Wedge

I guess I've just been behind the scenes on forum alphas/betas and saw them through to release too many times to understand purposeful denial of access to a likeminded individual. Apologies for my abrasiveness, I realise that you can't possibly intimate such information from a new member's posts.

It's your baby so I have no rights and I (believe me) understand the type of person you describe, but I hope you can empathise that as someone who knows he is not one of those people; the frustration of throwing my name into a hat and hoping to be noticed via posting a lot. I'm sure that comes across as inappropriately forceful from the lips of a new entry but I'm nothing if not honest and forthright.

In my mind it's not a question of why I want access in order to provide feedback of a good standard, rather why not?

As an administrator, never, as a member probably a few years on an irregular basis. I did read the first post but given my high level of interest in Wedge - I figured it could be useful to have a fresh pair of eyes on the software without a bunch of pre-conceived notions of how SMF worked/works.

In addition, I used to be quite heavy into the development side of forums a long time ago (I don't know how long you guys go back?) and whilst I got out of that game an equally long time ago due to a mixture of politics and changes, my rusty eyes will have no problem examining the innards without being rebuffed. I'm also well versed in the general things you note in your post so there's no worry with regards to messing with phpmyadmin and the like,I have run (past & present) successful, high traffic, high usercount community sites, my intention is to have Wedge running as the forum of an upcoming project based on the same methodology and expect it to do as well if not exceed my current offerings. Since the heavy lifting for the site itself will be done by another set of software, my intention is to populate the Wedge Alpha with trusted, motivated team and community members from the current sites and use it to communicate, order work and use the featureset whilst we lay the groundwork before launching the site to the public.

My apologies for being so ambiguous but the new site has yet to be announced and I'd prefer to keep it on the low for the time being, I'd be happy to share my current and future projects with either the developers or the (presumably) small group of testers you currently have if you saw fit to include me.As I said before, Wedge will at the very least be used to co-ordinate something that I will be essentially entirely devoting myself to for a long time to come. As such it will be used by myself and the others I described throughout the day on a daily basis for the foreseeable future, so I suppose the answer to  your question is: a lot and in a lot of ways.

I recognise that Wedge is not ready for primetime or a production site, but the timing is perfect for what I need it for at present. I see no reason why it couldn't run in tandem with the site even post-launch for staffers and select members, which is something I'd personally like to do in order to stay alongside and assist in the development of Wedge going forward.

Either way, it will continue to be tested by myself privately regardless.I'm frankly tired of the "premium" software I've been using blindly for a decade and I'm ready for something different. Believe me when I say that I did a lot of research to familiarise myself with the current state of play in your world before I began lurking (and then registering) here. I looked at a lot of software before making this reply.

I can't really vocalise anything specific but I'm quite excited by what I've seen so far and I'm very eager to dive in. I find the potential business model Arantor mentioned on another site interesting and possibly revolutionary when paired with your plugin system, however this has less to do with the software itself. I believe my intentioned use for the Alpha will allow me to see all aspects of your baby and as a result produce actionable feedback from me to you.My lady has what I'm assured are known as "da mad hook-ups" with some very popular rock/metal bands, think of the connections and photo ops associated with that!

I understand that the current Alpha up for download is older and less functional but I'd love to get my hands on it anyway to get a grasp of things before the new one later in the month, hopefully you can see my unbridled desire to get in on the ground floor here and give me the badge so that I can get started and get involved.