim,
While there does tend to be some problems from time to time, I don't think MC would survive without it's community.
MC is a good product, But it's the plugins and the skins that the 3rd Party's make that make the software Great!

I also think that it would be good to have a Off Topic board, But that's a different thing all together!

KingSparta · « **Reply #2 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:25:01 am »

Quote

But it's the plug-ins ~~and the skins~~ that the 3rd Party's make that make the software Great!

Blush

I will take all the Credit

I am Working On A MC12 Plug-In As We Speak

I Rather think it is the programmers, users opinions that J river Uses, and the program it's self that makes MC Great.

I think Opinions Are great, but sometimes they do get disruptive. sometimes not what they ask but how they ask it.

some questions are re-runs, and have been covered Thru doc files

yes sometimes JimH rests his elbows on the delete key maybe a bit too much, but i don't mind too much. i have been guilty of that my self. sometimes i delete or lock something (or other J river Employees) and users just blame JimH.

Sometimes there should be a better way of dealing with "Hot Topics" one hot topic is "Privacy" and some of them should be covered with a doc file. it did take a long time for some of the issues to be covered like "Privacy". but it has always been stated in the forum that j river does not scan your computer and get your personal info like a few users state.

There are alot of users who help out in the forum, and some that hurt it with each post they make spouting things that are just not true.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:45:23 am »

Lisa,
I split your post to a new thread called "Disruptive Opinions". It's here:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?action=post;topic=29078.0;num_replies=0

hit_ny · « **Reply #4 on:** August 04, 2005, 10:48:40 am »

Quote

Generally a good and useful forum

Heh, mostly everyone is going to agree with this (the useful part anyways). It's the only in-depth repository of knowledge about MC. And possibly the best way to answer questions that generally have verbose answers that can be very unique in some cases. Many ppl have been very helpful. This is the first thing that struck me as unique here, as opposed to the usual incomplete answers or RTFM elsewhere.

GHammer · « **Reply #5 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:05:43 am »

I wish it were easier to use, but frankly I don't have a brilliant idea on rearranging the forums. Wish I had one because it is sometimes hard to find what I want to find.
My best idea is to split Support, General, and News into their own sections.

I use it, one of the places I look in on each day or so. I'd miss it if it were gone.

It is helpful to me personally and I hope I have been able to give a little help.

zxsix · « **Reply #6 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:22:38 am »

Jim. I'm in upper level management at a software company. Our company is in it's 26th year. Our flagship software has been in use for 26 years. The reason we've lasted that long is because of our business model.
Our customers is what's the most important.
What we do is have a forum similar to this, a wishlist form on our website, and we have a conference every year for our users to get together.
From these 3 sources, we log requests for new features and enhancements. We devote every other release of our software to wishlist items. The other releases contain about 60% new projects and 40% wishlist items from customers.
We let the industry dictate what our software can do for them.

IMHO, Interact is a great resource. It allows a place where "bugs" can be separated from "not proper usage" or training issues.
Other users can answer tech questions and help out newbies.

Staying on top of current changes in this and related industries is crucial, I think. You need to know what people need. Is ipod support a big deal? Is upnp streaming a big deal? Is the latest whiz-bang format gonna replace ape and mp3? What new portables are people actually buying? If we can't interface to them all (no standards) then which ones should we spend our time on?
You get that kind of info from interact.
It's also a valuable place to discuss plugin development.
It's also wonderful to be able to discuss multi-zone setup, htpc best practices, etc. with people who have been there done that.
You don't get that kind of stuff from a user guide.
Trust me, this place is appreciated.
Appoint a moderator or two from the old-timers on here and take a week or two away from here if you need it.

jgreen · « **Reply #7 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:27:38 am »

What he said, except for the part about having an important job or anything useful to do with my time.

BlueGlow · « **Reply #8 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:39:51 am »

The connection and information these forums provide is just as important as the product for generating passionate and loyal users.

Closing the forums would be like taking away half the features and erasing most of the documentation.

It's the heat. That's why summertime is time for a vacation.

Mastiff · « **Reply #9 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:12:35 pm »

Hey, no controverse, no interest! Believe me, the few fights I see here are nothing compared to the golden age of newsgroups, around 10 years ago. Did you ever hear about when we in alt.bad.taste did a number on alt.pets.cats? That was actually pretty malicious (which is why I left pretty soon).

dcpete · « **Reply #10 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:26:34 pm »

It great to have a forum, but I'm a little disheartened sometimes when I get no comments from anyone - especially bug reports. Some sort of feedback would be nice, even if it is "problem noted and logged".

