Was: Avid Community Forums Now : Many Thanks to Sylvain

["Gus" <gus(at)chainsawedit.com>]

Title: Avid Community Forums

Sylvain,

 

First off, I want to say thank you or the years of service you have put in maintaining this list.  There were many challenges but you were able to hold it all together, sometimes through nothing more than the sheer will to do it.  No one should be coming down on you for this.  That is simply shooting the messenger, and it’s not right.

 

As far as the forums go, it is also a great new resource, though less traveled.  I shudder to think what I would do with my daily DS List.  But to borrow from Avid’s sales’ philosophy, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.  They both have their place.

 

One thing with the whole concept of exchanging ideas and workflows between products on the forums, we have been trying to do that for years, only to see our years of trying to help move DS into the mainstream rewarded by Avid ignoring us and releasing Symphony NItris.  By sending DS into the RGB/Hi-res Film world (where Avid has a zero percent success ratio), they have done the equivalent of pointing a once proud race horse towards the edge of a tall cliff, tossing a carrot over the edge and giving the horse a firm smack on the a$$.

 

Many MC/Symphony users have never bothered to even learn DS, they just scream “The interface! They interface!”.  And Avid listens to them. Many DS users also work on or came from MC/Symphony backgrounds and therefore have more to offer than they stand to receive from the often myopic and one-sided views presented on much of the Forum.  But that’s OK.  That’s what it’s for.  There are valid points amongst the rubbish.

 

The DS List was a pure, unrefined (in many more ways than one) group of professionals whose skills and system of choice are often met with dismissal and lack of understanding of the complexities we deal with everyday.

 

We’re outcasts from the Avid mainstream.  And I think many of us like it that way.

 

Once again, thank you for all you’ve done up to this point, and in advance for the great stuff that’s coming.

 

-Gus

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Sylvain Labrosse
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 6:10 AM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Avid Community Forums

 

Hello,

I waited for the dust to come down a bit before posting.

The intention was to regroup all the wonderful knowledge into a single place so all great minds could help newcomers with their excellent advices.  The forum did not have much activity for Avid DS and there are numerous other forums where the DS community could pick great information and even exchange workflows and tips.

The forum is also a place where users can provide their suggestions and feedback about the product.  It is totally acceptable to even post complaints about what is missing or not working.

I research the e-mail question with the forum web developers and they provided me this answer:

You can subscribe to one or all forums and receive the posts in your mailbox:
Log in to the Community Forums.
Click the forum you want.
Scroll down and click the "Options" button.
In the bottom pulldown ("Send e-mail"), select the option you want;
        never
        when new topics are posted in this forum (new threads)
        when new posts are posted in this forum (new posts) Click "Remember!"
To reply to a post, though, the member would have to click on the link they receive in their e-mail to return to the forums - you can't reply via e-mail.

It is not like a mailing-list but this an option for users who wish to lurk and read the discussions, maybe even participate.

I feel that going away to a separate mailing-list is like isolating yourself from the Avid community instead of joining in with the entire group, exchanging ideas and workflows between products, and helping building the next generation of products by providing suggestions or pointing out the current flaws.

I understand the overall reaction.  Being at Softimage since 1992 and living through two major acquisitions (Microsoft in 1994 and Avid in 1998), I know how upsetting things can be, or appear to be, at first.  Can I ask people to re-evaluate it all, when the emotion is taken out of the equation?  Maybe not today, not next week, just when you feel ready?

Having a separate mailing-list is fine if that is everybody's decision.

The Avid Community Forums welcome anyone who wants to join.

Sylvain Labrosse
Avid DS Support
Escalation team
http://www.softimage.com/avidds
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