@stevieb wrote:
@Sooner wrote:
@stevieb wrote:
@Sooner wrote:
If I sign in at the top of the forum page, I have no issues. I can understand having to sign in twice, because the system for the forum is probably outsourced, on a different server, run by different software, due to performance problems, security, etc. Not a real issue.
Yes, I'd shut it down too because of all the griping and whining about such small issues as signing in twice. Ok, so you might have to sign in two times, is that really a problem in your life?
@Sooner You're oversimplifying the problem. If it was a matter of having to do no more than sign in twice, I suspect we could all live with that. We shouldn't have to, but we could. It's a matter of not being able to get in at all, for hours and hours, of having to perform machinations above and beyond accessing any other website to simply log in and so on. If you haven't experienced the problems then you're fortunate. Wordy, I know, but read my full first post and perhaps you'll better understand the problem.
@stevieb I have worked in IT, worked with IT, and have way more than a passing knowledge. I was one of the first webmasters in the U.S.
What I know is that it is a complex and expensive business and how much a company would devote in time, expense and software reworking plus server time that is expensive is pretty iffy in today's business model.
So do you want something imperfect or nothing? I don't think this forum amounts to something any company would spend big bucks on, and I think we are really lucky to have it in any state.
I am more thankful it is here, and I understand it isn't a priority for QVC. So a little bother? Fine by me. I know the issues.
And yes, I have fought with every issues about the forum glitches we are experiencing. And I have a pretty good idea why most occur. Been there, done that myself.
Well @Sooner I understand this perspective and having worked closely with IT providers myself, I guess I just don't agree that what is being offered is acceptable. Clearly, they can run an accessible website, but they just aren't consistently doing so. I do understand this is not a priority and agree, I too am grateful we have the forums, despite the quirks, limitations and the extent to which they have been diluted, but I guess my feeling is access to them should be far more simple than some of us are finding it lately. Past a certain level of 'imperfection', the experience just isn't viable...
I respect both of you, and it's important to me to start by saying I'm not here to argue, confront, or upset anyone.
I do feel there's far more to the problem than the normal login to the shopping website servers and the separate login to the Community forums -- those 2 never have bothered me, and I feel they add to the security of the site and to our accounts.
Coming from a career in IT, the problems associated with the combined shopping website, the product reviews, and the Community website are a major concern to me.
There are many designers and managers involved, caching and content delivery services, cloud services providers, including Akamai Technologies and Khoros, and Bazaarvoice, all of them linking our accounts. Somewhere in the mix there is a technical failure. This website has been one of the worst I've used since I first encountered it years ago... long before I was involved with the Community. With a substantial global presence, and access to so much personal information, in my opinion this very, very public venue is puzzlingly poorly-designed, poorly managed and at least worth some level of concern.
I can remember when all of us, upon going to the sign-in page, were seeing other people's email addresses already plugged into the email field. At the moment, even after we log out of our forum account... when we return we find ourselves logged in, to our great surprise... and this is not an optional "allow me to remain logged in" feature. It is a notable programming failure.
There have been countless, highly worrisome issues here, and what bothers me is that not only are they not properly addressed when they crop up... they build upon past weaknesses and make the site less and less trustworthy.
Few things reveal your intellect and your generosity of spirit—the parallel powers of your heart and mind—better than how you give feedback.~Maria Popova
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