The Long Goodbye: Why WIX Have Betrayed Our Trust.

Regular listeners will know that we here at Revolution Radio have had a long relationship with WIX. We first built our platform on their web tools and later were involved in the development of the Forum, which was perfect for us and the longer term plans we had.

But then about 3 years ago something happened. All of a sudden any apps not developed by the central development team were slowly circumvented, dropped and replaced. First the newsletter was dropped and replaced with a fee based app that wasn't as good as the free one we had been using. The blog was replaced - without warning or a migration tool - with another blog platform that was no better than the one we had. Even the clock app was replaced by a paid version that was more limited than the one we had previously installed.

But by far the worse thing was how the new team set about destroying the Forum. For three years we have fought every step of the way the insidious wearing down of the Forum, hoping that common sense and a return to focusing on client needs would finally take priority over the ego of the head of development.

It didn't and it hasn't. And our patience has finally snapped after WIX lied, cheated and generally mistreated their users with the way that a so-called replacement has been pushed.

The following is part of the email that we sent in response to being told that from 15th October we will no longer be able to post in the Forum. To cover ourselves legally, we have to state that some of the content in the full email is what we think is the case, based on the recent years of issues we have had and the responses, or rather, lack of responses, received. Should we hear differently we will of course issue a correction. To that end, we present only the factual assessment of the Groups app, where there are dots (....) is where we have removed content.

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Dear All

I am sending this to multiple email addresses within WIX so that the truth about the way a certain manager/director has destroyed user faith in WIX can be more widely understood. I implore all recipients of this email to please forward to your department heads and senior management team so that my complaint can be properly understood and not swept, once again, under the carpet.

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Before I explain why Groups is an insult wrapped up in a lie, I want to make it clear that my ire is NOT aimed at the poor tech support team, the ones who have to face the wrath of users fed up with the bad decisions, poorly designed and rolled out apps and general ego-centric driven policies coming from the so-called head of development. They have always tried to help and have always been courteous and supportive even when I’ve not been very cool with my complaints when systems stopped working. If the rest of WIX behaved like they did, there wouldn't be a problem. 

And so, onto the complaint itself. The greatest lie that the Idiot in charge has told the rest of WIX is that Groups is a Community Builder. If it is, it’s the worse Community Builder ever, by anyone in any company I have ever witnessed. But I get ahead of myself. First let me explain why WIX and this Idiot have changed me from a raving fan into simply raving.

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But for all that, and all the other bug ridden changes forced on the Forum by the Idiot, the Forum even today stands head and shoulders above the new Groups app, which is totally unfit for purpose and reviled by real WIX users (....). You can check my history of tickets and complaints in the last couple of years about just how badly managed the Forum had become....

Now for Groups itself, the final straw. The unavoidable truth is that Groups is an app that is totally unfit for purpose, fails to hit any of the measurements required of a Community builder, and is certainly NOT a suitable replacement for the Forum.

1. No live interaction. No update. Before the Forum was taken over, when people made comments or replied on posts, the published post would appear automatically. Shortly after the Forum was taken over, that feature was dropped, although we did get a “Someone is typing…” message to let us know that someone was indeed making a comment on the post, very useful for live shows where the Forum is where we communicate throughout. Even after the changes, we got a note to say “You have a Comment.” Other users probably do live product launches,  and automatic updates and/or live notifications that someone is posting would be useful to them as well, but crucial to us during our broadcasts. The new Groups app does none of this. At all. You only know if someone is present if you constantly refresh the page and then comments and replies miraculously appear. When confronted with the fact that a community builder needs to have interaction, the Idiot said that it’s not the purpose of the app!!!???!!!! WHAT THE ACTUAL????

2. Ridiculous URLs to share. In the Forum, when we copy the link to the post we get something like https://www.revolutionradio.online/forum/the-baron-s-rock-show/brs-750-the-return-of-tv-on-the-radio-on-wednesday-24th-september-at-7pm-on-revolutionone which of course makes sense. In other words, the TITLE of the post becomes part of the URL. In the Groups app we get https://www.darreninform.com/forum/2-thinkworks-voiceworks/discussion/400af221-1179-402b-aece-85110e2b0a21 which is NEXT TO USELESS AS A PROMO TOOL. Again, when confronted with this, the Idiot refused to commit to updating this feature, saying it wasn’t needed (!). Think about what the Idiot is saying here: 'Clarity is not needed to market, promote or, indeed, build a community.' If he/she truly believes that then what are they doing in a company that is supposed to be helping businesses market themselves?

3. Doesn’t open separately as a page unless you paste and go. In the Forum we can open our posts in a completely separate post, which stops confusion. People know where they are posting. The Groups app doesn’t let you open a post separately- at least not natively. This causes confusion with posters as they end up posting over the web page and not in the specific post on that web page. True, you can open the post on its own if you first copy the share link, and then ‘paste and go to’ in a browser as a fix but users shouldn’t be told to take five steps when it used to be a simple click on the post’s self-contained link.

4. Navigation limited from within it. Once you’re in the Groups app, navigation is severely limited to Home. That’s it. In the Forum you had a proper sub group to explore the other rooms in the Forum, AND the main menu bar remained for you to quickly access or open other pages of the site.

5. Hashtagging replaced with a useless topic scheme. Whilst hashtags were never properly rolled out in the Forum, they still made sense to our listeners. The new feature ‘Topics’ is unwieldy and actually a bit of a nonsense that doesn’t work at all.

