Yes, the site looks like shit. Looked much nicer before.
I am an occasional poster who barely knew how to use the old site. Now I am thoroughly lost. Maybe I’ll muddle through.
Those who are really unhappy with having to learn how to use the new site: were you uncomfortable when learning the ropes on the old SDMB?
This format is gross and ugly and I keep seeing the same posts repeated over and over. I am using the simple sam but it’s not really that much of an improvement. I am in a lot of groups, many of which have been around as long as this one. One of the things I loved about SDMB was the format. It was sad that it had gotten to the point that I could rarely open a page though. I guess this is better than nothing but I do not like it at all. I hate that people are shamed because they’re not picking it up right away. You all know this is a mess.
Anyway I’m not going anywhere but I sure don’t like this. Hopefully it will get cleaned up over time.
This thread might be helpful to you.
Try reaching through your legs and pressing Control with your right index finger, wrapping your left arm around your neck and holding down Shift with your middle finger, and hitting UpArrow with your nose.
First of all I should say that I’m not at all unhappy with learning the new site. It’s not like I have to hit the ground running because it’s a critical business app; I’m something of a computer geek and like playing with new toys. Nonetheless, I’ll answer your question by saying no, I had absolutely no issues when I first joined the SDMB about six and a half years ago.
Full disclosure, though: I had spent many years at another MB that was also using vBulletin, although a different (I believe newer) version but also one that the site admin was constantly tinkering with, so that over time it became a sort of Frankensteinian hybrid of VB. Nevertheless, VB is VB at its core, so the switchover for me was completely painless, even though some things were different and I also had to get used to quite a different board culture.
For that reason, if the migration decision had been up to me, I probably would have looked for either the best available version of VBulletin or the closest thing to it, and a good reliable hosting facility for it. That does not mean it would have been a good decision! Despite a CS background, modern web applications are way outside my wheelhouse, and such a decision may have doomed the SDMB to obsolete dead-end technology.
So I’m happy to trust the people who made this decision in the best interests of the SDMB and all its members, and trust that it will all work out. I’ve got the basics down pretty well and am learning more every hour I’m on here, along with the rest of us. Needless to say, this is NOT going to drive me away. Currently I’d really like to see something done ASAP about the 2500-character post limit size and the 10,000 post thread limit size, although as I said elsewhere I have a bad feeling that the latter is inherent in the software and is going to be a hard lift.
[quote=“Thudlow_Boink, post:226, topic:911483”]
Just testing. And maybe getting one of those badges. 
ETA: hmmm
Tried it. Same result. Only goes up 20 posts at a time. Holy water doesn’t help either. Only thing I haven’t tried is enlisting the assistance of a cat, but even if the cat finds the magic key combination by walking across the keyboard, he won’t be able to tell me what it was, because cats are stupid.
Definitely this.
I think the biggest difference between getting stressed over the changes and not getting stressed over the changes is an expectation that everything is going to be OK.
If you can read and post, then you already know 90% of what you need to know. You’ll figure out the rest in a few days. Relax. It’s going to be fine.
And the appearance is not really that bad at all.
actually one feature I like is if I highlight a post a little quote thing pops up and I don’t have to mess with tags … and can quote exactly what I want to … and the closest thing to the old site post boxes is the “vincent” theme
I think a more important question is “Would any newbie consider staying?” Suppose you were just now seeing SDMB for the first time. Anything that would make you want to stay and explore? Not me.
After we settle down, a newbie would definitely want to lurk. And eventually participate.
It looks like a place with smart, fun people. 
This is uncomfortable. We go to do the thing that we’ve done for years, without a second thought as to HOW to do it, and suddenly everything is awkward. With time, we’ll learn again. I think posts are down drastically now, though, because no one’s comfortable. That too will change.
Don’t give up. Come back, keep poking around, ask questions, and we’ll get this sorted. It’s damn weird for me, too. I feel like my mother did when she tried to program the VCR.
I look forward to seeing how things shake out. It’s odd, and I’m gonna miss the old layout, but hopefully in a couple weeks we’ll have all the features we need, and some new ones.
But yeah, it feels odd, for now.
I’m so glad you posted this, as I’d just about consigned myself to never quoting people again, which I figured would get me in less fights.
I feel like any change is jarring, and we’ll get used to it.
I think my main problem with this design is it feels like comments at the bottom of an article, rather than a community having conversations. I’m not sure how to correct that feeling, if it is just getting used to it, or changing something in the page format, or what, but it’s definitely a completely different atmosphere just coming in.
I wish we had slowly upgraded the site software ever two or three years so it had been more gradual. Instead we had 15 year old software on its 1999 HTML setting, and never changed it, refusing to fix what wasn’t broken, like grumpy old buggers in an Aged Care facility. Now suddenly we’re Gen X’ers who have leapt ahead over Millennials right into Gen Z, and there’s bound to be some culture shock when you do that.
Fair question. I experience this sort of thing everytime a program/site I frequent “upgrades”. Some times seem more challenging than others. And generally, w/in a very short while, the new seems normal, and i forget that it was ever different.
This one impresses me as a tad more challenging than most - but perhaps that is just recency bias. There may, however, be some cumulative effect. It seems as tho tech is going further and further from express written “guides”, and relies evermore on users learning through “exploring” - something I personally dislike.
Also, through this COVID period, I have been fatigued by the increasing need to rely on virtual connections - establishing new accounts, new passwords, etc. So that might be part of it.
The “apparent” going away from the page views, to this single lengthy page requiring scrolling (or figuring how to go to 1st unread) is definitely more cumbersome than what i am accustomed to.
Please don’t post animated GIFs. If anything drives me to abandon the Dope, it will be this. Just don’t.
Thats a bit melodramatic, dontcha think?