To all; as I said previously, they will have a shiny new castle, but without anyone in it. It might as well be on the moon. I've just over the last few days been in touch with some my friends and most say that they won't stay. Yes we are losing the very thing that helped us all so much. It's true I guess, (as we've all experienced), nothing lasts forever.

Thing is, the internet makes it easy for anyone to build a website forum and spam will only go away if there is a joining fee. It will get rid of at least half. Spammers will not want to pay a monthly fee to stay on. I built one, its not hard. The hard part is having people host it, maintain it, moderate it and be there 24/7. FB is great for people who do not care who is seeing their private most intimate thoughts or who are not sharing them anyway. I do not want to leave, I am willing to wait it out but like many have said, it is like a ghost town and as LMT said, who will have a reason to come here if things are not fixed and quickly. People go where people participate. I want to be patient and will be. It really does us no good to ask why and if they will go back to the old format. It's done and hopefully they will improve it.

I joined 9 years ago, I loved the site, it was inclusive, helpful supportive encouraging and very poisitive, "The Team" were easy to contact. I relied on this old DS site. The support was for my diagnosis of fibromyalgia, later I received a diagnosis of diabetes and just before this new format went live, I have developed spinal, sacroiliac inflammation, my beautiful soft "comfort blanket" became an irritating, frustrating hair shirt.

I'm not good with computer speak, I'm have very basic knowledge, the early DS suited me well. This new thing is confusing and disjointed. I can't turn off notifications from Uncle Tom Cobby and all.

This site is a public site. So anything you post in any forum on DS is there for the entire world of cyberspace to see. The only way we have any possible privacy is with our profiles and journals. And, I'm not assured of that with journals since there is no way to see the lock icons in journals, especially our friends' journals.

In case DS is reading this, on the old DS, I could see the lock icon in a friends journal at the top so I knew immediately if it was private or not. I could also see whether or not my journals were locked and that no longer exists either. Now the only way to see if my journal is private (to my friends only) is to go to the list of journals ( which is cumbersome because there's way too much verbiage shown) click on the down arrow (one journal at a time) and go thru the whole "edit routine" (which involves more clicking). Then scroll all the way down to the bottom of the journal and see how I classified it. What a literal pain in the hands, neck and shoulders!!!

I haven't replied on this post in a few days. I see it's still going strong. I want to add that I did feel somewhat encouraged by the last post from DS staff of what improvements were beign made and issues ' fixed' and felt like atleast we ARE being heart. The problem is, as I see it personally based on many friends who are DS members that I've spoken to outside of this forum, is this: They don't like the new format and they don't believe they ever will. They don't like change and aren't willing to be patient enough to wait for changes to be made to make them feel like it's the ' old DS'. Well, fact is , it's never going to be the ' old DS', so for those of us who want to stay ( I am one of them after being here 9 years ), we have no choice but to accept what is and to remain patient that it will keep improving. That we will get our photos back.. that the ' hug pages' will be shown ( that's a personal biggie for me and others I know ). I won't go on and on, because those of us who come to this board know what the main complaints are. Do I still feel like it's a ghost town? Yep. Sure is. I have heard from a few others who finally showed up, only to get hugs or messages how much they hate the new site and not sure if they will stay or not. I have a football member group I founded that is really important to me and we had a blast in that group . It was a place for my friends to go to laugh and have fun and get our minds off of our depression, physical pain and other issues that brought us to DS. I've heard from maybe 10 out of the 82 members that they plan on participating in the group. Needless to say, that's pretty disheartening. I do check out the main boards I'm a member of and honestly, I mainly see new members I've never seen before who weren't here on the old site so they don't have anything to compare it to. I truly truly hope that things keep improving and we can get to a place of some kind of semblance of what DS used to be. It saddens me that alot of people feel like they have lost what was an integral part of their lives and a place where they got the support and love and friendship that helped them literally make it through the difficult times they endure, which for many is daily. DAILY STRENGTH. The name now just rings somewhat hollow. Again, I will stay here and I will try my best to be patient and hope for the best. Hugs everyone.
LMT

MTC, I tested the journal function with a friend. we unfriended and looked at each others profile and they were private. By the way, I have looked at many, many sites and although we are not happy and there are a lot of problems I can say not one of these other sites offers half of what DS does. There are so many groups and options available to us not available on other sites. We think we have it bad here but after looking at other places I am way more appreciative of this.

