Forum-wide changes:
1. Latest posts
Some of you have told us that the Latest Posts section of the old forum was a really useful way to catch-up on recent conversations.
We wanted to ensure that the new forum homepage didn’t feel too overwhelming to new users (something that came up in our research), so we’ve now moved Latest Posts so that they appear within each category instead.
If you’d like to view the latest posts and comments, simply scroll to the end of a board to view conversations.
2. Unread posts and ‘first unread post’
Your unread posts are presented much more clearly in the new forum, to help keep track of conversations.
You can now see at a glance if a thread has been read, or if there are new posts you’re yet to read. Unread threads appear in bold, and become ‘un-bold’ (if that’s a word!) once you’ve read the latest posts within it.
You can adjust the way posts are presented in your settings:
You can also control whether you’re directed automatically to ‘newest post first’ in threads in your settings:
Go to My Profile > Preferences
Sort by oldest first
Untick the box Jump to first unread post in a thread
If you make this adjustment, you’ll then be able to browse threads manually, in chronological order. :smileyhappy:
3. Unanswered threads
We’ve created an unanswered threads box that sits on the right-hand side of each board:
We’ve added this feature so that we can all see, at a glance, the posts that are awaiting a response. We think that, pretty soon, people will get into the habit of checking these boxes within sections to ensure posts are getting picked up.
4. Friends & Privacy
Our new Friends feature has prompted some questions, which is completely understandable. It’s a new way of making connections in the forum that’s totally optional and very secure.
By adding a user as a friend you can:
- Share bios
- Know when each other is online
- Send private messages (although you don’t have to be friends to do this, it does make PMing simpler because you can select who to contact from your personal friends list!)
And, of course, if you don’t want to do any of that you can either decide not to add someone as a friend, or control their level of access in your profile settings.
Find out more about creating a friends list in our Help section.
In case you missed the first lot of new features we have incorporated in our new forum, you can find it here in