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Please Read - Big Change For The Forum - Asking For Your Grace - Forum Offline 8/1 (1 Viewer)

Joe Bryant

Joe Bryant

Guide
Staff member
Hi Folks,

Big change coming in our forum. And I'm going to need your help and patience and grace please.

We've been fired by the company that currently hosts our forums. 

It's one of the more bizarre things I've ever had happen in business. 

So we're getting a new message board forum.

The good news is we think we've been able to transfer over things from this board to the new board. Screen names, log in info, avatars, and years and years of previous posts and content. 

And better news is the board appears to be both faster and have much better search capability. 

The new board will be hosted by https://xenforo.com/. @Memphis Foundry did a ton of work on this and Xenforo was far and away the best option to do all the things we wanted. 

As we make the swap, the forums (both this one and the new one) will be offline starting 8/1. 

It depends on how well the transfer goes (there a TON of old material here) I'm expecting the forums may be down for several days after 8/1 if not the whole week or longer. Hopefully it won't be that long, but I want to be honest in letting you know Keith has done hundreds of hours of prep work on this but we truly don't know until we get more into it.

When the new forum is back online, your old bookmarks may not work. The safe way will be to go to www.footballguys.com and select "FORUMS" from the black horizontal navigation bar at the top of the site. 

To be clear, this is 100% the choice of our current forum provider.  Not us. 

It doesn't do anyone any good to air dirty laundry details. But I feel you're owed some explanation. The bottom line was this was about Customer Service. As many of you know, we've had our share of forum glitches with some folks unable to access forums and such. I requested a higher level of customer service from our forum provider in helping solve our forum users issues.

They said what I was asking wasn't acceptable and not do it again.

I told them with the amount of money we pay to host the forums (almost $10,000 per year), that answer wasn't acceptable.

I did it again.

They then told me they were done doing business with us. 

I guess they showed me who was boss.  

To their credit, they are helping with the transitioning and they gave us some time to do it. I'd been holding out hope we could delay it but the date is 8/1.

And in the end, I think it will be a plus for us and for you as a forum member. 

But I'll need your help, your patience and grace.

This couldn't happen at a worse time. August is 5x busier for us than any other month. Keith and the tech team are already buried and the last thing they should be doing is trying to transfer a giant dataset to a new forum. But here we are.

I think the new Xenforo forum will be much better. But I'm sure we'll have hiccups and glitches. Some things we'll be able to make it like this forum was. Other things will have to be different. 

I'm asking for your patience here as we make this transition. I've no doubt it'll be bumpy and any grace you can give us is most appreciated.

As I said above, this forum will be offline Monday morning about 9:00 AM ET. I'll try to have an update once per day on my Twitter account so folks can know where we are. https://twitter.com/Football_Guys.  I'm expecting the forums may be down for several days after 8/1 if not the whole week or longer. I'll post updates on my Twitter feed to let folks know so you're not in the dark. 

Again, this wasn't our choice. We've got a zillion urgent tech projects happening beyond this. But it's where we are. And I'd appreciate patience and grace as we make this change. I've no doubt people will be unhappy with some parts of the new board. But please know we're doing our best here for y'all.

J

 
Appreciate the communication Joe.  Best of luck and thanks for the hard work.  Hope it goes way more smoothly than you can imagine.

 
Also - A thought. Here's what I'm most worried about - Personal Messages. 

The PM system here has always been weird in my opinion. And I'm not 100% certain every PM will transfer over from this forum to the new forum. And I worry about personal stuff that people value but maybe haven't kept a copy of somewhere else. If you have PMs you value, please make a copy of them or screenshot or whatever you need just in case there is trouble transferring. 

 
I think you have mentioned before you are one of the larger installations of this software? Pretty surprising turn of events.

 
Wow Joe. Hoping everything goes well with the transition. Sounds like you’re moving to a much better platform. I appreciate all the hard work you all put into this site. See you on the other side. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
My notebook says in an emergency like this we're supposed to send everything to GM's pager.  That still right?

 
Desert_Power said:
I think you have mentioned before you are one of the larger installations of this software? Pretty surprising turn of events.
Click to expand...


Yes. I think we're one of the larger forums for them. 

I don't get surprised that often. But getting fired like that becuase I asked for better customer service was not what I expected.

But always good to know where you stand with someone. :lmao:  

 
Wow, some real business minds behind your previous provider.  I cannot believe they didn't even try to work with you.  Guess they're just minting money over there.

