The New Forum is useless, I can't search and cant write a question! Brilliant, well done web developers

HazelWoodcock - Wed Apr 24 11:45:51 EDT 2013

Richard, you should see an edit window somewhere below where you managed to put the title

There is a Search box at the top of the grey section for searching in This Forum

Wolfgang Uhr - Thu Apr 25 06:04:10 EDT 2013

Hello Richard

The forum depends extremely upon the browser and the set of java-script-permissions you have. If you are "local-admin" you can do something so that you are able to use that forum. But if you are not, you do not have any chance.

Furthermore this forum destroys code. You can post something and the script adds or removes newlines and removes whitespaces. The result is unreadable. And furthermore it is difiicult to find someones own posts because now they have been done by the sys admin. I can really understand Mathias leaving this forum. I've the same thougts.

For example: Mathias had written a tuturial about the handling of the memory leaks. Try to find it using the forum search. For me it seems to be impossible.

This forum is something which helps us to do our work. There is no reason for posting it in facebook to or Twitter or Dig or something else. But we need a help to post formatted code and we need as less java script as possible or good fall-backs.

And we need the "old content" and here I do not understand anything. IBM can really freeze the old forum into a static version so that you can go to the old content by old URLs, without any chance to give an answer. In this case am maximum of say 20 Posts of each forum has been redone in the new one. But you have the old posts using the known authors.

There is a lot which could be done better.

Best regards

Wolfgang

 

HazelWoodcock - Thu Apr 25 06:39:22 EDT 2013

There are a few issues here, some of which will be addressed in the next couple of weeks.

The issue of posts being credited to Admin is being looked at and should improve in a couple of weeks.

The search index takes a while to build, and I think is not yet complete, so searching should improve over the coming days.

This forum is now in IBM Connections and that gives us several options.  There is a Product and Systems Engineering group www.ibm.co/systems-community that can be used for additional content and community activity.  If the group here would prefer then we can set up either a requirements management or a DOORS specific community.  A community comes with the Wiki, Blog, Files, Forum (but these forums can be linked in with bookmarks), Events.  This would allow you to share code as files.

We use Connections internally in IBM and while it is not perfect, I find it incredibly useful, and personally I think the benefits outweigh the weaknesses.

If anyone is interested in creating a group for requirements management (I think that would be better than a narrow, DOORS group), to center our activity around then let me know and I will help out.  If as a group we think that making use of the even broader product and systems engineering group is better then again, I am more than happy to help out with organizing efforts in that direction.

HazelWoodcock - Thu Apr 25 06:39:22 EDT 2013

There are a few issues here, some of which will be addressed in the next couple of weeks.

The issue of posts being credited to Admin is being looked at and should improve in a couple of weeks.

The search index takes a while to build, and I think is not yet complete, so searching should improve over the coming days.

This forum is now in IBM Connections and that gives us several options.  There is a Product and Systems Engineering group www.ibm.co/systems-community that can be used for additional content and community activity.  If the group here would prefer then we can set up either a requirements management or a DOORS specific community.  A community comes with the Wiki, Blog, Files, Forum (but these forums can be linked in with bookmarks), Events.  This would allow you to share code as files.

We use Connections internally in IBM and while it is not perfect, I find it incredibly useful, and personally I think the benefits outweigh the weaknesses.

If anyone is interested in creating a group for requirements management (I think that would be better than a narrow, DOORS group), to center our activity around then let me know and I will help out.  If as a group we think that making use of the even broader product and systems engineering group is better then again, I am more than happy to help out with organizing efforts in that direction.

HazelWoodcock - Thu Apr 25 06:39:22 EDT 2013

There are a few issues here, some of which will be addressed in the next couple of weeks.

The issue of posts being credited to Admin is being looked at and should improve in a couple of weeks.

The search index takes a while to build, and I think is not yet complete, so searching should improve over the coming days.

This forum is now in IBM Connections and that gives us several options.  There is a Product and Systems Engineering group www.ibm.co/systems-community that can be used for additional content and community activity.  If the group here would prefer then we can set up either a requirements management or a DOORS specific community.  A community comes with the Wiki, Blog, Files, Forum (but these forums can be linked in with bookmarks), Events.  This would allow you to share code as files.

We use Connections internally in IBM and while it is not perfect, I find it incredibly useful, and personally I think the benefits outweigh the weaknesses.

If anyone is interested in creating a group for requirements management (I think that would be better than a narrow, DOORS group), to center our activity around then let me know and I will help out.  If as a group we think that making use of the even broader product and systems engineering group is better then again, I am more than happy to help out with organizing efforts in that direction.

