AB was a site set up as nothing but a Q&A site. Not a socializing site that had a question and answer format. We were allowed to socialize in it, but it was not the primary purpose. To compare that to fluther, each question a person asked, the replies were broken down into answers and comments to the answers. Each answer was separated from the others, and comments to each answer were in a collapsible thread after them (with each answer getting it’s own comment thread). When an asker got an answer, they had an orange button ‘light up’ that said they had an answer. If they replied to the answer, they could then also have an orange button if someone else commented in that specific answer’s thread.
The separating of individual answers with their own comment threads made it difficult, if not impossible to ‘derail’ the topic. And made for easier modding, as you could ‘permallink’ to a specific answer, and ask for a mod to look at the comment thread to it.
We also, as users, could award ‘points’ to an answer, or give ‘downrates’ as well, depending on how many points you had been given over your time on AB, the amount you could give varied, from 1 up to 6 positive for answers, and 1 to 5 positive for questions or negative for anything. These points decided the ranking of the answers, if you chose to sort that way, with the most popular answers at the top, and listed in a descending order. They also had ‘leaderboards’ based on how many points you were given in a daily, weekly, and lifetime basis.
Another thing we had was the ability to change our avatar at will, our username at will, even change our username to anonymous. We also could search with keywords, for specific questions. Or go to a person’s profile and surf their questions, answers, and comments – including doing so to our friends, by clicking the link in our profile to theirs. Our friends list was alphabetized. We also had the ability to ‘watch’ and see what q&a’s our friends did.
When AB did their makover, they changed it to be more like Facebook. It is now a ‘beta’ test version, with no choice as to whether we use it or not. It looks like a cookie cutter website, has more ads, and has generally changed into a completely new website. It is still called AB, still has questions and answers, but they made such sweeping changes, with no input from users, in an attempt to get more advertisers and more business, that it became absolutely unfriendly for most of the older users.
It also was not, by any stretch of the imagination, tested before use. There were many glitches (no formatting, no paragraphing, users unable to do things). And, rather than do small changes, a few at a time, and let established users get used to them, before implementing more, they pretty much wiped the site and started over. That is why most of us left.
AB is fixing a lot of the issues, but it is not going to be the site it was. And the fact that so much was done without any input, just dumping it on it’s users, is what turned so many into running. And many are still running.
I would, as an old AB’er, like to apologize to Fluther for the idiots that inundated this site, demanding change from you. And for the ones that came in, thinking they could do their old tricks here, like they did there. Many of us are not like that. All I can say is, make it uncomfortable for the dingbats, and they will eventually give up. And the rest of us, the adults, will do our best to integrate to your site, without demanding you change to suit us.
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