I’m Tony Hynes, Director of Community Development for F5. Given the scale of change to the look and functionality of DevCentral, and the passionate responses we’ve received as a result of the change, I wanted to take some of your time to address a few things. But if you’re in a hurry here’s the tl;dr version: We know this relaunch didn’t go exactly as planned and we’re committed to fixing it.
First off, I want to apologize for forklifting your experience without enough prior communication. We should have given the community a better heads up on what exactly was going to change. We’re asking the DevCentral user to change a lot of known behaviors (login, contribution maintenance, account management) and we didn’t do a good job hitting that message early and often. Total failure on our part.
Second, we are working through the challenge of locating the content you need both on-site and through search engines. We are actively working on a few fixes that will alleviate some of the pain, and we will be adding “help” functionality which will act as a guide to help you work with the new DevCentral search, filter, and navigation options. We should have had this complete at launch. Again, mea culpa.
Third, change is hard. The old platform was just that—old. There was no path forward on the old platform to build the type of experience we know the community wanted or to build the features the community needs. The community deserved a better site and we weren’t going to be able to build that on-top of the old one. In the short term, that means we have to make some compromises and take a few steps back in order to move forward. Which leads me to address what’s coming.
A long-standing request from the community has been to consolidate credentials across F5 properties. DevCentral will be the first F5 property to on-board the necessary technology, and soon you’ll be able to use this SSO on other F5 sites. Also, from the “big ask” bucket is the ability to respond to Q&A via email. The new platform supports not only Q&A, but also article and message comments as well. This adds a whole new level of engagement capabilities to the site, and validates the message that DevCentral belongs to the community, and we want to hear your voice.
Fourth, the members of my team are as much members of DevCentral as they are owners, and they are equally passionate. They want the improvements to come just as fast and furious as you do. They’re not satisfied with the relaunch either and are as committed to making this right as I am.
Finally, please know that we understand the pain caused as a result of the changes and the impact to your daily workflow. We are actively working to resolve every issue with complete urgency.
Thank you for sticking with us through this transition and for understanding that our goal is a better experience for all. You have, once again, proven that this is a community that cares enough to provide feedback (good and bad). For that, I cannot thank you enough!
It's a shame. Not a single bookmark or Google search work anymore...
I can't understand a change like this, and I believe we're all well accustomed to change, after-all we're in IT... This one here is just not good, not other way to say it.
@ Irre Levant - I'm sorry for your issues and that we are failing to meet your expectations. We are hard at work trying address these issues as quickly as possible.
@ Nicol4s - To borrow your metaphor, the gold mine of information is still there, although it is very difficult to find. We are working hard to make all of the gold easy to find as well as filling the mine with gold, diamonds and other value for our users.
@ plc - You're right. This is definitely not good and there isn't another way to say it. We are not only striving for better, we are striving for great. Please stick with us, we are committed to improving this site.
@ JAG - I am sorry for the pain you (and all of our users) have felt. We are hard at work fixing issues.
Thanks Anthony for your response and I appreciate that the DevCentral team is working hard to fix these search issues.. The sooner the better and then there can be jubilation for the new site.
So, what's up all these words about if you're not gonna do anything?
It's like politics - speak one and act in other way?
So, what for your excuses than, if they don't cost a thing?
>A long-standing request from the community has been to consolidate credentials across F5 properties.
Just extend old DC with SAML auth and use credentials from SF
>The new platform supports not only Q&A, but also article and message comments as well.
What was the problem with extending old platform with same functionality?
>This adds a whole new level of engagement capabilities to the site, and validates the message that DevCentral belongs to the community, and we want to hear your voice.
Engineers DO NOT NEED engagement. That is the problem. You need. Not us. YOU.
Maan, most of us are engaged already. Someone even married.
>DevCentral belongs to the community, and we want to hear your voice.
Just put it back. And don't ever touch.
>The community deserved a better site and we weren’t going to be able to build that on-top of the old one.
Should be read as:"I've heard there is magical wand called SF somewhere out there. Let's check it out"
Destroy tech community is an easy thing. It's hard to get respect back.
And you don't respect customers. Us.
***
From your LI (fancy site! new abilities):"I also develop and maintain relationships with other teams and professionals at F5 which includes Product Management, Product Development, Field System Engineers, and Partners".
ROFL. This migration. Have you heard cons voices? Have you did it?
