Seadart, the answer to your question is “no”. You have to do stupid things like this and/or adding a quote in order to reply to a specific message and you have to sort through the rest of the response list for relevant responses. This new format sucks, plain and simple. It’s just a lazy way of running a forum that’s far less functional than the old design. It seems that participation is way down, so apparently I’m not the only person who feels this way.
@bnystrom said:
the answer to your question is “no”. You have to do stupid things like this and/or adding a quote in order to reply to a specific message and you have to sort through the rest of the response list for relevant responses. This new format sucks, plain and simple.
I only visit a handful of other message boards, and what’s interesting to me, is that even when I include all the ones I’ve ever seen (even just one visit), this method for individual replies (needing to use quotes and then searching for pertinent replies) is what’s used by all of them. What’s more, does anyone remember the discussions a few years ago, when folks such as ‘cool doctor’ and a handful of “young pups” were complaining that p-net was far too primitive, and that all other message boards were better? I didn’t agree then, and my only reason at the time was that all “modern” message boards I’ve seen use this quote system for individual replies within a discussion.
On the other hand, I’m just another visitor and I’ll make do with however things go. More than half of the people here never succeeded in figuring out how to properly use the old threaded-reply system anyway, so maybe the new method will at least makes sense to those folks.
People get used to what they are familiar with. If this was the format for the last 15 years and it just switched to the other format people would be unhappy. I personally have never seen the old format anywhere else. I was not a fan of those side conversations, I had a really hard time following them. But, then again, I am not very bright. Plus it is unacceptable to not be able to post pictures on a discussion forum in this day and age. That aspect is a huge improvement IMO
@jbernard said:
People get used to what they are familiar with. If this was the format for the last 15 years and it just switched to the other format people would be unhappy. I personally have never seen the old format anywhere else. I was not a fan of those side conversations, I had a really hard time following them. But, then again, I am not very bright. Plus it is unacceptable to not be able to post pictures on a discussion forum in this day and age. That aspect is a huge improvement IMO
I’m reasonably active on maybe 5 or 6 other forums, a couple of which I’ve been on for well over 10 years. They all have a somewhat similar format to the new one here, and they all allow posting links, images and other media so I much prefer this to the older, threaded version.
I do notice that a few people no longer post here. One of those was rather fond of obtuse replies with many embedded google searches. So far, I don’t think we’re missing him. 
@pirateoverforty said:
@bartc said:
Frankly, I don’t like the new format. It just feels harder to navigate. Can’t relate to it. My opinion only.Yep.
first time back in a month or more and i’m lost…this is like starting all over blah
Whatever happen to the tried and true advice of: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix?”
test - don’t know if I’m logged in or not -keep getting message to update profile.
I guess I am, however still don’t get newsletter though.
There is still a frustrating problem with signing in. While using my phone, or a tablet, if I sign in I can access the sweepstakes and just about everything except the anything under the “Community” category. If I then sign out, I am able to go to the forums. Apparently, I’m also able to post a comment–while signed out.
Yup, sure enough, I can post a comment, but I just checked and I’m still signed in and this after having signed out.
Another I DON’T LIKE IT!
Far too many website updates are done by a computer geek who thinks it looks cool… but when non-geeks complain, the computer people cannot understand why we are unable to read their desires or unable to work our way through their convoluted system.
No website designer EVER beta-tests their design with non-computer people who are the vast majority of the readers.
I used to be able to skim down the articles to see what I wanted to read. NOW I have to open every freaking option to see it there is anything new there, then close it and open the next and so on. Maybe I don’t want to read ONLY techniques. maybe I just want to see what has been posted and maybe see a paper on technique I like but the next article will be on gear that I will pass or read.
This new system is far too complicated to navigate.
Okay, okay, I finally think ive got it figured out for at least one of my tablets. Ì have to press and hold “Community” until a menu opens and there it is. It has to be opened in a new tab. WHY?
Now the phone can’t access the message boards no matter what I do. The phone can access everything else on the site, but not the message boards. I don’t have this problem with any other website, so I’m not blaming the phone.
Android or iOS? When using Safari on my iPad, I just did a search for the site and when I found it, logged in, got to the message boards, then bookmarked it as a favorite. The message board link’s there each time I open the browser. Chrome is the browser on my Android phone so I did the same thing…but the screen and keyboard are so small I rarely use the phone for anything but calls and the USCG app.
As I said, I figured out how to get to the message boards with my tablets (Android), but the same thing does not work on the phone, which is also Android. But every day is a new cyber adventure here on the new site.
I just tried to find my 2 reviews. They aren’t there anymore. One was for the North Shore Buccaneer. The other for the Shearwater Merganser 17w I built. Lee’s Post about his isn’t there either. The NS buccaneer isn’t made anymore. Really like the old review system. Everything has a beginning and an end I guess. Of course it could just be my unfamiliarity with this new setup, but I did find the new North Shore Kayaks, and a couple Shearwater Merganser reviews. I doubt I will rewrite them again. Too many other things to do that are fun. My Android phone doesn’t sign me in either. I do like being able to post photos now. c’est la vie!
Add me to the Don’t Like It group. This is THE clunkiest web forum I have ever experienced. It’s not worth the degraded general reading and posting “feel” to gain the ability to attach files. Bleh.
Pikabike, I hope you don’t give up. Hopefully things will get better, or we’ll just get used to how it works.
Iam getting used to the site BUT the site is NOT improved just different for no reason. Whats up with the search engine here? Right now if I do a search I get results from way way back even though there are newer posts that should come up. I do a search for my user name and get post I did from years ago. BUT nothing about recent posts. WTF ?? This is like Windows 8 will there be a quick windows 8.1 to the fix?
I’ll bet nobody’s more pissed-off about the new format than all the mega-posting windbag-“paddlers” who used to frequent the “Bicker and Banter” forum–And cripes, where’s datakol when you want to read something completely incomprehensible? >:)