It is time for the members to decide which layout they like best. the RTS staff is leaning toward the Beta because of functionality and ease of use, but in the long run, it’s the users that need to be happy with the site.
So to that end, we are asking for feedback concerning your experiences and preferences with the current software we have available here. To keep things simple and make it easy for us to distill the comments and result into something meaningful, please use the following convention.
A… The alpha software found in the main menu. The original software covering the groups, forum and profiles/activity.
B… The beta system found in the Beta menu.
C… Not happy with either / it doesn’t work for me.
Please vote and add a short comment in the comments section below, with your experience so far.
We want to finalize this aspect of the site on June 7, so you have a week to let us know your views.
Should you decide to go with the beta system, there will be some rebuilding of groups and the forums and it will be up to you to move content that you wish to keep into the beta software during this week. Simply cut and paste should be sufficient. Sorry that it comes to that but the data that is the database is not compatible and there is no simple way to point the new system to the old data.
It should be said that the staff is leaning toward the beta system for several reasons. I (John) have been learning about the new software and have found functionality that we haven’t implemented as of yet. It appears to be faster, more reliable and significantly broader in scope and customization than the original, but I will cater to the users.
Keep in mind that this only applies to the core site; the groups and forum at this time. It doesn’t apply to the school, wiki, shopping mall or classifieds as they are totally separate software installations.