The thread “Recent design choices by Plex” appears to be marked so that it is drifting down the forum in spite of getting new posts and being a very lively and mostly polite discussion that allowed users to post what they thought about the direction Plex was taking. https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/216141/recent-design-choices-from-plex/p1
@MovieBuff44 said:
Just wanted to start a friendly discussion to see how the community views some of the recent design choices Plex has made over the last few months. From the new web dashboard to PMP replacing PHT and all the different mobile clients, how satisfied are your with your personal Plex experience and the design of the applications you use?
and toward the end:
@NedtheNerd said:
@Elijah_Baley said:
Has something happened to assure that it will drift down and eventually of the top pages?
It’s called control, the mod’s have done this before with other topics that are critical of Plex Inc.
They don’t want any one else to add their views, you know what they say - ’ Out of sight, out of mind.’
Regards
While this is Plex’s board and they have the right to censor as they see fit I strongly disagree with the move to suppress strong disagreement with the recent decisions.
We will see how this thread is treated but I suspect it may be deleted, locked or marked like the other quite quickly. I hope I am wrong about this. Of course it could happen that this tread dies a quick natural death. That would be OK as it could be that the discussion has actually run its course.
Censorship is never good. I just posted in my original thread and I can confirm it did not go to the top of the forum. I thought it would be a good discussion over time where users could share what they like and developers could chime in every so often to offer insight, but I guess even that’s hoping for too much these days.
@NedtheNerd said:
Dilemma now - do we continue the discussion here or in the original, or both?
Regards
Since posts to the original thread do not cause that thread to move to the top of the forum but posts to this one do I would suggest that the discussion goes on here. However since this thread was started by me some might see that thought as self serving but I get nothing except a lot of notifications from posts here I think that the new posts should go here anyway.
Personally I would like to see Plex remove whatever censorship they applied to the first thread and lock this one so that the other thread could be effectively used but I doubt that Plex has the guts to admit they were wrong on the initial censorship and allow that discussion to continue. Plex has not shown willingness to listen to their users in other situations so I do not expect for this to be an exception.
This really seems a continuation of Plex’s recent choices and it is a bad as the others and more disturbing than many.
Having said all that I would be VERY happy to be proved wrong.
Someone pointed me to this new thread. I checked the original and it is indeed marked as “sunk”, either because the semi-sentient forum itself decided it was unproductive, or one of the many with forum admin privileges decided the same thing. There’s no way of telling which it was, but I removed the sink, so you can go back to your constructive discussion in either or both threads.
Plex has not shown willingness to listen to their users in other situations so I do not expect for this to be an exception
I find this especially amusing coming from you, because we’ve specifically invited you into our private chat room for Roku users so you can help test and give feedback on new releases of the software before they’re publicly available.
@elan said:
Someone pointed me to this new thread. I checked the original and it is indeed marked as “sunk”, either because the semi-sentient forum itself decided it was unproductive, or one of the many with forum admin privileges decided the same thing. There’s no way of telling which it was, but I removed the sink, so you can go back to your constructive discussion in either or both threads.
Plex has not shown willingness to listen to their users in other situations so I do not expect for this to be an exception
I find this especially amusing coming from you, because we’ve specifically invited you into our private chat room for Roku users so you can help test and give feedback on new releases of the software before they’re publicly available.
I have tried VERY hard to interact with the developers and have found that interaction quite good BUT I have not found any constructive discussion to happen in the decision part of features that are not implemented in any of the clients. What I get is always basically "That is the way it is and we (who we are is never revealed) are not going to change it. It always comes down to "unless it is a bug we are not going to change it unless the feature is already in the development queue.
Something as simple as allowing multiple genera selections in sorting of movies is not even, it seems, on the radar nor are “pop outs” with the descriptions in them when a movie is highlighted. When I or anyone else have pointed out the poor implementation of navigation or design it is mostly said that that is the way it is on all the clients so that is the way it will be on the Roku.
