GP: The Future of the SOLIDWORKS Communities

[zwei]

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworks ... 2da884e436

We have been preparing for a long time to migrate all of the content and provide everybody access with the same credentials for the move in April. We will make sure that all the content will be accessible by all search engines, and that your access credentials and privacy are protected with the best and most up-to-date security protocols.

Welp

[Alin]

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworks ... 2da884e436

We have been preparing for a long time to migrate all of the content and provide everybody access with the same credentials for the move in April. We will make sure that all the content will be accessible by all search engines, and that your access credentials and privacy are protected with the best and most up-to-date security protocols.

Welp

I was right. Again!

[Glenn Schroeder]

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworks ... 2da884e436

We have been preparing for a long time to migrate all of the content and provide everybody access with the same credentials for the move in April. We will make sure that all the content will be accessible by all search engines, and that your access credentials and privacy are protected with the best and most up-to-date security protocols.

Welp

He said ". . . and it makes sense to migrate to our own forums tool, SWYM, part of 3DEXPERIENCE Works." I will respectfully disagree. What would have made sense would be to migrate to another platform that was developed for user forums, not one that was designed for maximum synergy (I'm not sure what synergy means, but I think it's a synonym for "confusion").

[AlexLachance]

He said ". . . and it makes sense to migrate to our own forums tool, SWYM, part of 3DEXPERIENCE Works." I will respectfully disagree. What would have made sense would be to migrate to another platform that was developed for user forums, not one that was designed for maximum synergy (I'm not sure what synergy means, but I think it's a synonym for "confusion").

I answered to him on his blog, doubt it will change something but eh.

[zwei]

To be frank, i am not convinced at all, especially with the

We have been preparing for a long time to migrate all of the content

If you had been preparing,
→ You will not only inform the user 5 DAYS later after your decided the cutoff date
→ You will not need any user to tell you to make things google-searchable
→ You will not ignore user complaint regarding the same platform for TWO whole year (or more)

This is not call preparing, that is just waiting.
But i guess, that just DSS.

[Glenn Schroeder]

He said ". . . and it makes sense to migrate to our own forums tool, SWYM, part of 3DEXPERIENCE Works." I will respectfully disagree. What would have made sense would be to migrate to another platform that was developed for user forums, not one that was designed for maximum synergy (I'm not sure what synergy means, but I think it's a synonym for "confusion").

I answered to him on his blog, doubt it will change something but eh.

Reversing the decision to make it inaccessible to Google, but not the one to put it on the 3DSYM platform, reminds me of a saying I learned from a friend: "You can put perfume on a hog, but you've still got a hog."

[jcapriotti]

Their attempt at damage control. Maybe they realized if people can't get to it from Google, then it's DOA.

[mattpeneguy]

Their attempt at damage control. Maybe they realized if people can't get to it from Google, then it's DOA.

@jcapriotti,
Oh yeah, that's all this is...I'm sure they saw that post about this forum already showing in google results. It's going to be frustrating for new users when they get on the Swamp and go looking for help and just get crickets...They'll find this place, but it will be a little harder than it is now. It only hurts the new users.

[MJuric]

So I've not been going on the 3dSywm forum largely because it's a waste of time and largely worthless...and I'm being nice with that description.

But just in case I long in once in a while. Today however someone actually suggested that "If they can't add a mandatory tag then maybe a group of dedicated members will go thru and tag all the posts". Of course there was at least one DS employee that declared that was a good idea. Yeah, of course because getting people to do your work for free is always a great idea.

The level of head in the sand'ism over there is stunning.

[DanPihlaja]

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworks ... 2da884e436

We have been preparing for a long time to migrate all of the content and provide everybody access with the same credentials for the move in April. We will make sure that all the content will be accessible by all search engines, and that your access credentials and privacy are protected with the best and most up-to-date security protocols.

Welp

See.....they are listening.....

Sometimes, we project what we think onto them, when, for a lack of communication, we don't know what is going on under the water (so to speak).

[AlexLachance]

So I've not been going on the 3dSywm forum largely because it's a waste of time and largely worthless...and I'm being nice with that description.

But just in case I long in once in a while. Today however someone actually suggested that "If they can't add a mandatory tag then maybe a group of dedicated members will go thru and tag all the posts". Of course there was at least one DS employee that declared that was a good idea. Yeah, of course because getting people to do your work for free is always a great idea.

The level of head in the sand'ism over there is stunning.

What's wrong with that Matt? Imagine going through across all the topics and adding One&Two as a tag to the entirety of them.

Maybe I'm just evil

[MJuric]

So I've not been going on the 3dSywm forum largely because it's a waste of time and largely worthless...and I'm being nice with that description.

But just in case I long in once in a while. Today however someone actually suggested that "If they can't add a mandatory tag then maybe a group of dedicated members will go thru and tag all the posts". Of course there was at least one DS employee that declared that was a good idea. Yeah, of course because getting people to do your work for free is always a great idea.

The level of head in the sand'ism over there is stunning.

What's wrong with that Matt? Imagine going through across all the topics and adding One&Two as a tag to the entirety of them.

Maybe I'm just evil

If you tried to do that in the old forum you'd have one person sitting there all day long just adding tags. I guess they're just used to 2-5 posts a day over at the Swym.