6. No image metadata. The Forum allows us to put metadata directly into the post images. The new Groups app doesn’t. Metadata is great for search engines of course, but why would WIX want to help their users get noticed… I mean, hey, we don’t need people to find us after all, do we? Yes, I am being incredibly sarcastic.

7. No ability to put the Groups in a manual order (as you can in the Forum). Apart from the sort by newest, oldest etc, the old Forum allowed us to manually place the chatrooms in the order that we wanted. The new Groups goes alphabetically, and by newest activity. Absolutely useless when you have multiple chatrooms but need to have your most important at the top. In the end I had to resort to 1: xxx, 2: xxxx etc, just to try and manage the order they appear in that way. This is further compounded by the fact that Groups only allows you to see 6 groups on the Groups page, without manually having to load the rest. Unfair when we have EIGHT DJs as an example.

8. No Groups description summary visible from main groups page. Just a title and an image, whereas the old Forum gives a quick description of what each Room is about on the Forum main page, making it easier and quicker for followers to decide which one to visit.

9. No ability to put groups inside groups. This is useful when you have some marketing rooms that would all fit inside one umbrella Group for management, or when we want to archive a group rather than delete it. Instead of having around 10 main Rooms in the Forum, we have about 20 Groups in the new system!!!!

10. The migration tool didn’t work for anyone with more than a few posts. It took almost three weeks for the initial migration tool to work- and in the end, WIX had to do it for us. Clearly the tool was only suitable for people who had a couple of months of posts rather than our years and years worth. All this fits a pattern of someone who fails to quality check and test any new change. See my tickets over the last 3 or 4 years pleading for proper testing before roll outs.

No doubt, the Idiot will claim that other users have migrated and that they are making it work. However, that stat is mainly due to the fact that people were tricked into deleting the Forum, because as soon as they used the migration tool a pop up instantly appeared on migration completion, saying “to avoid conflicts on the site, delete your old Forum” (or something similar). The stats are therefore manipulated and appear to show that users have embraced the Groups app. Obviously, before the Idiot sponsored user reviews started to hit, people very quickly realised that it was NOT a replacement for the Forum and was, even as it stood, pretty much useless as an app for whatever intended use it had. How many had unfortunately deleted their old Forum as instructed, trusting WIX had their backs, before they realised what they had was NOT a Forum replacement in any shape or form?

Now. the Idiot has doubled down by saying that users will be blocked from posting in the old Forum in a couple of weeks. And yet, there is no working alternative, because GROUPS, for all the reasons above (and more) simply doesn't work.

To move forward therefore we MUST see the following:

1. Issues 1 to 3 need implementing BEFORE the limitations are placed on the old Forum. We had to go back to the old Forum after trying for 3 weeks in Groups. The Idiot’s policies had already severely damaged our Forum community (see before 3 years ago with 100s of interactions per show, sometimes 1000s, and what they are today), but users and DJs alike went mad at us with the Groups app, so we had to re-state the Forum (which luckily we hadn’t deleted). We have a lot of damage to repair. These fixes are the minimum required. Any limitation on future posting should be delayed UNTIL, and ONLY until, these three features are fully working in Groups.

2. A roadmap for the other fixes (issues 4 to 10) needs to be published showing when these features will be delivered, said road map to not exceed January 2026 for delivery of all fixes.

3. A new migration tool to move in the posts we’ve had to do in the Forum since the initial migration, as Groups did not work and we had to return to the Forum.

At the end of the day, the truth is a decision was made by the ego of one individual that has caused massive damage to the WIX brand, not to mention our own trust in WIX to have our interests at heart, and a simple question arises:

If WIX are willing to throw away over a decade of our history, so we have to start again with a community builder of our own that works, why would we remain with WIX and not give someone else a chance?

If the 3 conditions above are not met, we will not be renewing our WIX subs, not only on this site, but all our sites, URLs and other applets, not just for Revolution Radio, but for all my business and clients sites that I manage. Later today i will start switching off all auto-renewals, and they will not be reinstated unless I am satisfied. I have to tell you that if I could get all my money back because I feel WIX have breached their service contracts with us, I would do so now. But rest assured, everything will be migrated from the moment you switch off our Forum without the required fixes to what is supposed to be a Community Builder replacement, but which, as I have clearly shown, is nothing of the sort.

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That in itself is virtually unforgivable. Failure to act now will mean that WIX have taken the side of that employee against their customers. That is an act that is completely unforgivable.

I will wait for your response.

Regards

Darren Smithson a very pissed off former friend of WIX, on behalf of the rest of Revolution Radio (who are equally pissed.)

PS If you think this email still sounds angry, you should have seen it a few weeks ago!!!!!

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As of today, we have still to receive a response, let alone a commitment that either the Forum will continue, or that Groups will meet the minimum standards that we require. We still hope that WIX will listen to reason and reassess the Forum/Groups situation.

To that end I have cancelled our WIX subscription, not just for RRO and related apps, but my business site and apps as well.

They will not be re-enabled until our demands are met. This means that I am now looking for replacement hosts in readiness for when the current subscriptions run out. The station itself, including all the players, apps, smart devices, internet radios etc, will not be affected.

It's sad that it has come to this after a decade and a half. But as I said in the email, WIX have changed a raving fan into simply raving.

It isn't good enough. It isn't customer service.

And we have drawn a line.