# Community Feedback: New Forum Software is Live!



## Admin

We are excited to announce that we are live on our new forum platform!

It’s been a long time coming. Let’s face it. Sometimes older forum technology lags behind other parts of the internet. Although seeing the same format for a long time is comforting, the member experience shouldn’t include dealing with outdated, unsafe, slow software.

The transition to a new platform will never be 100% smooth but the days of dealing with out of date forum software are over. We have teams dedicated to building a world-class community for you. The development has been steady with regular software releases since May 2019. Asking members for feedback and coming up with ideas for improvement is what we want.

*Speed and Reliability Are Key*
No one should have to wait for information. This site has been built to be much faster and more reliable, period.

*New Homepage Experience*
Our algorithm will serve a personal customized feed based on your prior engagement with content on the site. If you’ve liked and or commented, or are following certain topics that are of interest to you, similar content will appear at the top of the homepage.

*Search*
We have introduced new search algorithms, powered by an industry-leading AI platform, to help you find information faster. We plan to roll out new features to continue improving search, and to power many additional areas of the forum.








Due to the volume of content, our search platform may take some time to complete indexing over the first few days after migrating. During this process, you may see a limited number of posts until indexing has been completed. We appreciate your patience.

*Finding Your Way Around*
We have made the design clean and simple to use. Near the upper right-hand corner of the community, you will see navigation icons.

The first icon is for what’s new on the site.








Clicking on it, by default, will take you to new unread posts. On that page, you can click on additional tabs as well, such as Popular, if you prefer to view active topics.








Clicking the list icon next to “NEW” will bring you to the full forum listing.








Clicking your avatar will give you a drop-down menu for all things related to your account.








You can also navigate more by clicking the 3 vertical dots.








*Dark Mode*
We have introduced Dark Mode. One of our favorite features allows you to access the site with a power-saving, and easier on the eyes dark mode. You can access it in the drop-down menu under the 3 vertical dots.

*Save Bookmarks*
Now you can save your favorite discussion threads and posts! Bookmarks are a handy way to remember and easily find great content or stuff you want to read later.








We also wanted to make it easier for new users to understand the lingo of forums. We have cleaned up various language to more commonly recognized phrases including:

*Following* - Thread subscriptions, and Watched are now known as Following
*Conversations *- Private Messages or PMs are now conversations and can be accessed from the user avatar drop-down in the main navigation
*Showcase* - Showcase is designed for users to "showcase" items/projects through the use of uploaded images, text descriptions and custom content categories. It’s a way to visually and textually provide detailed information on the content you wish to share. The showcase would be similar to a catalog, whereas the gallery would be like a photo album. It can be accessed from the drop-down menu with the 3 dots.
Take a tour and look around! Check out the Help section for some quick *FAQs* about the new platform.

Please keep all feedback, questions, concerns, requests for help, etc. regarding the new platform right here in this Feedback thread. This will help us make sure not to miss a request for help and also let us pass along your thoughts to our Product team. The Admins and I will be here to help along the way taking note of your comments.

- Community Management Team


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## Admin

I will be here during your transition to the new platform, to help with any questions, help with navigation or how to do things, and to listen to your feedback so please don't hesitate to holler at me. I want to help. You can also check out our *FAQs*.

I do want to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Cricket. When I was born, my father told his friends I was the ugliest baby he had ever seen, and that I sounded just like a cricket (I was born with the hiccups.) so yes, I have been Cricket for a very long time now. I live just outside of San Antonio, Texas. I spend most of my free time out in nature and exploring the back roads. During late autumn when it starts to finally cool down, I disappear from the world for a bit for camping trips and hiking.

Please don't be afraid to explore and test out things to see how they work on the site. 

Although you can certainly use the "insert image" icon to upload an image to your post, you can also just drag and drop it to the text editor or even copy/paste it into there!








You can easily share videos just by adding the URL directly into the text editor!






Gif links from sites like giphy.com will display automatically just by adding the gif URL directly in the text editor. Try it!






I am a huge fan of the dark mode for the community. What is your favorite feature?

*The new forum software is still a work in progress. *

We will be seeing regular updates which are largely fueled by community feedback. While that doesn't mean we can action every request, it does mean we will be actively listening to the feedback and sharing it with the developers. We do ask that you keep any questions, thoughts or feedback about the new forum software here in the Community Feedback thread to help us keep all the information together so we don't miss anything.

*There is still some work going on behind the scene so you may notice some changes as we work.*

It can take 24-48 hours for the site to finish indexing so it may take a bit for search results to return proper results, including showing all your threads/posts under your profile.
We will continue to clean up the order of the sections on the full forum listings page so you might see some stuff move around.
We are reviewing permissions and special permission sections so let us know if you notice any issues so we can look into them.
I have worked with our community support team for 7 years. I have worked with forums for closer to two decades. I won't always know the answers to your questions, but I can find someone who does, as needed. 

- Cricket


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## MysteryMan

I'm not happy. I paid $25.00 on the old site to eliminate advertising but now that we've been assimilated I'm seeing advertising in the right column.


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## Legman

Looking at the Staff List most of the staff hasn't been here in a long... long time.

Also it appears the forum permissions are set wrong as all the private forums are now in full view. Whoops.


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## P Smith

Cannot mark all my old Conversations as Read and why they are marked as UnRead if before the conversion they wasn't?


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## Mike Lang

MysteryMan said:


> I'm seeing advertising in the right column.


Be sure to read the FAQ. Premium members have the ability to enable focused reading mode & hide the right column.


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## Mike Lang

P Smith said:


> Cannot mark all my old Conversations as Read and why they are marked as UnRead if before the conversion they wasn't?


As soon as you check at least one, there's a "select all" at the bottom.


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## b4pjoe

P Smith said:


> Cannot mark all my old Conversations as Read and why they are marked as UnRead if before the conversion they wasn't?


Click the new posts link. From there you mark all as read.


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## Admin

MysteryMan said:


> I'm not happy. I paid $25.00 on the old site to eliminate advertising but now that we've been assimilated I'm seeing advertising in the right column.


Can you tell me when that was paid and for how long?

- Cricket


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## P Smith

Mike Lang said:


> As soon as you check at least one, there's a "select all" at the bottom.
> 
> View attachment 31927


Well, I did that check, what actually marked only current page [35 items] ,selected action Mark as Read, pressed GO, got top bar blah-blah SAVED. But NOTHING changed


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## Admin

Legman said:


> Looking at the Staff List most of the staff hasn't been here in a long... long time.
> 
> Also it appears the forum permissions are set wrong as all the private forums are now in full view. Whoops.


Which private forums are you referring to? Can I get a link, please?

- Cricket


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## Admin

Legman said:


> Looking at the Staff List most of the staff hasn't been here in a long... long time.
> 
> Also it appears the forum permissions are set wrong as all the private forums are now in full view. Whoops.


I will work with Mike in regards to the Staff List. 

- Cricket


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## Admin

P Smith said:


> Well, I did that check, what actually marked only current page [35 items] ,selected action Mark as Read, pressed GO, got top bar blah-blah SAVED. But NOTHING changed


There is no limit to the number of conversations. You can keep them indefinitely. If you choose to have one no longer display to you within your conversations, you can simply click near the upper right of the message to leave the conversation








Once you leave a conversation, it cannot be restored unless you are invited back to it.

*For leaving conversations in bulk (full page) you can do the following.*

Open your conversation box. Add a checkmark next to the conversation title.

That will open a drop menu near the bottom. Add a checkmark to "Select All".

Although you can add checkmarks next to each conversation, once you select any, a drop menu near the bottom will appear. If you want to leave conversation in bulk (such as a full page) Add a checkmark to "Select All".








Click the drop-down menu next to “Choose action” select “Leave conversations”. Click GO.

- Cricket


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## harsh

I'm not able to make any of my "conversation" notifications go away.

This makes my blue notification dot hang around implying that I have something new to review.

[I had forgotten how much I don't like the old editor]


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## P Smith

b4pjoe said:


> Click the new posts link. From there you mark all as read.