Again except for bug reports I do not feel that I or anyone else in that group are listened to. I was going to address this privately but YOU made it public so that is how I will respond. I guess my welcome in that little private group is worn out as YOU do not find my feedback of any value so I guess you can remove me from that group as punishment for not being a good little sheep.
I do NOT think Plex actually listens to their users and the forums are just here to make us feel that you might listen.
As I have said before Plex is the best media handler at this point and well ahead of number 2 BUT recent changes have moved Plex in what is for me the wrong direction and has reduced the distance between it an number 2. This trend could have been reduced by some actual communication in the design phase BEFORE the design became locked in stone.
Again just because I was invited to and joined a “group” does not mean that my input was actually listened to. Mostly I think you wanted bug reports and you got those but I have never felt that the design decisions were ever even on the table. What I find is funny is that you come on here and pick and choose generalities to respond to and no one from Plex actually interacts with the “why” of design choices.
Hmm… the other thread is at the top of the General Discussions (Plex Pass) list for me. It’s actually above this one. It seems that new posts are moving it up for me. Or are you talking about something else?
@JordanHarris said:
Hmm… the other thread is at the top of the General Discussions (Plex Pass) list for me. It’s actually above this one. It seems that new posts are moving it up for me. Or are you talking about something else?
Of course it is NOW @elan fixed it as he said he had.
I do NOT think Plex actually listens to their users and the forums are just here to make us feel that you might listen.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word “listen” means. It does not mean “do everything every user asks for immediately”. If you look around the forums (and in the private chat room) you’ll see Plex employees giving well-written and thoughtful explanations of how we ended up making specific choices, as well as, yes, LISTENING and conversing with users to gain understanding of their viewpoints (as I’m doing right now).
YOU do not find my feedback of any value so I guess you can remove me from that group as punishment for not being a good little sheep.
I’m rolling my eyes here; you were specifically invited into that group because you were vocal and had strong opinions. We’re not seeking out sycophants.
no one from Plex actually interacts with the “why” of design choices
That’s simply not the case. There are plenty of healthy constructive discussions where reasoning is given. You may not like or agree with the reasoning, of course…
no one from Plex actually interacts with the “why” of design choices
That’s simply not the case. There are plenty of healthy constructive discussions where reasoning is given. You may not like or agree with the reasoning, of course…
Well, that has been the experience I’ve seen in any discussion about why… Either the employee says “that’s the way it is” or they leave the discussion completely.
Note, Elan, that you have 2 people now, basically saying the same thing, and both of those with well over 1000 posts EACH! Ask yourself where some of the other members with the high post counts are? If it’s not telling you there are problems, then you need to get your head out of the sand. Both @Elijah_Baley and I have done a lot of support for Plex as a whole, and a lot of over-all good for the community. And both of us are feeling the same thing. Users are ignored. Your Road Map is sacrosanct and inflexible. We have to take what you give us when you give it without any word otherwise, and don’t forget the “Please” and “Thank You’s”.
Now, I expect that some employee is going to point to the PS3/4 request and say that it was the highest requested (at that time) and it was fulfilled as an example of the successes of the Feature Request system. And I’m going to remind everyone that the request for those clients was just about 900 votes at the time that client app hit the streets. Or an employee will pipe in that the security fixes were a success story for Feature Requests and that whole process. It’s not a success story when it took 2+ years to fix something that is the DEVELOPER’S responsibility to fix in a closed app system! We shouldn’t have had to even REQUEST it!
Take a look here: http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/214180/top-feature-requests and see the counts for the top 2 requests maintained by @MovieFan.Plex in that CLOSED thread. In fact the next 2-4 posts linked in that thread are darned close to the vote counts the PS3/4 had when that client app came out. If this isn’t showing the entire community what side the toast is buttered on, then I guess I don’t what will. The corporate dollar is beating out the individual user, and your road map isn’t taking user’s wants/needs into account.
