@bingbingbing Is the new format treating you (& other unhappy users) any better?
I am finding it easy(er) to use the more I visit.
And I’m sure there are LOTS of shortcuts I haven’t found yet.
But, I am a physical learner.
Reading all the helpful tips just makes my eyes tired.
So I will continue bumbling around and eventually become more competent 
I was Today Years Old when I discovered how easy posting a pic has become 
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You may already know, when posting pictures, once one is downloaded 100%, you can follow that in the preview window right by the main posting window, you will have an option right below that just downloaded picture: 100% - 75% - 50%
If we want different size than the standard 100%, click on your choice to reduce to a smaller one.
I love all your pictures, any size you want to post them, just adding one more little detail to posting them.
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You are welcome.
This old dog is also a slow learner, but love pictures.
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This is what I noticed, very much so! In the Eventing subforum, there was one brief thread about Tryon, one of the few big events we’re having this year with COVID restrictions. One short thread, and the title of it focused on the livestream technical difficulties, although the discussion itself did include a few comments on the event and results.
And even if Current Events isn’t around, I miss OFF TOPIC. We had a lot of fun cooking/food prep threads, product review and tip threads, etc. etc.
I am glad that many here have said they find lots to like about the new forum format. I still don’t care for it, but it is not keeping me away. The obvious lack of discussion, however, is certainly keeping me away, and given the precipitous drop in traffic occurred with the format change, it’s hard not to conclude the new format is not boding well for the continuation of the forum. I sure hope that changes.
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These forums are still here.
It looks like you have the username1 issue, which is an ongoing known issue (known issues are listed in the first post of the long feedback thread in Tech Help, or at the bottom of the FAQ thread, also in Tech Help.) The devs seem to be addressing that in batches every few days, so you should get the forums back soon. There’s more info about that here.
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There’s info about that in the thread I linked. Here, I guess I can quote it for you…
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Same here. I much prefer the old layout. It seemed much more organized and even looked better. To be honest, I don’t know why so many sites update when the way things were worked completely fine! I’m very much in the camp of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
I know there were a few glitches here and there, but for the most part, I never had many issues with the old platform.
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IMO, the old site wasn’t working well. Performance was spotty at best and the lack of ads was beginning to be problematic for COTH. Whether we like seeing ads or not, they are important to COTH to be able to provide both content for their main site and for this BB.
I think we’d all agree with the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ thought but IMO… vB was broken and did need to be replaced. This conversion from vB to Discourse I am sure wasn’t taken lightly. It’s been a huge effort on the technical backend staff. Discourse isn’t vB… neither under the covers or the user interface.
I will confess I don’t use mobile, only desktop. Learning initially wasn’t easy because the user interface is significantly different. But, many of us have grown to like this new platform as we become more comfortable with navigation. There are also many things I like far better in Discourse (quoting from multiple replies, the preview window when I’m typing (I’m sure, desktop only) a reply, seeing replies and topics that have been updated in a neat, clean fashion).
I hope you come to see some of the advantages and benefits that Discourse does offer.
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Regardless if you noticed it or not, the old platform was VERY broken.
Many times the things that aren’t working & cause a site to move to a new/upgraded platform, aren’t things the typical user might even be aware of.
Have some fun surfing around here, check out the FAQ.
There is loads of good info there.
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I much prefer this site now that I know where things are. It’s so much easier to navigate between forums, even entirely hide forums I don’t want to see, quoting is WAY easier, pictures are WAY easier. I didn’t like it at first - hardly anyone immediately likes a dramatic change. Now, I’d never want to go back to vB
If you have specific questions on how to get where, we can help.
Except it was quite broken and is the entire reason for a move off the vBulletin platform. That’s not even opinion. Performance was degrading, ads were broken, functionality had been lost (the Ignore feature) never to return because it was too much effort to fix an outdated piece of software
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I struggle, but someone put so much effort into this new forum, thank you for this!
