I used to champion these forums. Now I don't give a gnat's...

Question

I was a contributor, a corrector, a clarifier.
I'd write 1,500 words explaining every possible angle on the simplest of topics, sometimes revealing tricks to people who have far more experience with Photoshop than I do. I exercised painstaking detail in choosing the proper terminology and phrasing when answering questions, and I'd test everything to make sure what I posted was correct. I was an obsessive re-editor of my posts if I noticed the wording was wrong, or didn't flow well. I'd craft screen shot composites so clean you couldn't tell they weren't monitor images that could occur natively. I added arrows, and numbering, and translucent, colored-box paragraph backgrounds for descriptors, colors chosen for the best clarity I could muster. I'd bodge together difficult GIF animations and QT Movies if it would help a user understand a concept more completely.
I was a defender, a protector, an evangelist.
I took it personally when newbies and spammers would come in and muck the place up. I was sometimes brusque, other times gentle in trying to bring people into line with how to get the most out of their time here. I beat up on troublemakers ruthlessly, and without remorse.
I brought the "How to Get Help Quickly" mantra to this forum after reading it elsewhere, because it was the best exposition I'd ever seen on the subject of efficient information exchange.
I'd take the time to help troubleshoot forum problems.
Now, I don't give a crap about what happens to this place. I'd been hoping for the best, as I had during past attempts at major forum changes.
It's clear to me now that the planning, preparation, roll-out and fine tuning has been doomed from the start.
Every single person involved in ramming this new system through is to blame.
And I'm only one person. I'd guess there are hundreds of people who feel the same way I do.
Too bad, Adobe. You totally and completely screwed up.
I'll still visit once in awhile, because there are people here that I like.
But as for all that content I was giving away for free—and happily, I might add—and all the cheerleading I did for this place?
You can shove all that right up that gnat's arse and then go sit on your own thumbs and spin.
It feels to me like you are intentionally doing almost everything in your power to discourage the type of participation I used to revel in. From slow bug fixes and promises unkept (EFF you very much, Jive–shysters) to the mere trickle of ongoing feedback and update info offhandedly tossed to us, Adobe have become slumlords, slapping paint on a building that fails to meet standard-of-living code. Sure, there are some decent new features, but they either don't work, work only part of the time, are cumbersome, and generally regarded as so slow as to inhibit any sort of lively momentum.
I'd be ashamed and embarrassed to be the captain of this rotting ship. As a fully vested, ranking mate on this vessel, I hereby resign my commission.
You don't deserve my help anymore.

Answer 1

Phos, although I am answering your opening message, I'm not really addressing this message to you, but to everyone.
Almost exactly a month ago, I accepted the first important job I have been offered in more that two years. I did although it had a 30 days deadline and I knew it was very difficult, if not impossible, to complete it in that time. Well, I did manage to finish it not long ago, and one of the first things I did was to come back to my once beloved forums, full of hope of being met with some important changes introduced in these 30 days.
I am sorry to say that, so far, I have noticed only these two changes:
1. The "Report spam..." link in the stickies now points to the correct thread, not to a locked one, something I had been asking for weeks before this 30 days interlude; and
2. The problem for which I offered a suggestion in this post
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1968406#1968406
and which had received a very good solution as I reported two days later, is back here. Plus, the "Next" button doesn't work (I don't remember if it worked before the change that was reverted).
As this forum is full of so many easy to fix complaints, seeing only these two changes in 30 days -one of which can hardly be called an improvement- was really very discouraging. However, what really got me down was reading the opening post of this thread.
Those who haven't followed Phos' trajectory in these forums may think that he is making false pretences, or at least exagerating, about his contributions to these forums. I am one of those who can testify that he is doing neither.
To make it short: over these so many years trying to give whatever modest help I'm capable of in the Acrobat and Reader forums, I lost count of the times I asked Phos, somewhat jokingly, to please leave the easy questions for me to answer. Each time I saw a just published easy one, I rushed to try to answer it, only to find he had done a much better job than my attempt, and had replied a several other more recent questions in the meantime. He showed an infinite patience to answer the same questions over and over again, which I admired because I don't have it and just refered the questioner to the appropriate FAQ instead -when I did manage to post before he did.
And he did everything else he writes in his OP, never boasting about what he did and accomplished. That's why I am sorry he had to do it now, I imagine that in an attempt to put some weight to his words. Not for us, of course, but for those responsible for this unbelievably large fiasco they have so stubbornly refused to acknowledge. And we used to call a fiasco the previous one, which was nothing compared with this mess, and which was rectified!
I am afraid that I am feeling my age, and so I'm finding that the enormous effort that too many very capable users have being putting in suggestions to improve these new forums, since the last "little fiasco" until now, to be such an gigantic waste, that I also don't feel like continuing. Had I not had this 30 days interlude with no noticeable changes, I would probably have continued by inertia for much longer, hopefully waiting for the improvements that never come, but this has opened my eyes. However, just logging in, or moving from one forum to another, is so excruciatingly slow that I find I simply do not have enough time to waste in just waiting for things to happen.
I will miss the group spirit of the old forums, and the many persons I got to know and like and care for, although knowing that I would never meet them. But then, I am missing more of them everyday and, after all, such is life.
Just a final thought. It is most probably true that JC has spent this week in the moutains. I would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I would say his presence has hardly been noticed, if at all, for quite a lot longer than a week. Another one of those many not at all encouraging signs.