How I think the forum could be improved

[Jeff]

I'm just voicing my opinion in this thread. Maybe Glen will take it into consideration and maybe he will not. I'll admit now I am biased to the old phpBB system, but I respect Glen's right to change forum systems. I can't really blame him either. Administering a large userbase and/or forum without adequate administration features would be a pain I would imagine.

1.) Show text formatting tags. Yes, some people could go crazy with them, but I often found them to be helpful. I could see my bbCode options without going to another site to view as a reference.
2.) Limit the icons next to posts. I'm not talking about the ones users can post (although it would be nice if those were eliminated too,) I'm talking about the "hot post" and all of those. Do I really need to know that a locked thread has new posts, was a "hot" topic, and that I posted in it? I really don't think so. If phpBB had a "hot" topic, it consisted of an unobtrusive gif animation that retained the same color and general shape as a normal post icon. I don't know if this was just me, but I always identified posts by the little orange icon next to them instead of the white. Now I have to look for a little scroll of paper coming out of two differently colored envelopes. Yes, I know, recently updated topics are boldfaced, but this just seems like a dying attempt to save its overabundance of icons.

That's about it for now. I guess I'll just have to get used to this new system.

Edit: One more thing...at the bottom of a thread, there is no quick link to get back to the forum index. You have to select it in the drop down menu. While many of you will think I'm lazy, I probably am. But I thought computers were supposed to make things convenient?