Did you miss what I'm asked ? Well - I need to mark Conversation as Read (as the condition was before)


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## P Smith

P Smith said:


> Click the drop-down menu next to “Choose action” select “Leave conversations”. Click GO.


 I need to mark Conversation as Read


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## Admin

P Smith said:


> Did you miss what I'm asked ? Well - I need to mark Conversation as Read (as the condition was before)


There is a filter within Conversations. Select Unread Conversations so that you can see all which are unread.








Now when you select all, you can add a checkmark to one, and then in the drop-down at the bottom, you can select all to mark as read.

- Cricket


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## Mike Lang

I had to mark some of my convos read too. It only took a minute. Select all and then mark as read & repeat for each page that has unread convos.


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## P Smith

!.All my conversations marked by RED now, eg means Not Read. But all of them has been Read before the conversion.
II. I CANNOT mark any of them as Read


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## MysteryMan

Mike Lang said:


> Be sure to read the FAQ. Premium members have the ability to enable focused reading mode & hide the right column.


Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like I have to pay another $19.99 to become a Premium member to have the ability to hide the right column even though I'm a current DBSTalk Club Member with time left on my membership. 


Mike Lang said:


> Be sure to read the FAQ. Premium members have the ability to enable focused reading mode & hide the right column.


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## b4pjoe

Admin said:


> Can you tell me when that was paid and for how long?
> 
> - Cricket


I'm having the same issue with ads showing up. I paid for a year last September.


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## P Smith

Admin said:


> Now when you select all, you can add a checkmark to one, and then in the drop-down at the bottom, you can select all to mark as read.


Well, it works partially - only for ONE page. I have 10 pages ...
Who could tell me the logic for execute Action ? Why select All convos is not enough ? Why I must mark second check box Unreaded ? Why old readed convos been marked as Unreaded ?

Usability issue: why selected Action item keep cleared ? 
I'm on same window, just contline marking as Read all may pages


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## Mike Lang

MysteryMan said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like I have to pay another $19.99 to become a Premium member to have the ability to hide the right column even though I'm a current DBSTalk Club Member with time left on my membership.


They might still be migrating over premium status dates. I know some stuff takes a day or two after the move.


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## Admin

b4pjoe said:


> I'm having the same issue with ads showing up. I paid for a year last September.


I am looking into this now. Did you pay for a year or was it longer?

- Cricket


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## harsh

Mike Lang said:


> I had to mark some of my convos read too. It only took a minute. Select all and then mark as read & repeat for each page that has unread convos.


The checkbox that I'm presented has a tooltip that says "Select for moderation". That should surely be changed if the boxes purpose is tagging for further action.

I have 14 pages of conversations and I would have thought that reading one would have marked it read.

UPDATE: The methodology suggested by Mike works as promised.


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## Admin

MysteryMan said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like I have to pay another $19.99 to become a Premium member to have the ability to hide the right column even though I'm a current DBSTalk Club Member with time left on my membership.


Hold on while we check how everything was migrated over. 

- Cricket


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## MysteryMan

Save


Admin said:


> I am looking into this now. Did you pay for a year or was it longer?
> 
> - Cricket


I'm a long term DBSTalk Club Member. I renewed my membership in June 2021. Shouldn't that have carried over?


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## MysteryMan

Admin said:


> Hold on while we check how everything was migrated over.
> 
> - Cricket


Will do.


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## b4pjoe

Admin said:


> I am looking into this now. Did you pay for a year or was it longer?
> 
> - Cricket


I paid for one year last September so it should be good until next September.


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## Admin

Take a moment to browse through our *Community FAQs* and let us know if you have any questions.









FAQ







www.dbstalk.com





- Cricket


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## WestDC

MysteryMan said:


> Will do.


I guess I will Hang on and see --I'm listed as DBS TALK CLUB MEMEBER in my Profile as well good through 2022


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## Mike Lang

I often recommend folks mark the entire site read one time right after migration if your read markers seem off (stuff shows as unread you know you read or vice versa).

To mark the entire site read, go to the New page and then click on the "Mark All Read" button just above the thread titles.


