Post your tech glitches, errors, issues, etc. here.

I'm making my Monday post late this Sunday night instead so I can free up my time tomorrow.

The My Threads link still doesn't work for me. Still defaults to the Our site is down page.

Most pages I frequent on this forum take about 14 seconds to load. It's tedious.
In comparison, other website I visit average 2 seconds or less load time. With threads here now pared down to 10 per page, it takes seemingly forever to scroll through the Active Topics pages and other sections. After awhile it gets to frustrating.

I must sign in every single time I visit the forum. No little box to check to keep me signed in. Instead of jumping right in to reading threads, it takes about 20 seconds to get started. I do not have that on other websites.

Due to the 10 threads per page change, now the Stage IV only section has 9 pinned threads and only one member generated thread on its opening page. More recently, while the old forum was still running, I had contacted Moderators about the over-numerous pinned topics on the stage iv section. They said they were actually in the process of clearing out some of the pinned material, which they did. But now it's right back to how it was before.

I do not see anyone's location under their Avatar, including mine which used to say OHIO in all caps. Knowing where members are from, when they chose to share that piece of info, is so very beneficial to me in many ways. Without it, the forum feels impersonal and disorienting.

I didn't know the muted colors and white space of the new look was considered a plus. Is that supposed to have a calming effect on us women with breast cancer? It's a dreary look.

sarahmaude, I appreciate your post. I don't feel that my experience is seen as having much value around here anymore, so thank you for your kind words towards members like me. I do not feel nearly as engaged with this forum as I once was. Sadness fall upon me when I stop to think about it. It's a bit of a free fall. I do not know what the future holds.

I am still hoping someone smarter than me will set up a forum on proboards.

I am emailing with a. ouple of people on here since it started and it helps to stay in touch

Couldn't see a log in button, but the box is here, so I'll try this and be sure to copy. Lost too many posts already.

I just want to thank Beesie and others, too numerous to mention (you know who you are), for continuing to express the details of just how awful this is. It's not easy to get on here and do that these days. I totally agree with the notion that BCO does not value the discussion board and its members much. This looks like nothing more than a counting clicks and numbers game for donations for BCO. I think the participants are just a sort of necessary evil they have to put up with to get those clicks and donations. I'm keeping my clicks to a minimum.

I'm visiting the site very rarely, and have not posted in a long time, as it is just way too frustrating. I do not understand why BCO seems so focused on their "articles" and other info on here to the detriment of the discussion board. If they think that is why people come to this site, they are badly mistaken. I really couldn't care less about the articles, etc. Like Beesie has noted many times, all of that kind of info is out there and very prevalent on the internet - and much more substantial and detailed on other sites. Until now there had been no discussion board that was this helpful.

I get this weird sense that BOC wants to "manage" our individual cancer experiences for some reason, I don't come here to have info tailored to my stats or to look at other parts of the site. I don't need anyone other than my medical people to "manage" my situation. I come here for the comradery and support that I get from the others here.

I've said before that I had been reluctant to post my stats in the past for various reasons, but I'd actually never thought of security and the fact that these stats can apparently get all screwed up in the system, as one of my reasons. Now I am certain that I will never post my stats, after seeing what has been done to the info that other members have posted; some carefully crafted over many years. I also now see a huge security problem with posting on BCO, something I hadn't really thought much about before, as I had assumed that this was a sophisticated and credible organization.

Alice Bastable: Loved your "architecturing" and "cancering" comment - very apropos and funny!

Mods, your post is lovely, but...

When you say "we are committed to fixing the boards" you are yet again referring to the IT problems on the discussion board, and failing to acknowledge any of the much larger concerns that have been raised about the redesign.

When you say "We're so sorry for your frustration during this process, which has taken longer than expected." you appear to be referring only to the IT process to get the board back to basic functionality; you are not mentioning the 4 years of work that got BCO to this (terrible) place, nor are you mentioning the longer-term project that involves "Completely redesigning and re-platforming the discussion boards" (as per Hope Wohl's blurb at the front of the discussion board). If this is the result of 4 years of work, the future, with a complete discussion board redesign, is truly scary.

