I think it's probably more a cultural thing than anything else. Most other boards out there allow any old person to start a new thread, and as a result people have more control over what they read, depending on the specificity of the thread topics.

Here, if you want to talk or read talk about Angel, you have to just dive into the thread, and deal with everything that comes up. You can't pick and choose among sixteen active threads, some of which are overlapping or redundant. For myself, I like this version because it enforces some community element: everyone talking about Angel is in the same room.

Anyway, I'm rambling, and this is pretty meta, so I'll stop.

They're right there at the top and bottom of the posts. How much more obvious can you make them, unless they blink?

Hmm. I wonder if having them slightly larger and on their own line would help?

I've been on boards with many kinds of interfaces, though never Table Talk.

This set up is clean and very intuitive as far as I can see. I go on the BronzeBeta or another threaded board and it drives me apeshit to try to find and follow a particular conversation.

If I were there all the time, I'm sure it wouldn't be as difficult, and I think the complaints you're reading (without knowing any specifics other than next/previous) are an artifact of getting to know ANY new interface.

That said, if it wouldn't frell something badly, why not just use a slightly larger font for that whole command bar? That might make it a bit easier for newbies to follow without having a blinking trail of pixie dust to follow.

I wonder if having them slightly larger and on their own line would help?

I don't like larger (which may just be my personal interface squick) but having them at either end of the line or on their own line might make them more visible.

Rather than changing our interface, could we just add a little mini-screenshot of the navigation bar to the "How to Navigate the Board" section on the How-To and FAQ pages? Currently, it explains how to use all the different navigational options, but it doesn't show where they are.

I think this is as easy as it gets for non-threaded setups. I like threads, but I'm not only in the minority, but OVERWHELMINGLY in the minority. Liking threaded or not is a matter of preference, not of inherent easiness/difficulty - completely subjective. No reason to acomodate a radically different subjectivty at the expense of most current users.

In terms of table locking - the locking is just one very small table. And for that matter you could create a single non-isam table allowing record locking just for keeping track of posts.

I don't like larger (which may just be my personal interface squick) but having them at either end of the line or on their own line might make them more visible.

Own line and bold? (I'm seriously just tossing ideas into the wind here.)

Do you guys need to take the trouble to accomodate non-posters? No one here has complained of trouble, and we're not exactly reticent when it comes to that.

I say, they want to piggyback on our content while snotting about shit that's really easy? Screw 'em.

I say, they want to piggyback on our content while snotting about shit that's really easy? Screw 'em.

Yup. I think my new motto is going to be "What would Jaye do?"

It took me a couple of days to get used to this board style, coming from that cascading thread style of discussion, but I'm so used to it now, I find the cascading thread style distant and impersonal.