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## b4pjoe

Also I'm seeing ads disguised as forum posts by ebay. I assume once my Premium membership is straightened I won't see those either.


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## harsh

Mike Lang said:


> I often recommend folks mark the entire site read one time right after migration if your read markers seem off (stuff shows as unread you know you read or vice versa).


Unfortunately, this option doesn't exist for conversations.

The status of forum messages appears to have been accurately preserved.


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## harsh

b4pjoe said:


> Also I'm seeing ads disguised as forum posts by ebay.


In-line ads is a feature of the Fora software.


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## MysteryMan

harsh said:


> In-line ads is a feature of the Fora software.


That's bull****! When you pay to have ads removed they should remove "all" the ads!


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## harsh

MysteryMan said:


> That's bull****! When you pay to have ads removed they should remove "all" the ads!


I didn't mean to suggest that they wouldn't go away with a paid membership. I don't know if they will or won't.


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## Admin

WestDC said:


> I guess I will Hang on and see --I'm listed as DBS TALK CLUB MEMEBER in my Profile as well good through 2022





b4pjoe said:


> Also I'm seeing ads disguised as forum posts by ebay. I assume once my Premium membership is straightened I won't see those either.





MysteryMan said:


> That's bull****! When you pay to have ads removed they should remove "all" the ads!


The techs are working on this right now. The ads will be gone once they are finished. 

- Cricket


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## Mike Lang

Once they migrate premium statuses over, the ads will vanish.


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## Admin

I am starting to see the Premium Memberships being restored. If any of you still missing it, please let me know.


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## MysteryMan

Mike Lang said:


> Once they migrate premium statuses over, the ads will vanish.


It's been corrected, no more ads visible...Thanks


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## Legman

The hidden forums that were public are now properly hidden again.


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## Admin

This will take a few days to work properly while everything is getting indexed, but once it does, the following will help you navigate threads.

*Navigating Thread Listing*









Clicking the thread title will take you to where you left off, the 1st unread post.
Clicking the timestamp below the title will take you to the 1st post of the thread.
Clicking the timestamp above the last poster user takes you to the last (newest) post.
- Cricket


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## Eva

MysteryMan said:


> I'm not happy. I paid $25.00 on the old site to eliminate advertising but now that we've been assimilated I'm seeing advertising in the right column.


I just turned on my ad-blocker on this site. No more side column. This is horrible.


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## MysteryMan

Eva said:


> I just turned on my ad-blocker on this site. No more side column. This is horrible.


Could be worse. Fox News site has a ad that covers the entire screen. On way to get rid of it is to click on the X in the upper right corner.


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## MysteryMan

I just noticed there's no Edit Post feature. Is that going to be added later?


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## Eva

MysteryMan said:


> Could be worse. Fox News site has a ad that covers the entire screen. On way to get rid of it is to click on the X in the upper right corner.


Fox news is useless. The wet soggy mess that the paperboy tossed into the puddle again is my source of news!


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## Mike Lang

MysteryMan said:


> I just noticed there's no Edit Post feature. Is that going to be added later?


Click the 3 dots top right of your post.


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## Eva

MysteryMan said:


> I just noticed there's no Edit Post feature. Is that going to be added later?


Click on the 3 dots on the right side of your post. The edit function is there.

Edit: Me and Mike posted stereo at the same time. The 3 dot thing is similar to what the Invision platform uses.


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## Mike Lang

The FAQ covers things like editing posts and can be found here - FAQ


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## Eva

Mike Lang said:


> The FAQ covers things like editing posts and can be found here - FAQ


Got this: "Oops! We ran into some problems."


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## Mike Lang

Eva said:


> Got this: "Oops! We ran into some problems."


I'm unable to replicate that but it's also within the Help link at the bottom of any page on the site.


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## Eva

Mike Lang said:


> I'm unable to replicate that but it's also within the Help link at the bottom of any page on the site.


It worked the 2nd time I clicked it. It's like a new car, tyres still need some kicking and some bugs still getting worked out.


