1

I really do not like the new SpiceWorks site. The only good thing about it is dark mode.

I can’t find jack. I hate it actually.

I may not be around much longer because I dislike it that much.

65 Spice ups
2

I’m with you on that one.

I like the editor, you can make it larger or smaller and preview your post before submitting it, but that’s about the only positive I have so far.

My thoughts are also similar to yours, this might just be enough to put me off continuing. I’ve met all the goals I wanted to on here, so what’s left.

27 Spice ups
3

It is really hard to find the new posts, that is the most problematic issue I have.

32 Spice ups
4

Yeah not very appealing… $hit is everyone and anywhere with no particular rhyme or reason to it… maybe offer the older format as a toggle option if at all possible would be nice for 30 days (Microsoft even provides that)

next time I would suggest having a beta format and allow users to dive into that and provide some constructive feedback before hand!

13 Spice ups
5

I never used it, but I think that’s what the playground was for, to see all this.

This is an assumption, but my gut tells me it was this in preview.

14 Spice ups
6

I am not enjoying it either :frowning: it seems to be an alert and email spam generator with an ugly interface that just hurts to look at.

Dark mode is good and the ability to cut and paste images into replies is good, but that is about it so far…

I have completely lost track of the threads that I was active in and am instead drowning in a list of notices for anything and everything I don’t care about :frowning:

22 Spice ups
7

They did have a beta. I admin to not having looked at it at all… I mean I have my own job to do beyond beta testing the new community… Seems maybe we should have paid a bit more attention to it though…

11 Spice ups
8

Just going to jump off of this one. We have been announcing Playground updates since it was announced and available at SpiceWorld 2023. We know not everyone will be able to test (like molan says, everyone has a f/t job!)

But, we have been publishing updates since then, to include other fun ways to get people involved (such as the Server Stress Test event).

That all said, please do not take this as “do not give us feedback.” We definitely want it and I would actually be VERY surprised if we didn’t get constructive feedback and criticism. It is a fairly big change. Personally, I know a lot of muscle memory I have over the last almost 13 years, is not nearly as applicable and I’ve been relearning how things work on the new platform.

TL;DR – Don’t stop letting us know what you think and what questions you have.

22 Spice ups
9

When I dig below the surface of “I don’t like the new site,” a few things jump out at me. (Literally, in some cases.)

The old model was designed (primarily) to deliver information. Posts appeared as they were made, making it easy to look for questions you could answer or topics you might glean knowledge from.

The new model appears designed to promote activity. Its purpose appears to be keeping me glued to the screen in a hyperactive state so I can see whatever the latest event is. Frenetic activity is not a good model for delivering information.

In the same way that the random (in the sense that its generated by others’ posts and not your desire) activity makes concentration difficult, the lack of clear, visually distinctive areas of the screen makes finding that information even more difficult.

Finally, no matter how many times you notify someone that you’re going to change things, the “We’ve changed things and now it’s your tasks to figure out how to use it” is also not consumer-friendly.

The attempts to make Spiceworks not about IT and about hobbies and turn it into a “playground” all to generate acitivity have reached fruition.

76 Spice ups
10

^^^ This is an excellent and polite summary of the issues with the new system.

Getting an alert for every topic created and every post inside those topics is not going to work for me. Its going to lead to my ignoring the site and looking elsewhere.

As Robert5205 stated I want to be able to subscribe to topics and browse a list of new topics \ posts I haven’t seen or participated in and decide which ones I want to subscribe to and follow.
I don’t want to be drowned by a flood of activity alerts for every new thread posted and every comment in those threads just because I am interested in the over arching forum topic category.

22 Spice ups
11

AMEN PREACH IT BROTHER! Another gripe to add. I could not add just an “AMEN!” as it doesn’t count as a complete sentence.

12 Spice ups
12

It really feels that ever since SW was sold they have completely stopped listening to the people that make up and use this community. (Bring back the days of actually implementing the feature requests voted for by this community!)

SW says its listening to us. but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise…
SW has systematically removed the features that we use, ignored requests for items we want and pushed out change after change that (such as this community update) that takes away from the community, ignores the needs of the people using it an seems to promote some hidden agenda (likely around monetizing our clicks and maximizing the amount of those clicks.)

@Sean-Spiceworks you are between a rock and a hard place as the public face in the community and a long term employee of SW as We know this isn’t in your control and there is likely some Exec higher ups driving these changes… not yourself and the other front line workers.

28 Spice ups
13

Totally agree with this statement. In the before time Spiceworks was about, for and helping IT people. I found great services, vendors to use in my work. Found great IT people to bounce ideas and problems off of. Found solutions working with IT people like me. The Spiceworks community page seemed to be intentionally built for this.

This new version appears forced to fit.
squarpeg

18 Spice ups
14

You nailed it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that I hated but that’s it. This update has changed the layout from being organized by content to organized into a social media website. I’m not here to facebook, I’m here to get answers.

28 Spice ups
15

I’m not a fan either. More difficult to 'browse" around. Seems you need to decide where to go and jump there. There used to be a link at the top of the page to answer questions. I haven’t found it anywhere here. But I do get random emails from someone looking for help on a topic I can’t help them with.

I definitely spend less time here now.

14 Spice ups
16

My biggest gripe is with the community home page. It does a terrible job of providing direction. It’s far too discombobulating with a lot of “white space” that doesn’t serve any purpose. See below:

image
image1888×892 83.8 KB

There is a sidebar that can be opened, but there’s still tons of white space. The topics being shown to me based on most recent activity is disorienting because they may not be topics I care or know about. Once I navigate to a section, it is a lot better.

My recommendation would be to find a way have less “clutter” on the community homepage & not force us to navigate categories solely by using the dropdowns in the top menu bar or the sidebar.

If there’s a way to change the layout of the homepage, that information should be front & center so we aren’t trying to figure that out ourselves.

15 Spice ups
17

Tapping the hamburger menu top left will make use of those side areas more.

6 Spice ups
18

I found this community years ago to be the best place to ask questions and get quick answers from a great group of experts. Since then, I usually scroll through questions once a day and see if there are any I can contribute to.
I can’t find “Answer Questions” in any format. Maybe the questions are sandwiched in the feed somewhere but I don’t care to hunt for them.

13 Spice ups
19

I addressed that in the sentence following picture. Still tons of white space & a distinct lack of direction outside of what appears to be the most recent active posts from any category.

6 Spice ups
20

The ads are more annoying. It’s visually chaotic and acutally adds stress when using this site. As someone who is still relatively new to the IT field, this is unfortunate it seems to be pushing an agenda that is not what this was originally about: help others to find answers/solutions.

10 Spice ups