Chris

DWAnderson · « **Reply #11 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:29:47 pm »

Without this forum, how would you get an answer to the question you posed at the top of the thread?

221bBS · « **Reply #12 on:** August 04, 2005, 01:49:40 pm »

I love this forum and the support I get here...but I think the forum could be reworked to make it a bit easier to use and attract current/new users to use more often.
I would love to have an off topic area with maybe subsections (general, news, politics, music, movies/video, book, Graphic/Pictures, etc...). I think new users and some current users see this forum as just a support area and having a place to discuss other topics will encourage more users to become more active. Also be nice to have links from MC's start page to link to these off topic forums.
I would also love to have a wish list, beta and smartlist/database expressions area in the forum.

JimH · « **Reply #13 on:** August 04, 2005, 02:32:45 pm »

Quote from: dcpete on August 04, 2005, 01:26:34 pm

Some sort of feedback would be nice, even if it is "problem noted and logged".

We don't always respond, but we do always read. We try to always respond to multiple reports of the same problem. If you don't think you're getting an answer, try starting a new thread, and most importantly, ask if other users see the same problem.

Krazykanuck · « **Reply #14 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:01:00 pm »

I read it almost daily as I started to use MC more and more. It is still set as one of my tabs in firefox that gets loaded on startup.
I would only second GHammers suggestion that maybe the forums could be split to make it a little easier to find stuff. I have a few suggestions but I'll save them for if/when I'm ever asked.

SuperRabbit0 · « **Reply #15 on:** August 04, 2005, 03:05:31 pm »

As a regular reader here (and occasional poster), I can also vouch that these forums are not only tremendously valuable (even to many silent lurkers who rarely post) but keep interest in your product high.

If these forums went away, I suppose I might look forward to MC12 but chances are I would forget about it quickly. I really think this forum generates buzz and excitement about your product and is really required for a software product of this scope.

Cmagic · « **Reply #16 on:** August 04, 2005, 04:40:01 pm »

Jim,

Yep maybe the hot weather, but please Jim don't ever think of stopping the interact.
There is far more good spirit and helpful hints over here than bad stuff.

The interact already went through little crisis and had its lot of "funky-trolly" posters but it survived and all in all it's a good place to be.

long live interact and thanks for asking us Jim,

have a great day,

Christian

Alex B · « **Reply #17 on:** August 04, 2005, 05:47:53 pm »

It's the weather. But don't worry. The cold weather will come back. Actually, it seems like the fall just started today in Helsinki. We have had dark clouds and heavy rains all the day.

Thanks for this forum. It is valuable. I would not have been posting to a worthless forum. I like to think I am not that stupid.

modelmaker · « **Reply #18 on:** August 04, 2005, 06:51:29 pm »

As one can tell from the number of posts I've made here, (some hopefully useful), I enjoy the comradery here as well.

Sure, there will always be some users that can try people's patience, or get paranoid about privacy policies, (the FBI still hasen't showed up at my house!),even JimH has admitted to being a bit paranoid about the impression the forum leaves with visitors, but all in all, the forum is part of what makes this such a kickass product.

I, like most everyone else here, tried a few of the other apps out there, but the the disconnect between the users and the developers/support left such a bad taste in my mouth, I didn't stick around long.

So, please don't even think about dropping the forum, Jim, if you need a break let someone else take over your duties for a while.

jgreen · « **Reply #19 on:** August 04, 2005, 07:04:03 pm »

Quoting JimH:
"Maybe it's the hot weather, but we've had a lot of complaints about Interact lately. Is it worth continuing?"

JimH, maybe I misunderstood your original question. Are you asking if the hot weather is worth continuing? Because I vote "no". It's a hundred degrees here, with tropical humidity. Perfect conditions for finding fault in others.
With brutal heat like this, and two months more expected, I find myself asking if it's even worth continuing.

JimH · « **Reply #20 on:** August 04, 2005, 07:10:00 pm »

Thanks, Mr. Green. You had me laughing out loud.

Charlemagne 8 · « **Reply #21 on:** August 04, 2005, 07:18:21 pm »

Don't even joke like that.
I come here every day. EVERY day.
I don't always post but I always read.

For someone with the attention span of a turnip (that would be me), that's pretty amazing.

CVIII

KingSparta · « **Reply #22 on:** August 04, 2005, 07:22:04 pm »

So far 2 people think "Not worth the trouble"

the pros and cons of it, i can't see a Pro for getting rid of it.

I would need a new home page

Bluesman · « **Reply #23 on:** August 04, 2005, 11:54:54 pm »

As a relatively new user I try and read it daily.

