I tried to follow the new rules and un-check all the forums I DON'T want to follow. That left me with about 75. But they aren't in alphabetical order! WTH? I've got to search all through that list each time to find Landscape Design or whatever?

And where's the Kitchen Table? And Home Decorating Conversations?

I think they must have finally pulled the plug on the old interface.

LOL JDS! Yes there is a very active laundry form! Everything from pluses and minuses of specific machines to where to find fabric softener that smells like lily of the valley if that's your thing. They were very helpful when I was in the market for new washer and dryer.

I like how the "home forums" include photography and menopause.

About time to leave anyway...just as I am being forced by mrs. worthy to build again instead of just chatting about it. For some reason, she objects to the water dripping into five rooms when it rains. (But there's always the upside of being house poor: you drop a tax bracket or three!)

Shalom!

Kitchen Table and Home Decorating are the forums that cost more money than they were worth. It costs too much money to host a site for social media when there are existing sites whose functions are to provide social interactions.

I don't have a problem with the format it currently is. I have the headings I often post to in a sidebar and go to those easily. I love that it opens a new page as it means it is easy to get back to the other page. I find the app easy to use as well and have no issues with it. I'm not sure what people find upsetting but I've only been here two years and it hasn't changed a to me in that time.

I just returned after a year off. I feel like I did when my parents moved to Chicago while I was in college. It may well be a good time to leave. Why learn a new system.

Worthy, Good Luck, I hope you stay well and take a lot of breaks between fixing leaks.

Too many negative comments from the regulars, have you noticed the recent “before after” posts from new posters?

How would you find them?

Alison, if you don’t know, then you are not affected. I was not affected until yesterday.

Jim Mat I will cautiously wait and hope mine doesn't change LOL>

JDS, just when I was so happy to see you back. Darn.

Alternately, those who don't know may be newer users. I think a lot of us affected today are those who for whatever reason managed to avoid the previous waves of changes. This wave feels pretty big : ( .

This wave feels pretty big : ( .

And not in a good way. I mean they can't even get the forums in alphabetical order and now if you want to see all the forums you have to scroll through hundreds.

There is a thread asking for comments here:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/new-look-for-gardenweb-topics-dsvw-vd~5342444?n=965

Well, it seems Houzz is rolling out their updates in the same fashion as Apple does with their IPhone updates. Throw one out there without proper testing and let the users tell them what's not working. When I was a software engineer IBM would rollout a new mainframe computer and install it in our company's computer center.

We knew it was coming (they told us)

We knew they were using us as a beta test site (they told us)

We knew they expected us to let them know what might not be working

( they told us)

Well, you get the idea.

What's with the Top Commenters column?

Are we having a contest? Anyone care to guess what the prize is?

I think I could use this format, except for the disorderliness of the full list of forums/topics. I may not like it, but I think I could use it. If it lets me create a thread; right now it does not.

The problem bp is the old forum actually was orderly and made sense. Nothing about this new version makes sense.

Seriously does anyone want to start a new forum somewhere? I'm in. (And I bet this comment gets deleted.)

I'm in for the new one, too. Function and appropriate use of resources has been a thread throughout GW. That's worse than ignored, now . Why even come here if the people we've come to value and trust have left? If advice ends up requiring an outside consult, which is where I see it going with the uptick in "Pros" posting their photos from jobs in GW topics instead of their Houzz page, it's just an ad site.

This is a mess. The best solution would be to allow anyone to customize
their viewing format to their liking.

For example, all the GardenWeb forums would be listed in a pull
down menu and one could select which ones they wanted to see appear in the same
forum view. For me it would be only “Building a Home” but for others it might
be “Building a Home”, “Kitchens” and Remodeling” and posts from those three forums would appear in their list of posts. And of course a viewer could
bookmark any number of menu lists so one could go their “Building a Home”
one, then to their “Kitchens” one, etc. to only see the posts in that forum.

I used to go a lot to the Fine Homebuilding forum. They
changed the format there and the forum effectively died. Just went on the “home
design” sub forum there and the last post was 38 weeks ago. Before the change
there were posts daily.

I just got a few more minutes of my day back...

cpartist - I'm setting up a new location for Decorating Conversations. Someone can do the same for Building a Home. https://www.proboards.com/

Can we add multiple forums like the old GW? Just add in all the old ones?

Houzz is preparing for an IPO. Advertizing sales and profit are the only thing that is important now.

Exactly skivista.

cp that's above my pay grade to say nothing of above my skill set. It can probably be done on that site but I haven't had the opportunity to play around with it yet.

DLM, at some point we'll talk. Probably after I get back from my trip. I ran a BB board many years ago. I will say people hunger for good online communities where they get to know their "neighbors".

Sad that is now being completely ruined.

"Houzz is preparing for an IPO. Advertizing sales and profit are the only thing that is important now."

Yup. HOUZZ doesn't care about us, or our 20 year history with GardenWeb. GW as we knew it is dead. So be it.

please let me know if another platform is organized

(I think you have my email already)

I hope very much it wont be FB-FB is selling everybody and their mom, left and right

I also hope Houzz will see the idiocy of its actions, and will return the old format until it's too late.

I hate this format. It is very hard to read.

Seriously does anyone want to start a new forum somewhere? I'm in.