When you say "Thank you to our dedicated members who have helped us identify glitches and who continue to come here to connect and share." you are quite consciously identifying and thanking only those members who have been sticking to comments about glitches and who choose to continue to post, despite the struggles with the discussion board. As for the rest of us, those who've been raising concerns about the overall site redesign and the direction that BCO is going, and who are leaving in frustration, well, my guess is that you'd rather see us leave quietly.

I have no expectation that BCO will acknowledge in any way that perhaps the redesign is not appealing to current membership. I do not expect any changes in basic design elements. Those disturbing ugly creepy blob graphics have been promoted as being "inclusive", so they probably aren't going anywhere. The Fast Company article states that "The white space, coupled with type spacing, is designed to be legible—which is especially important for the aging population and people in chemo who can experience vision problems during treatment." so we can't expect that to change. I have no expectation that BCO will in any way change or evenly slightly moderate their direction of wanting to 'manage our individual cancer experiences' (excellent description, ThreeTree), not after 4 years of work and all that PR and with all the outside parties involved in this work.

What I wish is that BCO would be honest and address this with this group. Don't you owe your "dedicated members" at least that? Too many people still think that their bigger complaints, those beyond the basic IT issues, are being listened to and will be addressed. But few if any will be ever addressed, isn't that right? Why not just admit that? The goal is to return the board to basic IT functionality; as for the rest, it is what it is. An clear and honest explanation of what dedicated discussion board members can expect moving forward is long overdue.

@Beesie.

Thanks, Beesie, for your insights into the bigger picture beyond the tech problems. I did a little site navigation and discovered this annual "Impact" brochure BCO apparently provides to their big donors. Some of the stats are insightful on how low these discussion boards are in BCO priorities, and I noticed some names are on board lists and donor lists. Breastcancer.org 2020 Annual Report - Google Slides I had to chuckle though when the slideshow had a glitch too and I had to bypass and wait there also!! The stats in the impact report lists the number of hours we spend on the boards, so it looks like all our wasted time waiting for posts to load will be a plus!!! LOL!

We need to see accountability from the board and BCO leadership.

Many years ago, when I was first diagnosed with diabetes, the Am Diabetes Assn. had an excellent site. Boards for all the various types of diabetes. We survived a upgrade or two. But now the discussion threads are gone. The site isn’t. They are still blowing the fundraiser horn.

And that’s what I think will happen with BCO. It’s all about the almighty $$. Never mind the people who live with these diseases. Send us $$.

As for an apology or words of wisdom from top people, don’t hold your breath.

it is empty and sad here now. Hardly any posts, pages still take a long time to load. It's making me sad

HER2 status is now correct as well as surgery and chemo start dates (for now). My location has disappeared. Looks like it has happened to other, also.

Mods, BCO's lack of accountability is running off members. Strong, intelligent members. It's been 50 days now. 50 days! And it's still a mess. A friend of mine was recently diagnosed and there is no way I will refer her here. This is now the first thread I read bc I keep hoping for good news. Instead it's more problems, more frustrations listed. Just what people going through cancer Don't need in their lives. This was a safe place for us. Make it a safe place again.

yes, it's empty and sad here. Hearing about WW and the diabetes boards going away - it all makes sense now. This is what is happening here.

I feel the same. What if they are looking for a new platform (for the forums), and it will be for paying members only? I won't join. Someone newly diagnosed surely wouldn't pay to join when they don't even know what they're looking for yet. The support from forum members compliments the latest articles, research, and updates in standard of care for bc. THEY are the ones keeping it real. I hope that doesn't change but sadly I fear it may all be gone soon. Really really sad.

