Since the Mic, DIY and Linux forums are pruned (or at least rendered unusable) I have no intention of coming back. In order that this should be registered as a -1 member count I'd like to remove myself as a member.

But how do you do this? I cannot find anything in the "my forum home", not in the faq and trying to reach the forum admin on the email in the faq gives
Code:

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The following
message to  was undeliverable.
The reason for the
problem:
5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-"5.1.1 The email account that you tried to
reach does not exist.

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Expert in non-working solutions

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

If you PM a moderator and ask nicely, they'll arrange it for you, but there's no way to do it yourself.

On the other hand, you could wait awhile and see if some of the forums you like get re-instated. If enough people complain, then you might get lucky. The signs are that this new forum format is experimental and isn't fixed.

I'll pm a mod then.

This won't change. They can't go back because it would mean go through each post and then put it in the correct forum. Too much work. Remember it is to "integrate better with the CMS". And that one caters for Adobe and mac users. Take a look at the Adobe forums for what they are heading to.

Just saw that you now also only see the last post of the thread. The 90's called and they want their forum look back...

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Expert in non-working solutions

Quote Wonks:

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On the other hand, you could wait awhile and see if some of the forums you like get re-instated. If enough people complain, then you might get lucky. The signs are that this new forum format is experimental and isn't fixed.

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Indeed. In fact I replied to Havoc with the following message:

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Hi,

Thanks for your message.

Whilst I can understand your kneejerk reaction to the forum changes (I agree, they have changed substantially both in look and layout), you have been advised by other forum members and moderators to at least try it for a short while. Often people are unhappy and peturbed by change - it's an adjustment for us as well! - so it's often worth waiting a while to see if it 'grows on you' before making a judgement. And a day or two isn't usually long enough

We are aware of all the negativity that has been vocalised - as well as some positive comments from our community. Clearly we would be foolish to ignore this and just plough on ahead, which is why we have not set these changes in stone.

As far as we are concerned, the whole point of streamlining the forums was to make the experience better for our community - not worse. So if people are unhappy with it to the point of leaving, then clearly we've not done things right. So our plan is to monitor and make note of the reactions, both bad and good, and after a period of time make a decision as to whether we should change things to satisfy the negativity, or if largely people seem to have settled down and got used to it.

What I'm saying is - of course I can delete your account for you if that is what you really want, but I get the impression that you enjoy our forums, you're just unhappy about the changes. And that doesn't seem worth quitting a community for.

Anyway, please take a moment to think about what I've said, and let me know what you'd like me to do.

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SOS Web Editor, Support & Social Media
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Also, thanks for reporting the bug, Havoc.

I will raise this with our technical team and see if we can get it fixed.

We're not trying to be the Hotel California, I promise

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SOS Web Editor, Support & Social Media
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Well, it isn't a kneejerk reaction. I dropped my subscription to SOS after a few years because it didn't really held enough interest for me to continue. But I stayed at the forum because a few parts of it did held some interest for me.

Now let look at that closer. I kept reading the "Mic" and "DIY" parts. Later came the "Linux" part. Just because those were for me interesting and I could learn from and maybe add something to them. Checking the activity for those 3 sections was easy, open the forum, look if there are new posts in any 3, open those were there are new posts and check for an interesting topic. A couple of minutes during lunchbreak.

But now all this is lumped into 1 big bin. Just opening this after 1 day gives you more than a single screen of new posts. And there is nothing that says what any post is about. So if you want to find something that has to do with your interest you have to open lots of posts that 90% of the time are a waste of time and bandwidth.

Now I understand the reasoning "if you see more posts you can get more involved and find things you might be interested in etc". All fine on paper, but it doesn't work that way in reality. People come to forums not because it is their job (like yours) but because they need help, want to have a second opinion or just have a few moments to kill. So they really want to spend their time there efficiently.

Now you know very well that there is no "going back" or "improving over time". This decision isn't standing on itself, it is coördinated with other decisions within the company. You say you want to "monitor the reactions", well leaving is a reaction. For me the forum held not much interest, certainly not enough to justify to spend considerably more time as would now be the case. So leaving it isn't hard to do. But by really leaving, not just stopping to come, it gives a real signal. If all those who say they will leave actually leave then maybe someone will notice. If they stay away but remain member then it get interpreted as "see, we changed and everybody stayed". (call me cynical but I have seen enough PR presentations)

So yes, you can delete me as a member of this forum. I only spended a couple of minutes here each day and now I'll be able to spend those on forums that don't make it hard to find points that interest you.

PS: the parallels with the old Syntrillium forum are scaring.

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Expert in non-working solutions

OK, well I already said that we are not going to just look at the figures and say, "Oh look, nobody left, it's all fine" and that instead we are taking the criticism seriously but I'm just repeating myself

(BTW, we have something like 90,000 users of the forums, and a great many of them are 'inactive' for whatever reason. For us to look at the list of inactive users and think that their continued presence on the database had any relation to the changes we've just made would be a little foolish, I agree.)

If you really want to leave, that's your call, so your account will be deleted as requested. You are of course welcome to return at any point, should you wish to

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SOS Web Editor, Support & Social Media
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