LL, "Is profile only available by clicking on the poster's name? as I don't think that is immediately obvious - will "Profile" be on there as text as well?"

Actually that was discussed before. You can fight it out with Slur who finds the blue bar too busy even now.

twitteringbirds, it will work that way when it's finished.

ohlittlefish - drop down boxes are a PITA for a lot of people - too much clicking. The idea of the current site is that you can get to any topic with two clicks, and the most popular ones with one (though you might need to hit your space bar to see all the list).

LL, it has been tested in a pile of different browsers, but admittedly not for some time, so it could be that some things are broken in non Mac browsers. But that's part of the reason for showing it to everyone (200,000 free beta testers). If you care to email screenshots to demonstrate your points that would be fab, but no worries if too much hassle.

Yes abbreviations will be linked to - under a "Useful stuff" link, but that wasn't ready so we took it off for now.

moondog, thing is, it was/is broken. But that's perhaps a more philosophical discussion for another time!

OhLITTLEFISHofBethlehem, trouble is, if you put them all one page (as now), you end up with a rather unwieldy list. In our research we found that most regular users of MN don't use the topic list. And new users are overwhelmed by a long long list. It's a valid comment though and we'll be interested to hear what other people think.

BitOfFunUnderTheMistletoe (only a bit?) you can change how many posts are shown on a single page by clicking Customize.

thumbElf, lack of chat link visible on the topic list is an oversight. We'll address it forthwith.

Slur, it has been said in the past that people get frustrated because they're reading through the thread and get to a point where they want to add their tuppence worth. They then have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to the "add post" form. And we get emails from people asking how they add their message, believe it or not. Lastly we want to encourage posting! Hence, repeated "Add a message". Other than that, glad you approve - let us know if you need any help slipping off those old shoes for something more fancy.

snoopdog, first keep in mind that search doesn't work at all on the test site. But, in answer to your question, just click Advanced Search (under the search box). All the original options are still there.

LedodgyChristmasjumper, you should definitely use your pre-Christmas name.

A couple more points:

If you have registered on MN in the last couple of months then your account won't exist on the test system. Also, if you've changed your password in the last couple of months that change won't have been reflected on the new site either.

And yes, we know the number of posts on any given thread is wrong. This is a weird boring technical thing that won't exist when we move the test stuff to the real server yada yada techno nonsense.

As your dear leader says, keep in mind this is still a bit of a work in progress. There are lots of links that either don't work or don't go anywhere, but no need to tell us about them - we know they're there. However, we are interested to hear if you find it pleasing on the eye (or not), easier to navigate (or not) and so on.

The following link will take you to the test site. It is a snapshot of the live site from a while back, so you'll find lots of old posts there. ANYTHING POSTED ON THERE WILL NOT BE COPIED BACK TO THE REAL SITE. That does mean you can post any old nonsense as you wish however, which I think some people might enjoy...

Lastly, keep in mind it's experimental, might disappear at any moment and is not on as powerful hardware as the live site, so it might be slower.

Right, knock yourselves out...

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