1. Everything under the Home tab is organized the same way it was at the old site. The only differences are the new subsections - which i created in response to member recommendations. I couldn't do that using the old system.
2. The new site includes things we didn't have before, so it looks very different. but ... again ... the topics under the Home Tab (which are all we had before) are organized and listed just as they were before.
3. We can now customize our views to arrange things in a number of ways not provided by the old software. We can change our own settings to establish new defaults. If we want to see things in a different order, we can do that, too, by using the new sort options and the temporary view settings available at the bottom of our pages when we go into a section.
4. Every thread/topic listed accurately shows the date on which it was created. We will also see the date of the most recent update. Also, just as it was before. Unlike the old site, though, we can now use our own settings to synchronize those dates and time to our own time zones so we no longer have to do any "time math".
Board activity has slowed down compared to a month or so ago. While it's true that some members didn't want to explore the new site and so left immediately, it's also true that we still enjoy the privilege of welcoming new members every day. In addition, December is the busiest month of the year for most quilters so board activity has always slowed down between Thanksgiving and the New Year. There's nothing new, remarkable, or distressing about that.
The old software was broken beyond repair. The lists of things we couldn't offer, things that stopped working, and services we could no longer provide to individual members with legitimate problems just kept getting longer. The change was necessary and inevitable.
I can see that it might be annoying and inconvenient to have to upgrade our browser software and perform some technical tasks on our own computers in order to fully explore everything here now. I also think it's fair to say that we need additional, detailed Help documents. Several are in development. The built-in Help files didn't take into account all of the ways in which the site has been customized to our particular quirks and preferences as a community, so not all of the accurate help docs are/were ready as quickly as we needed. That will improve over time.
Not everything is perfectly suited to every member's individual preferences. And - yes - it looks very different.
Still, we have options and features we didn't have before. Also, the developers have made countless changes and tweaks during the past month to accommodate as many of our traditional community preferences as possible.
We are each free to look around and to decide which of the new features, toys and tools we want to explore and use and which we will ignore. There's no need to rush or stress. Anything that doesn't interest you today will still be there if you change your mind later and decide to check it out.
