I was emailed a solidworks user survey.
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There were only 2 places where I could offer my input.
Here are the verbatim notes I typed in…
The 3D SWYM forum is a Great Disappointment.
I have totally disengaged with the SolidWorks web presence as the interface is the most horrible GUI I have encountered.
I genuinely miss the old Forum and the daily interactions I had with it.
The value of SolidWorks is diminished appreciably because I can’t get near instant answers to my frustrating questions concerning SolidWorks the I was able to get in the old Forum.
Please bring back the Forum in the form that it was.
Thank you.
2) The old Forum brought additional value to my business in many ways.
Loosing the Forum, as it was, has hurt us in that we can’t get the diversity or answers for our questions.
Using a VAR may yield an answer. It may not be the best answer. The Forum gave many power users, from many disciplines, the opportunity to apply their personal experience that gave us a diverse set of possibilities to solve any possible question or situation.
We improved as designers, engineers, and/or SolidWorks users directly because of the old Forum.
Please, bring the old Forum back to the user base.
The forum grew to be such a valuable resource! It was a foregone conclusion that everyone understood how important it was. Well, apparently not everyone understood that.
Enter the “new forum” and its total lack of usability. The overwhelming frustration with the new forum reveals just how fundamentally important a good forum is. Thus, it should be the Zero in the chant, because it is even more fundamental than One and Two. (Yes, this is totally inspired by the gobsmack I encountered when I learned about the Zeroeth Law of Thermodynamics. Since it came after the establishment of the first three laws, but was determined to be more fundamental they had to call it the zeroeth law.)
I have been given a peek behind the curtain. There are some things that they can do with the new platform that will be great to have. HOWEVER, we are pounding on them to implement the changes they are developing in order to improve the forum section. I cannot spend more than a minute or two on there the way it is now. I keep busting their chops to show us some improvement and give us a reason to keep giving them a chance. They are working on it, but none of it is real until it gets implemented.
Hey RickB
Congratulations! an excellent manifesto. The forum was an incomparably large resource compared to VARs. They ignored the people whose ideas they took advantage of over the years. I hope an update will come to the management staff and everything will be back.
The Frankish king [Dassault] defends Rome [SWX userbase] from the Lombard attack. But if the plebeians of Rome [userbase] join forces with the Lombards, the Franks lose their empire.
Your explanation leaves me just as confused as your original statement. (I’m not a student of history. I can’t even tell you what era you are referring to.)
Well that was the whole point… There was just too much coincidence to pass up.
SPerman, the time frame was about fourth or fifth century A.D. The Roman Empire was beginning to crumble in the west and the Lombards saw an opportunity. They swept into Rome and planned to take it over but Pepin the Short, the Frankish king from the north, saved the city. (matt, don’t feel bad…my ancestors were involved later; the Celtic barbarians from Germany, Gaul, and Czechia )
The whole point of the reference was that the “Frankish” company Dassault sees Matt as a threat and tries to “save” us. The problem is, we don’t want saving! Now I feel bad, because you should never have to explain a joke.
)
