According to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, forums.omnigroup.com went online back in April of 2006. I can’t take credit for the idea; it was the brainchild of a guy named Scott. He subsequently headed down south to go work at a certain well-known fruit retailer with a Cupertino zip code. He got this community started, so the first thank you goes out to him.
The biggest thank you, though, goes out to everyone that’s posted here since then. I’ve spent a lot of time on these forums, and in that time, I’ve learned things, made friends, and met people that I’m proud to work with today. Because of these forums, our products are better, our company is stronger, and there is no hyperbole involved when I say that I’ve learned a few valuable life lessons that have made me better at my job and better as a person. All that time I spent was well worth it; I hope you feel the same.
When we selected the software that these forums are based on, it was the best package available. However, the web has come a long way since 2006. Even taking the technological advancements for granted, the idea of an internet community has evolved considerably. A lot of valuable (and sometimes painful) lessons have been learned. Running a place like this is still more art than science, but over the years a lot of progress has been made in figuring out how to foster a community that provides maximum benefit (and which minimizes harm to) the people that make it up.
Alongside the public test process for OmniFocus 2 for Mac, we’ve been testing a software package called Discourse. It’s an open-source discussion platform that is trying to bake the lessons I referred to above right into the software layer. It has more modern tools for post creation, image hosting, and editing. It gives the community tools that help to ensure that the most valuable information gets elevated and gets the most visibility. Moderators are still part of the forum community, but it also gives you more control, responsibility, and options for self-determination than the current forum software does.
There’s a lot of really smart thinking behind Discourse; the test has gone so well we’ve decided to retire this software package and to move our community over to it. At the same time, there is a crapton of valuable history and information on these forums; we don’t want that to go anywhere. These forums aren’t going to disappear, but the ability to make new accounts and to make new posts have both been shut off.
I’d like to invite everyone reading this to head over to http://discourse.omnigroup.com and set up an account there. I think you’ll find that the effort of setting up a new account is more than worth it.
The only thing better than what we accomplished here is what I think we can accomplish when we give those same group of people a much better toolset with which to express themselves to each other. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
tldr: We’re moving our forums to a new and much-improved software package. All the content here will be preserved so the information isn’t lost, but account creation and the ability to create new posts have both been disabled. Please head over to discourse.omnigroup.com and create an account there to join our community. Thanks!
The biggest thank you, though, goes out to everyone that’s posted here since then. I’ve spent a lot of time on these forums, and in that time, I’ve learned things, made friends, and met people that I’m proud to work with today. Because of these forums, our products are better, our company is stronger, and there is no hyperbole involved when I say that I’ve learned a few valuable life lessons that have made me better at my job and better as a person. All that time I spent was well worth it; I hope you feel the same.
When we selected the software that these forums are based on, it was the best package available. However, the web has come a long way since 2006. Even taking the technological advancements for granted, the idea of an internet community has evolved considerably. A lot of valuable (and sometimes painful) lessons have been learned. Running a place like this is still more art than science, but over the years a lot of progress has been made in figuring out how to foster a community that provides maximum benefit (and which minimizes harm to) the people that make it up.
Alongside the public test process for OmniFocus 2 for Mac, we’ve been testing a software package called Discourse. It’s an open-source discussion platform that is trying to bake the lessons I referred to above right into the software layer. It has more modern tools for post creation, image hosting, and editing. It gives the community tools that help to ensure that the most valuable information gets elevated and gets the most visibility. Moderators are still part of the forum community, but it also gives you more control, responsibility, and options for self-determination than the current forum software does.
There’s a lot of really smart thinking behind Discourse; the test has gone so well we’ve decided to retire this software package and to move our community over to it. At the same time, there is a crapton of valuable history and information on these forums; we don’t want that to go anywhere. These forums aren’t going to disappear, but the ability to make new accounts and to make new posts have both been shut off.
I’d like to invite everyone reading this to head over to http://discourse.omnigroup.com and set up an account there. I think you’ll find that the effort of setting up a new account is more than worth it.
The only thing better than what we accomplished here is what I think we can accomplish when we give those same group of people a much better toolset with which to express themselves to each other. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
tldr: We’re moving our forums to a new and much-improved software package. All the content here will be preserved so the information isn’t lost, but account creation and the ability to create new posts have both been disabled. Please head over to discourse.omnigroup.com and create an account there to join our community. Thanks!