Is This Site Dieing On The Vine? (General)

by malcolm , Monday, July 25, 2005, 20:59 (7208 days ago) @ Nathan Goldberg

Nathan,
Perhaps one reason people don't email you directly about problems is that they assume somebody else has already reported them. It would be much easier for all, if you had a forum specifically for reporting problems. That way if we find a problem, we know if someone has already reported it, and don't need to waste our time telling you about something you already know. And you don't need to read about the same problem reported multiple times. Or alteratively you could post a list of known problems somewhere ?

It would be a shame if the sites good content is spoiled by a few quality control problems. I have also noticed instances of the excercises not accepting the correct answer, and there was a diagram wrong in one of Glen Flear's quiz's. Have you considered giving a few people free / discounted access to act as testers before new versions of the site go live ?

Malcolm.

? ? Hi Don
?
? Sorry I got interrupted there.
?
? Just to say, thanks for the heads up about the links, but could you also
? please let us know directly in future, that way something gets done.
? Otherwise it sounds like...well, you know...
?
? Just to mark your card, you?re right, we don?t visit the form that often,
? I always think those things are for members only without corporate
? muscling in. We assume any serious problems will be communicated to us
? directly as we have asked for time and gain.
?
? Silly me, so I?ve confined myself to forum duty at least once a week from
? now on.
?
? By the way we've sorted the disappearing July exercises, it was a
? cock-up.
?
? And yes, you're right, Don, we've had teething problems over the first
? couple of months, that's because we've been moving fast to improve the
? site, perhaps too fast.
?
? But we're proud of what we've achieved, not just being patronised as a
? concept but as an actuality of the best chess training programme anywhere
? on the web.
?
? As for dieing (your spelling is as bad as mine) on the vine, don't think
? so Don, and I'm sure you for one you would hate that to happen.
?
? Best wishes
?
? Nathan Goldberg
?
? Your Obedient Publisher
?
? ?
? ? ? As I reflected on my previous question about the July exercises
? ? ? mysteriously disappearing I couldn't help but also start thinking of
? ? all
? ? ? the other things that seem to just keep going wrong. This site
? started
? ? ? with quite a bit of fanfare, lots of prompt attention, and lots of
? ? ? apologies for the 'startup pains' it was enduring.
? ? ?
? ? ? But, here we are, several months later, and you are not only plagued
? by
? ? ? basic schedule problems (ie, delivering content in a timely manner),
? ? but
? ? ? the site itself has broken links all over the place. The most
? amusing
? ? was
? ? ? the FAQ that does not work, but that users are strongly encouraged to
? ? read
? ? ? because it is being 'constantly updated' with new information.
? ? ?
? ? ? I took the liberty of running a quick scan of the
? ? www.improveyourchess.com
? ? ? and members.improveyourchess.com (I didn't even try the old
? hyphenated
? ? ? domain name that seems to have disappeared).
? ? ?
? ? ? I found 74 broken links on this site, and this site just isn't very
? big
? ? ? (only 585 URLs found). That is 12.6% of the web site is links that
? ? just
? ? ? don't work. It took a whopping 15 seconds or so to find them using a
? ? free
? ? ? web site testing utility called Xenu, something which could be
? ? routinely
? ? ? run after changes are made to make sure nothing is broken by the
? ? changes.
? ? ?
? ? ? This venture may well end up being relegated to the bin where poorly
? ? ? managed great ideas go. It really pains me in many ways since the
? ? concept
? ? ? is so good, and the potential is so obvious, yet all the chess
? knowledge
? ? in
? ? ? the world is not going to get it past the lack of a functional and
? ? ? coordinated implementation. None of the problems are communicated to
? ? the
? ? ? user base so nobody knows if management even perceives them as
? problems
? ? or
? ? ? if they are even being worked on.
? ? ?
? ? ? If anyone is reading this, or even cares to know (management never
? ? seems
? ? ? to post here no matter what the question is), the broken parts of the
? ? site
? ? ? (and some other information) are as follows: