topic Betreff: This Community Forum in General chat

This Community Forum

videosoul — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:49:27 GMT

@Peter_SUK @Peter_S. I've just registered with this forum to discover that none of my rankings, profile informtion, kudos etc have been transferred over from the Sony USA based Sony Community Forum. I had a very high ranking there.

This is rather dissapointing.

I thought the whole point of the new single-sign-on was to make things like this eaier? Now I have one Sony login, but two seperate forum identities. That's a bit silly, isn't it?

Betreff: This Community Forum

IamNic — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 16:56:21 GMT

Hi @videosoul,

Sony Europe and Sony US are two different branches of the Sony company.

I assume you can't access your US-Community Account anymore, since their new platform checks for the region you are accessing the site from.

Same happended to me - read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/sony/comments/8a0p02/the_sony_us_community_seems_to_have_been_ported/

That is quite disappointing but unless Sony US gets rid of the region lock you sadly can't access the account anymore.

You are not the only one and I hope they notice that and make it possible to access the accounts from other parts of the globe soon.

- Nic

Betreff: This Community Forum

videosoul — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 18:40:57 GMT

Yeah, I know they're seperate. But this is madness.

It's particularly frustrating as I on numerous occassions gave feedback (and was invited in to give feedback) about the forum, and I always said "make it international... you have customers from around the world wanting to access the same resources". They've now gone and done the exact opposite.

This is utterly infruriating.

To make it worse, the most active part (based on post count) of the previous US Sony Community Forum was the Digital Cinema Camera section (FS7, F5, F55)... and it seems like ALL of those posts have vanished with this refresh. Thats a HUGE wealth of regularly accessed information which is now gone.

Betreff: This Community Forum

IamNic — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 18:46:31 GMT

Hi @videosoul,

I still hope that most of the posts are just stuck in limbo and will re-appear after a few days/weeks.

Other "hot-topics" have vanished as well, so I think it is not too far fetched, that these posts are not actually gone.

Additionally I try to get in contact with someone in charge to stop the region-check so you (and everyone else affected) can access their accounts again.

- Nic

Betreff: This Community Forum

videosoul — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 18:48:57 GMT

Let's hope so!

I will be contacting someone about this too.

It seems daft that I can login to all the other sections of the Sony sites with one username and password, but suddenly have two forum accounts (one of which I can't access)!

This really is so silly... the same conversations will end up happening in two places. If a user has some important information to share they will need to post it twice to ensure it is seen!

Betreff: This Community Forum

PaulReam — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 22:40:47 GMT

I'm in the same position... after all the time and effort I put into trying to help the community, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to loose all that knowledge we collectively gained.

Re: This Community Forum

PaulReam — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:20:25 GMT

I can only presume that Sony don't want European customers to talk to US customers... maybe the huge difference in the way support and service is applied was causing them problems? Killing the professional community like this can't be an accident.

Re: This Community Forum

IamNic — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:48:56 GMT

Hi @PaulReam,

from my experience the moderators at the US Sony Community never wanted any type of discussion.

Many times they locked posts which were created for such a purpose.

The reason for that is simple - the US community is not a community like the European Sony Communities are, yet plain support forums.

They want you to ask a question - get your answer and then be done with it.

That also explains why they don't want anyone from outside the US/Canada/Asia Pacific and Latin America to post on their forums:

They want to keep the post volume low/lower to take off some pressure of their support agents.

That is a very, very bad decision in my eyes.

Also something went wrong when porting their community to the new platform, since the URLs of the old posts don't match the same posts on the new platform.

Not only do Google search results lead to the "force.com" error-page, but also the links people put in posts on other forums or in their YouTube videos description.

That is a major **** ** if you ask me, since so much information is now lost or inaccessable.

My only hope is, that this is just temporarily and not permanent, since this would be a disaster beyond all expectations.

- Nic

Betreff: This Community Forum

Peter_S. — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:56:09 GMT

Hi videosoul,

Sorry for my late reply.

I understand your frustration but unfortunately there's not much we can do.

Since both communities were never connected in the past there have been two completely separate set-ups and databases that unfortunately cannot be combined.

Sorry for the bad news

Cheers

Peter

Betreff: This Community Forum

videosoul — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:41:00 GMT

Hi @Peter_S.,

Thank you for your reply. However I feel yu've partially misunderstood.

Our issue isn't so much to do with combining the two forums, it is as follows:

1. We (Europeans) are now locked out of the USA forum. As such, we have no way of airing our concerns to their team. That is why we are now here.

2. All the previous professional broadcast/digital cinema conversations (a very large wealth of fantastic information) have apparently been totally removed.

3. The fact that each region has it's own forum is nonsense: it means conversations get duplicated and users from one region (community) cannot engage and help users in another region (community). It seems crazy to call a digital platform a community if is region locked: by definition the internet (world wide wibe) is international. As is the Sony user base.

An example: say I have a serios issue with my Sony camera in the UK, i might look to this forum for help. However, I don't find the help I am looking for, because no one else in the Europe has experienced this issue. However, in the USA, lots of people have had the issue, and have been sharing solutons with the exact same camera. Becasue I am locked out of the USA forum I am excluded from finding the help I need.

