it all.

First and foremost was the tool at the top of the forum** that when clicked on would show you every single new post, regardless of board, that YOU hadn't seen by taking you directly to each one you clicked on so you didn’t have to hunt through each board to see what was new. It could also show you a read out of each new one without having to go there so you could decide if you even wanted to bother. So it made it extra easy to navigate to only what you, personally, cared about.

Each board also showed you specifically what you, personally, had or hadn't read within that board as well. It would highlight every thread with something new, sorted by activity, so you could see it all at a glance. Much like this board where you can scroll down and see new posts in black and stop where no more posts are black and never miss a thing. That's why sort by activity works so well. Everything is still available if you want to add more, but dead tgreads don't smother active ones.

No one had to hunt through tons of stuff to find anything because the whole thing was designed to let you make your own experience exactly as desired.

I knew that at first it was a bit overwhelming for new posters, which is why I created so many little tutorials in the "how to" section with detailed instructions on both basic and advanced tools available. Also why it was sorted again into 4 specific sections (Back Alley, Politics, General -politics free, and the How to boards) so no one HAD to see stuff they didn't want to see mixed up with what they did along with different rules per section. (IOW, potentially nasty stuff, politics, NO politics or nasty stuff, and how to with a board for questions)

** detailed instructions were posted on the "how to" board at the very bottom of the list of boards within the forum that explained precisely how to use every available tool, including detailed pictures of where to find them and how to use them all. The forum was set up to allow each individual to set up their own experience exactky as they wanted it to be. You could tap into being able to only show boards that interested you. Only show new comments no matter what board they were on. Choose specific topics of interest or excluding any you didn't care for. You could block people, boards, topics, or anything you wanted. You could choose color schemes, fonts, sizes, time zones, etc EVERYTHING was customizable.

That is why it took me nearly a year to finish building it and why it was so disappointing that so many asked for me to create this simple message board that offers so much less and only holds about 2 months worth of posts.

The forum could hold a 7 to 10 years worth before I had to clear out really old stuff. So even those who only showed up every now and then could catch up quickly.

Everything new popped up to the top, but still kept the old stuff if anyone wanted to add to it or just read it.

Threads could be quickly read by having 20 to 30 fulky visible posts per page and you only had to click on new pages rather than every post.