However, I think it would be better if it was split into sub-forums like-
1.Using media Center
2. Installation Problems
3. Wishlist
4. licence/registration
5. Smartlists/Playlists
etc
I find wading thru some of the topics I'm not interested in, time consuming.
You definitely need it though.

bennyd · « **Reply #24 on:** August 05, 2005, 12:48:36 am »

I come here also every day and read most of the posts (already more than 3 years), sometimes I answer or post myself.
Interact MUST stay, it's part of my life :-)

Bluesman · « **Reply #25 on:** August 05, 2005, 12:58:14 am »

So long as you don't answer your own questions. We couldn't have that lol

matshif · « **Reply #26 on:** August 05, 2005, 01:25:34 am »

from modelmaker:
"So, please don't even think about dropping the forum, Jim, if you need a break let someone else take over your duties for a while".

Mats

Topper · « **Reply #27 on:** August 05, 2005, 01:38:20 am »

Well for what it's worth here is my view of things.

I don't post very often, probably becuse I'm a lurker by nature, but I do visit here a couple of times a day and read the posts because this is a fun and imformative site about a product I love and use everyday. For me improvements in visualisations mean nothing while improvements in functionality is what I would like to see but I live here side by side with everyone because we all have different needs and views. Things only get rough when individuals want to push their own agenda at the expense of everyone else and thankfully that seems to happen not much at all now.

Jim, Im not sure what has happened to make you doubt the worthyness of interact but I would like to remind you of how things were about eighteen months ago or so.

At that time there was a group of individuals who were hellbent on getting their own way and and poo pooing anyone elses ideas or oppinions. Things got pretty much unbearable but you and the moderators brought them in to line or asked them to leave and sanity was restored. Since then, to my eyes things have been fine here with everyone coexisting.

I would hate to see interact disappear as it is somewhere I have visited everyday and has brought much enjoyment of a great product.

Ps Remember all the fun things to like the discussions on beers and sending a book around the world

IanG · « **Reply #28 on:** August 05, 2005, 03:14:40 am »

I completely agree with zxsix's earlier post!

I was a bit surprised when I first had to pay for beta s/w, but that was before I realised that Interact is part of the package - I've had near real-time tech support via this forum and seen feature requests implemented within 24 hours. I've also had advice on subjects as diverse as astrophotography and skiing - of course it's worthwhile!

Ian G.

runemail · « **Reply #29 on:** August 05, 2005, 04:38:49 am »

Quote from: Bluesman on August 04, 2005, 11:54:54 pm

As a relatively new user I try and read it daily.

However, I think it would be better if it was split into sub-forums like-
1.Using media Center
2. Installation Problems
3. Wishlist
4. licence/registration
5. Smartlists/Playlists
etc
I find wading thru some of the topics I'm not interested in, time consuming.
You definitely need it though.

I agree to this, maybe add a sub-sub-forum where people could let out thir frustrations.

KingSparta · « **Reply #30 on:** August 05, 2005, 07:38:52 am »

Quote

Ps Remember all the fun things to like the discussions on beers and sending a book around the world

As I Predicted It Has Vanished.

GHammer · « **Reply #31 on:** August 05, 2005, 08:35:06 am »

Quote from: KingSparta on August 05, 2005, 07:38:52 am

As I Predicted It Has Vanished.

Speaking as someone who has done their share of "OT-" posts, it is not a good thing. It is bad enough to have suggestions, development, support, and news in one forum. When you add the "OT-" posts it doesn't help.

Split the forum already.

crowfan · « **Reply #32 on:** August 05, 2005, 11:00:07 am »

Well, I haven't been around these parts in quite some time (being a Mac user now), but I would vote (and did vote) that Interact should stay.

The community makes the software so much better. If you can't figure out how to do something, you can come here and post, and people will help you. You can help others in turn. And being in direct contact with the developers is fantastic. It makes MC a really user-driven application, which is rare.

I still use MC on my WinXP laptop and I would love to see Interact continue. I drop by once in a while and lurk to see what's up with my favorite music/media app. It may need some tweaking (EDIT: I mean the forum, not the app), but even if it stays as-is, it's worth it.

crow

dcwebman · « **Reply #33 on:** August 05, 2005, 02:11:35 pm »

All right, I'll throw my 2 cents in. A forum whether it is Interact or whatever you want to call it is absolutely essential. It's one of the first things I look for when looking for new software. Software that gives me no ability to ask questions and answer others without a forum doesn't help me or any other user.
Jeff

sdcoochie8 · « **Reply #34 on:** August 05, 2005, 08:32:37 pm »

This forum is one of the big reasons I continue to use the product (besides the great product itself). It gives it's users a direct link to it's developers and this in turn gives the user a say in the product. Even though not every suggestion can be addressed the development team here, I think, does a pretty decent job. It is also a great way for the developer to meet the needs of it's consumers and keep up with their needs so the product can meet or beat it's competition.