[Roasted By John]

I might be loosing my mind on the tag thingy going on in SWYM, but I'll go back to the comment that I made based on my Search Post

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/208328

There I had 120 different categories, so just by that scenario you're going to be making 120 tags, I'll be changing the wording a little bit so now we could have 180 different tags, the next guy comes along and doesn't look at the list and makes his own tags, not to bang on people that are not really good with the English language, guess what they make their own version....... my mind just exploded (Tags, Tags and more Tags, wish it were Friday)

[AlexLachance]

I might be loosing my mind on the tag thingy going on in SWYM, but I'll go back to the comment that I made based on my Search Post

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/208328

There I had 120 different categories, so just by that scenario you're going to be making 120 tags, I'll be changing the wording a little bit so now we could have 180 different tags, the next guy comes along and doesn't look at the list and makes his own tags, not to bang on people that are not really good with the English language, guess what they make their own version....... my mind just exploded (Tags, Tags and more Tags, wish it were Friday)

Stop it John, you're making too much sense.

[MJuric]

I might be loosing my mind on the tag thingy going on in SWYM, but I'll go back to the comment that I made based on my Search Post

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/208328

There I had 120 different categories, so just by that scenario you're going to be making 120 tags, I'll be changing the wording a little bit so now we could have 180 different tags, the next guy comes along and doesn't look at the list and makes his own tags, not to bang on people that are not really good with the English language, guess what they make their own version....... my mind just exploded (Tags, Tags and more Tags, wish it were Friday)

I brought this up over there a couple times and couple different ways. The old forum had ~50+ sub forums. When you made a post you HAD to pick one or two sub forums that post was going into. If you wanted to look at just CAM posts you could go to that sub forum. If you wanted to look at just API posts you could go to that forum.

In order to make that work over at 3DSwym you would have had to have a tag system that was mandatory and uneditable. In other words when you made a post you HAD to have a tag and it HAD to be chosen from an un editable list of "X" number of tags.

The only real way to make it work would be to have a two tiered tag system. Tier one was the afore mention mandatory tag and tier two would be a "User added" tier. You might even be in a situation where you had three tiers, two mandatory and one user.

That's not going to happen, probably ever, so that alone makes the content extremely difficult to find and organize on that platform.

To make it worse the old forum was "Solidworks desktop and related addins". The new forum will be "Solidwork desktop and related addins" AND "3DConnections and related add ins" AND "3DExperience Solidworks and related addins". In essence you've tripled the amount of necessary categories and at the same time eliminated the ability to categorize.

Just about anyway you look at it the new platform, excluding a near complete platform rewrite, simply will never work as a large public platform forum. It is meant for small groups that will work collaboratively and meant as a messaging system far more than a repository of knowledge. You will send links to drawings, spreadsheets, models, presentations etc. What are you supposed to link to in a public forum....Yeah exactly....this forum.

[Roasted By John]

Perfect

[Frederick_Law]

Unless they can have sub communities inside a Community, it'll be a huge mess.
Also nobody will tag their questions.
What tag do you use for post: How do I do this?
A billion of general tags will do f all. The tag will return billion of post.
Another billion of specific tags will do the same. Unless user know the tag, they still get a billion post.

That's why Google is successful with search engine.
The detail is in the background indexing.
User just type whatever and the system do the search and match.

Who gonna know and remember which tag to use for their question?
If I know what I'm looking for, I won't be looking.

[mattpeneguy]

I might be loosing my mind on the tag thingy going on in SWYM, but I'll go back to the comment that I made based on my Search Post

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/208328

There I had 120 different categories, so just by that scenario you're going to be making 120 tags, I'll be changing the wording a little bit so now we could have 180 different tags, the next guy comes along and doesn't look at the list and makes his own tags, not to bang on people that are not really good with the English language, guess what they make their own version....... my mind just exploded (Tags, Tags and more Tags, wish it were Friday)

image.png

[zwei]

Who gonna know and remember which tag to use for their question?
If I know what I'm looking for, I won't be looking.

Exactly, we have the same tagging stuff in JIRA, and filtering using tags is basically useless because we have too many tags in different name/wording that mean the same thing...

Eg: SOLIDWORKS, Solidworks, solidworks, SolidWorks, SWX, swx, sw

User will tag whatever they want, some wont even bother...

[Frederick_Law]

Anyone ever managed a database will know.
Users are bad at entering info.
Extra space, extra . , - wrong spelling.
The only way to get it right is listbox and selection.

Please select area of your question.
Please select category.
Please select sub-category.
Please go away.

[matt]

Anyone ever managed a database will know.
Users are bad at entering info.
Extra space, extra . , - wrong spelling.
The only way to get it right is listbox and selection.

Please select area of your question.
Please select category.
Please select sub-category.
Please go away.

Yes, but administrators are notoriously bad at not understanding the user's position and not offering appropriate options. You work for DS??

Also, keywords and the ubiquitous hashtag have become so overused and abused that google ignores anything but content. Whatever you would use as a keyword, just make sure it is in the title and first paragraph. Notice that this site doesn't have tags. Search still works.

[jcapriotti]

Tag Manager, sound like a new position for someone at Dassault.

This is a push to using search which a lot of sites have gone to, but sometimes I don't want to search, I want to browse. Just like I hate window shopping on Amazon.com because you have to know what you're looking for, sometimes I don't know what I want.

[Frederick_Law]

Someone posted a "Blank Page" Placeholder post.
Got 2 useless comments, one from me, and delete the post.
Welcome to a public forum.
You've been living in a SwYmP for too long
Don't be scary of other people.