BeerBorg

That the Mr. Beer site went from the best resource I could find to discuss this hobby, to the worst. Still keeping hope alive that they'll either get it fixed up or go back to a real message board system, instead of some after-thought e-commerce hack.

Anyway, /wave to all. Not that I was a big poster on the Mr. Beer site, but it's nice to see some familiar names around here.

Welcome Bluejaye!

Glad you came over....welcome. Most of the registered users here came over from the MB forum. So don't worry about losing all the good help from those guys, cause you'll get it from them here.

Cheers

Welcome aboard!

Personally, I think it's a financial problem and to save money, they went to a much cheaper forum. But, if Louie can do it, why can't they?

I hope I'm wrong but it doesn't take this long to fix something like this for someone who does this for a living. Either they are trying to limp on this on their own or they are getting screwed. I mod for 1 forum (Roxio for the last 12 years) and help out on 3 others and while I don't know much about forum software, every major change, even with hiccups, only took 2 days max. It seems that most of the stuff ported over ok and it's just the 'bones' that need work. The meat is there, but it needs to be cooked better.

Welcome bluejaye.

Beer-lord wrote:if Louie can do it, why can't they?

Honestly I've been wondering the same damn thing! You can do it on the cheap and still do it well if you know what to do and where to go to get it! Totally baffles me!

The thing that blows me away is how silent thew Mr. Beer people are. I mean this is a public relations disaster. Not only has there been no statements updating their intentions or status they won't answer very legitimate questions that are being posted by their own customers.

There are a lot of established Borg members that have not come over here that simply are not posting anything anymore and a ton of the new people have just disappeared.

I would kill to be able to listen to conversations a the executive level between Coopers and Mr. Beer to see if there is a blame game going on right now or whose heads might role because of this fiasco.

Beer-lord wrote:Personally, I think it's a financial problem and to save money, they went to a much cheaper forum. But, if Louie can do it, why can't they?

Well, I'm just going by what Peter said. And if I could search for his posts on the new site, I could link it to you. But to paraphrase from memory, he said something to the effect that they replaced the "old unix based" system with this new "windows based" one and that we'd be blown away with the new functionality that will be linked between the message boards, and their commerce site...

Then some smart person (again, can't find the post) said something like "yeah, but the message board functionality is some after-thought that the e-commerce company added very, very recently.

So, I think Mr. Beer/Cooper's got conned and sold a bill of sale for their e-commerce site with message board functionality, more-so than trying to save money.

Anyway, it is what it is...

They've always be uber-secretive but that's their business. However, this is something different. The amount of traffic on that site if pretty large and new folks have no way of getting help. One bad batch and they've lost a potential customer.

I admit that I offer very little help anymore as I rarely brew Mr. Beer products. I also admit I discuss lots of non Mr. Beer stuff....all grain and non Mr. Beer brews and I really shouldn't gripe on their site about it as my brewing batches not purchased from them and using their site is somewhat selfish. But, they've allowed it and I and others continue to do it.
Have a look at this.
http://community.mrbeer.com/community/d ... -nice-try-

Bluejaye wrote: ...he said something to the effect that they replaced the "old unix based" system with this new "windows based" one and that we'd be blown away with the new functionality that will be linked between the message boards, and their commerce site...

Then some smart person (again, can't find the post) said something like "yeah, but the message board functionality is some after-thought that the e-commerce company added very, very recently.

So, I think Mr. Beer/Cooper's got conned and sold a bill of sale for their e-commerce site with message board functionality, more-so than trying to save money.

I think you've summed it up accurately, Blujaye. Coopers/MB probably thought "gee, we can get this great new e-commerce site, and since it's got a forum built in, we can save money by dropping the license for the UNIX-based forum we're currently paying for!"

Beer-lord also has a good point: bug fixes and enhancements should be close to completed by now (and I think they are) -- which means, it isn't going to get much better over there. What you see now is what you'll get--for a long time.

I work in IT. Have been in it for over 25 years. One truism that fits in this case: you get what you pay for. (Unless someone's giving something away as a loss-leader.) Frankly, I'm not expecting to be "blown away" by their new website when it goes live "way before the holidays." But I'm sure they are hoping it will drive sales. Well, more power to them; I hope it works out. But I don't expect to be frequenting their forum much more, considering that it's basically a one-version upgrade from using smoke signals.

you put it above smoke signals?

Crazy Climber wrote:

Bluejaye wrote: ..considering that it's basically a one-version upgrade from using smoke signals.

I am sticking to the comment I made over there. That thing is worse than a 90's AOL message board.

brewin bull wrote:I am sticking to the comment I made over there. That thing is worse than a 90's AOL message board.

Glad I never ended up there. I think I was with "Earthlink" or something.

brewin bull wrote:I am sticking to the comment I made over there. That thing is worse than a 90's AOL message board.

Hey now, if I'm remembering correctly at least you could search those!