Another week passed. Ok, just one.
bold font on main page. UI for browsers, no? Anything? Just remove it.
google search fail. it is still. google search string "site:devcentral.f5.com/questions/" == About 19,300 results (0.23 seconds) NEW "site:devcentral.f5.com/s/question/" == About 6,080 results (0.14 seconds) 19300 old results VS 6080 new. Anthony, personally you've stolen from community these 19300 posts for one week now.
forced sign in. it's gone (crazy thing, haven't you creativity enough just not to do it so harsh - force users to update their logins in a new system?) Disrespect to people - too bad for you.
page titles fail. it's better now. yes.
bookmarks fail. yeah, make some changes on client's side (what else should we do?), rebookmark it. , it's a HUGE DISRESPECT to what people do here. And to what they did.
"Show more" plague all over the site. JUST REMOVE IT. Are you payed for every click on this site? I bet you are! Don't be so greedy, heal us from "Show More". Please.
Search bar is dizzy. Every sudden move and you're lost search typing. Is this a test? A men can't be calm on this site - thus most of the searches are failed when typing.
right-click fail. It's a clickgate! -=You're clicking it wrong=-
THIS WEBSITE IS LAGGY. It literally takes up to 15 second to render it's content. Because of heavy ajax from SalesForce. Is that engagement, you've been talking about? Just make it more static (oh, you can't because you don't control source code logic? Well, you was exactly your choice - to control less). No one likes SF when it comes to their personal user experience matter. JUST PUT BACK OLD SITE, please?
You see? Migration itself failed. I mean not all these marketing bells and whistles. You've lost the data. You've lost the content.
To throw the baby out with the bath water - good time to tell it.
So, you Anthony are communicating with engineers and no one reviewed integrity of migrated data? Are those engineers for real or you've been interacting with them in a real world?
"Lost integrity while migrating"
"Still no migration back?"
"How come, Director of Community Development for F5?"
We've made a migration (of your-belonging content) without your consent. And with a huge negligence and disrespect to the community.
Why? Because f you, that's why!
p.s. the most hilarious part. director of whatever community is telling to that community that community is wrong and "you just don't understand".
Tony, if you really cared about the people in the DevCentral Community you would listen to their request to put the site back to the way it was. So we had multiple login ID's to access different areas of the site - who cares? Some people wanted to respond to Q&A via email - so give them that ability. These items are hardly a cause for an entire site forklift replacement.
This new site was a want from the employees at DevCentral - not from the users in the DevCentral Community. It was rushed, poorly communicated, and not tested. Instead of trying to put band aids on a gaping wound, put the old site back. If you simply must have this new site because you hate and despise the old one, then work on fixing the issues with the new site BEFORE rolling it out into production again.
The DevCentral Community has said MULTIPLE TIMES to put back the old site but you simply refuse to do that for some reason? Why is that? This new site is not ready for production and needs a lot of fixing before it is ever rolled out again. The DevCentral Community doesn't want all the fancy "bells and whistles" - we just want a site that works. The old DevCentral site worked just fine.
Assume you're a consultant working on a locked down management windows machine.
You get permission to download & install the F5 irule editor to that machine, since you've been using it since first release to work on TCL code, your bread & butter.
PLEASE show me, how, using Devcentral, I can get the installation files for latest said iRule editor?
I've been a staunch supporter of, and evangelist for, F5 since LTM version 9.21, and frankly some of the latest decisions in product stability and community - specifically Devcentral - couldn't have been more detrimental if the decision makers were actively TRYING to destroy the brand.
Devcentral used to be a BIG sell to management and the team at renewal time for our devices because of the ease of finding solutions but now it is hard to navigate, you cannot open multiple links from a search and it's just plain annoying to use.
Devcentral also used to be the first place I looked but now its the last.
- thanks for taking the time to share your perspective. You are not alone in your frustration and for that we apologize.
We consider ourselves to be part of this community and we take things like "hard to navigate" and "just plain annoying" to heart. The DevCentral community and team is not known to be shy or soft-spoken but that doesn't always translate into 'effective' or 'persuasive'. That said, we (the Team) are doing enterprise-level cross-fit now...building solid relationships and getting better in many of those arenas; all with the goal of improving the community experience per community feedback.
Thank you.
On the subject of "opening multiple links" specifically - amazingly enough something as simple as that was tied down in red-tape that we struggled through as a result of launching DevCentral using many enterprise systems simultaneously (SaaS Community, SSO, and UnifiedSearch). I *think* I have finally cut through the red-tape (just last Friday) on the search component and the, embarrassingly simple, tech solution should be coming soon. I'm scared to commit to when exactly (red-tape is also very STICKY)...but it is imminent.
Within the constraints of our business realities we are turning feedback like yours into action - hopefully we can do that in a timeframe that won't drop us completely off your reference-list. If even half of what we are striving for becomes reality; perhaps that will even begin moving DevCentral back up your reference-list after this hit.