When I was first diagnosed in 2005, Komen had a discussion board. I joined both Komen and BCO at the same time - many of the members overlapped. Over time BCO became the more vibrant board. I don't know when Komen dissolved their board, and whether it was lack of activity that led to the board being canned, or whether it was a management decision while the board was still relatively active.

I don't think that BCO are planning to discontinue the discussion board. The problem, I think, is that BCO have alway treated the board like the poor stepchild, and they have never responded well to concerns voiced by members. This is why, even before the current redesign disaster, board usage was way down. Those who have been around for only a few years have no idea how active this board used to be. With each redesign (and I've seen a few), BCO have lost members. Added to that, over the years many long-time members have left because of how BCO have treated them. Gosh, it was probably 12 years ago that a large group of very active members left because of the policy of banning discussion board members, either temporarily or permanently, for what were minor infractions. When a longtime member who was newly diagnosed with mets was permanently banned, a group split off and started their own board. (One of the reasons for her banning was that she would not stop posting against a particular member, a husband, who was posting anti-chemo messages all around the board. His wife, also a member here, had Stage II HER2+ cancer and he would not let her take chemo, which outraged many of us. The only positive outcome of this situation was the creation of the Alternate Forum.) If I think back, I can name a lot of really wonderful members who left because they were fed up with how they were treated. So this has been going on for years, whittling away at membership and reducing the activity level.

The current situation is the perfect culmination of years of not listening to members' concerns and not valuing long-time members. It's the cherry on top. A really massively big cherry. BCO say that they are planning a full redesign of the board, and maybe it will be wonderful and bring back usage. But that's certainly not what their track record would suggest will happen. I think what might happen is that board usage will continue to decline to the point where BCO decide that it's not worth keeping the board going. We may not be far from that point even now.

Some interesting information from Charity Navigator: (2020 data)

Amount Spent on:

• Medical Content Educational Resources: $2,501,461 (67% of program expenses)
• Community Resources: $254,023 (6% of program expenses)
• Research News: $128,747 (3% of program expenses)

By comparison:

• Total Revenue: $4,800,139
• Salary of Hope Wohl: $230,746
• Salary of Marisa Weiss: $239,810

Does it look like the Community is a priority for BCO? Not to me.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, with an active, vibrant discussion board, BCO had something unique as compared to every other breast cancer website out there. Why they have decided to go in a totally different direction (trying to manage each individual's cancer experience by having members input personal & private diagnosis and treatment information - something most of us already get from our medical teams and with our hospital portals) perplexes me. Why BCO haven't focused on the Community and made that their significant point of difference, is beyond me.

With all that, it does seem like there's a good chance that the discussion board will die, the result of years of neglect and mistreatment.

Mods,

Your tech team is truly inept or truly lazy (or both) if this is what they're telling you. I have worked with enterprise software that had different templates so that users could personalize their “look and feel" and templates so that the software can have the “look and feel" of the company. I was still able to change things outside of the templates.

It is so aggravating for me to see these excuses. I have to suppress my need to troubleshoot why these glitches are happening, and that's draining me. This place used to be safe.

Hey, I was still logged on from last night! Yay!

Hey, I got to go directly to the forum! Yay!

Then I got to wait forever for the first topic I clicked to open. Same for the others. Ugh.

"...faster, with more features, and better experience for all!"

What is THAT supposed to mean? I'd have put it in bold, but I still don't have that option on my phone, which is what I always use.

Another site that killed off their forums was Beliefnet. It was such a great site, where people of all faiths and no faith could discuss anything, or members could stick to their own group, and there were several non-religious topics. All of a sudden, there was an announcement that the forums would be closing down, no explanation given. It's been years, and I still miss some of those people. I've never been back to see if they started a new one because I WAS THERE FOR THE FORUMS; I COULD GET THE OTHER INFORMATION FROM MANY OTHER DIRECT SOURCES, AND I NO LONGER TRUSTED THE PEOPLE RUNNING THAT SITE.. Hint to Mods, you might pass THAT on to the higher-ups.

They promised white space. They delivered white space. Other than that, nothing.