I hope you all are having a great Labor Day weekend, with special thoughts to all the beautiful girls in Los Angeles. With amnesty blessing, I submit the following. Per Doc however, I hope this does not start a train wreck, or we will get jettisoned.

The spirit of my post is “how can we improve TER and make it a better place”.  I have been aboard since 2001, and I remember a kinder gentler TER. Filmproducer talked about a kinder gentler TER sometime ago. TER is without a doubt the premiere board, yet there are ways it can be improved.

We recently had two issues which surprised me, and in my opinion merit discussion and attention.

1. We lost an outstanding valued member, [***].  My question is how can we get her back and avoid similar issues in the future. I ask you, should TER afford special considerations to valued members (both providers and hobbyists) in good standing with multiple reviews and who regularly contributed to all of us? [***]  is a special girl, and this board is partially empty without her humor. I do not know for sure, but supposedly, she tried to have some reviews deleted.  If such an outstanding member cannot recognize a bogus review, who can?

2. The new TER format was harshly rebuked by lets say 99 percent of the members for navigation problems, hard on the eye pastel colors and tiny fonts. What surprised me was that some critical threads were censored and deleted.   Unfortunately, the new format is not user friendly. How can we as members affect a positive change and not be censored or deleted?  

These are my two issues.  I am sure you all have others.

[edited by Moderator - see post below for reasons]

-- Modified on 9/5/2010 8:51:48 PM

As to [the lady in question], I am not aware of the circumstances of her departure, and never had the pleasure of seeing her, but was aware of her postings and comments, of course, and she seemed like a real lady.  Getting her back?  Elaborate, please...

As for improving TER, well, yes, the new layout is harsh on the eyes -- colors are funky, layout is not user friendly, and the overall ease of use is pretty poor.  But I think concrete suggestions for changes, rather than just pointing out what does not work, or suit us, would be the order of the day.  For example, "I think a different type face would make it easier to read" or "why make it a double click to navigate to regional boards -- i.e., why do we have to click on 'discussion board,' then move the cursor to 'regional boards,' then click on the board of our choice -- seems like a single click and cursor move should do it"....  You get the picture.  

What say you, gents, and ladies?  RT Over & Out

[edit by moderator - see post below]

-- Modified on 9/5/2010 8:58:30 PM

... first of all, as goofy as it may seem to all of you, in order to allow this thread to exist, I had to edit both the comments already on the board, as well as decline to publish a few other comments entirely...
why? because TER's rules prohibit the discussion of a delisted or banned provider.

Yes, i KNOW she posted here just a few days ago, and I KNOW her threads are still here. Nonetheless, i am constrained, and Amnesty or not, discussing the names of banned/delisted providers or agencies is simply unacceptable.

Do not for one moment think I did not attempt to intervene on her behalf with Admin... I overstepped my boundaries in doing so, and am again overstepping my boundaries by even HAVING this discussion, but that's fine too. I've been known to bend a rule here or there.

The bigger issue here, is not the young lady, but the fact that ironclad TER rules are not determined by us, or even Admin, but by the Powers That Be; the folks who give Admin their marching orders. The rule is very clear... if a provider is unwilling to allow her reviews to be posted and published, she may not participate on the boards. That is why she chosxe to delist herself, because it was the only way for her to get her reviews offline. It sucks being outed. After being outed on three occasions in the last 5 years, believe me, I know. But in my case, I now longer give a rat's ass who knows what I do for recreation. It's easy when you have nothing to lose, not so easy when you have to maintain dualit  

Can she come back? Yes, her delisting was voluntary, and not due to any infractions. WILL she come back? Who knows, I hope she does. I like her too.

On to the second question... YES, we, the Mods, Admin, and everyone else is well aware of the problems that the new TER interface is having. While it may not seem like it quite yet, a very strong effort is now underway to correct the problems, and to pay more attention to the issues being brought up by the users.

Admin knows you are unhappy. Believe me, I'm no fan of the new interface either, and find flaws on a daily basis. But the people in a position to make decisions are listening now. The Staff and Moderators, including me, are working quite hard to fix things.

And just in case you didnt know, the classic format is still accessible for those who really really can't handle the new interface.

We'll have more in depth conversation about this later in the week. Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.

Doc G

The new format, it seems to me, is the TER version of "New Coke", which burst onto the market a few decades ago, only to be pulled as a new idea that didn't work. There are lots of other examples (Apple's Newton, the Delorean car, Crystal Pepsi Clear Cola), so TER is in good company........or at least prominent company. I think that what should have and maybe still could is a poll of irritants about the old format. For example, in my own case, I was constantly frustrated by, when searching, having to go back and start over, filling out the profile form, even if I wanted to change one item. Another was the number of clicks required to get to a chat room.

If everyone listed thier top 5, then TER would have (had) probably 20-25 things to improve, using the old familiar platform as a basis to work from.

If it is true, as someone on this post said, that 90 or so % of people are dissatisfied with this format, then TER has a HUGE problem and probably needs to go beyond improving it, and, instead, needs to pull it, go back to the older version and make needed improvements.