I'm not sure who the Beta Testers were...

I agree. Many of us have frequented forums just like the new POB one, and we knew that it just was not going to have the flow of the old board, no matter how long Deral told us to wait (not a dig against Deral, just his nature to be kind). I am so glad Wendell found this format, so much more friendly for the type of community we share.

"I'm not sure who the Beta Testers were..."

I don't know, either, they didn't pick me to be part of their secret circle.

Deral has more loyalty to the memory of Mark Deal then he does to POB, IMHO.
In time he will clearly see that this site offers the camaraderie that Mark Deal had always hoped for.
I was a lurker on Mark Deal's original site and the new POB board is NOT what Mark Deal would have wanted. Again, just my humble opinion.
BTW, has anyone sent Deral an email to get his opinion?

Doug Bruce, DSMcC, Kent McMillan, Steve Owens, surv8r, and the BIG BOSS Wendell

He may be here already under a different name. Maybe he doesn't want to step on toes....yet.

Dang it Dan

That is double-naught information....

I'm with you guys on this site....but to be fair, Target Locked, the beta testers were simply volunteers and you could have volunteered as well. I don't think there was an "inner circle".

> Doug Bruce, DSMcC, Kent McMillan, Steve Owens, surv8r, and the BIG BOSS Wendell

Well if half of them are over here, I think that that is saying something. I have purposely NOT sent Deral an email (not even sure if I have his personal email) inviting him. Even though I want him to join.

And, I will admit, that I did send an invite (that was accepted) to Mr. Ted Dura. The man is a diamond... rough and pointy... but a true gem.

Rock on www.beerleg.com!!

It was all just conversations on facebook and the opinion that was given to Wendell of "If you build it, they will come" and here you all are.

I wouldn't be too hung up on the "beta testers".

From what I can gather, POB first let a few (very few) posters in on their new site, but it was mostly Kristi, Dan Murphy and one or two others.

Then, after getting the thing running (more or less) in beta mode, they needed to populate it with some users, so they invited people who weren't perceived as "troublemakers", or "PITA", if you will, so they could concentrate on the actual nuts and bolts, rather than being referees all the time. It wasn't a snub of anyone, just trying to keep it to a manageable number of posters for the beta period.

These "beta-posters" would have the added advantage of providing suggestions, etc. I was invited, but after logging on, found that the site wasn't really all that easy to navigate. Not being a "Facebook" user, I found the interface to be unfriendly, and frankly didn't have many suggestions.

One of the things the new board lacked was the ability to get a sense of what was going on at any given time......you could always see where battles were raging on the old board.....on the new one, everything seems very remote.

Angelo is correct, IMHO.
I thought Carl was referring to this site, my mistake.

I was one of the original beta-testers of the new RPLS for some reason. Just out of the blue I got an email asking me to do it, I didn't volunteer. I think there were about 40 people originally a couple of months ago and then they opened it up more and more until a couple of days ago there were 600-700 members. My comments right off the bat were "What's this geospatial professional deal, I thought this was a surveyors' forum" and What's this 'Friends' thing for" (they changed it to Associates). Most of my comments were about the compartmentalization (tupperwarization, if you will) of the site, but I was pretty sure there was nothing they could do within that format to change it to be more like the old board, without just about dumping it altogether and starting over. With a small group of members and with the old board still going, the Recent Posts thing worked OK, but that's with about 10 posts a day. I kept telling them that the old board had like 500 posts a day so how would that even work, but it's still the same. They keep saying they're going to improve the flow, we'll see.

I was actually starting to get used to it, but as I said before, I kind of like this open floor plan better than the cubicles over there. Bold, unexpected (by me) move by Wendell, and I commend him. Maybe I'm just an old stick-in-the-mud, but you still can't beat the old board's format for speed and simplicity. Also, with my aging computers, it's pretty slow to go from a thread back to the index. Pretty neat, though.

Just clap a 90 baby!

> I wouldn't be too hung up on the "beta testers".
>
> From what I can gather, POB first let a few (very few) posters in on their new site, but it was mostly Kristi, Dan Murphy and one or two others.
>
> Then, after getting the thing running (more or less) in beta mode, they needed to populate it with some users, so they invited people who weren't perceived as "troublemakers", or "PITA", if you will, so they could concentrate on the actual nuts and bolts, rather than being referees all the time. It wasn't a snub of anyone, just trying to keep it to a manageable number of posters for the beta period.
>
> These "beta-posters" would have the added advantage of providing suggestions, etc. I was invited, but after logging on, found that the site wasn't really all that easy to navigate. Not being a "Facebook" user, I found the interface to be unfriendly, and frankly didn't have many suggestions.
>
>
> One of the things the new board lacked was the ability to get a sense of what was going on at any given time......you could always see where battles were raging on the old board.....on the new one, everything seems very remote.

Angelo,

I was not doggin' the beta-testers at all... But, I do admit my message did not come across as I intended it to.

I was simply implying that I hope the people that beta-tested the new site will take a look over at this one and compare the two, and hopefully join in, rather than take an air of "This is the way we should go, because BNP says we should". That reasoning I don't agree with at all.

I just think that with out Deral and RADU and a few others, we're not as spicy and flavorful and as informational as we could be. I look at those guys with such a huge amount of respect (as I do you, Angelo, and Kent, and DSMc and on and on... ). I'm a dreamer!! I want the best, and the easiest way I can get it, and that, as far as I can see, is here.

I was an original beta tester. I didn't do much testing.

A beta tester is supposed to look for bugs and perhaps minor tweaks. They aren't looking for someone to propose massive changes to the basic structure of the site.

I was a Beta Tester

I came late to the game, just asked Kristi on suggestion by Deral on the first of May. There was no "inner group". By the time I arrived the format was pretty well set.

I can tell you this, there were a LOT of improvements / changes done at the input of the Beta Testers. Kristi's heart is in the right place, and they pretty much responded positively to all suggestions made by the Beta Testers for tweaks to work within the framework of the overall new design.

Anyway.... don't disss the Beta Testers, we were just volunteers that tried to make it something useful. The site has its place.. Whether it becomes the replacement for the RPLS.com that Mark Deal started, we will see.

This site has the look and feel of Mark's original site.

I was a Beta Tester

I don't think anyone should talk bad about Kristi and the others. POB just picked a loser forum format, and they were more interested in data mining than providing us an area to chat, IMHO. They are in business, and they make decisions accordingly. They can still provide us with a valuable resource, and I thank them for that.

Please let me emphasize that I was NOT a beta tester for the new POB board.

I did, however, make some suggestions to Wendell regarding this site.

I was a Beta Tester

+1