I was basically new to the site before its changes, that I really don't have to much validation to give my opinion. But if something was working why fix it? I read all the comments from D.S. Long timers and they all seem to hate the new D.S. , so D.S. This question is for you...."If it wasn't broke why fix it?"

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT. In the name of progress, they have destroyed the simplicity and intimacy of the groups. It's a chore now to figure things out, much less enjoy the new site.

@Doo, thank you for letting me know about the journals. That's good to know. But we still don't know if our friends' journals are private, unless we ask them each time they write one. I think its great that DS offers more groups than other sites. My concern is the way we have to navigate now is way more cumbersome. That makes it way more painful for me & others than it used to be on the old site. Sad to say that the posts in my main group have all but stopped. We're not even averaging one a day. The last new thread was 3 days ago. We used to get 5-10 new threads a day. The comments have also all but disappeared. We've had one comment today and the last comment before that was 2 days ago and the one before that was 3 days ago!

I was cautiously optimistic about the new site...but I still cannot log into my original account...so I had to create a new one. Repeated emails to DS support have just resulted in "generic" we're working on it...with no ETA. I can search and see my old account and I get daily email alerts from friends who I can't respond too. ZVery poor service if you ask me..if DS hopes that those of us who have be loyal members for many years cannot log into the new system.

I saw that one of the other CL's wrote that they're now working individually on getting members back in and there is over 1,500 active members that haven't gotten back onto the site...I know that they're working around the clock pretty much with a small staff... Big hug... I know that people are feeling frustrated... I have been seeing some back though...xo

You, brokengeo, have certainly gotten some of us going - in one way or another. My background is similar in that I was in the computer business, beginning in the 70's with IBM 360. As developers we learned very early that the users aren't impressed with "look what I did for you" unless flash and dash is in the "background" as an option. I expect the same respect as an end-user. But it's becoming harder and harder to stress that one size does not fit all! I agree with you that making MODIFICATIONS to a proven product saves us all (developers included) from a great deal of grief. Over the years I was known as a tweaker because I was always making minute changes here and there A complete overhaul is only required when there's nothing salvageable. For now, I'll find something else, but I lose most of my group members - sad and disappointing.

We can all go on about who is a developer, who is not, what they should have done and what they should not have done. The fact is, it is not going to go back to what it was. The only way to know what was salvageable is if you are looking at what they saw. The only way to know if their software was programmable with current versions is knowing what they are using. Mytruecolors, when we tested it as friends and their journal was set to private it simply did not show up for others to see. I thought it was good. Maybe I am not understanding so please know I am asking so I can better understand.. If I write a journal as private I would be confused why someone would ask me if I wrote a private journal being it is private and I do not want to share it. Are you getting notifications someone wrote it and go to look and it is not there? That might be a notification error

We can only hope people are listening to their friends here talking about the changes we see or are lurking and maybe when the changes are making an impact they return. I know a lot of my friends have not even tried the site because they see negative things others have written and it is giving them that much more reason not to try it. Many of them avoid the boards because of the posts about the negativity of the site. I miss the old site too but this is what we have.

Doo;..... What I had intended with this post was to get the members and the developers to pay attention to what, from a members perspective and I'm sure not just me, is the impression left on the old members. Believe me, I don't want this site to go under. But this new forum is, in comparison to the old one, completely foreign. So to use an old saw, "if it looks like a duck................". Well it seems like this is a duck that has had it's wings clipped. I wish it wasn't so.
Geo