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## Mike Lang

After migrating to this platform, we saw daily registrations on AVS Forum eventually triple and stay that way ever since so you all may see some new faces soon.


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## Eva

I noticed the new name being called "*Digital Bit Streams Forums Forum*" - shouldn't it just be "*Digital Bit Streams Forum*?"

Having the "forum" word twice seems odd. Just a little feedback.


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## Mike Lang

You mean the notification emails? Yeah I'd like to get that to just DBSTalk Forum but bigger fish to fry today.


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## Eva

Mike Lang said:


> You mean the notification emails? Yeah I'd like to get that to just DBSTalk Forum but bigger fish to fry today.


Also the side box shows that and on the welcome page. Probably something to get to once the fish are done fried.

Edit: Thanks to a Mod for merging my thread into this one.


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## Admin

MysteryMan said:


> I just noticed there's no Edit Post feature. Is that going to be added later?


*How To Edit A Post*

Click on the 3 vertical dots to the far right of the timestamp. Select “Edit”.








Members have unlimited editing of new posts for the first 24 hours after posting. Up to 10 existing posts (older than 24 hours) may be edited per week. More editing will be allowed as each of those 10 edits expires every 7 days. 

- Cricket


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## Admin

Eva said:


> I noticed the new name being called "*Digital Bit Streams Forums Forum*" - shouldn't it just be "*Digital Bit Streams Forum*?"


This has been updated. I am not sure if it will immediately reflect in the emails. Please let me know.








- Cricket


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## Eva

Admin said:


> This has been updated. I am not sure if it will immediately reflect in the emails. Please let me know.
> View attachment 31934
> 
> - Cricket


That's a lot better. That is now showing on the welcome page and the sidebox. Thank you.


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## Admin

*How To Find Subscribed Threads*

Click on your avatar near the upper right-hand corner of the site and select “following” from the drop-down menu.








This will bring you to a page where you can choose to view followed discussions, forums, your discussions, and participated discussions.








- Cricket


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## TheRatPatrol

My god I thought I was on AVS Forms!



MysteryMan said:


> I just noticed there's no Edit Post feature. Is that going to be added later?


You can edit but you can’t delete.


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## MysteryMan

TheRatPatrol said:


> My god I thought I was on AVS Forms!
> 
> 
> You can edit but you can’t delete.


And there's another feature that needs to be returned.


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## Admin

In my humble opinion, a successful forum community has never been about the platform. It is about the amazing members who come together to share a common interest and along the way true friendships are developed.

I have been helping sites transition to the new forum software since May of 2019. In that time I have noticed that during the first 30 days or so, traffic tends to slow down a bit while folks adjust to the new navigation and features. Somewhere between 60 - 90 days the activity increases and the community begins to grow. Give it some time. We will get there. 

We will be seeing *regular updates* that are largely fueled by community feedback. While that doesn't mean we can action every request, it does mean we are actively listening to the feedback and sharing it with the developers.

- Cricket


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## GekkoDBS

Sorry to post this in the Directv General Forum, is it possible for the Admins of this site to bring back the latest posts sub menu that would appear on the right side in the middle of the page, thank you.


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## GekkoDBS

Admin said:


> In my humble opinion, a successful forum community has never been about the platform. It is about the amazing members who come together to share a common interest and along the way true friendships are developed.
> 
> I have been helping sites transition to the new forum software since May of 2019. In that time I have noticed that during the first 30 days or so, traffic tends to slow down a bit while folks adjust to the new navigation and features. Somewhere between 60 - 90 days the activity increases and the community begins to grow. Give it some time. We will get there.
> 
> We will be seeing *regular updates* that are largely fueled by community feedback. While that doesn't mean we can action every request, it does mean we are actively listening to the feedback and sharing it with the developers.
> 
> - Cricket


It is definitely more difficult to navigate, I hope you can bring back the latest posts sub menu that would appear on the right side of the screen in the middle of the page, also if you can make it easier to read the time stamp or time of the last post of a specific thread, the way in which the site is designed, the fonts or coloring just makes it difficult to easily scan, thank you.