I'm in, too, if you'll have me. ;-)

After this week, I won't be available until after the July 4th holiday. Hopefully houzz fixes the problem and then we can go on our merry way, but if not, I'm game. I used to own and run a colored pencil BB board.

The aliens have overtaken it

I always read, but never post. I deleted my Facebook page for a reason and adore the dedicated posters on this site who give invaluable advice for free. I would be incredibly sad (actually kick up a massive fuss) if Houzz elimated the much more useful search and listing functions of GardenWeb.

Just chiming in to say I also hate this format. Let me know of the new spot if one is created

Please go to [THIS THREAD[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/new-look-for-gardenweb-topics-dsvw-vd~5342444?n=965) and post your thoughts on the changes. Hopefully it will help.

I honestly don’t understand the upset with changes. I don’t see how I could not be seeing them? I see top commenters and other stuff. But my threads are organized by the top three groups I post in and I can select one group and just see that one. It is in order of who commented most recently. I also have notifications that show when someone comments on a post I have. It seems also user friendly to me?

What about reddit? Would that be a good place to start over?

Alison is this the windows you're getting when you open things up?

This first window is the first thing I see when i go to houzz.com. I then click on the Stories and Advice. In the past under Gardenweb Discussions, there were several choices to make, Gardening forums, House Forums, Cooking Forums, etc. Now there is nothing. The only thing to click on is the header.

The header takes me to this below. So now instead of having an alphabetized list of just the Home Forums since I would have chosen Home Forums in the drop down menu above, I get his unalphabetized list where I first have to scroll through all the Gardening Forums to then find the Home Forums.

Once I finally get that, I then wind up with this below. If I click on one of those, and I'm lucky it will take me to a thread that is actually about the topic I'm interested in, whether that is kitchens, building a home or something else. If not, I'll get something that should have only been in plumbing, but since the OP could now choose 3 forums to post in, they picked three including the one I'm interested in.

So now we see issues like "what knobs should I choose for my kitchen I'm redoing?" in Building a Home. But the person isn't building a home. They're choosing knobs for a renovated kitchen.

And now, if I want to see all the Home Forums, I have to scroll through the list above or I have to just pick a few that supposedly interest me.

Oh and if I do find the correct forum, and do pick on a thread, it opens a brand new window, so instead of one window open that I can then use my back button, I wind up with lots of useless windows open.

Maybe you're not seeing what I'm seeing?

The only way I have found to scroll through latest of all discussions is to log out. Then I can surf like I used to. If I want to comment I log in and then log out. I do have some favorite forums, but usually I just surfed them all and dropped in on what interested me.

Yep I see same thing. But on the left hand side where it says “your topics” or whatever the column heading is I can then select one, from the list I commonly go to, and it takes me directly to that set of posts. Yes it is true sometimes the posts are in building a home and shouldn’t be but I don’t find it too onerous to open them quickly then close if irrelevant to me.

There shouldn't be any reason to go to www.houzz.com; go to www.gardenweb.com

This is the window I get where I can edit "Your Topics" in the side bar):

Explore Topics takes me to this screen where I can type in a topic. Typing Bu brings up Building a Home. Rem brings up Remodeling

As for the threads, I don't find more than one in 20 that is interesting these days.

Maybe my browser hasn't updated yet.

I have a very wide variety of interests and just a few forums doesn't hold me here.

I am very close to bailing.

JDS, i get the same window. However, I don't want to have to try and figure out what forums I want to visit ahead of time. Everyday I like to visit Kitchens and Building a Home, but some days I also like to visit Remodeling, The Old House and Bathrooms, but other days I might like to look at Windows, Fireplaces, Flooring and Antiques. But now with them not even being in alphabetical order, I have to guess as to what names I should go to.

Additionally my complaint was not with having to go to www.gardenweb.com or www.houzz.com, but with how they are laid out.

And lastly I don't want to have to edit the topics I look at or pick favorites. I want the whole site to be user intuitive, which it was before. Now it's not.

And I certainly don't enjoy wading through threads that don't belong in the forum I chose to look at.

Let me know if/when y'all move... If you'll have me. :-)

Houzz to GardenWeb:
You must assimilate; resistance is futile.
.
GardenWebbers have always been an unruly bunch that refused to play by the Houzz rules. Even in the Spike days, many chose to be sent to Disneyland rather than conform. Sorry Houzz, but I never received favorable marks in "plays well with others".

I find it ironic that Houzz is "updating" the forums by endlessly tweaking the details but never correcting the underlying flaws with the basic structure/code. Isn't this a bit like those who want to fix a bad floorplan with minor tweaks? They're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Is it possible to do a search within a forum? I can't find that function at all. For example, I want to search the "building a home" forum for "basement" or something like that. I don't see how to do it!

pattcook, go to the forum you're interested in searching, and in the search bar type what you're searching for and then hit enter and then there will be a dropdown menu giving you the choice to search for that term in the particular forum, or in Advice, in Shop, etc. Click the option for that particular forum. It's clunky but it works as well as anything else does around here lol. What I usually do is search in Google, using as search terms GardenWeb, the forum name in parentheses, and then what I'm looking for, also in parentheses if necessary. Good luck : ) .

The only way I have found to scroll through latest of all discussions is to log out. Then I can surf like I used to. If I want to comment I log in and then log out. I do have some favorite forums, but usually I just surfed them all and dropped in on what interested me.