Hello Arnkell,

I regret to hear that you feel the Ecotect community is dead. Your post "The State of the Nation" was unfortunately left unanswered; I do not think this means no post got unanswered in the meantime! I try to answer as many posts as I can, depending on my own skill and time, giving priority to issues that seem more critical than others, and admitedly sometimes postponing others which I do not feel qualified to answer, or that require more time than I currently have (full time in architectural firm on top of my own consulting work).

Nonetheless, I feel your post was an honest one, and despite the fact that you have probably already made your mind up about Ecotect and its forum, I will try to answer some of your original questions:

1."It is a bit worrying to me that there does not seem to be alot of activity on this forum and many questions go unanswered"
Sigh...I try to answer as much as I can...i too wish more people could help and participate, but I also understand how most of Ecotect users are already too busy...

2. "That the Wiki has not been brought up to date since the latest release."
The wiki is getting up to date...it is a slow process though...the lattest update was made a week and 5 days ago(Wiki Updates). The original files are still available at thearchive page.

3."That I have not gotten any answers to my email/questions"
Okay...that's out of my hands...the squ1 team receives about 300 emails a day...they have offered to have users help(join the team)...that should help?

4. "I've not been able to find any information about validation of the calculation procedures, e.g. Bestest report."
A few clicks on Google and you'll find some interesting literature...the Admittance method that Ecotect uses is not the best suited for the kind of testing that BESTEST does, but I believe it has gone through it.
Here are a couple of interesting links:
Contrasting Capabilities of Building Energy Performance Simulation Programs.
A comparative analysis using multiple thermal analysis tools.
other interesting papers from Andrew can be found on the Research Publications page.

I have been an Ecotect user for the past 6 years and have been very happy with it. One must first understand its purpose and limitations (as clearly stated in the help files), as well as the software assumptions. Ecotect is not a validation tool, but rather a design tool developed for comparative studies of various design schemes, early on in the design process.

I certainly hope you continue using Ecotect and participating to the forum. Any little help helps.

Best,
Olivier

Good call Olivier, honesty is good and always helps and its reasonable for you to ask such questions Arnkell.
I have tried to answer your original post without getting too hot-headed Arnkell... difficult as I am a red-head Given how much we work to make our software better, posting such comments can but only get to me as we only expect remuneration for our software as a commercial enterprise and you are placing judgement on the product based on an almost completely volunteer and non-commercial side-line.
Just a bit unfair for the product I feel.
We have always tried to develop and looked to encourage community on our sites, but unfortunately (if I may pass criticism with a gross generalisation too) it seems the AEC fields are slow to help, or maybe are too stretched and undervalued in their own work and don't have time for such luxuries, or maybe its that there is such little knowledge of this field out there... I can't believe the latter is completely true, but am willing to reserve my judgement I guess.

Best regards.
Caroline Raines

Square One research
http://squ1.com
http://ecotect.com

Just two cents from a new user...

I also find the "silence" from Squ1 worrying, updates are scarce if any (webs, training and software), email doesn´t get answered, even features promised on the web aren´t there (see my CFD export post today in the modelling section), and "soon" seems to stretch forever... don´t even want to talk about share-it support...
I´ve seen (and been part of) very passionate and helpful AEC virtual communities (SketchUp forums were a great example of that), but this has to be matched with a dynamic company supporting users. From here, Ecotect looks like a great software, backed by a team way too small... if not a "three people show"
Anyway I like Ecotect, have just spent more than 900 euros on it, and would love to see it reach full potential...

"or maybe are too stretched and undervalued in their own work and don't have time for such luxuries"

That's pretty much the situation on planet AEC guys. As soon as you become recognised within an organisation or workplace as an authority on BIM or CAD, the work piles up as more people regard you as an indispensable resource.

I can empathise with you Caroline (although my hair is not red), when you are taken aback by opinions/remarks which are often dismissive and stated as a matter of fact. It is ironic that the most likely posts to receive replies are those that inflame us enough to make the time redress the balance.

Personally, I find a clean (and almost empty) forum to be a breath of fresh air in comparison to the mine-is-better-than-yours word wars which pollute many otherwise useful discussion sites.

Anyway, what I was actually going to say was...

And another thing, if the software was upgraded in fixed annual increments for a subscription price of £asmuchaswecangetawaywith, and was still full of bugs, this forum would be absolutely massive.

... breath in .... and relax ....