Farewell Forum.Solidworks.Com

[mattpeneguy]

A few people were lamenting the loss of the old forum...Thought I'd give them a place to vent, reminisce, plan a farewell party, whatever...

[Glenn Schroeder]

I don't know where to start. That forum, and the people, meant more to me than I realized until recently.

Part of me is sad, and part is angry. I'm not sure which one is winning.

I would like to thank all the people over there who helped me over the last 12 years. I've learned a tremendous amount; some of it directly, and others just from experimenting while trying to help someone else.

[AlexLachance]

For every door that closes on us, a window of opportunity opens up.

While I share the sadness and frustration that you guys speak of, I also feel hopeful. This forum might not be the original, but I believe that we can recreate what there was over there, and have it be better then it was. Let's not forget that the reason that the SolidWorks Forums were such a success is because of every single person that took part inside that community.

Let's not regret this closed door but embrace the window of opportunity it brings. If we grieve over it for too long, we might miss these opportunities.

Thanks again @matt for giving us a refuge to come to and share our knowledge without being 'labeled' DS property.

[matt]

Yes, I have mixed emotions, but like @AlexLachance I think that this door opened, and @Glenn Schroeder kicked me through it. Seriously, I've been a part of on-line chatter about SolidWorks since 1997. I've seen a few of these transitions, and it's always hard at first, but gets easier over time. I think there are some people who we might leave behind, but we will probably also gain some new friends.

We have some people who have signed up anonymously, but I'm still holding out for guys like Paul Salvador, who has a history at least as long as mine with all of this stuff. I realize I was part of the main crew of forum people before a lot of the current crowd were part of it, but guys like @jcapriotti have been around for a while too. I should never mention names because I inevitably leave out guys like @mbiasotti or @Alin or other big name players.

Anyway, so long to the old, and in with the new. Hopefully this place will allow us to be less parochial and more open minded about software we use to get our jobs done. I hope we can attract the "do my homework for me" crowd, because like the cell phone holder guy, they are at least a lot of fun. And I never feel as engaged as when I'm helping people solve problems. I guess that's why we all got into engineering or design.

[mattpeneguy]

Out with the old and in with the new.
I agree with the posts above. This is definitely going to be a little different. But, I believe it's an opportunity to have an even better forum. As mentioned above, the biggest thing about the old forum is the people. And this place already has a good number of them here.
And the ones that aren't here yet, may participate in the Swamp for a while, but it's not a forum. It's more like the SW subreddit and if they liked that format they'd be over there. So, @matt you've built it, and they will come here.

Hey, and this forum is even better in some ways! Look we've got the sarcasm tag! I see a float and align one too, that's new!

[AlexLachance]

Yes, I have mixed emotions, but like @AlexLachance I think that this door opened, and @Glenn Schroeder kicked me through it. Seriously, I've been a part of on-line chatter about SolidWorks since 1997. I've seen a few of these transitions, and it's always hard at first, but gets easier over time. I think there are some people who we might leave behind, but we will probably also gain some new friends.

We have some people who have signed up anonymously, but I'm still holding out for guys like Paul Salvador, who has a history at least as long as mine with all of this stuff. I realize I was part of the main crew of forum people before a lot of the current crowd were part of it, but guys like @jcapriotti have been around for a while too. I should never mention names because I inevitably leave out guys like @mbiasotti or @Alin or other big name players.

Anyway, so long to the old, and in with the new. Hopefully this place will allow us to be less parochial and more open minded about software we use to get our jobs done. I hope we can attract the "do my homework for me" crowd, because like the cell phone holder guy, they are at least a lot of fun. And I never feel as engaged as when I'm helping people solve problems. I guess that's why we all got into engineering or design.

Having kept an eye on the forum member count, it seems the influx of member has restarted, maybe not to the same scale as when the forum launched, but I'm hoping it continues like this for a few days or weeks. We were at 194 members on tuesday and now we're at 210.

[Steven Billeter]

I am going to be members of this forum and the new SolidWorks forum. Then decide later which one is better.

[jcapriotti]

I am going to be members of this forum and the new SolidWorks forum. Then decide later which one is better.

Steven, you forgot the sarcasm tag.

[matt]

I am going to be members of this forum and the new SolidWorks forum. Then decide later which one is better.

That's a reasonable approach. Try to make sure you familiarize yourself with all of the options here, like the styles/themes, the upload/download library, the ability to get the admin guy to add stuff... and most of all, the sarcasm tag. I think that is exclusive to the CADForum.

