Kudos to Peter (not being sarcastic)

[91rioja]

I was a little bummed yesterday when I found out that The Gauge was down for upgrades. A day without logging on to see all my buddies is just not fun. When it did come back up, we had a new site, with a new look, and new features.

I have worked in the IT industry for all of my life, and I know just what the effects of downtime are (where I work now, we are 24x7x365, so ANY amount of downtime are frowned upon). The site was down for less than 24 hours (at least from the time I last logged on), and it came back up with much of its basic functionality intact (read: I could make new posts, and reply to others).

With that being said, I have not seen much posted in the past 12 or so hours that has been very positive. That is kind of a bummer. This has been and still the best resource for model railroaders, in my opinion. I enjoy seeing everybodies posts on what they have been doing. I enjoy seeing posts from new members getting back into the hobby after many years (like I did), and ones that are starting for the first time.

This is, by far, the best free discussion board I have ever been a member of. I think that Peter keeps this running out of his own pocket, without asking us to contribute $$$ to keep it running. We got new hardware and software (correct me if I'm wrong), and it still did not cost us a cent.

It is like anything, change is a bad thing to some, but it is inevitible. We knew this was coming.

So my hat is off to Peter and the rest of the mods who keep this place running. I'm willing to bear the learning curve to stay put here. I like the people, I like the discussions, and I also do like the new site.

THANK YOU PETER!

THANK YOU MODS!

THANK YOU MEMBERS!

I just felt like this needed to be said.

PS, I'm now ducking for cover, bracing for the backlash I'm sure I stirred up.

 

[Peter T Davis]

Thanks for the kind words!

 

[Cannonball]

I agree 100%
Sure there are things wrong that need to be fixed but Peter is just one guy.
Doing it all himself is gonna take time.

The ones who want to gripe and complain should go start their own discussion forums and see how easy it is.

The ones that tick me off are the ones who say they're leaving the board. because everything is different. They say they're going to go hang out on other forums now. Go ahead and go then. You'll be back here as soon as your "new" favorite forum upgrades and makes changes as well. There's nothing like a bunch of fair weather freinds.

I for one am sticking around. The Gauge is one of the best online communities around for discussions on MRR. There's no reason that should change just because of a forum upgrade. It's still the same bunch of people. We just look a little different in print now.

Keep up the good work, Peter. Some of us appreciate the hard work you're doing even if others don't.

 

[Peter T Davis]

Yep, this is absolutely the best forum around! Some of the ones that people have mentioned they're leaving for, are good too, but not as good as The Gauge.

 

[James Schultz]

Thanks

Thanks to all who made the changes possible. I think it will be a very possitive change once the kinks are taken care of.

God Bless
Jim

 

[Nomad]

No backlash from me. This was and still is the best forum on the net. I visit other forums and some only have one post a day, so I don't know where the "fair weather friends" are going, but they will be back when they get bored. Or don't get answers to thier questions like they do here. My hat is off to all the people, espesially Peter, who are doing this upgrade.

Loren

 

[ezdays]

It's strange that to some, change is a welcome sight and they look forward to exploring all the new things that change brings. To others, change must rattle their very being and challenge their comfort zone. If it's not broken, don't fix it... but it was broken and it needed to be brought into the 21st century. The new arrangement is going to take some getting use to. We have new neighbors to contend with, they have different interests but share one thing, they are hobbiest. Let's face it, we are an intrusion on their territory as well, but Peter is implementing ways in which we can separate ourselves from them and we won't even know they're around. They''ll be good neighbors, you can count on that.

As far as the look and feel of the Gauge. It works the same as the old one, the color scheme is different, but plesent. Do we need two color schemes? I don't know, but what I do know is that it takes a lot of effort to create more than one and I think Peter has his hands full right now without going there. Time will tell if it is needed, wanted and is worth the effort.

We thank you all for the confidence and I'm sure those that have said they were leaving, didn't take the time to look things over, or wait for all the changes to be put in place. Once they see what the end results is, they'll surely change their minds and stay. We hope they will anyway....

 

[doctorwayne]

I've never been a big fan of change, so this isn't particularily easy for me. Still, I'm stickin' around, as this place is still the best model railroading forum around, and will no doubt be even better once the bugs are worked out. My hat's off to Peter for being able to get things up and running in such a short time. Maybe if we were all a bit more tolerant of change, and give Peter time to finish the job, we might be pleasantly surprised by the final results.
As for those folks going elsewhere, I hope that they'll look in occasionally: when they see the finished product, I'll bet that a lot of them will come back. I mean, c'mon, if you go elsewhere, it's bound to also be "a change", and it's still not gonna be the Gauge!

Wayne

 

[nachoman]

It's like automatic door locks on cars. I can't stand them. My sister loves them. And then there are the things I like and others hate. you can't please everyone.

What makes this a good forum are the people here. not the fonts, colors, layout, etc. the people that are truely upset have a right to leave. My guess is many are just venting, and most will be back. If they don't, well, OH WELL!

kevin