There are a few issues that still need "clearing" up.
But, the only issue I would like to address right now is the friend list. My list still changes as members log on, or post comments, or participate in some way. This does not help me. I would like to "find" my friends quickly. The way things are now, I have to scroll through many pages to locate a particular friend. Especially if they have not logged on, or participated in some way for over a week.
It would be sooo much easier if my "friend list" were in alphabetical order.
Thank you for listening,

There are some gems here! Thank you for the update!

WTF????

What the heck is this "popular posts in this group" at the end of the topic replies?

Are you kidding me?

Furthermore, why would you include posts from other groups in THIS group. Violates a group member's sense of privacy.

I must say, you've outdone yourselves, DS.

I agree w maryturk about friends list alphabetized and a search feature added to friends list....hugs

Oh great, this latest change where you added "popular posts in this group" and "posts you may be interested in" at the bottom of individual thread pages just ADDED MORE PAIN and USELESS AND UNNECESSARY NAVIGATION!!!! IF you had just designed it similar to the old and a million times better old ds, we wouldn't need it because WE COULD SEE MOST OF THE POSTS ON THE FIRST PAGE!!!!! As it stands now I can only see one thread at a time on a 13" laptop!!! :-((

Thanks to a suggestion from someone in this group a while back, I had a little work around all of the scrolling by hitting cmd/down arrow to get to the bottom of the page to see the last post AND to get to the pages (since they are no longer at the top) and now you've f'd that up completely.

Having to continuously press on the down arrow stresses my hands (not that you care). It was much easier (altho still a pain) to go all the way to the bottom in one quick action. Now we have have to scroll back up using the up arrow key or the mouse to get to the page numbers and the last entry. TOO PAINFUL FOR THOSE OF US WITH HAND, NECK, ARM and/or SHOULDER ISSUES.

I find this very frustrating, not just because of the physical pain the new ds site causes, but also because I used to teach people at the corporate level how to solve problems so they could work SMARTER, NOT HARDER. I'm sorry to say that ds is the perfect example of doing the EXACT OPPOSITE.

Since this is owned in part by the famous tv dr and its attached to the mama health"care" site, what happened TO FIRST DO NO HARM?????

I also agree with Mary about the friends list and Californialynn about the privacy issue.

UNTIL you FIX THE HORRIBLY CUMBERSOME NAVIGATION, none of the other so-called "improvements" or "fixes" mean diddly because the site is way too prohibitive to use for some of us.

I've had to give up my groups and am now down to depending on email alerts to support friends when & if they write a journal.

Thanks a bunch ds!

Just a quick question.

Are those "popular posts in this group" at the bottom, specific to me only? I went to my Christian group and it had cross posts to the RA forum. I would hate to have people that do not have RA have that on the bottom of the page.

I really don't understand the purpose of this feature. I found when I posted it just popped back up to the top. It would have been better to have the post just posted be where the SEND button ended up. So you could edit the post, without having to scroll down or go pages into the thread. Then you could also look at "Popular Posts in this group."

I also wonder why a reply button was not put at the top of messages? If you have a long, or on-going discussion with someone, the longer it gets, the more you have to scroll and scroll back to the bottom to press the SEND or REPLY button.

I do appreciate you are working to make things better. However, things like alphabetized friends list, and for the member groups, group messages and the ability to change founders or delete the group would be appreciated. Thanks!

PS. I am not asking for anything more than the old DS has!

Just noticed that there are posts shown now on the login screen. The main DS screen. BEFORE you even login to DS!!! Meaning ANYONE coming to DS, whether they're a member or not, can see the previews of these posts and the usernames of those who posted them, public for all of the internet to see.

Yep! So much for privacy. Maybe those folks who couldn't log in should be grateful.

The "popular posts" section is the most ridiculous unnecessary "update" yet! Just when you get used to something after an update, they go and change it and you have to learn it all over again! Now, not only do you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find the latest comment, now you have to put the brakes on before you end up in that popular post area and beyond!!! I just don't get it. They add highly unnecessary things like this and ignore the many requests, simple requests, that so many people repeatedly ask for...features we had before.
And....where the heck are the photos we once had in our profiles she asks for the one millionth time! That was such a nice feature to get to know someone if they were your friend.
I hope the seventh grade computer 101 class is listening as they work on this site, please kids pay attention!

Every so-called up-grade
has taken us farther and
farther away from what
was a wonderful place
for support for the vulnerable
. . . . . . long, long ago.

What a SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the next upgrade could you please consider putting hugs back to unlimited characters? I'm tired of being cut-off mid sentence due a limit on how many letters you can include. This ain't twitter, folks.

Wow, this sure is a messy bunch of changes. I still have some good ideas (from 7 months ago) that I'd like to present again, but I guess this isn't a good time?

Hah!

I have a couple of suggestions to consider to improve readability of this website:
1. An option in profile page where we can select any number of posts/ several choices (such as 15, 50, 100) (currently hard-coded at 15) before we have to hit the "more" button.
2. An option in profile page where only the title of the post is shown (ie. no preview of the post itself).