alice's dashboard

God most of you people just like hearing yourselves talk, :P, im unsubscribing from this thread and pretty much SU completely, friends and subscribers are not even close to the same thing, i don't really care to argue about it with anyone cause i know im right or they wouldnt have been separate in the first place. if you didnt like getting friend request turn them off or whatever, no, instead like babies you all complained behind the backs of the people who actually got the concept,(because honestly how many of us check here when things are going fine?) dont be part of a network that is social, email your current friends to your hearts content instead. i dont really care about most any of the things my friends post (youre telling me the only friends any of you have are all interested in the same things as you? why even bother to share then?) and at the same time i couldn't care less to be friends with half the people i have subscribed to, i just like the site they put up. If a company just keeps changing the way they are doing things they have no true direction and wont last, im completely done wasting my time with SU and once i figure out a good way to get the friends i do have here that i care about somewhere else without having to split them up between different messenger accounts and other social networking sites that dont have their heads up their bums, im gone and never looking back. i actually feel trapped here already because i know there will for sure be some loss of contact with some people i know no matter what i do. why get used to the craptastic v4? they will just come out with a version 5 and it will be the same thing all over again and then one day you'll go to log on and there wont be anything because the servers were repossessed because SU sucked so bad they couldnt pay the bills anymore. What stumble does isnt in anyway exclusive to them and if they cant get things right someone else definitely will, theyve already changed hands in the past, they will again in the future and eventually end up out of commission, the comparison might make me the rat, but screw that i'll be the smart rat who jumps this sinking ship now while theres still time to do so in an orderly way without losing every connection ive made through its use.

ha ha I wanted to post Xinean's comments on my page, because they were so to the point!

I really like "building communities of people based on common interest" too bad this seems to be second string now. – alice, on December 06, 2009 04:26

I have not yet learned how to navigate so finding things does seem to take a long time. – alice, on December 06, 2009 03:59

As far as I am concerned interesting reviews (quotes, photos, snarky comments) and blogs (and wild busy groups) are what made SU interesting. They made me curious -- drew me to interesting sites and fruitful google searches --- as people's pages get more boring -- su just does not appeal as much -- it ceases to be a mind blowing and expanding place to play. I miss that other place. – alice, on December 06, 2009 03:56

Yep -- this static set of friends is just weird. It is one of many of the niggling points I keep bringing up -- and the group of friends on my page is organized by no known guiding principle.

Ahh and is date joined really a relevant sort order for current stumbles? Last seen 30 months ago is near the top of my list. At least I can always find Mr. Helpful.

Here here from me too – alice, on December 04, 2009 20:20

I think in the world beyond small high tech firms it is typical for engineers to do what they are told (by management, marketing or... ) rather than being part of the driving force for change. So I don't think it is so weird for people not to understand that it does not really work that way here.

On the other hand I do think it is typical for community support, relations people to get caught between the decision makers and the customers, users, fanatics or whatever it is that we are. So I think most of the time most of us sympathize even when our concern sort of overwhelms us.

I think what SU had was an amazingly simple to use integrated system. It was really easy to participate with the community as much or as little as you wanted and the content acted as a glue and an inspiration for bridges, battles and community.
When I began I hit the stumble button a few times a day and shrieked at the idea that I would post comments or send notes (yep, I am shy), as I learned more it was easy to slip into a more active roll -- I am pretty sure it is not as easy now. – alice, on December 01, 2009 02:29

The thing for me is that it is still kind of social -- we can send pms and we can share sites and have a conversation that way, but SU is less social because
groups are less obvious and are less active
visiting peoples pages that are a grid of images that may or may not have much to do with the actual page
or
stumblers' pages with few comments, reviews or quotes are less enticing -- so I visit a great deal fewer blogs. I used to find some of my best and surprising content directly on peoples' pages. Content and the social features were entwined -- now somehow they seem much less integral. And as a result my content is suffering.

Very well expressed! – alice, on November 30, 2009 02:23

I think I just added a "me too" not sure I had done that because it seems so... a comment seems more real.

It might be handy to make a backup of your SU tags | bookmarks so you have them available locally in the event they are no longer available on SU or if your relationship with SU changes. To download your bookmarks and sort by tags (in Firefox),:

1. Click on Tools on the SU toolbar
2. Navigate to the Search & Tagging tab
3. Enable the Save favorites & tags to a firefox bookmark folder checkbox
4. Click the Download Favorites button

Your current bookmarks will be backed up. This can be a somewhat long process, as is the download if you have many tags. Does kinda slow things down for me while it's running.

I guess the thing that gets me is that really the stumble button is only as good as the tagging system. Yes I get a lot of people do not use it, and some people misuse it, or just thumb things down because they are in the wrong category but it seems to defeat the purpose to provide a less functional tag system to those of us who try to make them useful for us and for the broader community.

And I guess that is the last I am going to say on the topic -- I need to just move on.

I cannot figure out how to navigate V4, or how to control the layout and some many of the new features such as VIEW counts (big and dominant and useless) and the dumbed down, to the point of useless, replacement for the wonderful "what's new" make me not even care that I can't navigate it.

I too am still using V3 and since I can't make anything work in v4 there is nothing I can do about what it does to my posts. And the dang default font is too small to read .... – alice, on November 22, 2009 03:41