Take your time; get it right.  We're a patient bunch (or is that a bunch of patients???)

 
3C's said:
Dang man, I've been back like a week and already there's a possible data breach, you've been kicked to the curb by the forum provider and my dog died. All the makings of a bad country song.

Best of luck to you guys, hopefully your worries are few and your fears are not realized.
Click to expand...
Sorry about your pup.

 
Sand said:
That's kind of a stunning demand from a service provider.  I know you're a pretty straight up guy but that would have gotten some four letter words out of me.

That does mean that you'll need a... test forum... to check things out with the new provider, right?
Click to expand...
It’s the only way to be sure 

 
Terrible how Invision is treating you here.

A little more than a decade ago I owned and operated several massive forums.  For instance I owned the largest Call of Duty forum (much larger than the official forums) right through the peak of that franchise's popularity.  I've had to do this a few times so I know how painful it can be.  Thankfully the demographic trends older here, but I remember how brutal and not understanding people can be as you're working your butt off trying to make everything work, frustrated that things aren't working that you expect to, throwing hail marry's to try and fix it as the community goes bonkers about how they're sick of it and are going to go somewhere else.

It's a much tighter community here, so I'm sure people will be a lot more understanding.  But godspeed to you man, I know it's going to be a rough week+ and hopefully everyone will know that for every annoying thing that happens to them on here, you are 1000x more frustrated and annoyed about it on your end.

 
Sand said:
That's kind of a stunning demand from a service provider.  I know you're a pretty straight up guy but that would have gotten some four letter words out of me.

That does mean that you'll need a... test forum... to check things out with the new provider, right?
Click to expand...
Let's not poke that bear...

 
Joe Bryant said:
Also - A thought. Here's what I'm most worried about - Personal Messages. 

The PM system here has always been weird in my opinion. And I'm not 100% certain every PM will transfer over from this forum to the new forum. And I worry about personal stuff that people value but maybe haven't kept a copy of somewhere else. If you have PMs you value, please make a copy of them or screenshot or whatever you need just in case there is trouble transferring. 
Click to expand...
@kutta

 
Joe Bryant said:
The bottom line was this was about Customer Service. As many of you know, we've had our share of forum glitches with some folks unable to access forums and such. I requested a higher level of customer service from our forum provider in helping solve our forum users issues.

They said what I was asking wasn't acceptable and not do it again.

I told them with the amount of money we pay to host the forums (almost $10,000 per year), that answer wasn't acceptable.

I did it again.

They then told me they were done doing business with us. 

I guess they showed me who was boss.  
Click to expand...
What an interesting stark difference in customer philosophy. One company gets rid of one of their biggest clients and loses $10k in income because their client asks for better customer service versus another company that is paying $10k a year to offer both paying and non-paying folks a service that doesn’t even directly provide income…and is willing to sink hundreds of hours and tons of effort during their busiest time to keep offering that service.

I know which type of company I like to give my money to and how much I appreciate that kind of service and philosophy.

 
Communication is always vital and you have covered that base completely.

See you soon on the new site!

 
Try to be way cooler when you come back.

(J/k. Thanks for the update, and for all you guys do here. Hope the transition goes as smoothly as possible.)

 
popeye said:
My notebook says in an emergency like this we're supposed to send everything to GM's pager.  That still right?
Click to expand...


I'd PM Shuke just to be sure.

Sand said:
That's kind of a stunning demand from a service provider.  I know you're a pretty straight up guy but that would have gotten some four letter words out of me.

That does mean that you'll need a... test forum... to check things out with the new provider, right?
Click to expand...


Do want to defend Invision, but if they were smart they would have just placed him on hold and then disconnected the call like every major company and the US Gov't.

Speaking of which, I called the IRS for an address this week.  Good luck getting a live person.  One option tree I went down ended with press 4.  When you pressed 4 they said we no longer support 4....click.

 
Well, thanks for the heads up and for a great explanation.  I'll still be here when the new site is up and running.  Good luck and best wishes to everyone on the team!

 
BassNBrew said:
Speaking of which, I called the IRS for an address this week.  Good luck getting a live person.  One option tree I went down ended with press 4.  When you pressed 4 they said we no longer support 4....click.
Click to expand...
Single most awful phone customer-service of my life came years ago, when I had to get an emergency renewal of my passport. Called the State Department's local passport office. You know how normally the first thing they say is "To continue in English, press 1. Para continuar en espanol, oprima 2"? These guys didn't do that. Instead, for the first five minutes of the call, every instruction was presented in both languages, before they finally offered me the option to continue in English.

