MyScouting community dissapearance

[ctbailey 10]

My apologies to all if this is old news, but why (and when) did "MyScouting Community" go down?

 

I've been out of touch a while, but has it been gone for long?

 

craig(This message has been edited by ctbailey)

[Eagle92 110]

It's been down since before Jambo if memory serves. Unfortuatley a few folks spoiled it for everyone as there were some very long and drawn out arguments that were not very scoutlike.

[ctbailey 10]

before Jambo! wow, that's how often I used to check into that thing.

 

The performance was so slow, that even I gave up on it. (And I've got high tolerance for bad software.)

 

Thanks for the reply

 

 

[Scoutfish 16]

"before Jambo! wow, that's how often I used to check into that thing"

 

Guilty here too!

 

I created an account/ profile when I became a scouter, and I haven't been back since. I had no idea it was gone til I read this.

 

I'm sure gonna miss that place!

[UCEagle72 10]

Nah ... it was working during Jambo ... it disappeared in January.

 

Heck, I posted to it since Jambo.

[SR540Beaver 116]

Maybe people assumed it disappeared before Jambo because they clicked on it then and it still hadn't come up by January.

[ctbailey 10]

Beaver - that actually made me LOL, because it's so true.

[The Blancmange 67]

They realized it couldn't compete with Scouter.com.

 

 

[UCEagle72 10]

Or Facebook ... ;-)

[BrotherhoodWWW 10]

The begining of the end was the "update" early summer 2009 when much of the usability disappeared. That was followed by bug chasing half heartedly by folks that should have been employed IMHO in jobs other than IT. It did not help that their programming choice did not play well with their needed security and other software. In the midst of this Linda F. who was the project manager for SC was re-assigned to other tasks. I learned this morning that she is no longer with BSA if any of you care. Since losing Linda and BSA's either unwillingness or inability to fix the problems the community crumbled. The bickering I'm sure did not help.

 

In a lot of ways SC was vastly better than Scouter.com. In some ways it was not as good. If Scouter.com would adopt a better forum software package with features that are common elsewhere there would be no need for any other.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

I don't know about any of the internal workings of that web site, and I have only visited there once or twice (without registering or posting.) So I did not see much of the bickering some of you are talking about, though I did see a couple of pompous and self-important posts by a former participant in this forum. (Not to mention any names.) But one thing I have observed about Internet forums over the years is that discussion forums on web sites owned by the same company or organization that is the subject of the discussion, are fairly strange and usually unsuccessful. Most organizations do not want to provide a platform for their organization to be criticized or questioned. As a result, either the participants end up self-censoring and a lot of the discussions become very stilted, or the organization itself starts pulling unwelcome posts. And eventually, quite often, the plug gets pulled because the organization finds the forum to be more trouble than its worth. Which version of that story happened with the BSA site, if any, I do not know.

[Eagle92 110]

My thoughts.

 

1)NJ did give some good reasons for the demise.

 

2) As someone who, unfortunately, was involved in some of the bickering, I can tell you that some of the "discussions" were rather heated and unscoutlike. Sometimes it got to levels where Mods from national DID have to get involved in.

 

3) Another challenge was that there were virtually no limits and organization in referenfe to groups. I knwo there were at least 2 International Scouting groups covering identical info, several Eagle Scout groups, etc etc. there was a multiple groups ont eh same topic, and that made keepign up with things challenging.

 

4) The search engine was horrible. And this is from someone who uses search engines on a daily basis and can make most dance to his fingertips.

[stevejb 10]

Well, I am not going to miss it. I had fun with it when it first came out but once it became pathetically slow I gave up on it. I think the BSA could have had a good thing there if they would have taken care of it.