Do you understand why that doesn't make any sense from a customer perspective?

4. It's clear that this forum and the new USA one are very consumer product focused. What concerns us, is that with the launch of the new "pro.sony" website, there seems to be no "professional" community area anymore. Fine - we all chat on Facebook etc anyway... but what about the many years worth of valuable content that has no been lost?

@PaulReam do they not realise we all chat on Facebook too anyway?

Re: This Community Forum

videosoul — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:43:07 GMT

@IamNic the reason those links don't work is because, it appears, the new USA forum doesn't have a professional products section at all. All those forum posts from the "large sensor camera" etc sections are gone entirely.

Re: This Community Forum

IamNic — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:49:05 GMT

Hi @videosoul,

it doesn't just affect threads from one particular section, yet all posts:

Example 1 (linked to me from a user on Reddit) - MDR 1000X Headband-cracking thread: https://community.sony.com/t5/Webcast-Discussion/MDR-1000X-Headband-Cracks/td-p/619760/page/13

Example 2 (Google search result) - Post of a user asking when the next Action Cam will be released: https://community.sony.com/t5/Action-Cam/Buy-now-or-wait-for-next-version-FDR-X3000/td-p/669281

The issue is far bigger than you think - as I said - every link on another forum which leads to the Sony US community is now broken, same goes for forum threads linked in YouTube/Vimeo video descriptions or comments last but not leas - EVERY GOOGLE SEARCH RESULT IS BROKEN.

- Nic

Re: This Community Forum

videosoul — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:54:12 GMT

Oh. That IS messy!!

Re: This Community Forum

IamNic — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 14:19:43 GMT

Hi @videosoul,

@videosoul schrieb:
Oh. That IS messy!!

think about it - you do a Google search - find the thread with your exact problem and it is also "Solved" - meaning there is a solution just one click away.

Then you click and BOOM - just the error page appears.

That is the WORST that can happen to a forum designed to solve issues.

- Nic

Re: This Community Forum

JPSendall — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 02:28:51 GMT

If this is a conscious effort then Sony execs are like King Canute. Doubt any of them will understand that reference.

People will find a way to talk to each other so Facebook becomes a prime source of info, info that Sony will not be able to deal with. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, you've taken both legs off with regards to the pro community, and all just when you release what looks like to me one of the finest digital cinema cameras to come out since the F65, the Venice!

Sony, be nice and play ball.

Thanks

Jonathon Sendall

London

Re: This Community Forum

IamNic — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:46:18 GMT

Hi @JPSendall,

while we don't offer pro support here, I could ask @Peter_S. if he could create a Pro-Camera sub-forum for discussions here.

Would that be sufficient?

- Nic

Re: This Community Forum

videosoul — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:11:12 GMT

Hi @IamNic and @Peter_S.,

Personally I think that would not be a good idea, and would not be sufficient.

The reason for this is because these forums are region locked. I cannot log-in to the US equivalent, and thus I assume a customer in the USA/Canada/South America/Asia-Pacific/Australia wouldn't be able to log into this one, were it to be created.

This creates fragmentation of both the information, and the user base.

The major benefit of the previous (US hosted) professional products forum, and the reason it was very popular, is because it was international: anyone anywhere in the world could access it, contribute to it, and reap the benefits of it.

If Sony really want to help maintain an online community for their professional user base, there is, as far as I can see, only one solution. Leave these forums (and their counter-parts in other regions) just for consumer products. Instead make a new, separate forum on the new pro.sony website. Port all out old posts to it, and make it region free: for all users around the world to freely access.

The worst outcome would be to create one forum in one region, and a separate one for another region, thus totally fragmenting the resource, scattering information, and forcing separation of users who are used to interacting cross-region.

Re: This Community Forum

IamNic — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:23:01 GMT

Hi @videosoul

@videosoul schrieb:

The reason for this is because these forums are region locked.

This one is not region locked.

@videosoul schrieb:

anyone anywhere in the world could access it, contribute to it, and reap the benefits of it.

Same would be the case here.

@videosoul schrieb:

Instead make a new, separate forum on the new pro.sony website. Port all out old posts to it, and make it region free: for all users around the world to freely access.

I could check back with Peter, yet I don't think this will happen. Peter is "only" in charge of this Community platform (for all the countries found here: https://community.sony-europe.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/CountrySelector ).

In my opinion it would be best to have it as a sub-categorie in the UK-forums "Cameras" section.

You though would need to port the information from old discussions manually in some way, since - as Peter said - the US community forums and the EU community forums are not interlinked in any way which makes an automated transfer technically impossible.

- Nic

Betreff: This Community Forum

Dr_Chris — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:34:45 GMT

The irony is that although I am actually on the leaderboard of all the other Sony communities (US, Canada and Asia Pacific), I cannot log into any of them due to my European location. And to top it all, I cannot even log into my original acount in this, European Sony community! Hopefully a solution will be found soon.

Regards,

(the original) Dr_Chris

Betreff: This Community Forum

IamNic — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 15:23:49 GMT

Hello @Dr_Chris,

I lost my account in the US-community as well. I was on top of multiple boards back then.

- Nic