I logged in tonight for the first time without any difficulty other than the fact that I now need an underline symbol between my first and last name. Seems somebody doesn’t like spaces here. Whatever. I’m really disappointed to read the feedback on the new site. Seems about 98% of the users feelings range from mild dislike to intense hatred. This isn’t good. It is certainly understandable that you are going to frustrate old users with change. I see it happen daily on the job when new products or methods are introduced and the initial reaction is negative, but once the learning curve is over, many times the naysayers are the leading proponents for more change.  My worry here isn’t so much for the old timers but for the newcomers. Whether you like it or not, they are the ones that keep this site vibrant and refreshing. My reason for being here was never about reading the rants and bickering between the old hats that have subscribed long before I was around. That

always bored me. What keeps me coming back are the questions from the one-timers, lurkers, and newbies. I find that occasionally I have some input to offer which satisfies my desire to educate. Many other times I am amazed at what I can learn when a novice’s simple question is answered different ways by different people sending the thread in a totally new and fascinating direction. The key to all of this is that it was easy for me as a rookie to join this club, and I think that 98% of the other newcomers who have posted questions over the years felt the same way. There was a distinct lack of clutter and complication matched with a font that was easy on the eyes and just made you feel at home. ( The psychology of font selection may sound like lunacy, but I can guarantee that there is more to this than you think.)  I am the type of person that has a great appreciation for bells, whistles and gadgets, but I generally choose the things in life that are simple and practical. I had to laugh last fall when after posting here for 1 1/2 years another user somehow recognized that I was typing in “WBA At Your Service” every time I posted. He emailed me and pointed out that by simply fooling with my preferences, this could be done automatically for me every time. A year and a half and I never knew that. And I never cared. Apparently the old simple site had a load of features that I never needed. And this new one ? It looks like it could fly the space shuttle. Yet, it appears to me that it fails at its most simple and by far most important task. Welcoming new users. Without them, we are as doomed as a carpenter’s union that doesn’t have the foresight to invest in an apprentice program for our youth.

      This reminds me of a friend’s circular saw I used a few years ago. I needed to rip some thick material at a 45 degree angle but when I adjusted the bevel to 45, there was something built into the tool that prevented you from even coming close to setting the saw to its maximum cutting depth. It was a design flaw that prevented me from completing my task. If I was going to design and manufacture a product like a circular saw, I know that I certainly would budget prototypes that would be sent to contractors in the field for testing. This site should be put to the same test by a large group of people who have never visited the site before. Put the people in front of one PC that is running the old site for an hour or two and then let them use the new site on another machine. Provide the people with questions to post. Let each of them do this alone, not as a group. Then question them about whether the new site is a place where they feel comfortable and ask them would they return. Ask them what features did they like about the old site that should be incorporated into the new.  The future of this site depends on this.

      Oh, by the way, that friend’s circular saw is now a discontinued model.