Adamarla - Thu Apr 25 08:01:51 EDT 2013

This was a DXL forum not a DOORS forum, not a System Engineering forum. It should remain a DXL forum. It should allow us to post DXL Code.

HazelWoodcock - Thu Apr 25 09:16:55 EDT 2013

Adam, this was and is a DXL forum.  My suggestion was not to somehow lose it in a broader subject, but to give it an umbrella group where more people might find it, and where the members of this forum might find other, related topics of interest, including the other existing DOORS forums.  Also to supplement it with additional capabilities and mechanisms for sharing information.

If the formatting of the posts is not working for posting DXL, there is the facility to Attach a file to a post which can be used for code.

Mike@IBM - Thu Apr 25 08:02:37 EDT 2013

Internally (in IBM) when we moved our forums to IBM Connections forums we had some of these growing pains.  There are a few positives that will come out of it hopefully.  The integration with the overall Communities, mobile apps that are very good (I hope dW enabled mobile..), tagging is better, search (after the index is complete) will give you better options like people and dates.  Attachments are also handled a bit better and it allows you to have more.

Granted there needs to be better grouping and ordering of the forum lists (alpha vs. last mod).  Our internal (IBM) experience was somewhat similar but I think now that people are getting used to how everything is tied together it has been much better.  Some UX updates that "were" in the works (I am not in that area so I don't know for sure where they stand) recently were quite nice as well.

 

MichaelGeorg - Tue Apr 30 07:37:00 EDT 2013

Also I don't like the harsh tone of many posts here and I know that changes do always provoke some kind of rejection I can only emphasize the functional critics about the new forum.

It is a mystery to me why a big company like IBM needs more than one week to get such a simple thing like a forum working correct again. Today still there are

• Old posts that can't be found with the search
• Old posts that are created by some SystemAdmin
• Workarounds needed to be able to write in the forum (Actually I need to reject the https mode in IE to be able to write this post :-) )

@HazelWoodcock: Can you give us any information about when the forum including search functionality will work again? If you are not able to provide an orderly working forum I think we need to start looking for some other place to exchange about DXL problems.

@WolfgangUhr: Mathias thread about memory leaks is available at: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014942467&ps=100

 

MichaelGeorg - Tue Apr 30 07:37:00 EDT 2013

Also I don't like the harsh tone of many posts here and I know that changes do always provoke some kind of rejection I can only emphasize the functional critics about the new forum.

It is a mystery to me why a big company like IBM needs more than one week to get such a simple thing like a forum working correct again. Today still there are

• Old posts that can't be found with the search
• Old posts that are created by some SystemAdmin
• Workarounds needed to be able to write in the forum (Actually I need to reject the https mode in IE to be able to write this post :-) )

@HazelWoodcock: Can you give us any information about when the forum including search functionality will work again? If you are not able to provide an orderly working forum I think we need to start looking for some other place to exchange about DXL problems.

@WolfgangUhr: Mathias thread about memory leaks is available at: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014942467&ps=100

 

Wolfgang Uhr - Wed May 01 07:52:59 EDT 2013

Hello Michael

> @WolfgangUhr: Mathias thread about memory leaks is available at:

Thank you, but I've bookmarked this post. It was an example, because you cannot find it even you are searching for.

>  @HazelWoodcock: [...]

You have realized that she did not understand what we've said?

What did she post?

> Adam, this was and is a DXL forum.  My suggestion was not to somehow lose it in a broader subject, but to give it an umbrella group where more people might find it, and where the members of this forum might find other, related topics of interest, including the other existing DOORS forums.  

She really thinks that this is a little small talk about dxl.  The "new idea of this forum" is something like: Oh do you really know, yesterday I've written a script and a have used the command showDialog() once and release() twice. That was a long and interesting script.

> Also to supplement it with additional capabilities and mechanisms for sharing information. If the formatting of the posts is not working for posting DXL, there is the facility to Attach a file to a post which can be used for code.

That really says: Do want you want to du we do not solve any problem. We get no solution, the problem counts as "solved".

Best regards
Wolfgang

MichaelGeorg - Tue Apr 30 07:37:00 EDT 2013

Also I don't like the harsh tone of many posts here and I know that changes do always provoke some kind of rejection I can only emphasize the functional critics about the new forum.

It is a mystery to me why a big company like IBM needs more than one week to get such a simple thing like a forum working correct again. Today still there are

• Old posts that can't be found with the search
• Old posts that are created by some SystemAdmin
• Workarounds needed to be able to write in the forum (Actually I need to reject the https mode in IE to be able to write this post :-) )

@HazelWoodcock: Can you give us any information about when the forum including search functionality will work again? If you are not able to provide an orderly working forum I think we need to start looking for some other place to exchange about DXL problems.