Anyway, thanks for registering. Every person makes a difference.

[Tom G]

I'll gather my feelings after the fact. I'm still packing.

It is the people that haven't been around for a month or more that I will truly miss. There's plenty of them.

[Roasted By John]

It'll be a struggle on that side, let me tell ya

[MJuric]

I am going to be members of this forum and the new SolidWorks forum. Then decide later which one is better.

I said a while ago that I think there is a place for both. This one will be the "Workhorse" where people can come, discuss issues, problems and get answers. The other one will be more of an extension of your VAR. When something pops up here that "Ain't Right" or if someone comes up with an enhancement idea it can get more visibility over there.

[grhenning]

I have used it off and on for more than 15 years. A great source for information & knowledge. I've always been impressed that people respond so quickly and with great feedback.

[jcapriotti]

And it's done.....

[matt]

And it's done.....

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Confirmed. It's gone.

[mike miller]

In memorial.......a departing shot.

2021-04-01 18_26_54.jpg

[mattpeneguy]

And it's done.....

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In light of that. @Alin and @Rob, one of the last posts over at the old thread was Rob bringing up what I inferred to be a suggestion for a "Design for Change" super model mania SWPUC. Alin, I know those darn things take a lot of your time and you just finished one, but can you imagine the benefit?

With the change in venue, it may be hard to figure out what the rewards are and how we (and by we, I mean you, Alin, with the help of us) lay that out. Personally, I think this forum is the better location for something like that because of this being an actual forum and the platform just doesn't seem suited to that type of thing. But, Alin, this is your baby and it's definitely your decision.

@matt the SWPUC were great over at the old forum. This may be a whole other thread with the can of worms I'm opening here, but do you (or anyone else) know how we can make that easy here or maybe even better than it was on the old forum? I've gained so much from some of them, I'm willing to donate money. Maybe we can set up a Zelle or Paypal for them and people can contribute to a pot? Obviously, if we do something like this both Alin and Matt get a cut...Or maybe we leave that for later and advertising? I'm sure people like 3DConnexion would be interested in advertising in a space where the best of the best are posting.

[Craig Makarowski]

well i got a bunch of captures into my one note of stuff i wanted to save, what a loss of good information.
Thanks to all that contributed over there you are awesome , hope to see you here!

[Glenn Schroeder]

And it's done.....

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Yup. I had Chrome to open with four tabs active; my Gmail, Pandora, the SW FAQ, and the SW Questions. Now it's just three. I dropped the two dead ones and added https://www.cadforum.net/search.php?sea ... 87af17b869

[DennisD]

And it's done.....

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Yup. I had Chrome to open with four tabs active; my Gmail, Pandora, the SW FAQ, and the SW Questions. Now it's just three. I dropped the two dead ones and added https://www.cadforum.net/search.php?sea ... 87af17b869

Annnnnddd just like that I found the answer I was looking for this morning! THANK YOU, GLENN!

I was poking around, doing my homework (as too many folks don't do) and found your post. I was looking for the best ways to search within this forum. The new 3DSwamp is an absolute abomination for finding things. I knew it would be much easier in this forum, but still wanted to learn how to expedite my searches. Glenn, at the link you posted: https://www.cadforum.net/search.php?sea ... 87af17b869 I saw this:

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Now https://www.cadforum.net/search.php is one of my primary CAD Forum bookmarks. I was looking for a definitive guide on how to search with the specificity I wanted and this is it:

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It just goes to show how THIS forum is already a great asset.

[Tom G]

I try to live my life without expectations, as it disappoints me less. All the same, I had unreal expectations about DS. I am disappointed.
Goodbye old Forum. Most took you for granted, but some found a place there to belong.
Saving out my old bookmarks reminded me of the very many regulars who often helped but at some point stopped coming around. I'd like to not forget the people that made it work well, but eventually I will.

[SamSpade]

Yep, sad to see the old platform put out to pasture. I was fairly new to the old forum, maybe three or four years, even though I have been an on and off SWX user pretty much since its inception in 95/96. It was only recently, the last couple of years that I had frequented it on a daily basis, either trying to learn something or impart some of my limited knowledge whenever possible. It became a daily routine, checking new posts, seeing what there was to learn that day.

However, I am confident that this new forum will prove to do the same. I wish to thank all that made this forum possible, it is very much appreciated.

[SPerman]

@DennisD,

What was the announcement Ryan was supposed to make on the last day?

[DennisD]

@DennisD,

What was the announcement Ryan was supposed to make on the last day?