Users have no say in the process. Feature requests are ignored, or aren’t of value, if the road map is all important. This can be inferred by the actions of the Team in the development of Plex. It’s going to require actions from the Team itself now, to influence the thought processes the older users have now. But blindly going as you are and more of the older hands that have stepped up to fill the gaps in Plex’s support are likely to say no more… Do it yourself!
I’m going to bow out of this whole discussion now, as the reason the last thread was flagged “sunk” is because of my comments and not falling in line with your opposing arguments.
I’m going to defend Plex here - the software is great, and getting better IMO. I love the discovery, and the new Plex/Web and the design choices, which I guess proves you can’t please everyone. Keep up the good work is my side of this particular discussion.
What is so frustrating though is the ebb and flow of communication. It is terrible. There is silence, frustration builds until it reaches the point where Elan and co realize it can’t continue, they step in and promise things will change and they will communicate better. Everyone is happy and feels things are moving forward. Then there is silence, frustration builds etc.
I genuinely think they mean to do better, but it’s like there’s some kind of mental block when they get caught up in whatever they are working on and they just forget about it. You have to make time for the customers and their concerns IMO.
I give the software major plaudits and would hate to be without it, but the customer service/communication side of Plex falls way short. Maybe it’s because I work in communications that I judge them harshly on it, but so much of the ill feeling would just melt away if they’d just open up a little to the customers.
In fact the next 2-4 posts linked in that thread are darned close to the vote counts the PS3/4 had when that client app came out. If this isn’t showing the entire community what side the toast is buttered on, then I guess I don’t what will. The corporate dollar is beating out the individual user, and your road map isn’t taking user’s wants/needs into account.
I swore I wasn’t going to return, but I just have to point out how patently wrong this is. You’re implying that we should simply implement features in the exact order voted on by the community, and any deviance from that implies that dark secret hidden money is the reason. You’re incorrect on a few different levels.
Even back in the day when I wrote code for Plex in my basement nights and weekends, sometimes I added stuff I personally wanted, and our small ragtag team didn’t just implement features in community voted order.
Now that we’re a real company, with mouths to feed, yes, we need to act responsibly, and this definitely feeds into our prioritization. To act otherwise would not be a good way to run a business, but it doesn’t imply that the desires of our community doesn’t factor into this, it very much does. I consider myself a member of this community, and I want many of the same things the “power users” do
Sometimes there are invisible economies of scale. For example, the code which runs on the PS3/PS4 is 99.9% the same code as that which runs on other platforms like VIZIO TV. So to infer that we did it first because of “the corporate dollar” is just ridiculous.
If you read back to a post I made in 2012 when I opened the voting forums, I said “The idea here is that it’ll give us some relative measure of the importance of these items”. I very clearly did not say “Vote away and we’ll do everything you ask for in the exact order you ask for it”.
I’m going to go back to coding (one of the items on the most-wanted list, if you cared). This has been an amazingly great forum over the years with people sharing knowledge and being really nice to each other, let’s keep it that way.
I’ve been lurking in this thread for a few days and I feel the need to open my mouth even if it gets me in trouble. I’ve got my own wishlist for Plex as most of us do and while I totally get the frustration about features I think we all need to take a step back and examine the last few years. Go look at the thread that Movie.Fan put together for features and take a gander over the implemented requests. There are a ton of requests that have been implemented. Are they all perfect? Of course not. But then again nothing is ever perfect to everybody. Crafting quality software takes an immense amount of time. One could argue that Plex has spread itself thin by covering the breadth of clients they do. I’ll argue that Plex would have simply not staffed up if not for the clients they’ve created. I enjoy knowing that wherever I am there’s probably something I can install Plex on to enjoy my media. I’ve used it on random devices at friends, family, etc. I’d bet if you took the number of people who are complaining about too many devices and compared the list they’d cover most, if not all, of the devices Plex supports. Just because someone isn’t using a specific device doesn’t mean it’s not important to someone else.
