Anyone else pretty much stopped coming to SF after the change over? - Page 7  

The London Lounge is a real small forum. Nothing compared SF.

I used to hit SF several times a day to check on B&S, and the MS forum. That's been reduced to one visit a day, if that.

As previously mentioned, readability of the forum is key for me.

Small stylistic changes are fine - aka what google has done with their black bar at the top of the screen.

The issue is that the ability to read posts and get useful information has been reduced.

If you look at why apple is successful with their products - minimal interfaces and intuitive usage of their products, I do feel that this forum has gone in the opposite direction.

Appreciate the effort and hard work, and appreciate the fact that we are not entitled to anything, but this is just my view on the state of the forum.

I think London Lounge might a next level, but from what I can see it's also rather specialised. Expensive suits, dress shirts and ties. Not something which interests or is relevant to me at all.

I enjoyed a lot of that too, and I hope you're right. But I was also encouraged by the CBD thread and watched as it was beaten into submission. I will be interested to see if Matt's return to WAYW is the beginning of a resurgence or if he's wading into a tide that has already turned.

I just started visiting again regularly yesterday since the changeover. Much like what's been said, the new design is not as user-friendly. Everything seems bigger designwise, such as the sidebar, which makes it hard to focus on the details. The B&S section is better though and kinda looks like eBay. Just got to wait for the traffic to increase again...I've noticed too that it's slower than it has been. Maybe they should've grouped posts into shirts, shoes, etc. instead of by latest thread posted to make it easier to shop. I won't leave the forum but I do need to get accustomed to it.

Tides change in both directions, no? But teh noobs we will always have among us.

Imo, there are different types of noobs:
Some just lurk. And that's probably best.
Some ask questions. That's good too, particularly if the questions haven't been asked before and the questions aren't too numerous...
Some offer their own thoughts. Even this is fine as long as they don't offer it with vehemence and don't resist being educated with even more vehemence.

The latter group is the worst. But even they can change. Many among us were in that group. I think we need to correct them with patience. And no one has been better at that than you imo, Doc. As my favorite thinker, Bernie L, once said, "Each new group of noobs is an invasion of barbarians, and it's our job to civilize them." Well, it was something like that.

The vehemence of the last group of noobs drove a few of our best posters away (really just to lurk. They're still here.). But even these noobs have been learning. Some resisted it. And some don't want to acknowledge the debt they have to the people they helped drive away. But they've learned, and the world is better off for it.

One thing that may help us to have patience is to remember Plato's allegory of the cave. It compares education to being dragged out of a cave and being forced to turn to the light. It's a painful, confusing process. Particularly when we've been praised by our peers before this, as the cave story says and as happened to many of us before discovering SF. How often does a noob think, "Wow, I thought I knew it all before I came here!"?

Another thing that should help us to have patience is to remember that we were once there too. And we're all learning, no matter how much we know.

At it's best, SF is a big community of guys learning together. At it's worst it's a bunch of guys trying to show off. In reality, it's what we make of it. I think we can help it be its best by being patient with noobs and correct them politely. And we can't leave this to Doc, or to Matt, or to Manton. It has to be all of us--constantly learning and helping each other with patience and politeness.

Painfully slow page changes are killing me.

I want to visit more, but the slow page loads are simply killing the enjoyment I used to have visiting SF. I definitely don't post as often as I used to.

QFT. I think people in general dislike change, and once we all get used to it, and the bugs are worked out, I hope I return to my old posting habits.

When did this happen !?

True, and I hope you're right. Summer is always slow around these parts, with less interest in tailored clothing. So hopefully fall will offer a course correction. But just as tides go in and out, forums evolve. Look at Andy's -- the talk of bespoke and high-end tailored clothing gave way to a much more democratized, anything goes approach to dressing well. Here, the tastes seem to be shifting from old-man tweed to a much more peacocky, GQ approach to dress. In a way, this doesn't surprise me, as both here and at Andy's the shift seems to be from a niche interest to something with a more mainstream appeal. Perhaps this is the natural evolution of this sort of forum. It might even be good for SF in the long run, as there are probably far more young guys interested in SF's new focus than in its old one.

The n00bs really aren't the issue for me. I've always enjoyed helping newcomers, such as I could. But these days, many of the questions they're asking are better answered by someone else. I don't necessary think they're wrong, or feel the need to beat their tastes out of them. I just don't have much to add to the discussion.

For me the problem is different- I love the bespoke, classical restrained dress, highly tailored discussions, but I remain a student on these matters, with nothing to contribute. Nothing, other than a desire to get those who actually know the field to sit around the campfire and tell stories.

I can clear the grass out of the way and help get the fire going, but they have to be willing to come sit. All the fire tamping and noob-training won't help unless the experts just feel like talking.

A couple of days ago in WAYRN. Look for an Emptym post; I haven't double checked to see if it has voxed away. It came right after the great discussion about Matt, Holdfast, and Spoo.

Quote:

that echoes many people on the forum i'm sure. what a great post.

Would it be too forward to ask you and some of the other old timers to write articles (there is a special section for them) that address new member questions? We would love that. Once upon a time, I also answered a lot of these questions, but the last few weeks, I've been consumed with tightening up our graphics, fixing interfaces, etc... as well as starting up our new editorial sections.

This is an issue that is getting ongoing attention. A lot of of the cosmetic things, and B&S, are being fixed now. Load speeds take more backend work.

I'm going to recommend Chrome, to all those experiencing slowness. It's not a real fix, but it really does increase speed while we work on the underlying problems. The speediness of the forum on Chrome has been observed nearly universally.