Ableton Forum

Today the new web site is even worse, full of errors- schoolboy (or girl) stuff. I hadn't realised that the web site was an on-line open Beta!!

It may be great when its finished, but putting a beta (alpha) web site up for public view isn't normally good for instilling confidence in people (especially when you sell software)

We have gone from a function-first, easy to use and navigate web site (reflecting the values of Live) to essentially an on line brochure full of prettiness and video but very little content that would be useful to someone who had live. I don’t like it, but other may. I suspect someone has reviewed the old site and said ’the purpose of a web site is to sell product’ and the entire site has been turned in to an on-line brochure.

^^ sigh.. must be hard being you..

And here's the reason we don't post to the forum... if every conversation becomes attacks like this, there's no way we can respond without compromising the company's position. We have to restrain ourselves from responding in the same tone, because it's most certainly not ok to do that in Ableton's name. So we have to leave it to those who have the experience for that sort of thing, and they don't have that much time. And it just spirals out and away from the kind of community it should be.

Well, as I said. Those who wanted the facts got them, those who just want a fight are none of my business. I'm off.

sorry, this one is worth responding to.

3dot... wrote:I don't think ANY previous iteration of the site...
brought on ANY reactions so negative if at all..

Again, the only place I've seen negative responses was here, and if you count, there are less than 10 people hating it.

3dot... wrote:I'm also one of the people helping to pay Lalos' salary...
by using Live.... teaching Live ... buying Ableton products ...
you can call me trolldot...

as for "feeding the trolls"...
them "trolls" are your "customers"...
and might have valid points regardless of their delivery
alienating your clients is not a good idea...(imo)

That's exactly the thing, though. You are one customer. We have thousands. And behaviour like this in the forum alienates many more. Just like Ableton employees feel intimidated posting here, so do many new (paying) users, because they have better things to do than dealing with an environment like that. And as Spock says, the needs of the many...

I'm sure it can't hurt too much to behave like adults and “deliver” your “points” in a respectful way, and take the laughs department to somewhere like 4chan where it belongs. We have our community guidelines, and we have absolutely no obligation to provide a space for people to make personal attacks to strangers, or use pre-teen arguments like “baby vomit”. This is not what this place is, sorry.

DIgiDennis wrote:^^ sigh.. must be hard being you..

Did you have a point? (I wonder if you appreciate the irony of a futile and meaningless response to a superficial, chatty post)

lalomartins wrote:Again, the only place I've seen negative responses was here, and if you count, there are less than 10 people hating it.

- This is the Ableton forum. Where else would you expect to see feedback?
- Make that 11 then.

I know from personal experience how hard it is to make a fullscreen website work in all cases. What may look nice on a phone looks crap on a 30" and the other way around.
But there are decisions about colours that work and some that don't.
Yours don't.

The old look was almost Zen.
The new look is Graphics-Agency-in-your-face-brutal - with tasteless colouring.

Will I die from it? No.
Will I ever refer people to Ableton as a perfect CI example again? No.

What you read here are the emotions of people in love with a certain feel, look and style that Ableton represented until now.
Ableton was cool.
Really cool.
Now it's whatever it is.
That hurts.
This hurt is reflected in peoples responses and mine.

THOSE COLORS DON'T WORK.
THEY HURT.
YES I AM SHOUTING.



Carpe Diem,

Tom

I'd prefer a little darker print in the quotes. Finding them a little hard to read.

you're not
obliged to give a public space for comments ...
but you do ...give it...
so what's the point ...?

Tom,

thanks for the excellent example of how one can write an emotional response without being rude or disrespectful.

ThomasHelzle wrote:

lalomartins wrote:Again, the only place I've seen negative responses was here, and if you count, there are less than 10 people hating it.

- This is the Ableton forum. Where else would you expect to see feedback?

Again, there are thousands of users. I'm not at liberty to say how many, but I've been to towns that have less people than we have paying users. This may be shocking for some to read, but most of them are not in the forum. And one of (although not the only) the reasons is that they come, see the level of the conversation, occasionally get flamed or trolled by people who for some reason feel they own the place, and never come back.

Therefore, when we really want to know what our users think, the forum is not remotely a good way of gauging that; it's just not representative. Yes, the people here are very passionate, but TBH not necessarily even the most passionate (IMO that would be the user groups). So maybe you should stop and think if there aren't some feelings of ownership and entitlement here that are entirely without merit, and if you really care about the forum so much, if there isn't something you could be doing to help it become what you'd like it to be, and to ensure it remain relevant in the future.

lalomartins wrote:...occasionally get flamed or trolled by people who for some reason feel they own the place, and never come back...

This is quite true, I've seen it a lot. New guy shows up to ask a question, gets punched in the face for not thinking like someone else.

FWIW I liked the general design of the new site when I saw it.
I thought the large blocks of colour looked terrible though - very amateurish. I couldn't believe it!
I felt similarly about the (former) new look of the forum.
I don't consider myself an expert but I know what I like. I didn't dwell on it though - its only a website.

However in conjunction with the pricing affair and the way it was handled I did experience a loss of confidence in Ableton.
One which I must add I very much hope is misplaced. Obviously the jury is out on that one until the first quarter of 2013!
The idea of 'a company you can trust' is flawed in any case but the mistakes have made me worried that Ableton 9 will fail to deliver, there is something wrong internally etc etc.
Hopefully these worries turn out to be a load of rubbish but I don't believe I'm the only user out there who feels this way, on the forum, on twitter, in a user group or even in a studio somewhere making music

An Ableton User.

It is posited that:

All users of the forums cannot be relied upon for their opinion because they are universally rude and unhelpful

While:
All Twitter users can be relied upon for their opinion because they are never rude, and never unhelpful

Or, is it possible that both Twitter and the Forums are occupied equally by helpful and/or rude people, and that something else divides the feedback into positive and negative camps?

gavspav wrote:However in conjunction with the pricing affair and the way it was handled I did experience a loss of confidence in Ableton.
One which I must add I very much hope is misplaced.

Thankfully for us all, Ableton is a music software company and not a marketing company

Ableton's main product is Live, not their website -- let's judge them when they actually have a product to release.

Angstrom wrote:It is posited that:

All users of the forums cannot be relied upon for their opinion because they are universally rude and unhelpful

While:
All Twitter users can be relied upon for their opinion because they are never rude, and never unhelpful

Or, is it possible that both Twitter and the Forums are occupied equally by helpful and/or rude people, and that something else divides the feedback into positive and negative camps?

Nothing remotely like that was posited by anyone, unless you're positing it yourself.

seems a certain amount of misunderstanding has built up between the forum and abe HQ, but its like a catch22; HQ says nothing for 1 year+, no updates on the progress of 9, no mod in the forum no matter what kind of comments are made...over time the assumption evolves that no one is watching, no one cares...then when the forum is potentially 'useful', at the release of 9, the link is taken away and HQ ppl are reluctant to comment in here because of the 'hostile' environment... i suggest the forum would never have had the chance to devolve if there was a regular presence from HQ, or even any, or updates, or responses to direct questions.

dont take the balogna and baby puke comments too seriously anyway, obviously meant to be a bit of a joke, some kids just never grow up, (im very glad to be one)...deepest apologies if that was offensive