New site upgrade

I usually embrace change, but only when it brings progress or improvement. (If it aint broke don't fix it...)

Two things distinguished the Finescale forum from all the other scale modeling sites out there:

1. The camaraderie, helpfulness and vast range of experience and expertise of the participating modelers

2. The ease of use of the site: clear, concise, easy to navigate, easy to read.

Well, now point number two is a thing of the past. I hope it does not affect point number one.

The new site is difficult to read (not enough contrast in the colors), poorly laid out, difficult to navigate (can't see all of the available sections in one "index" like before), cluttered with ads and too much stuff on the sidebar, and SLOW!

Yeah, this is a hell of an improvement |(  Could one of you just delete my account when you have a minute.  One time through this mess was enough for me.

I have to say that if I had employed a company to upgrade a forum that I ran and this was the sort of mess they made of thejob; I would most definitely not employ them again. In fact I would be tempted to refuse to pay the full amount they might charge.

Unless there are significant improvements I am afraid it is going to result in many of this site's loyal fans leaving.

As the saying goes... If it ain't broke, don't fix it

I hate the new site upgrade. It is definitely not user friendly. Pages are too slow to load and too cumbersome to use, and the layout looks like a badly pasted-up ransom note. It's far more difficult now to find the items I was interested in than before. There was nothing wrong with the old site. I have a feeling that it was changed only because your graphic designers wanted to show off the latest flashy multi-media design techniques and graphics, not to benefit the readers/users. As a copy/layout editor and occasional web site designer myself, I know that in most cases the simplest approach works best for conveying information to a large readership with a broad range of interests.

I won't be returning to the site as often now as I did before you "improved" it, and I think a good many others will feel the same as I do. 

as of right now the site takes forever to load a page. it's like i'm on dial-up. is this something that is going to be fixed?

Hey Berny-

We're changing the site in hopes of bringing you more online content and more user-friendly features. I know change can be difficult at first, but we're hoping that doesn't happen with this site. All of the basic features on the new forums will be pretty much the same as the current forums, but with exciting new features, including a more user-friendly layout, activity logging, friend requests, commenting on a friend's profile, and adding an announcement to your profile.

When the new forums are launched, head right to the group 'Announcements' and I will post a thread with in-depth information on the new features. And, as always, feel free to contact us if you have questions about the new forum and we will respond as soon as we can.