FWIW, there *is* a news item about the restrictions on the site's main page ( http://www.bookcrossing.com/newscontent/378 ), so people can see it without forum access. It's true that this happened without warning, but that's because the site was suffering increasing timeouts on essential operations such as book-registration and journaling, and as a short-term way of making more site resources available to those features the forum-limitation was imposed. (I believe that Ron's been out of town and thus can't do much beyond a few remote-access tweaks to the site, which probably explains why there hasn't been more of a response yet.)
Re newbies and the forums: while it would be a shame if new members were put off of the site because of the forum limitation, I suspect that the vast majority of new BCers don't even know that there *are* forums; most of them find a book and journal it, and sometimes decide to register a few books of their own, without ever going any deeper into the site... And if someone found a book and came to the site and got a timeout message trying to journal the book, I think that'd be more likely to put them off of BC than not being able to see the forums. So, for the time being, I think it's a valid tradeoff - but of course I hope that the site's performance can be improved and the forum-restriction lifted as soon as possible! -GoryDetails Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at: http://bookcrossing.com/friend/GoryDetails --- In [email protected], Jen in NE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The worst part is that this happened totally out of > the blue, without any warning. In the past we've at > least gotten a heads up. Not even a mention of the > forums being down on the homepage or even a little > hint of an estimation of when it'll be restored. > > BC needs to work on notification and user awareness > skills. Im glad Im not a newbie just finding BC now > and walk into this mess, I am guessing at least 90% of > newbies who find the site today, then realize they > can't get in the forums, won't come back. Have you told a friend today? http://bookcrossing.com/tellafriend Archives and email list settings: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossing/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
