Ok - ok ok ok!
I was up on the rooftop, I was standing on the edge, I admit it! I was gonna jump, couldn't take it anymore! Why why why does Ning release a design studio with a two column layout and NOT style the content appropriately? This exceeded my capacity to react in a calm manner.
But as I came to my senses and went back down and resumed the banging my head against my office desk - wearing my helmet (learned throughout the years that it hurts too much if I don't) - my mouse must have moved at random and I must have hit it with my helmet-head cause suddenly I was back on the Dashboard ...and I noticed one small menu item: "Ning labs".
What was this??? Ning labs? I vaguely remember going there in a blind haze for something, but what? So I clicked.
What greeted me was a bucket of ice cold water in my face. I'm not kidding, it came out through my Mac (it's a new feature of Lion that I'm beta testing, have to say it's not bad!).
There I saw Design Studio turned on, by myself of course, in the list of beta features Ning is currently ...eehhhh beta testing?
Beta testing?
Beta testing??
BETA TESTING ????
...but doesn't that mean that it's like, ...not finished yet? As in not complete? And doesn't it mean that Ning never said it was ...complete? In fact was it not me who volunteered as a lab rat ...in the Ning lab?
In fact this Ning Labs philosophy is a brilliant move by Ning and I support it 100%. It uses us as the testers before the final launch and we have an opportunity to give feedback AND (!!) most importantly ...not participate at all. Somehow I had forgotten all about the Design Studio being a beta program. Perhaps Ning can use this information to stamp all "announcements" here on Creators with big letters in red: BETA !
Now where is that knife so I can cut off my left pinky to save my honor?
I think I seriously need to chill, how about you?
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But isn't this exactly why the Ning labs is the right way to do it, so you do have the choice to choose to participate or not?
My whole mood changed from steam coming out of my ears, to mellow kinda "oh look, spring is coming soon" kinda mood, as soon as I realized I was upset over a beta.
...now, why the chat is still in beta several years down the line, and not even listed in the Ning labs is another matter entirely, but I don't want to spoil my new calm self .... ahhhh yes, never noticed the birds before ...
:)
Which again, is why it's such a great idea on Nings part to release new stuff through a Ning lab beta pipeline, so you get to choose if you want to participate in the beta or not. Participating of course means letting them know about EVERY single problem you can find.
But it also means removing my helmet and start chillin' while the beta get's developed into a full working release.
Yeah, I have suggested to Ning that their "Known issues" page get's user interaction so we the NC community can comment AND vote for the best hack for known problems while Ning works it out.
Their open Roadmap and Known issues page is a HUGE step in the right direction. User interaction would really benefit them in a big way. And how about a parallel user roadmap page where NCs could suggest AND vote on new features for the road map. That way Ning would have a built in survey on what will most NCs the most happy.
I'm off the knife idea, realized how difficult it would be to play my guitar .... or common sense prevailed, there IS always that [distant] chance ;)
This post made me LOL. Yes, some 'chilling' is on order.
I haven't bothered to test it because I just recently redid my layout. There's not way that I'm going to redo it again and so soon just because I have more options. I think I'll take a break. Plus, I'm finally allowing members to edit their layouts after nearly two years, so I don't want to snatch that away from them.