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Hi folks, I'm one of the guys working on the new website. Sorry you don't like it. A major problem is the bug with Internet Explorer which just popped up late in development and we are fighting to fix it ASAP. This messes up navigation to the forums and other resources, so it's a big deal and I am very embarrassed. We'll switch back to to the old site if we don't get it fixed. You can still use the old site at this address:
http://www.aws.org/w/s/You don't have to register for the new site. It's optional, if you want to customize the home page to your own interests, but there is no requirement. (If you could customize it without registering, we would do that, but the server has to recognize you to remember your preferences.)
Nobody wants to shove anything down your throat. The old site had fallen down below Hobart, EWI, and welding.com on Google, and now we are on top in just a few days. We are just trying to bring more people into our fold, and also there are a lot of great news stories about what welders are doing in their communities and what is happening in welding technology. We do offer a huge amount of fresh news and articles (thousands) that were never available before, anywhere.
Let me know what you liked so much about the old website, please! This new one is a work in progress, and we have built a technological infrastructure that will just get better (and prettier) in the future. We will always have a link on the home page to the hottest forum topic of the day, which we never had before. And forum threads of interest to particular welding specialists will be put into the news items for people who have expressed those preferences.
So we now have a customizable website that can be relevant to the very diverse world of welders. Some who work in plants, some who work in construction, students, engineers, inspectors, sales people, etc. etc. We need to be all things to all people, and this customizable technology is the foundation for that.
So suggestions are invited. That's what this forum is all about. Speaking of the forum, we are upgrading soon to allow direct posting of pictures within the forum. Also, we are unifying the forum registration with the website registration (one login). This is hard, but we need to do it. Also, we are trying to put a window on the home page that shows the most recent forum postings. This will build more forum traffic and liven things up even more. There will be bugs, but I'm sure I'll hear about them right away.
Remember how messed up this forum was a year ago? Give it a month, guys!
Thanks for your comments. Keep 'em coming!
Ross
AWS Marketing