Has it been a quiet year so far? You bet! But looking at the top requested features none of those are quick development tasks! elan has admitted that one is being worked on AND we had a setting for one accidentally leak a few months ago. Assuming that’s the feature currently being implemented it doesn’t remotely surprise me it’s not ready yet. I develop software professionally as I know many here do. Whenever starting up a major refactor of a codebase or new major feature we plan in months, not weeks or days, for a release. QA can take a ton of time after that. Throw in the wrench Plex has with supporting all clients and ensuring everything works without breaking (the new web UI doesn’t count as breaking) is no small task.
I get the community is frustrated. I feel that way sometimes too. But stopping to take an objective look at everything we gotten since early 2014 or so clearly shows Plex does build some of the features the community wants. We might not always like the UI or agree with what features get priority but as Ned points out there are alternatives like OpenPHT. Let’s all take a deep breath and enjoy what Plex is currently offering. Things like user controls are coming. We know they’re coming. If we had them already chances are we wouldn’t have one of the other many features Plex has given us in the last few years.
Lastly let’s not forget we can contribute! When the forum software changed it drove me nuts. I’m a visual person and needed the UI to be more visually distinctive to help me process the information. Instead of only whining about it (which admittedly I did at first) I wrote a skin. It’s not perfect and it’s a hack but it got the job done for me and others. Ned is working on OpenPHT. If you have software development skills and don’t agree with a certain direction write something! Band together and help make OpenPHT great! Contribute to PlexPy. Create a channel to control your smart home. Come up with another creative idea. Let’s take this product we love so much and help make it better! I know it might not be as fun as having something that is built into the core of the product but it’s certainly better than nothing. I love the passion we all have. Let’s just find a constructive way to use it instead of yelling at elan or other employees.
@Plexhilarated ~ Way to digress, homie! On the second thread, a Plex dev weighed in and asked for more details, nobody’s given him any yet.
As best we can tell, it’s related to a state storage issue, and is neither widespread nor reproducible by us internally. Have you tried explicitly signing out?
@elan said: @Plexhilarated ~ Way to digress, homie! On the second thread, a Plex dev weighed in and asked for more details, nobody’s given him any yet.
As best we can tell, it’s related to a state storage issue, and is neither widespread nor reproducible by us internally. Have you tried explicitly signing out?
Yup. Even tried the Factory Reset that your Plex dev suggested (that one wasn’t my thread, but the OP had complained of similar problems). My TV keeps getting stuck at the Plex Logo. I’ve got some time tomorrow… I’ll try again.
For sake of continuity, I’ll move any further discussion of this back to the other threads.
Wouldn’t want to digress too far away from the hom(ie) subject matter.
Hmmmm @elan I notice whenever you respond to a post you very rarely quote something you feel you can’t defend or prove wrong. For instance you have not said anything about actual features (like Web/Dashboard settings being added back) or which features you guys are looking to add and to which client next.
You don’t have to give us a timeframe of release but at least give us a clue of what’s on the horizon. These are the things most are interested to hear. Where’s the harm in saying “Hey we plan on adding X and Y to the next update of PMS/Web so if all goes well expect to see X and Y in the next build”. And if you can’t include it for whatever reason just let users know. How can we get mad at that? This is software people are actively using daily so in my opinion the secrecy of what’s coming needs to stop.
To have great back and forth communication you guys need to actually try and communicate with the community. And no, not only when responding to bugs (as you all are quick to help in that area) but when people have questions and concerns about features as well. A lot of times when a thread is brought up about settings that we want added or features we want added, you guys are nowhere to be seen. And the frustrating part is that in these cases I can scroll up to a thread above me and see 2-3 developers actively responding to a thread about “how to name a file correctly”.
Show users you actually care about the features they want to see in the apps by talking with us about them. I agree with @Elijah_Baley you guys are quick to discuss bugs and things like that but not so much features and what’s gonna be added. It does seem we have little say in that area but I hope it will change.
