Users Object to Etsy's Forum Migration

Etsy announced it would change its discussion forums, a move that some say is unnecessary and unwelcome. The forum migration project will move certain forums into "teams," which are similar to the "groups" feature on eBay and Yahoo. Etsy teams are run by volunteer members of the community.

Etsy users must join a team before being allowed to participate, and may not be able to join all teams. Some teams, such as the CPSIA Team, require an application before being able to join, requiring an answer to the question, "Do you make (or used to make or hope to make) children's products? And/Or are you a consumer of children's products?"

Both buyers and sellers are asking why they need to join teams in order to participate in forum discussions. Wrote one user on a discussion thread, "Why would buyers join a million teams on Etsy? I've been here forever, and don't want to deal with joining anything extra."

The announcement about forum migration is found here, and one of the threads responding to the announcement is found here. Rob White, Etsy's Lead Forums Moderator, began responding to user reaction on page 15. He wrote in part, "What we want is for members who are interested in __________ to be able to find a group of people interested in the same thing, and to be a part of a community better suited for going deeper (rather than more broadly) into that specific topic. Rather than wading through broad Forum sections and hoping to fall upon the sort of information you're looking for, we want you to be able to find a group of people who are really knowledgeable about the subject who can help you to learn what you want to know or to whom you can lend your expertise."