We have recently ported our website to Wordpress. We have done our best to port over all content from the old pages. We have also begin to make improvements to look and feel and flow. We intend to continue to improve over the next year. If you notice anything missing, any bugs, or have ideas for future enhancements, please let us know here. Alteratively, you can send an email to office@systemdynamics.org. We look forward to your feedback!
When I created a new account using the button at the bottom of the homepage, I submitted my details and created a PW and that seemed to work fine. Once I submitted though, it took me back to the homepage with no acknowledgement and did not sign me into the site.
UPDATE: here is the email I received for creating the account:
The Case Repository link at the bottom of the homepage (https://systemdynamics.org/system-dynamics-case-repository/) links to the wiSDom blog posts.
Updated this - thank you!
This is logic-based on the site - will be fixing in the theme. Thank you!
We will work on the user journey for this. Were you able to get into the site with your details?
Hello Rebecca, this looks great! Unfortunately, some documents have been moved or lost, so that links to say DYNAMICA articles will not work any more. Would it be possible to have redirects for the original files which were to be found in /assets/dynamica/ so that such bibliographical links might still work (sometimes feedback induced by change is not a good thing)?
Somehow Version 2.03 of Jim Hines’ “Molecules of Structure” seem to be lost (at least Google can’t find it on your site). It used to be here:
https://www.systemdynamics.org/assets/docs/MOLEC2_03.pdf
Is that a copyright issue?
Thanks,
Guido
Guido,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. There are no copyright issues that I am aware of. There are, however, a few assets that have not yet been successfully ported over. This was a substantial website redo with in excess of 500 pages and 1000s of links and assets. It has come to our attention that there are many items still outstanding to port into the new site. This has been added to the list being worked on by our developers. We hope to confirm that all missing assets are ported over soon. Again, we appreciate you brining our attention to this.
Rebecca
Rebecca,
Thank you for your response. I would attach different priorities to my request, as the DYNAMICA article redirects would be nice to have, but currently there are only proprietary locations (partly unsecure) where one can find the “Molecules of Structure”—in a previous version only.
It would be great to have this quite important resource available on the SDS website again.
Thanks,
Guido
Hi Guido,
The molecules are at http://sdmolecules.org/ - we should probably link to that as Jim Hines maintains the page.
Hi Bob,
That is an excellent source I was not aware of.
While linking to a dynamic site is of course nice; there have been authorized versions in printed form out there (e.g. version 2.03 which was provided on the SDS site). I would be great to have both, a link to a “frozen” publication and a link to a dynamic website.
Nobody knows, how long a third party website will be up for reference and once a certain version is referenced, it would be great to have that version available.
(on a side note: when citing David Ford’s System Dynamics Glossar we are explicitly asked to cite the SDR issue—not the SDS or another website—which has a clear, immutable release date…)
Just to make this all more visible, the links to MOLEC2_03.pdf are broken on the following page:
As I had written before, other tools link to that or the previous version 2.02 of the molecules and—since they have been published with permission as pdf—they should be made available on systemdynamics.org once more, shouldn’t they?
On the other hand I do note, that the molecules shown at sdmolecules.org are now built using isee system’s Stella (they used to be built with Vensim), that the introduction to System Dynamics is given by a webinar using Stella, and that the molecules are now offered as Stella models for download.
I hope, that there is not too much of vested interest at play here, when you, Bob, propose to only link to the sdmolecules.org page in the future as a member of the SDS policy council? I would assume, that linking both, the pdf and the website, will be a fair compromise.
This clear notion of vendor interests in the SDS has been one of the main reasons for me, to offer a library as open source using an open source modeling language with proporietary as well as open source software choices available.
Happy holidays,
Guido
Hi Guido,
The vast majority of value in the molecules is the documentation - and that has been dramatically improved in the new release. There is nothing wrong with keeping older versions around, but they aren’t as helpful, even for Vensim users, as the current release.
The computable molecules themselves are standard XMILE which is an open standard. If you have tools that work with that fabulous - it would be good to bring back to life something like the old tools.systemdynamics.org site when someone with the enthusiasm and competence shows up to take the talk on.
Continuing the discussion from How can we improve our new website?:
Hi Bob,
I had made a rather clear and in my opinion pragmatic suggestion:
Provide a self-contained, offline readable, concisely defined version of the molecules, e.g. the latest pdf version published.
Provide a link to the curated website offering added value as you have explained.
Where is the problem to do both? To my knowledge, printed journals offering citable “static” content are still around—the SDR being among those—and a standard source of knowledge in science, where citing a dynamic website is usually only recommended as a last option.
Should the document have been lost: I have downloaded v2.03 from the SDS website and would be able to provide this upon request.
Best regards,
Guido
My last post is now 25d ago, all the links on the referenced page are still broken and I have not seen any response to my suggestion. Is anyone working on this or do you simply not care?
This discussion has rather firmly eliminated the last doubts I had about my decision to not renew my society membership after many years. Too bad.
Hi Guido.
If you want the molecules and the documentation about it, i can send it to you, if you want as it is not copyrighted. JJ
Changing the forum formula does not seem to have changed the trafic. Think about the causes of it, honestly. Back to the 2009 year, there was too a change in the forum, that destroyed the automatic warning to most members that a message was posted and that change was the cause of the decline of the forum at this time. Continue to improve the sophistication of the forum and you will definitely kill the forum it it is not already dead. JJ
I have the 3.??? molecules version. I wondered too about not renewing my membership; i recently renewed it, bicause it is not expensive for me, and as in any organsation, there are good and bad things. Unfortunately there are more bad things than good ones. But I think that it is then responsability of the members to complain, and do everythink possible to change the situation and leaving is defintely not the solution if there is any. JJ.