I have tried to keep up with this forum since version 5 and at times I have not had an internet connection but I always come back because of the forum. It gives me the latest news and allows me to see how the product is evolving. I do think at times there are those who may be a little intense with their views but for the most part it is a pretty reasonable group of users.

I really don't know of any other software that does this good a job of listening to it's users than this product team. If there are others in this software catagory I'm sure they will draw a good bit of interest and customers as well.

raym · « **Reply #35 on:** August 05, 2005, 11:44:01 pm »

One of the truely great things about Media Center is this forum. Particularily the contributions, user testing and general suggestions people make to the development team during the pre-release stages of the product. This all has a direct result on the quality and appeal of Media Center.

I must say, I've really enjoyed putting in my 2 cents worth when I found a bug or made a suggestion which is enventually implemented. This is what makes this application so great and why I eagerly await each new version. Beacuse of this, Media Center is my favourite piece of software hands down!

Ray.

TimB · « **Reply #36 on:** August 06, 2005, 05:16:35 am »

Product-AMAZING
INTERACT-great concept
Moderation-oversensitive (maybe a result of being burned too many times, but still...)

-=Tim=-

benrad · « **Reply #37 on:** August 06, 2005, 08:56:54 am »

Interact is all the reason I've been using MC for all these years. I occasionally get turned off by the deletion of posts, but I think the help I've received here far outweighs the beefs I have against it.

I think a more of a free-form forum, maybe a little less moderated would be nice, with you guys (Jimh, Matt, etc.) contributing a little bit. I don't know if this would be damaging to the product or against company policy, but I think it would be beneficial.

gpvillamil · « **Reply #38 on:** August 06, 2005, 09:02:02 am »

Very worthwhile. Key to getting the most out of MC11.

If it were up to me, however, I would have a dedicated bug tracking tool set up (like Mantis). Would make everyone's life easier I think.

glynor · « **Reply #39 on:** August 07, 2005, 07:45:13 pm »

I come here just about every day (though my frequency of posting does admittedly decrease during the summer and I become more of a lurker -- sorry, work and sun increase <--> internet use decreases). As many others have said so eloquently, Interact, and the way the development team "interacts" with the user community is the single biggest reason that MC is the best Media Management application there is, and is the reason I am a dedicated user.

I do think, as some others do, that the moderation can sometimes feel heavyhanded. It certainly has never, and probably wouldn't ever be something that would anger me for longer than it would take me to walk away from the computer, though. I can understand that the forum has a purpose and mission and that moderation is needed. If it were me, I would probably just replace a deleted or modified posting with a note explaining that it was deleted/modified due to <blank>. This is usually done, but not always. Despite my paranoid leanings, I've always been inclined to give the management here the benefit of the doubt that any omissions of this are simple omissions and not done with malicious intent.

That being said, I would also point out that this forum is the single most civil forum I have ever been involved with, and I believe that some of the credit for that goes to the "tight-ship" mentality that it is run with. People do believe passionately here, but personal attacks are extremely rare, and I am constantly amazed with the understanding and civility that "noobs" are treated with here. I'm not afraid to encourage people who I refer to MC to become a part of the forum and post questions. I guess it would be best to say that I have mixed feelings on that aspect of Interact, and I think JimH's suggestion of a separate "OT and Freewheeling" forum could help a bit, and the transparent moderation (always noting changes) would go a huge way towards preventing recurrences of the "trouble" and mending hurt feelings.

Again, though, I've got to say for me, even with no changes, I can't really see any of it ever bothering me enough to influence my use of Interact, despite my extremely strong feelings about freedom of speech. It's the management's right to run their forum however they see fit, and our right not to use it (and complain elsewhere) if we don't like it. It certainly doesn't rise to this level, after all...

marko · « **Reply #40 on:** August 08, 2005, 01:43:03 am »

Quote from: benrad on August 06, 2005, 08:56:54 am

I think a more of a free-form forum, maybe a little less moderated would be nice, with you guys (Jimh, Matt, etc.) contributing a little bit. I don't know if this would be damaging to the product or against company policy, but I think it would be beneficial.

* marko nods.

glynor: interesting link.

JimH · « **Reply #41 on:** August 10, 2005, 10:00:54 am »

I'm going to close this thread now.

For better or worse, Interact will continue on as it is. We may make some changes in how open the alpha testing is next time.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

INTERACT FORUM

Poll

I think Interact is:

Author Topic: Is Interact Worthwhile? (Read 9916 times)

benrad