Young grasshopper, patience.

Rolling out a whole new site is a lot more difficult than it looks. But things appear to be improving on daily basis.

The reason for 'invitation' profiles is for quality control. You let in a number of people that will actually put in good effort. If you swing open the doors from the start, you will be flooded with fake profiles selling you dildos. Most of us don't want that.

Answers to your other questions should be obvious to a keen eye.

Other than that, WHERE'S THE DAMN SALARY POLL SECTION ARCHINECT?? It's how I discovered this site back in '04 (but didn't bother participating in until my kitty Le Copurrrrsier died).

Thanks for your reply rusty!

I understand that roll out can be grueling.

Your explanation of profile limitations is thin (are you admin?)

I wish it had been made clear that certain functions featured prominently on the site were beta versions. Giving a time frame for roll-out would help, too.

(Managing expectations and all.)

Anyhow, if the functionality is available for one profile, it is there for any number of  profiles. (Really, it seems the limiting factor would be bandwidth / server space.)

And certainly, the current exclusivity (as presently described) only serves to make the profile seem like an elite privilege bestowed at the discretion of management...Not what I would consider to be building a sense of inclusive community.

And obviously, it doesn't take a profile, but only a username to post inappropriate comments.

(An ignore function is necessary to achieve individual control.) A sysadmin / moderator should be available to review flagged content for removal

The Editorial & News section looks sharp and professional. The content reads well.

It seems the other features are being bootstrapped into existence, which is fine. Management should make this clear. Also, I would take the operation more seriously if the contact email address were to be migrated to the archinect domain name...G-mail?!!

(Obviously, my comments are really directed to the attention of creators of the site, and my intention is not to be contentious.)

Thanks again for your response.

AR

POP!

POP? Is your printer out of paper?

I'm no admin. Quite the opposite of that. In fact, I need constant babysitting from admins and other users when I post.

I hear ya on all your observations! Things will eventually get to the point where it all makes perfect sense. 'Bootstrapping' features to a project is something most architects are familiar with. Project creep is exactly what it is. 

Outside of Steve Jobs style secrecy when it comes to announcing new features (all the cool kids are doin' it), things are looking up for this site. Admins are paying close attention.

It will take time because, even though I'm sure this is a profitable operation, this is still a modest undertaking. Until it gets bought out by AOL chat!

Yaay!

Still waiting...

....funny!

Archrichard - there's no record of your account applying for a profile.

I have to agree with just about everything that Archrichard has said.  Limiting functionality early on -- sure, makes sense.  But the handling of the current beta-state of the profile features comes across as offputtingly exclusive.  As much as I love this site, it's why I haven't applied for a profile (or as presented: submitted to evaluate my archinect-worthiness...)

I look forward to the full roll-out...  and I agree with all the compliments on the improvements over the old site.

subtect - the primary reason for the beta-phase invitation requirement is so we can continue development with a controlled amount of users. if we let everyone join in during the beta phase it would be chaos. beta-phase development is generally never open for all.

that said, we are VERY close to the launch of 3.1, which will include the opening of profiles and other new features. matter of days.