We had over 40 beta testers, all veteran community members who expressed interest in this very thread. It was not a stress test. In fact, it was hosted in a completely separate development environment so it wouldn't disrupt the ongoing work to the site itself.
I readily acknowledge that there are problems, but the implication that the test team failed or that we didn't do our due diligence on this is incorrect. Every single Huddler community that left this year - which is all that remained save for the one owned by Wikia - all selected the same forum software. It is the best out there right now, and it's the one with the brightest future moving forward. Even Huddler's developers recommended it.
Each one of those former Huddler communities encountered similar challenges. If you don't believe me, you can find out with very little effort what sites were part of the network and see how they fared. I don't consider it appropriate to elaborate on all of the specific difficulties each community faced, because I'm sympathetic to what they've gone through. I'll only say that long downtime periods, missing images, conversion accuracy issues, and design complaints were common issues. Each site's management did what they felt was best for their community. Each sacrificed a great deal and undoubtedly worked tremendously hard. Nobody made it through this unscathed. Everyone dealt with criticism. After all, everyone wound up using the same software, with all the same limitations. Well, almost everyone: two communities shut down entirely. One reportedly couldn't afford the move. The other had a parent company that was uninterested in making the attempt.
I get that everyone wants perfection, and we'd love to deliver that, but just getting the data on the new platform was no simple matter.
If you're upset, that's likely because you've been using the same software for five years and now you're being asked to use something else. That's not a choice we made lightly. Indeed, we had no choice. Huddler is not offered anymore.
If the intent is to knock the testers, like "why didn't they tell you this was terrible?", that's because it wasn't terrible. It was actually a lot of fun. I'd like to think you would've enjoyed it, too. The platform and design didn't make the experience, they just made the experience possible.
NikeTalk is great because of the people. We converted millions of posts from 17+ years, transferred 4+TB of images, and migrated tens of thousands of accounts, but we didn't move the community. The community moved here when you guys did. You are the community. SneakerTalk learned that the hard way.
Huddler is not what made NikeTalk worthwhile. I enjoyed our time there, but it's over now. Let's be honest: it's not the perfect forum software, either. It's the forum software you were most accustomed to. You learned to live with its flaws a long time ago.
What we have today is a trade-off. We lost some features that everyone was used to, but we didn't lose what was MOST important, and we gained some great features as well.
You can drag and drop images. You can embed Tweets. You can highlight to quote. You can get quote notifications. You have an on-site alert center so you don't need to rely on email subscriptions alone. You have a better block/ignore feature that even blocks quotes and PMs from users who annoy you. You have a mobile site with a full post editor, that can do just about everything the desktop site can do. You have SSL security and optional 2FA.
Our testers saw all that. Since the old site was still up, their focus was more on what we were GAINING than on what we were losing. The comments were overwhelmingly positive, and we made the site better based on their suggestions. We added the up/down shortcut arrows. We fixed styling issues they identified. We selected the "thumbnail" image size together. We made dozens of tweaks and optimizations.
The biggest complaints were the lack of animated gifs in avatars and having to click "more options" to preview a post. Images weren't appearing in quotes. Nobody thought those were deal breakers.
Despite all the positive feedback during testing, I'm not surprised that a significant number of people are expressing frustration or even disappointment with the new site. We've been through three of these now. We heard a lot of "sky is falling" comments when we switched to Huddler five years ago, too, and that was coming from a platform that spent more time offline than an Amish corpse.
I'm sympathetic to the hardships of losing a message board feature. That may sound sarcastic, but I really do get it. I use our forums every single day. Minor irritants have cumulative effects. A loose rock in your shoe sounds like a petty gripe, but if you're running a marathon it's the terrestrial equivalent of water torture. If you're a regular, the site is woven into your daily routine. You come to depend on certain tools and when, suddenly, they aren't there or they function differently it's an unwelcome disruption.
The testers don't deserve to be thrown under the bus because they were participating in a relatively small number of threads and not in a situation where they were micromanaging dozens of pre-existing subscriptions that now work differently. Identifying those problems earlier would not have helped.
We all have things we miss about the old platform, but those things do not exist anymore and I cannot responsibly hire someone to build them for us immediately when a major new version of this software is due out in 6-8 months that could invalidate some or all of the custom code produced for the current build.
Somewhere in California, there's a server with NikeTalk running on Huddler that has zero users online. I could even access it, if I wanted to. I don't.
It has a new post notifier (for desktop users.) It has the old subscription center I remember. It has animated .gif avatars. It has a last post link next to every thread. It has the old emoji characters. It has a classifieds system with feedback. On desktop, it has little badges that show you how many new posts have been added to each thread since you last checked it.
It has absolutely nothing of value anymore. Not because those features aren't nice, but because there is nobody there to enjoy them with. It is a dead platform.
Everyone needs to accept that. Our options were not stay or leave. Our options were leave or die.
We're going to make this site better. We already have, just by occupying it. The thing I want most for this forum software is the same thing I wanted from Huddler and every other platform we've been on. I want it to get out of the way so everyone can get back to swapping stories, sharing laughs, learning together, and enjoying each other's company.
Our team fully intends to make this experience better day by day - and we intend to do so together as a community. Honesty and constructive feedback are a part of that, but we can do without the finger pointing.
Our testers were amazing. Our staff and our new partners at Community Hired have been unbelievable. I don't think there's a person on the CH team who had more than 12 combined hours of sleep all week. They were killing themselves to get this done for us, and work has been ongoing for months now to solve all the logistical problems associated with the data conversion process, which is even more complicated for us given all the legacy data we're carrying from previous platforms. I'm not going to push back against the claim that the site is flawed. It is. I will push back on any attempt to suggest that our staff or our testers failed us. I know how hard everyone involved in this has worked.
We hired the right team. To say they worked tirelessly is a severe understatement. The volunteer support has been more than anyone could ever ask for.
These people took a plane that was in free fall and made sure everyone was able to walk away. I'll happily handle all complaints about missing baggage, bumps, and bruises, but let's first acknowledge that nobody here was responsible for killing the engines.
Our team made a phenomenal effort in a terrible situation. Given all that NikeTalk has meant to me over the past 17+ years, I will be forever grateful to everyone who's helped our community survive this - and to everyone who sticks with us and helps us rebuild.
For the TL;DR crowd: if all that is "too serious" or OD, then maybe the gif avatars, old emoji, last post links, email subscriptions, and nav issues aren't all that serious, either - at least when compared to all that we still have thanks to the immense support, effort, and cooperation we've received while attempting to save our community and its history.
