Is there any way to Tribe-ify Ning?

[Ottavina]

I would love to get more Ning-friendly, and to have Ning be running in tandem with Tribe, so it's not just the place we run to say "Gah! Tribe is down!" (Hey, that's all I've really done here, so far, so I'm not making fun of anyone, just saying a real back-up place would be nice.)

The reason why I always breathe a sigh of relief when tribe.net resurrects each time is because I resonate with its format better. All I have to do is log in, and all my tribes are there that I can post to. Here, I log in, and I go to a group, and I have to log in again, and then some of the smaller groups within groups are hidden or hard to find (I always have to perform a search, they never come up on my home ning page). Even little things like profiles and pics - I always have reset it for every group, and that is old and time-consuming, after awhile.

I'm sure this just displays my own ning naiveté more than structural problems with Ning, but do any of you who are comfy with Ning have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[Rya]

This was spammed all over tribe a while back...but it looks legit. It's in the same format as Bhuz and I think a lot of people aren't using it because it was spammed on tribe. The more tribe goes down and stays down for days, the more tempted I am to find a new home. Anywho, the website is www.tribaltryst.com

[Ottavina]

Hmm. Thank you for showing me another resource.

I still want to get to know how to use Ning better, though...I know the problems I'm having are probably due to me doing something wrong.

[Anthea (Kawakib)]

I like tribe because of the format too, it's so convenient. Plus, there's "other stuff" besides just bellydance, which makes it unique IMO. I love how I can see all my tribes in one place -

t.tryst looks nice, but even more narrowed down, so - I dont' know -

[Anthea (Kawakib)]

So I'm looking at ttryst, it sounds like it's run by Bhuz people? I see the admin is saying bhuz will be getting the same bells & whistles as ttryst soon -

[Traci]

blah. I don't think I could stand another networking site. I think I will just have to make the ones I'm already on work for me...sigh.

[Rya]

Yeah...I think I'm up to 6 sites now (ning counts as three because each group is separate). I'm curious about tribaltryst cause I'm really tired of tribe going down all the time. But I don't think anything could replace tribes format.

[Zareen]

Tribe really does have the best format of all of them. Easiest to use, easiest to find things - groups, people, blog entries, postings. It's a sad thing that its down so often. I really hate how user-unfriendly the other sites are.

I really have no answers.

*sigh*

[cindy]

i went to tribaltryst and it is o.k. but it got horribly spammed with the viagra and porn sites, (i think that has been resolved finally) but it doesn't get much real traffic.

[Rya]

I don't know if there's a way to bypass the several log-ins. I know that once I've logged in, it keeps me logged in. If someone created a group under Tribe Refugee Bellydancers, then when you log into it, you've logged into all of your groups. But if they created their own individual ning, you have to log in again. For example, right now I have three different times I'd have to log in if my computer didn't save my info.
*shrug* I don't know if that helps. Ning frustrates me too. lol

[Qamar al-Shefa'a]

I wish there was some way...its a pain in the butt at Ning because of the multiple logins, and no easily accessible overview so I can find my tribes/groups. Also, its not at all an intuitive format for navigation. If I click on someone's name I bloody well want to be taken to their profile! I have a hell of a time finding where people have their photographs, or figuring out how to upload new photos. Clicking on the photo tab gives you all the photos everyone has uploaded rather than linking to the pictures put up by any one person. The blog feature is easy to use, and does make uploading photos there pretty simple, so I like that, but overall I prefer Tribe's format. This feels clunky. Still, its far preferable to losing touch with all of you!

[Ottavina]

I hear ya! I am at wit's end because I've tried changing the teapot pic to my belly-tat pic a whole slew of time, and I'm still a damn teapot! (A nice, made for me teapot with lots of meaning, but, damnit, I want my ink as my avatar!) That and the fact that I cannot "see" what my own profile looks like when I'm logged in. It always takes me to the edit page, that looks nothing like my page. Grumble. Maybe if I ask one of the ning-ians if there's a way just to simplify the login, or more clues to make this less painful...it might help...

[Lester, The Rocking Horse Guy]

I'm here as a just-in-case. I would hate to lose my belly dancing friends if something catastrophic were to happen to Tribe. But I really think everyone is getting a little ahead of the events. So there's some personality conflicts over at Tribe. They'll get over it, and they'll go down again, and they'll come back up. Programmers are a dime a dozen, and it's just as likely going to start working better now as to go down forever. To put it gently, Ning sucks. The entire format was designed by an obvious idiot. So let's continue to work with Tribe, and just keep this for backup.