Everyone wants the Reader's Digest version of the forum. Just read every message on the forum, and you'll get the same information you would want in a banner and a whole lot more. I've personally read every message on the forum for about the last 2 years now. That is no lie.
And then when we do put up a banner, users post the same problems in the forum that we wrote about in the banner, telling that they are still broke because they didn't bother to read it before they posted. We can't win.
I'll see if Jack would want to put one up. I told you, I won't do it. Management isn't telling us hardly anything and when they do, we find out it is either wrong or less than truthful. I'm not going to make stuff up just to calm the masses.
Cats4U
Cats4U, for sure, your frustration is understandable and completely valid!
That said, having a visible banner was very helpful but for it to be effective, it should only contain specific facts about the situation (as the deleted banner pretty much did.) The banner should not make any promises, voice any displeasure, nor contain any opinions. In other words, "Just the facts, ma'am."
Clearly, there will be people who don't bother to read a banner and will post messages about something not working but for every one of those posts, there are probably twenty people who didn't post anything because they actually DID read the banner. Nothing is perfect but for sure, but taking the banner down may have sent a message to many that the DRM issue was solved so people ended up posting new messages when they felt something that should now be working wasn't working. It's not reasonable to expect that everyone will read each and every post. In my opinion, if someone creates a post complaining about an issue that's clearly identified in the banner message, nobody should feel obligated to respond to it. If anything, it should probably just be ignored!
I don't have statistics to prove this, but it seemed to me as if when the banner was up, the volume of new posts went down, and things were relatively quiet. When the banner came down, the post volume seemed to go up since people assumed we were back to "normal".
It's just my two cents, but I think we need a simple, banner announcing that the DRM issue exists, explaining what's likely to work and what's not likely to work, and that the developers are actively working on a fix but patience is needed, etc. Again, the original banner, for the most part, did a great job in covering these bases so nothing needs to be re-invented.
Either way, thank you for your efforts in not only moderating these forums, but also for your willingness to help everyone with your meaningful replies! :cool:
