Beekeepers from the south ...

[gavin]

Just for those refugees from the BBKA forum (sadly mislaid, for now at least), I thought that I should explain that our beekeeping up here is a little different (but feel free to join in anyway). Ivor C explains ....

[Neils]

It's been back for a few hours now, but it's a bit of a trainwreck on the forum at least.

Rest of the site looks quite nice if still lacking in much of any substance.

[gavin]

The forum really should be regarded as a resource built collectively by hundreds of beekeepers over several years. Something that should be treasured for the whole community ... it is a bit early to tell quite what they've done with it but for the moment it seems well and truly locked away.

[Neils]

I think a quick peruse, if your eyes can stand it for that long would probably be enough to gauge my opinion of it so far.

[gavin]

Oh right, I see that things have changed. Their forum is now integrated into the web pages. I see someone is asking about my special topic, but I'm blowed if I can find out how to post. I have a feeling that the free advice I've been giving to BBKA members is about to dry up.

OK, the web site looks prettier. The 'About' page links to 'Local Associations' and for a change explicitly talks about England, which is nice. The clickable map takes you to the main SBA website, but our NI friends might worry that the map for the province takes you to the fringe INIB and not the mainstream Ulster BKA.

[gavin]

... and their new forum can't be searched (!), doesn't have a Private Message system, doesn't tell you anything about the poster, no members list .... what were they thinking of?!

[Neils]

I've had a few PMs from other non members who can't post and/or haven't heard anything either.

There is a PM system, I've been stress testing it tonight!

The rest of the site is better than what was there before but I'm starting to wonder if they might have bigger issues to worry about given the lack of basic validation going on.

[Jon]

They have killed the forum. I can't work out how to register as the system does not recognize my e-mail.
As far as I am concerned the forum was far and away the most useful resource on the bbka site and I can't see how they will resuscitate it from here.
Why would anyone replace vBulletin software with that crap.
Vbulletin is the most familiar forum software on the internet.
Roger Patterson must be raging. He put a huge amount of work into that forum and it has been destroyed.
It is also hard to read the pages as the font colour is too similar to the background colour.
It is like something designed by a student rather than a professional.

[Neils]

He wont be the only raging, though I'm past anger and moving into cynical rebellion. I'm going to invoice that web design company for testing their crappy software.

For a day one launch, not one BBKA rep on their showcase site that I've nearly (accidentally) broken already to answer any of the questions people have.

You're not the only non BBKA member not to be able to get on the new forums and I agree with you that they've chucked vBulletin for what seems very much like a 1st year student's Web design excercise: "Design and build a basic forum".

[gavin]

Having loaded the forum database into this new poorly designed one they only have limited time to reverse the process and put the old one back. As the hours and days pass there will be new stuff on the current one .... so the quicker they see sense and do a U-turn (ugghh .. a flashback to PM Thatcher there .. 'You turn if you want to ..') the better. But are they capable of seeing what they've done? Roger is, but do any of his colleagues listen?

I had expected that they would enhance their forum, not seriously damage it. vBulletin 4 perhaps, given that vB3 is now outdated.