Your Thoughts: New Muppet Central Forum

Um, we WERE notified Jamie, Phil made the announcement a few days beforehand, so it's not like we didn't know this was going to happen.

Wow, that pretty heavy frogboy. As long as I have known you on MC, I have never seen you this upset. But, I understand how you feel on your stance with MC. Maybe they will work something out between you. I wish you the best and all your contributions to MC. You do such an awesome job and I have seen so much of your work. Their is always someone out there that is looking for someone with your talent. So always keep your chin up!

We weren't notified that the change would be this radical. So actually nopers, we weren't notified. If anything most of us assumed this would be one of the many times the forum went offline for a day to come back looking and acting relatively the same.

I'm not as upset as I am disappointed. I am faithful to a fault and have been here at Muppet Central.

Thanks. It's always nice to know the hard work I and others once put into Muppet Central is appreciated. I was warned by many defecting MCers, now TPers, of this exact conflict when I took the graphic design reigns here a decade ago, but I hoped things would get better. Everyone's head would explode if they knew how many fantastic, free proposals that I and other fans submitted over the years that were completely dismissed by Phillip because he wouldn't be bothered with them or even allow a team of people to take that bit over and maintain a fan area on MC independently. Unfortunately, he wouldn't allow for that. Have you ever had a friend that only talks to you when they want something and is nowhere to be found whenever you need them? That's the MC webmaster.

Just to let you know, I was planning on designing interactive, animated Flash e-cards with name and message input content and possibly even gaming options. I got ignored, an ambiguous reply and then the infamous "we're planning something great later" response that's been the company line here for like 6 years now! I have no time or budget to make these items now so that was basically a missed opportunity.

I'll keep enjoying my friends here and the Muppet fan community at large and will still submit things to other sites. My issues with MC staff won't be mended. When a person tells you who they really are - it's best to believe them the first time. The webmaster has made it clear that he very much wants to control all aspects of Muppet Central and he doesn't care that the website has fallen into disrepair. He doesn't care if he upsets people. So many people have worked so hard for this place in the past. I don't predict it has another decade in it, but I'll chat with my MC friends wherever we go.

Are you serious? Are you really serious? Phil told us we were moving to a new forum service, what did you think that was going to mean? I mean really.

Yes, I'm serious. I knew we were moving to a new service for months so the recent notification was redundant. But never were any of us informed nor did we expact just how radical the change would be. I guess you can pretend that you expected this amount of change or all the bumps people have been having. I thought you hated the facebook format anyway.

I'm with Frogboy here. There's been countless times when the forum was being closed for maintenance or minor updates and this was announced ahead of time. Each time, we just patiently wait for the forum's downtime to be over with and we return to essentially the same forum with no huge change. We were all expecting that to be the case this time too - not to come back a day later to find a largely unusable, inconvenient format that some people CAN'T EVEN ACCESS. Some people are saying "but Phil worked so hard on this so we should all shut up and like it" I'm sure the designers and manufacturers of nuclear warheads worked very hard on them too but i'm not about to sing their praises. I don't have much time to post right now otherwise i'd go into specifics about how everything should have been handled contrasted with how it was...but suffice to say if a website's set-up makes the purpose of why it exists in the first place inconvenient and secondary to bells and whistles, it can score no higher than a C-. If said website is so flawed in that it actually PROHIBITS people from accessing it and accomplishing its basic purpose, that my friend is a solid F.

Ok...to preface: I know nothing about programming, so maybe this really is the smoothest, easiest format from a behind-the-scenes standpoint...BUT.

Can someone PLEASE put frickin' boxes or borders or whatever around each post on a thread? I mean VISIBLE ones, not this weird ghostline...it makes the whole page look like one giant chaotic text ramble with pics on the side, and even some of the signatures are run in with it. POOR DESIGN CHOICE. Sorry. I haven't looked at the rest of the site yet, and I will grudgingly get used to the style, I suppose...but THAT part is really hard on the eyes, slows my reading speed, and annoys the crap out of me. PLEASE BRING BACK REAL TEXT BOXES!

