[Marty]

I hear some of you liking the changes, some don't like it, some like the features, some don't...

I'm curious how you guys feel about the changes overall on the site. I realize that I dumped a lot of very drastic alterations at all of you. I know that once you're used to certain ways for several years and all of the sudden everything changes, the initial reaction is pretty much always negative. That's to be expected.

IMO we had to get out of the old software fast - it was outdated and spammers were joining by a truckload, plus it wasn't optimized in any way. We already have 4 times more pages indexed by google then on the old forum. That's only the tip of the iceberg. GU only gets 7% of it's traffic from search engines - which means that we're still hard to find. Slowly as we're spidered by the bots, more and more pages get indexed and our page rank should increase, making us much easier to find. What's the use of the wealth of information if no one can find it. We should be getting much more traffic from search engines. This will keep increasing over the coming months, making the information contained here much more accessible.

be sure to vote

[cliff_f]

I might be one of the few people, but I like the change. It will take a little getting use to but I like it. I just wasnt to sure about a "plant" guy taking over the site. But so far you are doing a great job. I really started to like you when I seen that you was the one that built that awesome dart frog setup.

[Marty]

Good...I should document my other setup that I'm working on then

btw, I'm not exclusively a plant guy, I've been doing herps all my life...snakes, lizards, geckos, frogs, salamanders, etc. I may not be an expert in geckos, but I'm fairly rounded when it comes to herps in general. Lately specifically darts, because they perfectly fit into my lil ecosystems. I'd say that I'm a tropical naturalistic vivarium nut more then anything else. Orchids fit there too, but mainly the miniatures. Geckos aren't far from what I'm about, if they were I wouldn't be interested in this forum like I am.

This is your forum, your venue, not mine. I just have the keys to the building

[roaches42993]

I like it.....although I don't get the classifide section in the forums when we already have a whole classifides system......also I think we should get a chat forum so people can book chats with other people .

[Marty]

Originally Posted by roaches42993

I like it.....although I don't get the classifide section in the forums when we already have a whole classifides system......also I think we should get a chat forum so people can book chats with other people .

The old classified forum is still up and as you noticed the new classifieds are up... we will run both for a bit, just to let people get used to them. Idea is that we will fase out the forum classifieds once all the bugs are worked out of the new system.

Chat forum? If you want to chat with somone, why not send them a PM?

[roaches42993]

because a chat forum could be like "hey im into Leopard Geckos anyone want to chat saturday at 6 about them ? " and then people who see that post would be like "ye im open saturday ill be there . Its a great way to organize group discussion . a calendar is to but to calendar enteries show up on the home page ?

[Marty]

Good point Kenny, Like the 'case in point' Upcoming calendar entries show up in the footer of the main forum display. btw, if there are any meeting, shows, displays, etc scheduled in the future, be sure to put them on the calendar for everyone to see.

[roaches42993]

alright . So are we gona get a chat forum ? I will be sure to as I am invited to / attend some.....

[Marty]

as soon as work out all the bugs from the chat

[baugh]

it will take some time to get used to. but i like it so far the only thing i would say is that the photo gallery should be broken up instead of all the pics going in one big area.