@WolfgangUhr: Mathias thread about memory leaks is available at: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014942467&ps=100

 

HazelWoodcock - Wed May 01 08:51:34 EDT 2013

Wolfgang,

I am under no illusion about the purpose of this forum, I have found it invaluable on many occasions to solve real business problems.  I do not, however, think that it should be in any way elitist or hard to find.

Most of the users of this forum are more than just coders, they are often database administrators with wide ranging responsibilities including advising on process.  Many of the users of this DXL group also contribute to the DOORS Administration forum, and to the DOORS General Discussion forum. 

We have a group that is focused on Systems Engineering, and as a large percentage of DOORS customer organizations are in the business of Systems Engineering, it would seem natural to direct traffic in both directions.  Making relevant information easier to find is my only goal in trying to connect these groups of individuals.

I understand that there are some issues with the transition to a new platform for this forum, and was trying to offer viable short term workarounds until the issues can be more formally resolved.  I have asked the developerWorks team to look specifically at this thread to understand the problems that people are seeing so that a solution can be found.  I unfortunately am not directly involved with that team, and am here in my capacity as a long-term DOORS user, occasional DXL user and Systems Engineer.

HazelWoodcock - Wed May 01 08:51:34 EDT 2013

Wolfgang,

I am under no illusion about the purpose of this forum, I have found it invaluable on many occasions to solve real business problems.  I do not, however, think that it should be in any way elitist or hard to find.

Most of the users of this forum are more than just coders, they are often database administrators with wide ranging responsibilities including advising on process.  Many of the users of this DXL group also contribute to the DOORS Administration forum, and to the DOORS General Discussion forum. 

We have a group that is focused on Systems Engineering, and as a large percentage of DOORS customer organizations are in the business of Systems Engineering, it would seem natural to direct traffic in both directions.  Making relevant information easier to find is my only goal in trying to connect these groups of individuals.

I understand that there are some issues with the transition to a new platform for this forum, and was trying to offer viable short term workarounds until the issues can be more formally resolved.  I have asked the developerWorks team to look specifically at this thread to understand the problems that people are seeing so that a solution can be found.  I unfortunately am not directly involved with that team, and am here in my capacity as a long-term DOORS user, occasional DXL user and Systems Engineer.

llandale - Wed May 01 11:21:04 EDT 2013

I agree with the technical content of almost all of these complaints.  However, I disagree with the notion that we "deserve" anything.  Perhaps an analogy:  Some folks complain bitterly about bad service at a resturant; other folks just tip less and eventually don't come back.  It's nice to get good service, but you do not deserve it.

-Louie

However, these gosh-darn forsaken idiots don't have a readily available "formatting help for morons and old folks" link.   That just chaps my hide and the horse I rode in on.

llandale - Wed May 01 11:21:04 EDT 2013

I agree with the technical content of almost all of these complaints.  However, I disagree with the notion that we "deserve" anything.  Perhaps an analogy:  Some folks complain bitterly about bad service at a resturant; other folks just tip less and eventually don't come back.  It's nice to get good service, but you do not deserve it.

-Louie

However, these gosh-darn forsaken idiots don't have a readily available "formatting help for morons and old folks" link.   That just chaps my hide and the horse I rode in on.

HazelWoodcock - Wed May 01 09:01:50 EDT 2013

Michael,

I am not sure of the current progress on indexing for the search.  The known problems list here may help you, and if not there are links to a feedback form, or an email address for specific questions that you have.

This is the same platform that we use internally in IBM for our practitioner communities and I am confident that once we are through these teething troubles it will prove to be more than adequate for the job. 

JeffAntley - Thu May 02 15:18:36 EDT 2013

Hello everyone,

We understand and sympathize with everyone's frustration with the change in forum functionality.  developerWorks has done what it could to preserve as much information as possible through a very challenging software upgrade and a migration to a new hosting environment.  The previous forums were on legacy software that was no longer an option to use.  It is inevitable that there were functionality differences, and we are working to improve the matters we can control.

First, restoring developerWorks forums to the legacy software is not going to happen.

Secondly, regarding the post attribution problem, as the FAQ page that Hazel has referred to mentions, the legacy (third-party) forum software used profiles that were actually independent of those used by developerWorks Community.  When we migrated the forums to Connections forums, for each post, an attempt was made to find a unique developerWorks profile with matching credentials.  If no unique match could be found, a default profile was used instead.  This is not an attempt to steal anyone's identity or intellectual property, and the inability to search by post owner has been an unfortunate consequence.  However, we still have access to the original attributions, and at our earliest opportunity, we will be working to restore posts to their original owner, primarily for those with high post counts, and others upon request.  Please monitor the FAQ page at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/connect/ICv4upgrade for updates.