I know I wrote about this. . . somewhere!

Ryan was supposed to write that we HAVE been heard and listened to. The reversal of their previous (insanely stupid) decision that excluded internet search indexing from reaching into the 3DSwamp was the first tangible thing he was going to point to. He alluded to other items that he was surprised were going to be included/fixed, but did not have specifics on what or when. I urged him to tell us as much as he could so that we'd have reason to keep giving them more chances. He said he would, but I guess he figured that with the few hours remaining where it could even be viewed on the old forum that is was not worth the effort.

With all the resources they had access to from the old forum I wish he would have done some sort of email to our addresses associated with those accounts, i.e., using the message function there. Actually that would have been more effective in getting the message to everyone as well as making it seem a little more personal. I know Ryan is swamped right now, but that was an opportunity lost.

[DennisD]

@DennisD,

What was the announcement Ryan was supposed to make on the last day?

@Glenn Schroeder found my post. It was in a private message between us. Here is the gist of it.
. . .I am in a focus group along with about eight others. I had just gotten out of the teleconference on Wednesday. In that meeting Ryan said he had some good news and some not-so-sure news. I made the point, and others agreed, that he needed to share as much of that as possible with the forum in order to give some hope and win back some trust. He was going to another meeting after our call so he said it would be around 4:30 his time (central) before he put it out there. I never saw it and suspect he decided it would have such a short visibility to not bother with the old forum. That would have been late Wednesday and was supposed to be the last day of the Jive forum. If he posted anything about the "good news" in the 3DSwamp I didn't see it. (That doesn't mean it's not there!)

Some of the items he had for the "good news" was:
1. The data migration of the old forum posts to the new forum was happening, but that it was going much slower than they expected, something like 6 hours to transfer 5k threads or posts. He said they had 150-180k so it was going to take a bit of time to complete, but it was all going to come over.
2. The posts after March 10th were not going to be moved over. We were told this around March 16th and everyone was pissed. Since #1 was going to take so long they (SWX) asked Jive if they could include those posts from the 10th to 31st. Jive said "Absolutely! For the low, low price of . . ." SWX was a bit pissed at this and instead found a way to scrape that information themselves. The good news is that the posts since March 10th will be brought over.
3. One of the team had been pounding Ryan to get some sort of Enhancement Request system in place for the new forum. They still do not have one, but this team member has found a workaround (as we users always do) by posting his ER's as an Idea and using the hashtag #enhancement. Ryan's other good news was that a lot (he said a lot, but we interpreted that only as some) of the suggestions we had been giving them were indeed going to be implemented, but he did not have a list of them nor any timing for when they would be implemented. That is non-specific good news because I have no idea what I'm supposed to be happy about!

As much as I think the 3DSwamp will never work adequately as a user forum, I am willing to get in their face (at their request!) and tell them what is wrong.

It is a crying shame what has been happening the last few years with the deemphasis of SWX at World, the general muddling of things by putting SWX in with the huge array of all things Dassault, and their stupid version of a forum. Ryan has a very difficult job, but I was trying to help him win back some trust by suggesting he tell us anything good he could and being completely honest with the rest. Heck, in the prior meeting two weeks ago he said it was a corporate decision to not have the site indexed by Google. Ryan said it would never happen. I forced him to admit that it was a decision and not a technical impossibility. As soon as that meeting was over I posted in the forum to make some noise about this stupid decision and lo and behold a couple of days later that decision was reversed. Ryan said it couldn't be changed, but we got it changed. THAT proves there is some hope for their forum.

However, we have this new forum and it is a good spot.

[SPerman]

I never received the first e-mail about the forum closing, but I always unsubscribe from any mailing lists. That is probably why.

To me, that just sounds like more smoke being blown up the users skirts. They can tell us they are listening all they want. They can tell us they are putting an emphasis on fixing bugs. Until I see evidence of something more than talk, I'm not believing it. Maybe Ryan realized that more empty promises weren't going to improve the situation.

[JMOS4]

Hi all,

Well I jumped on the bandwagon, tried the New thing this morning and what a pain in the A$$ and still couldn't make heads or tails out of anything.

Also some of the google links to the old forum send you to a visual basic page, so now google is useless resource, although you can see old post thru the Solidworks site just not very useful and keeps asking you to try the new Kool-Aid, LOL

Anyhow hopefully this site will get the useful knowledge that the old forum had , as it seems like its gotten most of the long time users.

Cheers,
Jim