VM Community Forum Move

[jem]

Originally Posted by Chris

Forums operated on trust and hope a lot, back in the day (we are talking about 20 years ago now!). Concerted efforts at data threat weren’t quite such a thing and more’s the point there was no GDPR legislation, which would make any attempt at organised, verified sharing difficult enough even on a VM owned forum, and an absolute nightmare somewhere like here. I don’t think there’s much chance of us trying to resurrect it. Any such assistance would have to be on trust, unofficial and very much below radar.

Exactly, on the old VM forums, which were run by them, staff members could be easily identified. So if they sent a direct message to customer in response to a post, requesting information to verify their identity, you could be reasonably sure that this was legit. Fine!

On any third-party forum, that level of trust is gone, you have to rely on a forum mod to vouch that ‘generic_user128’ really does work for VM, honestly guv!

But, let’s assume that ‘generic _user128’ really is a VM employee, why would they engage wit someone on a third-party forum, take details and short-cut the official channels - probably a disciplinary offence? The VM forum was considered a legitimate method of raising a complaint or requiring help, and the team on there were empowered to take that on. No third-party forum, including this one, can possibly replicate that; nor should they.

No Chris is right, the old VM forums can't be replicated; at best, at very best, VM employees might be able to give some advice as to how to proceed and what they think your issue might be. But other than that, they are not able to actually take issues forward.

to all of the above, but let’s not forget, this site and its predecessors operated reasonably well in just that mode even before we developed semi-formal relationships with some helpful staff.

NTHellworld rose from the ashes once, maybe it will again.

We had a relationship with them at one time (to pass on issues) set up with/by Simon Duffy, who was NTLs CEO (I think) at the time.

[J_W]

Hi. Long time lurker. Literally.
I used to manage the VM Community. *Ducks and hides*
No really.
The lack of a site is so sad. We used to celebrate it's birthday each year August 11th I think. It would be 17 this year. Old enough to drive away onto Highway 404

The VM forums worked for a couple of reasons.

1. Yes, we were officially there. We would try and work out who you were from your email address and troubleshoot. More info on a direct message. It was a PII and data privacy nightmare and I'm glad I left as the new GDPR rules came in!
2. Peer to peer support. For every answer our team provided, the forum users provided 2 or 3. That was the great. My job was essentially to cheer lead your participation and sharing your cleverness, saying things that we weren't allowed to!
3. Seo. The biggest driver of traffic was always Google. We might have 5000 posts a week, but we'd have millions of page views each year. That is where forums help businesses, by giving people answers before they ever need to post or call.

I still work in communities, and traffic is on the decline - AI LLMs are trawling communities and serving up the answers without you having to click on the site. It's harder to prove the value of investment.

In VMs defence, the migration and merger will have been very difficult. I've successfully managed a number of migrations which have been significantly smaller, and they were troublesome enough

The VM issue is that you could use any old email address to register, so your forum account was not linked to your VM account. If that had been the case, and the same with O2, it would have been easier I'm sure. With the wild west approach to registration it becomes very hard to avoid duplication across two platforms etc.

Anyway, to those of of you I recognise here, hi, hope you are well, and the important thing you can do as consumers and fans of cable is to support each other. The behind the scenes support was the icing on the cake - the real value of community is what we built there, and you built here, together

2.

… we survived the rise of Facebook, we’ll survive the rise of AI. As you say, authentic community and peer support is what forums do well. AI literally has no idea what it’s saying (I do use it myself but only in areas where i already have a grasp of the subject so I can spot obvious errors, and there are plenty), and social media is just too easy come easy go. Forums have always required a little bit of deliberate engagement, which is why, when they work, they work well.

[adduxi]

I think the problem is getting "users" to use proper Forums. It's all about apps at the moment. Even the VM Forum in it's last days was a mess to navigate and the setup was designed to be viewed on a phone IMHO. The days of sitting at a desktop or even laptop to use a Forum is over seemingly, at least that's what the kids are telling me :-)
I'm guessing the VM Forums will not return anytime soon, if at all ...

[Carth]

I'm just a simple old fuddy duddy, but don't mind changes as long as they're a benefit to me, and not just the instigators of the changes.

I don't 'do' the social media stuff, and I've tried to get along with Discord but it's not for me, so if it's not a forum (as such) then I don't engage

[Mr K]

The problem is VM pretending they ever had any intention to continue the forum. They had no intention and wanted it closed. Too costly, and it exposed their poor CS. They just kicked into the long grass and hoped the punters would forget...

[jem]

Originally Posted by Mr K

The problem is VM pretending they ever had any intention to continue the forum. They had no intention and wanted it closed. Too costly, and it exposed their poor CS. They just kicked into the long grass and hoped the punters would forget...

Yep, does sound like a fair assumption.

---------- Post added at 21:38 ---------- Previous post was at 21:18 ----------

Originally Posted by J_W

Hi. Long time lurker. Literally.
I used to manage the VM Community. *Ducks and hides*
No really.
The lack of a site is so sad. We used to celebrate it's birthday each year August 11th I think. It would be 17 this year. Old enough to drive away onto Highway 404

The VM forums worked for a couple of reasons.

1. Yes, we were officially there. We would try and work out who you were from your email address and troubleshoot. More info on a direct message. It was a PII and data privacy nightmare and I'm glad I left as the new GDPR rules came in!
2. Peer to peer support. For every answer our team provided, the forum users provided 2 or 3. That was the great. My job was essentially to cheer lead your participation and sharing your cleverness, saying things that we weren't allowed to!
3. Seo. The biggest driver of traffic was always Google. We might have 5000 posts a week, but we'd have millions of page views each year. That is where forums help businesses, by giving people answers before they ever need to post or call.

I still work in communities, and traffic is on the decline - AI LLMs are trawling communities and serving up the answers without you having to click on the site. It's harder to prove the value of investment.

In VMs defence, the migration and merger will have been very difficult. I've successfully managed a number of migrations which have been significantly smaller, and they were troublesome enough

The VM issue is that you could use any old email address to register, so your forum account was not linked to your VM account. If that had been the case, and the same with O2, it would have been easier I'm sure. With the wild west approach to registration it becomes very hard to avoid duplication across two platforms etc.

Anyway, to those of of you I recognise here, hi, hope you are well, and the important thing you can do as consumers and fans of cable is to support each other. The behind the scenes support was the icing on the cake - the real value of community is what we built there, and you built here, together

2.

You know, I am so glad you posted this, it is exactly why I mourn the loss of the old VM forums.

Yes the ‘old’ forum staff could find out who a poster/customer was and work on their issues. However, towards the end, these threads tended to end with ‘let’s take this to personal message’ and then radio silence. One and only one forum team member would actually come back to the thread and say that this issue has been resolved and it’s now OK. Now no doubt she has been ‘let go’ for the crime of being ‘too helpful to paying customers’.

Now the forum merger, yes, I’m sure it wasn’t a trivial exercise, but VM and O2 absolutely messed it up, no? They made a claim that xyz would happen, did they do any sort of due diligence to see if this was feasible? Of course not, or I suspect what few competent people they still employ, would have told them, but were ignored.

Come on, as an ex-VM employee, you must have seen the writing on the wall.