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Who's MIA???

Bonnie H

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ffq-lar Advanced Member

ffq-lar

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Where's Doodlebug?

Dave and Jane

Gator

Sheri B

Bobbi B

Like Julie, I can't put my finger on it but i'm not in love with this new format. I still can navigate, can now post links to photos, still read daily, but post way less than I used to. To some that may be a blessing! :P

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nanbrug Advanced Member

nanbrug

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I totally agree I can get around on this new format and was willing to give it some time but just the look of it looks harsh. Does this sound weird but the other forum was cozy looking. Something I'm noticing or maybe i'm doing something wrong but I don't think the quilting pics are as clear. Really miss all the new pics of quilts and family. I haven't tried to post on this one I had just got the old one down and it changed LOL.

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dianne Advanced Member

dianne

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I think my problem is my fingers! they seem to be too big to get to the specific post I want. I always end up in the general forum to which the post was sent instead of the recent content I really want. Glad to hear you are well Shana, i always appreciated your very gentle approach to customers and us.

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DawnCavanaugh Advanced Member

DawnCavanaugh

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Hi everyone,

Thank you for your candid comments about the new Forum and what makes you happy about it, as well as the "not so much" thoughts. :) They are all appreciated and we'll do what we can to accommodate your requests whenever possible.

We realized we'd lose some people when we made the switch to the new format, and it's an unfortunate side effect of change. The old forum was comfortable, but it had several issues that presented problems, such as the difficulty with posting avatars, difficulty in posting photos, and the inability to easily prevent spam--which was a daily battle.

The new forum is certainly different, and has its own drawbacks. It's unfamiliar at first, but navigating it shouldn't be any more difficult than the old Forum; in fact in some ways it's easier. When the forum opens on your screen, click the "New Since Last Visit" tab and it will take you to any thread that has posts added since the last time you looked. If you read something in the thread, the title of it will go from BOLD to standard font when you look at the New Since Last Visit tab again. If someone posts again to that thread, it will go back to BOLD text.

This is even better than the "view today's posts" from the old forum, since it will show you everything that's happened since the last time you logged on. The old method on the forum only showed you the posts from the calendar day; if you hadn't visited over the weekend for example, you wouldn't see anything from those days without doing a "search" in the old forum. They'd be off your radar unless a topic was brought back up again. With this new forum, ANY topic you haven't read is listed in the "new since last visit" list.

In addition, you can still collect "favorites" as you did in the old forum -- It's just labeled a bit differently and functions a little differently. Select the "follow this topic" button at the top right of any post string you want to follow or save as a favorite. You can then see those saved posts by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to your login name at the top of the screen.

Adding an Avatar is very easy. Just use that same drop-down box to get at the profile settings and upload a picture of yourself. It's also easy to manipulate the signature for your posts, and personalize your posts using the rich text editor. In the old forum, unless you understood BBC code, it was difficult to do any sort of text manipulation such as bolding, underlining or other techniques to make your point stand out.

We do realize that the photo issue is a big disappointment for everyone. We're working on expanding the file size for the photos, and I understand we still have an issue with the latest increase from 500kb to 2mb. Frankly, the cost to provide bandwidth and hosting of the actual photos on our physical site is very expensive (which is why most userboards and forums require posters to use 3rd party hosting sites like Flickr. These 3rd party sites are free unless you purchase a pro account, but they offset the cost of hosting "free" photoes by generating income from ad sales. If you don't want to deal with the ads, then the photo sites require you to upgrade to pro account or subscription and pay a fee.) We are trying to continue providing this forum as a totally free service to everyone, without having to resort to ads or other annoyances that would otherwise interfere with your enjoyment of the forum.

We'll keep looking for ways to improve your experience here, and I hope you'll keep sharing your thoughts and ideas with us as well!

One quick note on some interesting tidbits about the forum...when we converted over the members from the old Forum, we did not convert members who had been inactive for over 3 years. However, we still transferred membership for over 6400 people who have been on the forum, and either posted directly or "browsed the forum" during that time. (You can't see the numbers now as you did in the old forum, but on average the "on line at the moment" count is 40-60 users, many of whom browse invisibly and lurk, never posting.)

Since its inception, the Forum has received over 440,000 posts! Amazing! The terrific challenge is to get those who simply observe on the forum to feel welcome and comfortable enough to actually POST to it. It can be a bit intimidating for a newbie to post to the forum amongst the photos of the beautiful work of veteran quilters post. I've had more than one person tell me they'll post when they feel their quilts are "worthy" of posting here. It would be great if we can convince everyone that ALL photos, experience levels, talents, imaginations, and quilters are welcome here!