Third, I have word from the engineering team that a full site index has been completed, and will be deployed to the production site this weekend.  This should help somewhat with search issues.

Fourth, if someone would kindly point to examples of important, regularly consulted code posts or threads in this forum that came through the upgrade mangled, I will look into the situation and see if there is an easy solution for repairing them.  In the few threads in this forum that I looked at, the examples included white space and line breaks and appeared completely legible, owing tot the use of the "Formatted" option in the paragraph drop-down (to the left of the font selector).  I admit that I do not work with DOORS/DXL, though, so please educate me if this is not a general solution for creating new posts with DXL code examples.

Finally, we encourage everyone to channel their constructive criticism regarding desired features to talk2dw@us.ibm.com or as feature requests to the IBM Connections product development team.

Regards,

Jeff Antley

developerWorks Feedback Team

Adamarla - Fri May 03 02:16:09 EDT 2013

Well, I'm not sure if you want this posted here, or emailed to the address provided.

I wouldn't say that this thread is an example of 'important, regularly consulted code', but it seems fitting to demonstrate the problem.

The first post in that thread shows both 'fomatted' and unformatted code. Lines break in the wrong place and indentation is lost. Indentation is cosmetic, but the position of line breaks in dxl is critical to a working program.

The second post has a very simple example that no longer works because the position of the 'ack' keyword is now part of the preceeding comment.

//here is my code ack
"This worked."

vs

//here is my code
ack "This worked."

This has happened to most(all?) of the code examples, making them difficult to read and a pain to get working again - we must manually fix all the line breaks. In more complex code with functions, loops and conditionals, this is much worse.

I hope you can find a solution.

 

//here is my code ack
"This worked."

//here is my codeack 
"This worked."

JeffAntley - Thu May 02 15:18:36 EDT 2013

Hello everyone,

We understand and sympathize with everyone's frustration with the change in forum functionality.  developerWorks has done what it could to preserve as much information as possible through a very challenging software upgrade and a migration to a new hosting environment.  The previous forums were on legacy software that was no longer an option to use.  It is inevitable that there were functionality differences, and we are working to improve the matters we can control.

First, restoring developerWorks forums to the legacy software is not going to happen.

Secondly, regarding the post attribution problem, as the FAQ page that Hazel has referred to mentions, the legacy (third-party) forum software used profiles that were actually independent of those used by developerWorks Community.  When we migrated the forums to Connections forums, for each post, an attempt was made to find a unique developerWorks profile with matching credentials.  If no unique match could be found, a default profile was used instead.  This is not an attempt to steal anyone's identity or intellectual property, and the inability to search by post owner has been an unfortunate consequence.  However, we still have access to the original attributions, and at our earliest opportunity, we will be working to restore posts to their original owner, primarily for those with high post counts, and others upon request.  Please monitor the FAQ page at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/connect/ICv4upgrade for updates.

Third, I have word from the engineering team that a full site index has been completed, and will be deployed to the production site this weekend.  This should help somewhat with search issues.

Fourth, if someone would kindly point to examples of important, regularly consulted code posts or threads in this forum that came through the upgrade mangled, I will look into the situation and see if there is an easy solution for repairing them.  In the few threads in this forum that I looked at, the examples included white space and line breaks and appeared completely legible, owing tot the use of the "Formatted" option in the paragraph drop-down (to the left of the font selector).  I admit that I do not work with DOORS/DXL, though, so please educate me if this is not a general solution for creating new posts with DXL code examples.

Finally, we encourage everyone to channel their constructive criticism regarding desired features to talk2dw@us.ibm.com or as feature requests to the IBM Connections product development team.

Regards,

Jeff Antley

developerWorks Feedback Team

llandale - Fri May 03 12:33:52 EDT 2013

I think we need to remember that Miss Hazel is not the decision maker nor developer of the web site; she's a customer rep.

-Louie

HazelWoodcock - Fri May 03 13:18:16 EDT 2013

Thanks Louie - you have boosted my morale no end with that: 'Miss Hazel': I can't decide it it makes me sound like a bad rapper, an old lady, or very young ;-)

I am, as you say, a customer rep - or something very similar.  Jeff does have some responsibility and control in the area under discussion, and if he has good information then I am sure he will do his best to help out and fix some things behind the scenes where that is possible.

This has always been a very supportive community forum, and I am sure it can continue to be so.  As engineers we work within the constraints we are given and develop solutions to get the most out of what we have.

HazelWoodcock - Fri May 03 13:18:16 EDT 2013

Thanks Louie - you have boosted my morale no end with that: 'Miss Hazel': I can't decide it it makes me sound like a bad rapper, an old lady, or very young ;-)

I am, as you say, a customer rep - or something very similar.  Jeff does have some responsibility and control in the area under discussion, and if he has good information then I am sure he will do his best to help out and fix some things behind the scenes where that is possible.

This has always been a very supportive community forum, and I am sure it can continue to be so.  As engineers we work within the constraints we are given and develop solutions to get the most out of what we have.

HazelWoodcock - Fri May 03 13:18:16 EDT 2013

Thanks Louie - you have boosted my morale no end with that: 'Miss Hazel': I can't decide it it makes me sound like a bad rapper, an old lady, or very young ;-)

I am, as you say, a customer rep - or something very similar.  Jeff does have some responsibility and control in the area under discussion, and if he has good information then I am sure he will do his best to help out and fix some things behind the scenes where that is possible.

This has always been a very supportive community forum, and I am sure it can continue to be so.  As engineers we work within the constraints we are given and develop solutions to get the most out of what we have.

JeffAntley - Thu May 02 15:18:36 EDT 2013

Hello everyone,

We understand and sympathize with everyone's frustration with the change in forum functionality.  developerWorks has done what it could to preserve as much information as possible through a very challenging software upgrade and a migration to a new hosting environment.  The previous forums were on legacy software that was no longer an option to use.  It is inevitable that there were functionality differences, and we are working to improve the matters we can control.

First, restoring developerWorks forums to the legacy software is not going to happen.

Secondly, regarding the post attribution problem, as the FAQ page that Hazel has referred to mentions, the legacy (third-party) forum software used profiles that were actually independent of those used by developerWorks Community.  When we migrated the forums to Connections forums, for each post, an attempt was made to find a unique developerWorks profile with matching credentials.  If no unique match could be found, a default profile was used instead.  This is not an attempt to steal anyone's identity or intellectual property, and the inability to search by post owner has been an unfortunate consequence.  However, we still have access to the original attributions, and at our earliest opportunity, we will be working to restore posts to their original owner, primarily for those with high post counts, and others upon request.  Please monitor the FAQ page at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/connect/ICv4upgrade for updates.

Third, I have word from the engineering team that a full site index has been completed, and will be deployed to the production site this weekend.  This should help somewhat with search issues.

Fourth, if someone would kindly point to examples of important, regularly consulted code posts or threads in this forum that came through the upgrade mangled, I will look into the situation and see if there is an easy solution for repairing them.  In the few threads in this forum that I looked at, the examples included white space and line breaks and appeared completely legible, owing tot the use of the "Formatted" option in the paragraph drop-down (to the left of the font selector).  I admit that I do not work with DOORS/DXL, though, so please educate me if this is not a general solution for creating new posts with DXL code examples.

Finally, we encourage everyone to channel their constructive criticism regarding desired features to talk2dw@us.ibm.com or as feature requests to the IBM Connections product development team.

Regards,

Jeff Antley

developerWorks Feedback Team

PRM - Fri May 03 18:13:42 EDT 2013

I guess what we would like to see is for IBM to fix the problems as soon as possible and keep us informed of progress. What is staggering though, and I hope that IBM takes this as constructive critisism, is that many of the already identified problems must have been known before cutting over to the new forum, but IBM decided to progress anyway.  That is not a good example of engineering and product delivery to users (customers) and I would have thought not good for the big blue brand. If I were able to do UAT as an end user, I would have rejected acceptance.

If there was one feature that was really important in the old forum but now seems to have gone was the ability to display code as syntax highlighted text using the {code} tags. How can this not be an essential high priority feature required for the new forum? Surely the DOORS DXL forum is not the only DW forum where users need to share code snippets - particularly a forum owned by a company that has a lot of software to sell. Using attachments as an alternative is....well...in the vernacular of my 16 year old son...it's oh so last century.

And whats more - what happened to the 550plus posts that were once registered against my name??? Another testing oversight?

JeffAntley - Thu May 02 15:18:36 EDT 2013

Hello everyone,

We understand and sympathize with everyone's frustration with the change in forum functionality.  developerWorks has done what it could to preserve as much information as possible through a very challenging software upgrade and a migration to a new hosting environment.  The previous forums were on legacy software that was no longer an option to use.  It is inevitable that there were functionality differences, and we are working to improve the matters we can control.

