I'm sure that we've all hit the same problem - for the last three days, whenever I try to go to the forums I use frequently e.g. 'Identify This' and 'Newport Wetlands,' there is a 'Closed for Maintenance' banner. Fair enough, sites have to be maintained, but 3 days is an inordinate length of time to take, as most commercial sites are down for a couple of hours at the most.
I've emailed a couple of times regarding the issue and then saw the link which brought me here. Very glad to see familiar names, because that's what I've missed for the last couple of days - the sense of community.
So my query is, is this it? Have our established forums disappeared, are our posts going unanswered, the history gone, or is this a transitional phase and the changes are being rolled out to the groups? I like the additional formatting options, etc, but it's a heavy price to pay for the loss of our network and as this is so important to many of us advanced warning would have been nice. Also I'm not sure when this page started but a link to it from the 'Site under maintenance' would have helped.
John, If you never look at the Community Home page you will not have been aware of the planned maintenance. We were warned.
If you go there now you will see a Q&A thread which people are invited to report problems that the Upgrade (LOL) is posing.
____________________________________________________________________
Tony
My Flickr Photostream
Thanks for the reply Teejay, fact of the matter is that I have never looked at the Community Home page - my fault entirely, I suppose I initially signed into the Newport Wetlands forum and apart from a couple of others that I've come across via posts to there '(Identify This' for example) I don't explore the full site. I did find it and the Q and A thread eventually as I thrashed around for some answers - but I still think that it would have taken very little time for the tech team to post to all forums or email registered member about the closure. I'm happy now to know that everything has been preserved.