Hi Friends,

I'm writing to acknowledge that we've retired the "Forum Discussion" forum. We've found that many users are mistakenly posting product or purchasing questions in this forum. This just results in users feeling frustrated as they wait for posts to be moved and other users to assist.
 
Beyond that, we do not want to provide false hopes for functionality we may or may not be able to address. The occasional forum feature request we do see presented is unfortunately often something we cannot implement easily since we're really not in charge of the forum application's development. With that being said, we do take all requests seriously and sincerely, but we must remind users our priority is creating music software first and foremost, not reverse engineering the forum software. Ultimately we don't feel like we're doing anyone any favors by providing a dedicated place to request features and enhancements that we cannot deliver directly.
 
We've also seen several cases that have unfortunately turned the general vibe of it into a place for people to vent / air their dirty laundry knowing it was very loosely moderated. Obviously this wasn't our intention. In general we feel that conversations about forum violations and personal matters are not meant to be public debates, but rather are intended to be handled discretely so that the forum is a safe place for people from all walks of life. This means either handle it between one another, or if necessary bring it to the attention of Cakewalk Staff or a Forum Host. We encourage trying the former before the latter :). If necessary, we will remove posts/threads without notice or explanation that we perceive to be nothing more than personal arguments.
 
Please understand, this isn't about censorship, it is about maintaining a safe community for everyone. If our users do not feel safe and welcome, then we've all failed.
 
We had good intentions with why we wanted a Forum Discussion sub-forum when we drastically changed all of the sub-forums. We knew there were going to be lots of questions, but at this stage we'd like to move on so the discussion on our forums can be focused on our products, and not on forum subculture. To that end, we do have the Coffee House for off-topic discussions (which of course still has a Code of Conduct that we ask everyone to respect).
 
The absence of this forum does not mean we are not here to assist with concerns.

• Violations that need attention can be raised by creating an abuse ticket (click "Report Abuse" below an offending post). Forum Hosts and Cakewalk Staff can see all of the tickets, history of changes for each ticket, and are all held accountable for handling the concern raised professionally
• Technical issues with the forum or Cakewalk website can be submitted to us via our Website Feedback form https://www.cakewalk.com/About/Email/1
• Contact information for any other type of help (Customer Service help with a purchase, Technical Support with a product, etc.) can be found at http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Contact
• Ideas about how we can better maintain a particular sub forum can of course be presented in the respective sub-forum
• Super serious stuff that I’m leaving out can be brought to the attention of a Cakewalk Staff member by sending a private message

Moving forward we'd like to present a better solution for product feature requests, ideas, issue tracking, and feedback loop related stuff in general. We know these workflows could be improved upon. We don't have a fully fleshed out road map yet, but it is a topic that we know users and Cakewalk Staff alike both care about. If you have questions with the current workflows, please feel free to raise them in their respective sub-forum. We'll always do our best to be transparent with how we can be most effective with helping one another out and achieving our ultimate goal, which is really just to make sure that our products are solid so that great music can be shared.
 
Thanks everyone!

Best regards,
 
Ryan Munnis
Cakewalk