First, restoring developerWorks forums to the legacy software is not going to happen.

Secondly, regarding the post attribution problem, as the FAQ page that Hazel has referred to mentions, the legacy (third-party) forum software used profiles that were actually independent of those used by developerWorks Community.  When we migrated the forums to Connections forums, for each post, an attempt was made to find a unique developerWorks profile with matching credentials.  If no unique match could be found, a default profile was used instead.  This is not an attempt to steal anyone's identity or intellectual property, and the inability to search by post owner has been an unfortunate consequence.  However, we still have access to the original attributions, and at our earliest opportunity, we will be working to restore posts to their original owner, primarily for those with high post counts, and others upon request.  Please monitor the FAQ page at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/connect/ICv4upgrade for updates.

Third, I have word from the engineering team that a full site index has been completed, and will be deployed to the production site this weekend.  This should help somewhat with search issues.

Fourth, if someone would kindly point to examples of important, regularly consulted code posts or threads in this forum that came through the upgrade mangled, I will look into the situation and see if there is an easy solution for repairing them.  In the few threads in this forum that I looked at, the examples included white space and line breaks and appeared completely legible, owing tot the use of the "Formatted" option in the paragraph drop-down (to the left of the font selector).  I admit that I do not work with DOORS/DXL, though, so please educate me if this is not a general solution for creating new posts with DXL code examples.

Finally, we encourage everyone to channel their constructive criticism regarding desired features to talk2dw@us.ibm.com or as feature requests to the IBM Connections product development team.

Regards,

Jeff Antley

developerWorks Feedback Team

Richard_Good - Tue May 07 12:45:49 EDT 2013

Hello J Antley,

I just tried to do a search, it appears that the promised indexing operation (your third point) has failed. Only the most recent posts appear to be indexed. When can we expect the rest of the forum to be indexed?

Richard

llandale - Thu May 09 11:07:32 EDT 2013

Forgive ignorance, but it is possible the problem is that the old forum code had no "tags" and the new forum code looks for "tags" associated with the post; and therefore much of the searching does not work?  If so, then old posts will need to be re-visited and someone assigning "tags"; something surely that will not happen.

-Louie

Richard_Good - Fri May 10 06:07:03 EDT 2013

I think the text is searched on the new posts and not just the tags, the go into the cloud on the left. Bit disappointing if the text goes down the drain along with the old posts, we were told that the old posts would be indexed should we know longer believe IBM?

Migrating the forums (apparently) without testing is poor, IBM say they will not even consider rolling back to the previous forum software - why not? Don't like broken promises and don't like those who represent the web development team not bothering to reply to this post or to the one I sent to talk2dw@us.ibm.com. I expect that IBM as normal have tried to migrate all their forums in one go to a massively tight timescale and are now inundated with so many complaints they don't have time to answer them / know what to do.

In Louie's opinion we do not "deserve" a forum. If you take that tack IBM do deserve to lose even long term customers if they get complacent. "Too large" organizations often suffer from complacency and IBM's starts to grate, this forum migration is a minor example of it. IBM rely on customers inertia and the large cost of changing tools to maintain their DOORS sales, but if they hit you with a three pronged attack of charging you vastly more, not keeping up on the development front and poor customer service then migrating to another tool becomes increasingly attractive - they should remember that.

There are now some serious players in requirements management and application lifecycle management with (in my opinion) better designed software and who actually listen to users even if they represent organizations that spends thousands not millions on software.

I suggest IBM get some better people involved in finalizing this forum migration, it will minimize their reputational damage and minimize the annoyance experienced in these forums and shut up whingers like me  ;-)

These are my views and should not be taken as those of any organisation I represent/ consult for. Think thats my therapeutic whinge for the day over!

llandale - Fri May 10 15:09:58 EDT 2013

I was suggesting that we users don't "deserve" a forum.  I did not mean to suggest that IBM should not presume that we do.  I don't "deserve" good table service at the resturant but the resterant is well advised to presume I do.  My intent was to reduce some of the harshness previously in this thread, I did not intend to suggest the compaints are not valid.

".. migrating to another tool becomes increasinging attractive".  Yup; best way to communicate with someone is to talk about what they care about!

-Louie

Richard_Good - Mon May 13 06:05:19 EDT 2013

Probably needed a touch more balance in my last post in regard to my "poor customer service" statement, that statement relates to this forum migration and not in general. Most customer service in regard to answering queries and problems on problems using the DOORS tool has been good.