Maybe we need to start a thread where everyone posts a photo of their very first quilt....I'll have to dig mine out and add it. :) We all started from humble beginnings, and some of us have just had a bit more "practice time" than others!

It also should be noted that the APQS Facebook page is also now a place where quilters gather and watch for the "latest and greatest", and it is now up to 30,000 fans. In these days of instant messaging, texting, and instant gratification, the Facebook page has drawn people to it for its immediacy. People don't take as much time as they used to for browsing the Forum, (which is where the much more "meaty" content lives, as we all know.) It's a byproduct of the society in which we live, I guess. We want our information NOW, and if it doesn't flash on our phones as "breaking news" we'll probably miss it since we won't take the time to actually go and read the article relating to it.

We still think the forum is a valuable tool and resource, and we hope you'll all continue to post, share, learn and laugh together as part of our great big, APQS family! :)

We'll keep doing what we can to improve, and we hope you'll keep coming back to the Forum regularly!

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Quilting Heidi Advanced Member

Quilting Heidi

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I agree it is different but all my friends are the same! Change is never easy and whenever it hits our quilting world it is even harder. I miss the pictures the most but completely understand the cost of hosting a site that has unlimited amounts of data! That data has to be stored and maintained and the costs can add up quickly. I'm hoping that everybody gets the hang of the new forum and starts to post again. It was pretty easy to set up a flickr site and use my pictures from that. Sometimes I don't know what I would have done if I couldn't see everybody's beautiful work. It is so motivating to see others show what they have created. Not to mention I'm not sure I would have made it through the last year if I couldn't come here and vent, ask for prayers and just share.

I love Dawn's idea of posting our first quilts! That would be fun. I actually have the first pillow I ever hand pieced and quilted. My husband still uses it every night! I also have the first quilt I made for my daughter what else but a sunbonnet sue! I am a lover of sunbonnet sue though. I just let Madison use that quilt and she was so excited to use "her Jen's" quilt. I can dig it back out.

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Sheri Butler Advanced Member

Sheri Butler

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Hi everyone!

I am here. I pop in about twice a week now, and make quick peeks at things, but dont post like I used to.

I'm on FACEBOOK more than I am on the forum.

I've tried to befriend my close friends here on facebook, so I can see lots going on with them and their families.

It seems to have consumed alot of us (facebook has)...just a fantastic place to see everyone, friends, family, etc. and our favorite

businesses as well.

MaryBeth is taking her nursing degree, and is like...ACEING all her classes!

Math is up next for her, and for those of you who know MaryBeth...well....I can't say enough about how she hates it...says

she's bad at it...etc. But, I KNOW she'll come flying thru this with an A in that class too!

I could never do it. Not at my age, like she is!

I am SO PROUD of her!

I'm sorry for not posting comments like I did. I've had to re-sign in everytime I'm in here, due to my new laptop computer settings.

We got hacked a few months back, and had over $1,700 in our checking acct hacked thru on line purchasing within 2 hrs.

Thank the LORD we had full protection at the bank, so it didnt cost us anything, and I caught the dude via making phone calls to the

businesses and getting his email address. STUPID people shouldnt breed! LOL....sry...Plus, he had them all mailed to HIS address.

Hope he's serving a tad of time, even 30 days for what he did. Prob to hundres of others as well.

Anyway..Linda R...Yeah baby...I"M HERE! Just in "ghost form"...so to speak.

Will have to see if I can post pics now too with the new forum. Havent tried that yet either.

The new forum is easy I think. I do like it. Just on Facebook ALOT more!

Love to ya all from Nebraska!

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LadyLake Advanced Member

LadyLake

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I am fine with the new Forum format, and appreciate all of the new options available.

I feel conflicted about whether or not to post photos of my work, since I am one of the veterans who has been long arming for 10 years. I still learn something new every day on the Forum. And, just because I've been quilting a long time doesn't mean I don't need support and want critique. To be honest, I feel very close to the people that post on this Forum -- they are some of the only people I know who 'get' what I have to say about quilting. I know this Forum has a reputation of having highly skilled quilters -- I see our work as a testament to the ease of control of our APQS machines,

Saying this goes hand in hand with wanting quilters at all levels of experience, including beginners, to feel comfortable posting. I try to include information on the techniques, batting and thread used in my posts to help others. Your, 'My First Quilt,' topic is a good one, Dawn. I suggest we go beyond that and add a sub-forum called, 'Just for Beginners.'. We could also have a 'Topic of the Week', such as beginning feathers, and ask people to post questions and helpful hints. I know everyone that posts is more than happy to help others the best they can.

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