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What was broken about the old format? Even with my very slow rural internet, it always worked fine for me. Only thing I missed was an Ignore feature. Posting worked, direct messaging worked, quoting and multiquoting worked, notifications worked – what was broken?
Do we have an Ignore feature now, btw?
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It had crashed and was down for a couple of days. Vbulletin was not providing support. It was slow and not functioning right (there are several threads on that in the technical help forum). Quote and multi quote were not working right. After the crash the ads were not working. People more technically minded than I can go make a more complete list, but it for sure was not working right and it did need to be replaced.
The instructions on how to use that feature are in the linked thread.
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One of the hard-stop broken things about the old forum is that the software was increasingly out of date with the underlying internet platform that all websites share.
Aside from the actual COTH forums, there is a sort of worldwide software platform used by all the transmission and hosting points of the internet (not owned by COTH). All internet software interacts with it. Over recent years this underlying platform has been undergoing substantial changes and upgrades. So, older internet sites that were coded for the old platform are less and less functional on the new one. Sooner rather than later, old internet software will no longer function at all. This is not something visible to users – until things are past the point of no return and just stop working.
That was a problem with the old COTH forum software that was going to kill it sooner rather than later, if nothing was done. And, having waited as long as they did to upgrade, the next step up has become a very long step from what we had before.
As an analogy with the old COTH forum, it’s like we’ve been living in a house that has a deteriorating foundation. We can keep living there and act as if nothing is happening, but it’s going to happen anyway. If we wait long enough, the walls start cracking, the floors are uneven, the roof leaks, even the plumbing starts leaking as the moving foundation moves the pipes (that’s kind of where old COTH was at, so much leaking that things were rather damp).
We can continue living there and ignoring or working around these things, as more and more problems develop. But if nothing is done then eventually the house will no longer be habitable, and will finally slowly collapse. Old COTH was well on the way to that status, even if we the residents couldn’t see the leaks and uneven floors and other problems.
During the course of this slow deterioration, we have the option to put money and resources into a series of major fixes that will take care of the problems and save the house. But if we do nothing for long enough, the house may go past the point of recovery. We’ll have to tear that one down and build a new one.
That’s kind of what COTH did, replace a house that was far gone with a new house that will last long into the future. With a whole new set of fancy appliances that work differently from the old ones. They did save the interior furnishings and photo albums to move into the new house (forum topic sections and the historical content). As it were. But the new house, and the new appliances, are such a step forward from the old one, it takes a lot of getting used to.
We moved out of The Addams Family house and into Frasier’s upscale condo. As it were. 
That’s my analogy. 
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The old COTH hosting site had not just a crash, but a hack, that thankfully the hackers only destroyed stuff, but didn’t get anyone’s private information.
It was a close call and warning that something had to be done and, as others have said, the jump from such an old rickety but well loved system to this newfangled one has been hard, for everyone.
Administrators, Moderator, all posters had to cowboy/girl up and learn how to live in a different system, no easy task for anyone, you are right that the adjustments were and still are hard.
Keep asking questions and you will be up to speed quickly, as more are now able to help you along, having been there too. 
As for the ignore/muting function, you will be surprised to see you now can ignore for a bit, for a few hours, for a day or two, forever, one poster, several, a whole forum even!
You also have a way to incognito peek at what you have on mute if curiosity gets the best of you at times.
That is now a multi-function, enjoy it any way you like to try it.
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skydy beat me to the great analogy. 
The hard part for all of us is that we usually see just the ‘user interface’ not what’s being the curtain (think the Wizard in Oz). Some of us have varying degrees of awareness/knowledge of what’s behind the curtain but most… we see what we see, we don’t know how the magic happens, it just does until it doesn’t.
I do like that we are now using more ‘contemporary’ software, light, bright, clean instead of the old creaky boat. Maybe there are things I don’t like (although at this point, there are very few) and for me, on the desktop, this is an incredible improvement. Performance at the end with vB was such that if COTH didn’t get this upgrade done, it was getting harder and harder for me to get anything remotely resembling decent performance.
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What worldwide software platform are you referencing here?