To get back on  topic - I remember writing a post on external links between databases, when one database is a copy of the other and wanted to add to it, refresh myself on any replies - I can't find the post even using google. Just had an issue where a user cannot follow an external link between databases - new post I guess ;-( Just a waste of time for me and anyone who replied before.

Richard

Tony_Goodman - Mon May 13 06:21:40 EDT 2013

Is this the post?

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014954754

This took me three attempts with google site search.

 

 

Richard_Good - Mon May 13 07:58:33 EDT 2013

Thanks for the attempt Tony, that wasn't the one I was after, but I can see why you would think it was.

The post you link to was an interesting aside, but I had to bite the bullet and use the fire up external database in batch mode using a system call, return xml, read xml into home database route in the end, wasn't possible or I wasn't bright enough to use the type library approach - Yuck.

The google approach does return some results when you prefix the search with dxl, but by no means all of them, Never heard of "google site search" useful tip (thanks) - it has enabled me to find what I want which was

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014945871

Still some results are not returned, but it seems to be better, I stuck https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums

in as the site, can't seem to stick in just the dxl site which would be more useful

 

Note to IBM - consider modifying your web page to use the google site search functionality?

 

MichaelGeorg - Tue Apr 30 07:37:00 EDT 2013

Also I don't like the harsh tone of many posts here and I know that changes do always provoke some kind of rejection I can only emphasize the functional critics about the new forum.

It is a mystery to me why a big company like IBM needs more than one week to get such a simple thing like a forum working correct again. Today still there are

• Old posts that can't be found with the search
• Old posts that are created by some SystemAdmin
• Workarounds needed to be able to write in the forum (Actually I need to reject the https mode in IE to be able to write this post :-) )

@HazelWoodcock: Can you give us any information about when the forum including search functionality will work again? If you are not able to provide an orderly working forum I think we need to start looking for some other place to exchange about DXL problems.

@WolfgangUhr: Mathias thread about memory leaks is available at: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014942467&ps=100

 

Wolfgang Uhr - Fri May 03 15:19:37 EDT 2013

> Jeff does have some responsibility and control in the area under discussion, and if he has good information then I am sure he will do his best to help out and fix some things behind the scenes where that is possible.

Hazel I'm shure that in this case I do not speak only for me. We have no doubt about this. The qualification of someone at IBM is really not a topic in any discussions here. I'm absolutely shure that neither you nor Jeff nor someone else is the reason for the problem.

Some background decisions about the rewrite of this forum has been done say 1/2 year before and actually this is a project which is carried out by a project plan. And every good project manger works down his project plan until an other decision has been made. And every good project manager avoids such decsions as far as possible.

The problem of the forum is not the work and the actual difficulties by doing this work. The problem is the set of wrong decisions which has been made in the past and which now are hard to change or impossible to change.

I think the most effective decision in this case has been done by Mathias. He has argued nothing and he has posted nothing, he is simply gone.

For mhe permanent explaining and arguing sessions seems to turn me into a niggler and that is something I really do not want to become neither to be. Therefore for me it seems the best way to follow him and to leave this forum too.

One hint: The topic quesition here is "I can't search and cant write a question!" and now read again the complete discussion. Who has spoken about the problem that you cannot post if you cannot use Java-Script. Who has said: Oh yes, sorry we change that.


Therefore I only can say. Sorry and good bye ...

Best regards

Wolfgang

Bill_B. - Wed May 15 13:04:15 EDT 2013

Wolfgang;

Hopefully this will get to you before you fade completely off this forum...Maybe this is not politically correct to ask here but since they don't seem to care we have lost a very valuable asset, why should I ...Is there another forum that you and Mathias et all are going to ? I am sure others would like to know as well, there is just too much wealth of knowledge and experience wrapped up in you two as well as Louie and others, to lose touch ...Thx //Bill//

HazelWoodcock - Wed May 15 13:47:43 EDT 2013

Bill,

It is not true to say that we don't care, although I would like to think that we haven't lost the valuable asset.  I understand it is not working at 100% just yet, but I have confidence that we will get there in the not too distant future.

We can only fix problems that are clearly stated and I am sure the team are working hard to follow up on all the reported issues.  I am not on the developerWorks team so I don't have insight into the details of progress.

There is as you say, a huge amount of knowledge and experience here as well as some long term trust between users.  We all know a small handful of people whose suggestions we would happily try even though they seem somewhat dangerous.  Louie is not going to post a script to severely corrupt your database, but may post something that mere mortals don't fully understand. 

I would urge anyone still seeing problems to check the known issues page here or raise a support request using the feedback form or by email at talk2dw@us.ibm.com

This is a community forum and with the efforts of the community we can make it work.

