I came to b.org about 15 months ago (I was also part of the great Firefly invasion) after years of at least lurking on a wide variety of boards, and I don't recall having any trouble. This is a community, rather than a place to quickly look up what Joss said about X. To me, b.org is amazingly easy to use. There are other boards about things like medical conditions that would probably be useful to me, but they're so hard to use compared to this one that I tend to flee in terror. Plus, of course, people spell really badly.

I certainly understand wanting to respond to usability concerns, but aside from adding to the description of Nillytown, I can't think of anything else that would be useful. The only confusion I can see about "next" and "previous" is that the How-To describes them as buttons, and they're text links.

and almost six months to figure out Message Center.

OK, yeah, I had forgotten that it took me forever to figure out this most handy of handy functions. Was like a whole new world when I did.

The weird thing about te message center is that I LOVED it at TT, and then when we were at World Crossing, I got used to not having it. When we came back here, I almost had to re-learn how to use it.

and almost six months to figure out Message Center.

I know the feeling. Took me a year and a half to figure out "Read New."

I was just the opposite--had Message Center working for me very quickly. It was probably due to my almost nonexistent tolerance for the design of most Web boards, which lead to an overwhelming desire to take advantage of anything easy-reading-making.

I like the format even though I found TT strange and offputting most times. I'm used to motet based fora that runs fast even on a turtle like dialup. So I like how fast everything is here.

I didn't have any difficulty navigating when I first discovered the board, but I think it did take some time to figure out what many of the threads were. Maybe we could keep the cute/clever/snarky thread titles and make some of the slugs a little more explicit. Like stating what type of important stuff can be found in Nillytown, etc.

From catching up here it seems to me that, like some others suggested, having a clearer explanation of the different functions (Message Center, Read New, my little town etc.) may help the people who are already here and posting/reading, but not maximizing the options that the design (which I love, by the way) allows them.

I used to lurk at TT and had no login, and I read every thread I read backwards. I'd just go to the most recent most and click previous until I got to where I'd left off the last time.

Yes, it was weird, but hey, humans are adaptable.

Hey, flea, I did that too! It was a looong time before I registered at TT, 'cause I didn't want to give my real name! Heh. 'Cause, you know, never did.

And it took a bit initially to get used to this style, but I liked it much much better once I was into it. And yes, interestingly, I used message center almost exclusively over at TT, and got unused to it during the WX hiatus. Now I don't really use it at all. I set it up to just do right sidebar threads during the click crisis, so I could just read through the business stuff. And I never bothered to redo it.

What's the priority sequence it uses for unread threads? At TT, did it used to be 'fewest posts' first? 'Cause that's how I do it manually in practice, and I'm wondering now if that wasn't a TT relic.