Then I finally made it to the menu where I could schedule the appointment. Keep in mind I was looking to schedule something for the following Thursday at 11 a.m.

"To schedule your appointment on Monday at 9:00, press 1. For a different time, press 2"

"To schedule your appointment on Monday at 9:15, press 1. For a different time, press 2"

And so on. I literally had to keep pressing two and advancing in 15 minute increments until I made it to Thursday.

Then at some point I ended up in some kind of cul-de-sac in their phonetree system, and the message said, "That option is not available. Goodbye." Click.

It broke me.

 
ignatiusjreilly said:
Single most awful phone customer-service of my life came years ago, when I had to get an emergency renewal of my passport. Called the State Department's local passport office. You know how normally the first thing they say is "To continue in English, press 1. Para continuar en espanol, oprima 2"? These guys didn't do that. Instead, for the first five minutes of the call, every instruction was presented in both languages, before they finally offered me the option to continue in English.

Then I finally made it to the menu where I could schedule the appointment. Keep in mind I was looking to schedule something for the following Thursday at 11 a.m.

"To schedule your appointment on Monday at 9:00, press 1. For a different time, press 2"

"To schedule your appointment on Monday at 9:15, press 1. For a different time, press 2"

And so on. I literally had to keep pressing two and advancing in 15 minute increments until I made it to Thursday.

Then at some point I ended up in some kind of cul-de-sac in their phonetree system, and the message said, "That option is not available. Goodbye." Click.

It broke me.
Click to expand...


LOL  It's good business.  We'll take crappy customer service from a phone system or AI but it's unacceptable from a live person.  Amazing how well they've trained us.

 
As someone who oversees customer success for a software company I’m completely perplexed and shaking my head that this would actually be a stance a company would take with one of their customers.  Sorry this happened to you. Good luck with the migration!!

 
Hard to believe that any company would do that to a long time customer.  Wait, in this day and age yes, I do believe it. 

Like you stated it will probably be for the best. It will work out one way or another.  :thumbup:

A little concerned about Tim though if it is down for more than a day. 😉

 
Da Guru said:
Hard to believe that any company would do that to a long time customer.  Wait, in this day and age yes, I do believe it. 

Like you stated it will probably be for the best. It will work out one way or another.  :thumbup:

A little concerned about Tim though if it is down for more than a day. 😉
Click to expand...
Maybe it'll reset his post count too.

 
BassNBrew said:
LOL  It's good business.  We'll take crappy customer service from a phone system or AI but it's unacceptable from a live person.  Amazing how well they've trained us.
Click to expand...
Now that I think of it, this happened sometime in the mid-Aughts, which was that transitional period where the Internet was teaching us to expect better customer service but the software (especially from the government) hadn't yet caught up. So we had exceedingly frustrating solutions like phone trees and IVR. These days there's probably an AI bot that knows my schedule better than I do.

In any event, it doesn't sound like technology was the issue with Joe and Invision. It sounds like he was directly interacting with humans who were being jerks.

 
ignatiusjreilly said:
Now that I think of it, this happened sometime in the mid-Aughts, which was that transitional period where the Internet was teaching us to expect better customer service but the software (especially from the government) hadn't yet caught up. So we had exceedingly frustrating solutions like phone trees and IVR. These days there's probably an AI bot that knows my schedule better than I do.

In any event, it doesn't sound like technology was the issue with Joe and Invision. It sounds like he was directly interacting with humans who were being jerks.
Click to expand...


Yeah...that was kind of my point.  Don't be a jerk personally, just ignore and avoid your customer until they just give up.

 
We all going to be sitting here like Ed Harris waiting for Apollo 13 to come out of re-entry radio blackout. yo. 

Thanks for the info Joe, and good luck to you and your team on the transition.  We'll see you on the other side. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
urbanhack said:
As someone who oversees customer success for a software company I’m completely perplexed and shaking my head that this would actually be a stance a company would take with one of their customers.  Sorry this happened to you. Good luck with the migration!!
Click to expand...


I honestly was baffled. It was almost funny. I'd been frustrated with the platform for a while so it's not like I was thinking of changing. But to be fired like that was one of the oddest things I've ever seen in business. 

 
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