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## Eva

TheRatPatrol said:


> My god I thought I was on AVS Forms!
> 
> 
> You can edit but you can’t delete.


Same institution owns both. We been "VSed" as this site now part of VerticalScope of Canada.


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## Eva

You could ask this in the big master thread under Forum Support...

Link: Community Feedback: New Forum Software is Live!


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## Mike Lang

That old "Latest Replies" tool is now the What's New page where you can also now dial in to see the more popular threads and threads looking for their first reply.

I envision a future where users will be able to choose their own widgets to add to the right column.


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## GekkoDBS

Eva said:


> You could ask this in the big master thread under Forum Support...
> 
> Link: Community Feedback: New Forum Software is Live!



Yeah but that stinks because it is the latest posts from all over the board, also the alert system for responses to your posts is horrible too.


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## Admin

GordonGekko said:


> Yeah but that stinks because it is the latest posts from all over the board, also the alert system for responses to your posts is horrible too.


You can customize what is displayed within NEW by setting up filters to display exactly what you want to see there.

*How To Filter New Posts To Only Display Specific Section(s)*

You can accomplish this by setting a custom default filter on the new posts page.

*Step 1* Navigate to the specific forum you want to focus on and click "Follow Forum".








*Step 2* From the navigation, near the upper right-hand corner, click on NEW.








This will open a new page of new posts for you. On the new page, click on filters.








Now you can adjust the filters to work for your personal preferences, such as the example above and save it as the default.

Make sure to click the "filter" button to save it, at the bottom.

- Cricket


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## Admin

I am logging off for the night, but I will return tomorrow morning to continue answering questions.

In the meantime...

Take a moment to browse through our *Community FAQs* and let us know if you have any questions. 









FAQ







www.dbstalk.com





- Cricket


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## gjrhine

Where is the Sirius forum?


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## Mike Lang

gjrhine said:


> Where is the Sirius forum?


It hasn't moved...









Sirius XM General Discussion


General Discussion about Sirius XM satellite radio service.




www.dbstalk.com





Tip: If you tend to live in just one or a few forums, you can follow them and they'll be pinned to the top of your Main Forum Listing page.


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## Jim5506

I regularly scan five or six forums reading new posts there. How does one proceed from one post to the next in a forum without going back to the top?

i.e. if I have just read the 5th thread in the Dish General Discussion forum, how do I go to the 4th thread without going back to the Dish General Discussion forum top and scrolling down to the 4th thread?

In the old DBSTalk one just clicked on previous at the bottom of the current thread to jump to the next one.


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## Mike Lang

Those Previous/Next links were an unsupported third party plugin that we would have lost in any upgrade. They mimicked an old vBulletin feature. I’ve actually asked if the team can at some point replicate it but it would need to wait for more requested features to get done.


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## Jim5506

Mike Lang said:


> Those Previous/Next links were an unsupported third party plugin that we would have lost in any upgrade. They mimicked an old vBulletin feature. I’ve actually asked if the team can at some point replicate it but it would need to wait for more requested features to get done.


Lack of previous/Next makes reading through forums unnecessarily cumbersome.


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## GekkoDBS

Mike Lang said:


> Those Previous/Next links were an unsupported third party plugin that we would have lost in any upgrade. They mimicked an old vBulletin feature. I’ve actually asked if the team can at some point replicate it but it would need to wait for more requested features to get done.


Is there any possible way in the future you can alter the alert button, at the previous forum if you hovered over the button, it would display your alerts, now you have to click the button once, then click alerts to see a list of your alerts.


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## Admin

I will pass on your feedback to the developers. 

- Cricket


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## P Smith

Admin said:


> I will pass on your feedback to the developers.
> 
> - Cricket


I would expect they are silently watching THE forum 24/7 for now


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## Jim5506

Since this new platform will not let me delete a post, I'll just cry about it! 🤣


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## Admin

The site will be transitioning from the dedicated support team (who works primarily with helping members transition to the new platform) over to our regular tech support team. Although this means it may take us a bit longer to respond to your questions, we will continue to be here for you and the community.

- Community Management Team


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