I feel completely lost. Change is hard! New Forum

Thank you, I did clarify my concerns just above your post. It is the white background of the whole page that I find hard on the eyes. I do see the very thin borders.

not an answer that would be most desirable, but I run an ad blocker on my system so there are not any ads to distract me

I am in the camp of if I just ventured onto this site while doing a web search, the content is so well hidden behind the curtains, well just finding a topic is an interesting adventure there is not much likelihood of staying.

I think most people, who do not have a pre-planned theory in their head about how this particular forum should be working will not have much of an issue finding stuff here.

I no longer have an ad blocker and on this forum the ads are not really an issue since they only show at the start of a discussion and when looking at a list of threads. At this point in this thread they are so far up the page that I can easily forget there are ads.

I don’t see things hidden at all - there’s a magnifying glass which is universal for search, and there’s a Categories drop down box which most anyone knows to click to see what’s there.

Why do you keep coming back if you dislike this new look and feel? I seem to recall you weren’t happy with the previous software (vBulletin) either…

I seem to recall that most people were not happy when we switched software last time. Just like this time. We (general) do not like it when our happy place changes on us. Thankfully we (same general) tend to complain for a bit and then get used to it.

vBulletin should have been sued for failure to provide the services it promised/promoted as a basic part of their software was completely lacking

here, the Learning curve is not intuitive… really not an issue for me as I am used to looking in dark corners and under rocks for answers…but for a new comer I feel they would go to another source rather than complicate their life

The site is OK for a transfer from the old to this as people will hang in, battle through the how to do this or that but a new person?

A positive feature is the Ignore feature works here (which can be used), just the waiting time to get to use it should be shorted

Why?
If you (general you) there is no reason to block someone.
If you are a long term poster who has not read enough to be able to block here yet, well… you couldn’t at all on Vbulletin for the last bunch of years, so waiting a week here is not a huge deal.

If you aren’t reading the #technical-help-forum thread with much more of all this, or all of this thread, I honestly can’t remember where it’s been explained, but a brief summary is:

vB does not have any requirement to continue to update their software to meet the changing internet infrastructure once a contract with someone is over. Every year, many pieces of software announce that they will no longer be supported. Adobe Flash will no longer be supported after this month. Additionally, every time the old board moved to a new version of vB, the developers had to re-do all the customizations that were in place because either we the people “demanded” them, or the advertisers required them. That’s not cheap, and it was getting harder and more time consuming to redo those with every upgrade, until finally it was just all broken. House of cards with cheap bandaids.

We need to move past the nostalgia of a broken vB platform.

you guys just love to fight I guess… I am aware of the ways to navigate through this site.

What I am pointing out the site’s architecture is not conducive for a new person. Without new posters the future if the site is limited.

I couldn’t disagree more.

This is how the internet looks in 2020.

Sure, change is hard. Sure, there were some initial bugs as the site was transferred to the new platform.

But if we want “new” (read: young) users, they are far more likely to embrace a platform like this over the old style of internet forum.

Yeah, totally agree.

And it sure seems like we have quite a few more new posters since the update, which is pretty awesome.

Just as it’s your perspective that Discourse isn’t conducive to a new person, it’s mine, and many others, including all the new users to this and every other Discourse forum out there, that it is.

Discourse isn’t new. It’s been around long enough, used for enough forums, to have a good enough reputation for the COTH powers that be to have chosen it.

if you want people to buy products from the ads you want people who have money to spend (read older people)

Thanks Bluey…now I know how to get rid of the sticky notes! At lest we still have the forum. I really enjoy having the opportunity to converse with some really knowledgeable horse people.

Goodness, I have plenty of 30-40-something year old friends who eat mac N cheese just to be able to buy $500 jackets and 3 more $100 saddle pads to add to their 20+ collection. Trust me, horse people who are into competing find ways to spend ridiculous amounts of money on horse things they truly don’t need. They won’t invest in a gym membership or clothes for themselves, skip going to Drs, but have no problem feeding their horse habits.

Until all those ‘older’ people die off or get out of horses as they age.

I also think it is very premature after just a month of a functioning, up-to-date BB to assume that new users are not finding COTH and staying…

If anything, IMO, we’ve probably lost more users to the sometimes negative vibes of the community (ie, pasture puffs who can’t always handle the truths as they’re served up here) than we have to moving to Discourse. shrug… just me.

It isn’t just “pasture puffs” who find the negative vibes of this community to be off-putting. And I do think we’ve lost users because of it.

I don’t think it’s negative vibes, but I do think there is a deeply ingrained culture that doesn’t suit everyone.

Our collective sense of humor has definitely dissipated since the early days. But, I think we are generally an extremely kind and civil forum of like-minded people. What is perceived as “meanness” is generally a lack of tolerance for people who don’t abide by the norms of the culture here.

Also, I think the idea that Internet forums such as COTH should be gearing themselves towards old fogies because of their purchasing power to be pretty hilarious on multiple levels.

The old phrase applies:

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