A lot of you who read this will already know of the merger and the out come of it. To be very clear, I have nothing bad to say about Cory and I am proud that I was trusted and privileged enough to have been a moderator at PPF, however briefly. I will also point out that I am a member of Print Planet.
The intention of the merger as far as I am aware was to create the largest prepress forum under one roof. Print Planet realised they had an image problem and wanted some of the ‘life’ and ’spirit’ the old PPF had about it. A little over a week later, now I’ve had time to think about things it seems the merger isn’t happening as any one would wish.
I can’t claim to speak for members of PPF, but there is a commonality of thought amongst all those posting into a thread on the topic. For a site that wished to capture some of the ’spirit’ of PPF, the present members of PP methodically went around stamping on it and choking it from day one.
Most members were a little upset with the upheaval, it’s change after all and few people are happy with change. It came as something of a rude shock to me.
Apparently Print Planet did a great deal of research regarding the forum. If that’s true then I’m surprised they settled on one of the most dis-functional forms of a message board it’s ever been my pleasure to use. If you take away from PPF then you no longer have PPF, the very thing you wanted in the first place.
Thankfully Joe decided to do something about it and set up B4print. Joe allowed me to be a moderator and in little over a week we had managed to recruit nearly 70 members. Some of our attempts at recruitment were being stifled by PP, which is hardly surprising. Our members can be quite inventive!
Looking ahead, Joe has decided to change the host so that there is more flexibility for times ahead, this will mean more upheaval for the members, but better to do it now while relatively small.
I’m very nergged about the demise of PPF, but I’m very pleased to be involved with, and my hopes are high for B4print