A suggestion... make the default post font something sans serif like Arial or Verdana? It's easier to read sans serif text onscreen. I'd like the default post text to be a touch smaller, too.

Okay...this is REALLY hurting my eyes to read. It's too ****** LOUD and BRIGHT and CHEERFUL! I shouldn't have to adjust my screen brightness or contrast for ONE site, ya know?

And how does one set the threads to go automatically to the NEWEST post, so you don't have to then TELL it to skip ahead? Feels like WinDoze...you have to tell it everything twice...

Not happy.

The lack of "Preview Post" options (unless you go to "Other Options" and all that needless excess) should be changed.

Question, did the Font Size just increase dramatically? Or am I imaging things?

No it changed a whole two siezs i think.

I'm going to have to agree. I'm grateful for the new forum and all, but of ALL the things that needed changing...why change the forum? The forum was/is the only un-dead thing on MC.

And I absolutely agree that a Muppet fan is a Muppet fan all year round. So after the movie comes out, then what? No more MC improvements?

Think I could have my old PMs retrieved too please?

Hear hear. I thought this was a community. I always had an issue with how tightly controlled moderation was; this is a forum about felt puppets, not 1984. And knowing how many people had good ideas that were shot down and then taken elsewhere to flourish (can name three individuals just off the top of my head but many more when I stop and think about it), I can't help but see this change as another instance of the community being completely ignored. It was unnecessary; the only part of the sit with any life to it!

This is the age of web 2.0, of interactivity, of collaboration; but no matter how fancy the forum, it's useless if the attitudes don't change and ALLOW such collaboration to happen, and unfortunately I can't see that happening. I've never EVER spoken negatively about MC in the past but this change really doesn't sit right with me and I feel that this is the appropriate time to let my feelings known.

Phil, I love ya...but this new look is(to paraphrase a popular modern net meme) "meh". However, I do agree that after 9 years maybe a facelift was in need. Even in 1998 I didn't care for the Delphi forum, so MC circa 2002 was a welcome addition. This has an odd kind of crammed look to it, may have been better aesthetic choices out there. I hope people don't leave though! (And not just because some of us are permanently banned from TP, lulz)

Wow there are sure a lot of negitive response to the new forum I wonder if enough people wanted change, or something to happen I wonder if it really would. I love MC and I always have, even though we have had our problems. I think if leadership is a true issue then maybe some delgation should be done. I would love for the whole web site as a whole really grow, but I feel one person can't do it all. Phill I love MC and I know since the updates you have been on a lot more, so if your reading this there are people who would love to help impove the site (not just the Froum) please let some people like myself and others help out. Becaue when the new Muppet movie hits this site is going to be flooded with new visitors, and I think we need to really tiddy up the whole site. We could form a commite or something, and get some new stuff added to the site. Yes Toughpigs and the mindset are great sites, but i truly and honestly feel that this site could be even better then both of them.

For the record, George the Janitor pretty much coined the term "Meh" (despite Webster's dictionary crediting The Simpsons).

Sigh... that's the part that bothers me. This new forum really isn't the change in attitude and move towards the future like many members had been hoping for for years (unless it is, and that remains to be seen); it's basically a facelift and a business move.

Edit: For the record I actually really like the new forum software; I just feel like it's the right move for the wrong reasons.

Dwayne makes a good point. I've thought about how by this summer, you're going to have a tidal wave of new and old fans coming here, and we want to have the most inviting and easy to use forum. Yes, some may only post once and then leave, or lurk temporarily. But gotta have the best foot going forward as mentioned.

But I said "meh", not "blechhhh" I like the clicking on the profile picture thing, as well as the facebook integration. However my "meh" comment comes from simply the font size and a few other titling issues.