Chris Annal - Tue Jun 04 14:44:49 EDT 2013

Sorry, as of 6/4/2013 I'm still not seeing the slightest improvement in the Search dialog. This forum has become useless for the most part.

Adios

HazelWoodcock - Wed May 15 13:47:43 EDT 2013

Bill,

It is not true to say that we don't care, although I would like to think that we haven't lost the valuable asset.  I understand it is not working at 100% just yet, but I have confidence that we will get there in the not too distant future.

We can only fix problems that are clearly stated and I am sure the team are working hard to follow up on all the reported issues.  I am not on the developerWorks team so I don't have insight into the details of progress.

There is as you say, a huge amount of knowledge and experience here as well as some long term trust between users.  We all know a small handful of people whose suggestions we would happily try even though they seem somewhat dangerous.  Louie is not going to post a script to severely corrupt your database, but may post something that mere mortals don't fully understand. 

I would urge anyone still seeing problems to check the known issues page here or raise a support request using the feedback form or by email at talk2dw@us.ibm.com

This is a community forum and with the efforts of the community we can make it work.

Adamarla - Wed Jun 05 06:30:07 EDT 2013

Yes, 6 weeks and very little progress.

The biggest problem for me is not being able to post code inline. This is a must for discussing programming. Attaching files is no substitute as it requires download and opening just for a simple snipit of code. You can't explain code that way.

Since this feature will not be added, I am considering moving to StackOverflow.

PRM - Wed Jun 05 17:03:36 EDT 2013

Hazel - it's been well over 6 weeks and the much promised fixes to defects and the return of missing features that we enjoyed in the original Forum have not materialised. An update please.

Chris Annal - Tue Jun 04 14:44:49 EDT 2013

Sorry, as of 6/4/2013 I'm still not seeing the slightest improvement in the Search dialog. This forum has become useless for the most part.

Adios

JeffAntley - Fri Jun 14 15:22:47 EDT 2013

Hello all,

This note is not in response to any particular person, but we wanted to provide an update on some of the activities behind the scenes at developerWorks that you might be interested in.

1. Search.  We understand this is an important issue and agree that it is not working.  The initial search index was deployed on the date indicated.  We have since realized that the legacy forum content was not indexed (EDIT - for reasons we don't understand, not because it was overlooked).  We have a PMR open regarding this and are investigating this as a high priority issue.

2. Forum ownership.  We had to create new functionality to assign admin/moderator privileges for individual forums to users, as this was not an out-of-the-box feature of Connections forums.  Our engineering team says that we will be able to begin assigning privileges starting around the beginning of July.

3. Forum post attribution.  This is another issue that we know is important, as many people cannot find their old posts or have incorrect post counts as a result.  During the migration we attempted to match legacy forum profiles with Connections profiles, and those that could not be matched were assigned to SystemAdmin as a placeholder.  After the forum admin privileges functionality is rolled out at the beginning of July, we will begin reassigning posts to their original owners.  We will be targeting those with the highest post counts first.

4. Forum follows/Forum subscriptions.  We understand that not everyone is receiving email notifications of forum activity, despite having follows set up and notification settings enabled.  What we have learned is that "Daily newsletters" of forum activity may or may not be sent out.  Better results can be gained by changing the Forum setting to "Individual emails", saving that setting, then either leaving it there or changing back to "Daily newsletter".  (These settings can be found by clicking on your screen name in the upper right of the browser window and then clicking "Settings").  All settings but Daily seem to be working without problem, and sometimes changing the settings can make Daily start to work.  Sometimes, unfollowing and refollowing a forum after making the above changes can help as well; this is done in the forum that you want to follow.  We are looking into the issue of why daily newsletters are not going out for some users.

I would much rather report that problems had already been fixed, rather than still under investigation, but hopefully this will at least let you know that they are not being ignored.  We are coordinating with the w3 Connections team to share knowledge, and the Connections product team has also been helpful when called upon.  We sincerely apologize for the inconveniences that have arisen and are doing what we can to mitigate them.

JeffAntley - Fri Jun 14 15:30:02 EDT 2013

Another point regarding search: sometimes search results point to a post mid-thread and when following the link to that post, the previous messages in the thread are not shown on the page.  Here is a workaround:  select a unique term or phrase from the post, such as the thread title, and use that as a search term in the uppermost "Search developerWorks" search field in the gunmetal banner (i.e., not the lower "Search this forum" or "All forums" search field).  I have seen better results with this method.  Our engineers are working on changing the behavior so that the previous messages in the thread are not excluded from the resultant page.