Ugh. Not an improvement. Hope I’ll get used to it.
I’m not in love with the new format, but I seem to dimly recall not being in love with the last format changes either. Nevertheless, IMO it still needs some tweaking fior usability.
Here are the things I find most annoying:
- As others have mentioned, too much white space between thread titles
- Titles within posts are smaller than the main text; why?
- Variation in font sizes means I have to put up with a main text that is too large for my monitor, or everything else being too small
- quoted text in posts is smaller than the main text; if you want to differentiate it, I would do it with a slightly different font in the same size (or, say, same font but dark gray instead of black)
- “Edit” and “reply” text is in a serif font when everything else is sans serif; why?
Also, multi-quote seems to do nothing. Can someone explain how that’s supposed to work?
I’ve noticed that too. Then come the people who complain about the people who are complaining.
And it’s always the same people.
I was able to block that by clicking on the “Block an ad on this page” option in the Adblock drop down menu and then clicking on the picture for the ancient Nexus 7.
(Ugh, the highlight color is horrendous.)
Clicking on the button to the left of the words “Multi Quote” allows you to select multiple posts that will be incorporated into any reply post you make in the thread. As someone noted above, this was a feature we had before, but we previously didn’t see the words “Multi Quote” as part of it.
As far as I can tell, even though “Multi Quote” itself looks like it’s hyperlinked, clicking on it doesn’t do anything.
I don’t notice many changes, but “more white space” seems to be the trend nowadays. The most recent Windows, Google, and Firefox versions all have unnecessary white space IMHO. For a typical user, it probably doesn’t matter if they see only 3 lines of something on a page, but for a power user, who may want to display, for example, 1000 file names in one directory, 3 on a page is a ridiculous limitation. This forces excessive scrolling or a need to reduce the font size, making it harder to read than ever.
I just noticed something else annoying. Text in a quote box is automatically italicized. I wonder if that can be defeated by the user? And what purpose does this serve?
Hopefully over the next two weeks some of the worst aspects of the changes get cleaned up.
Did we get any new features at all?
With so many members complaining about the format, don’t you think some of them might have legitimate complaints instead of bitching because they hate change? It’s not all about the ads. Why should we pay to put up with such a fugly site?
Fortunately, I’ve found a good free browser that lets me use the desktop view and block the ads, and is actually readable, too. So, I’ll stop the complaining because I’ve found something that works for me. That doesn’t mean the complaints from others aren’t legitimate.
From someone generally averse to tech “changes”, I echo that it is not an improvement, but I’ve already gotten used to it. The ads are a minor irritant, but not really harder to ignore than the old ones. Font and colors were a tad jarring at first, but readable/usable, so I won’t complain. (Years back we cancelled a subscription to Discover mag, after they changed format and we found the new font unreadable.)
Of course, I have not yet tried it on my old-ish computer at home. It was already having issues with the old site, spending way too much time with the spinning circle. I suspect it will be even more halting with these changes.
BTW, I access these boards via my phone maybe 5x a year. Yeah, I’m a dinosaur, and I acknowledge that many things are changing to suit others than me. No reason SDMB should be any different. 
This utterly sucks on mobile (iPhone).
I do pay and I have since the beginning.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that. Reminds me of the ads for bookcases that show the bookcase mostly holding vases and other knickknacks, and a few books here and there. In either case, the message is, “we don’t expect you to actually read much.” But whatever.
For me, the italicization of stuff in quote boxes is six of one, I’ll admit. If they fixed some of the more jarring stuff, I could easily live with changes like that.
ETA: Apparently it only applies to the quote box with the “originally posted by” stuff.
The ads appear to be breaking my “Back” function again, too. I have to right-click the back button in my browser to actually bypass an ad url to get back to the previous page. It may be coincidental, but it started again today, and worked fine yesterday.
Testing:
ETA: Just checking to see that the first quote in a post didn’t get italicized regardless. And it doesn’t. So that’s how to defeat italics.
At least it’s not Kinja.
Yeah, whatever the issue was with the last format, it made just about all of my posts make me look like some kind of idiot. Hopefully this new format is less ungood.
For what it is worth, Firefox with AdBlock Plus is blocking all of the ads.
What are the white check marks in the tiny red boxes supposed to mean?
Or, just leave. Thats a viable option as well, if you think the site reads like garbage then just leave, find another message board that is more user friendly.
Whatever you do, don’t complain, far better that you say nothing and just leave.
It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts …
Make it stop …