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.

About readability, I'm guessing its mostly culture. Dunno what to do about not being able to find the previous next.

The only thing about them not posting is that if they're linked to a particularly juicy bit of information, the odds are that there are hundreds of posts here following that bit. Which means that they might never make it to the posting box, and might assume that it's not available to them.

The Message Center displays threads with the newest unread messages at the top, Read New cycles through from oldest thread to newest.

I never knew that! I use it as a tool to limit how many threads I can see on one page. I'm so far behind on everything, I'm reading here because it's possible to catch up.

In the profile page, is there an organization to the way threads are listed? It seems like I'm searching here, there and everywhere to unsubscribe to a closed thread.