...for those that refuse to venture back into the seventh ring of hell...
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ANNOUNCEMENT: AN OPEN LETTER FROM CRAIG JOHNSON, HARMONY CENTRAL CEO Hide Details
Dear Harmony Central,
We listened.
Harmony Central is not just a web site, nor is it bits and bytes. It is a community. This community has been loyal and supportive, and we have been happy to provide a home for what we feel is the most important community in the music world.
Unfortunately, that home has been falling apart at an accelerating rate due to a combination of hardware and software issues, many unique to our situation. To keep the community alive, we made a decision to switch to a more capable platform. Our intention was to take Harmony Central into the 21st century with a site worthy of all of you.
As you know, that is not what happened. After a week of operation, it’s painfully clear HC 2.0 is not ready for prime time. However, we’re also aware that many people are getting familiar with and enjoying the new site, bugs and all, and we respect their opinion too.
So, we are working to create a “hybrid” site. For example, there have been virtually no negative responses and many positive responses about news on HC 2.0, so it makes no sense to roll that element back to the 1.0 version. On the other hand, user reviews on HC 2.0 are, frankly, broken. There are no articles in the 2.0 Resource Center, and due to the video player only recently becoming stable, only a handful of videos in the 2.0 Media Center. And the forums...
This is clearly unacceptable.
Our plan – and there are significant technical challenges, so bear with us – is to maintain those elements of 1.0 that work until the equivalent elements in 2.0 are equal or better, regardless of how long that takes. For example, if you want to go to user reviews, then you could access the 1.0 version until we are absolutely sure that the 2.0 version is better. If you want articles, you’ll go to 1.0 because that’s where they are for now. Same with videos.
Forums are a special case. Our plan is to make most forums available as HC 1.0 / VBulletin forums. There will be some exceptions (like Pro Reviews, as they have so much rich media, and archived forums, as it makes no sense to re-migrate them as they get limited traffic). If particular moderators want their forums on 2.0, that’s fine; if they want to stay with 1.0, that’s fine too. If they want, they can even moderate both and steer them in different directions. We want the moderators – the unsung heroes of Harmony Central – to have full freedom in charting the course of their own communities.
Concurrently, we plan to keep the 2.0 forums open for two reasons. First, these forums need a lot of changes for them to meet our (and your) expectations, so we need a “test lab” to try these changes. Second, based on user feedback, there are people who see the huge potential of the new format but don’t like the implementation, so who better to direct us on how to improve it?
Unfortunately, getting 1.0 back into the picture brings back its problems as well. But if all goes according to plan, 1.0 will remain viable while 2.0 will continue to improve with the help of the community. In a way, it’s the same kind of transition as when Apple went to OS X or Intel chips; old and new platforms were supported until the new platforms were up to the task.
One fact remains certain: We can’t have a site where things don’t work, or that people don’t want to visit. We recognize and deeply regret the disruption to the community. The hybrid approach is risky, but either rolling back completely to 1.0 or trying to tough it out with 2.0 are even riskier. And details need to be worked out: What happens with re-directs? Will you have to log in twice if you want to visit both 1.0 and 2.0? Will 1.0 crash and burn before 2.0 fulfills the community’s expectations? Will it be possible to migrate the 1.0 forums to 2.0 if 2.0 is also live?
So please, this isn’t the last word; this is the first word. But we wanted to let you know as soon as possible what we hope to do. We are certainly aware it’s a compromise, but after studying all the possibilities, it’s the least objectionable combination of a quick fix while simultaneously laying down the long-term foundation we have to pursue.
Finally, I want to express my deepest appreciation for our exceptionally hard-working team of moderators and our editorial staff, who have taken the heat for problems not of their own making – particularly Craig Anderton. They made a heroic effort to make a problematic site work, but in the end, even they couldn’t. They have all served as extremely strong advocates for the community. The course of action we are pursuing is based on their input as well as yours.
Reading over your feedback on the new site, yes, I saw anger but more than that, I saw passion for what Harmony Central represents. We do not want – ever – to interfere with that passion.
Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for speaking, so that we could listen. We can’t promise this will be a glitch-free process, but we will do everything in our power to give you the site you want now while simultaneously building you a better one, with your continued (and greatly appreciated) assistance.
Sincerely,
Craig Johnson
CEO, Harmony Central
by HC Management at Apr 17, 2010 2:26 PM
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Thoughts?!?
