I want to like Center Court. It is a nice forum, especially considering many Five Live posters including the trolls have joined, so I guess it will be fun ;) But I feel that there are far too many different boards in this forum, and I find it confusing. Being so used to the BBC Tennis board, I really wish there would have been a single or at most two boards for the posting. One related to tennis and the other off topic. This would keep everything in perspective, easier to check the messages, and do not need to jump back and forth between different message boards. I now realize that this was one of the reasons I like d the BBC board because it was really simple and elegant. I cannot see myself visiting so many sub forums that are within this center court (and they are really many!), but I also do not want to miss the posts that are posted at so many different places, guess there is no win-win situation, BBC forum was on of a kind :)

You will get used to it mate - it does take a little adjusting to.

In a few weeks you'll see how much better this place is - far more organised and flexible

The only reason that the BBC tennis message board was one fourm was that it was itself a sub forum of the 5 live message boards.

This is a tennis forum, this means we can specialise and have special sub forums, which hopefully (and they have so far) streamline and maximise disucussion. I also find it easier to navigate under this format, as I know where exactly where to find things and don't have to scroll through pages of threads looking at every single title to find the one I want. I believe it is also important that the social side of the board and tennis side are separate as well :)

If we just had one board it would be very hard to navigate, and it wouldn't allow us to have all these lovely sub-forums where we can go and discuss 'beyond' tennis (a place that does indeed exist ;) ), I know this is a tennis board, but we all like a change sometimes and I find it nice to chat about movies with a different group of people for a change, or music for example.

Once you get used to it, it really isn't hard to navigate at all Nadal Federer, so I hope you enjoy and post in all the sub forums. See you soon :)

Bye the way this is also aimed at any other new BBC refugees adjusting to the transition, I hope this helps :shrug: :)

I can see where Nadal Federer is coming from, I don't know if they were on the beeb at the peak of it's powers (i.e 18 months + back), but it was good then, even with the mix of social and tennis threads. To some degree people integrated better on there than they ever will on here, because everyone saw what everyone else was posting as it was unavoidable! roflmao

CC is awesome though! :D

If you post for a while, you'll get used to it :)

Most forums on the web are like this, I think it's good to have seperate forums, some people aren't interested in women's tennis for example, it really isn't that hard to navigate :)

Ye but boards are about disucssion first and integrating with fellow members second :shrug:

And most of us know each other here anyway from the beeb...

To be honest I always thought the format of the beeb was a mess...every other board I've ever posted on the interest has at least SOME sub-forums. And suffice to say they've ALL proved themselves more efficient at the end of the day than the beeb.

Yeah but if i'm honest, i've not integrated as easily with CC newbies as BBC newbies - people couldn't dodge out of the way of each other there, which towards the end was the big problem.

I'm not sure I totally agree about integrating being unimportant - if you are on a message board for a fair period of time it is rather important to know some posters! Integrating is obviously rather important to me as a mathematician anyway roflmao

I didn't say it was unimportant I just said that we should prioritise so it maximised discussion then worry about integration. :) And certain sub-forums help. Like, I've got to read far more of RT's posts in the movie forum than I would've otherwise, as he mainly just posts in men's tennis where I don't go as much. And men's tennis fans like Gav and Brakkus I have spoken to on various threads in the social bar (as well as a bit in men's tennis) but gotten to know them quite well, so I think it evens out in the end.

I agree with what you're saying about the BBC though, you did get to know everyone even the people who only came on for about a week, or came on every two months or so, which of course was the problem at the end as you say.

BTW, you can click on "portal" and it brings up a page that includes a list of the last 10 topics that have had activity (regardless of what forum or subforum they're in). I'm not real happy with the layout of the portal page right now, but maybe when I have some time, I'll figure out how to tinker with it and make it a little better.

Nadal-Federer, I see where you are coming from. There is a lot going on here and after not posting for a few days I myself took some time to navigate threads despite having been a member for about 8 months. Thing is though, when the board was simpler, threads were getting too long and there was nowhere to post speciifc stuff (like music, films that have recently been set up) and when you returned to a thread you had pages to wade through to see if your post had a reply and what had been going on. You will get used to it, but we have had a lot of changes recently so we are all gettign used to it together. :) The board is evolving so you can be a part of that if you want to be. It's not always easy to get things right first time, and we are a relatively young board (not even a year old yet) so we are all still tryign new things. You will find that the people on here and the host do listen to suggestions and try to improve things, rather than just leave things as they are even if people don't like them. You'll also find lots of variety and I think you'll enjoy it, at least I hope so. I know we are a tennis baord, but we are very sociable multi-dimensional people so we do have a lot of fun and chat threads too. :D And if Nick can improve the feature that notifies us of new posts, it would help a lot.

Welcome :) anyway.

The New Posts facility should inform you of every new post since you last visited the forum . Does it not do this already ? :blink: Could it be user-adapted to list only posts in certain forums? That would save us wading through lots of posts we're not particularly interested in .
Welcome Nadal-Federer, and I do see your point. :)

The thing I like about there being loads of forums is that i can ignore the bits i'm really not interested in. Just for example, i'm not that interested in women's tennis, so i just tend to not post in the WTA bit. Also, the chat sections can be quite popular at times, and if we only had 1 forum they would constantly be at the top of the list I expect. Also, in terms of discussing other sports, i'm not that in to football or cricket and thus I can ignore those forums.

By the way, I love the avatar Nadal Federer!

Thanks guys! I agree, this is a matter of getting used to the new system. The initial confusion period always comes with the change. This forum is a nice place though after the BBC board. Currently the season is off so I think that's why everything slow, I am sure things will pick up near the Australian Open. Can't wait :)

Actually, I think I've only been posting in the movie forums lately ! :)

hey NadFed :D

If you want a more BBC-esque experience, at the bottom of the home page, there are 4 links. Click on 'Todays active topics'

That should help get you acclimatised

:ok:

I must say I found it confusing at first,but after a while it became easier.I'm not a serial poster by any means,but knew most of the posters here from the BBC board,because they posted on a regular basis.

This board has allowed me to have debate,even though I post very little.On the BBC nobody knew of me,but on here at least people know I'm there. roflmao

"..people couldn't dodge out of the way of each other there, which towards the end was the big problem."

Mr Sam, spot on fella!

Welcome to all the newbies form the B** board, as Sam said if you weren't around on the Beeb about 18 months back you don't know what you missed, around that time the Mods started to close the 5 Live boards with little or no warning, didn't often respond to questions and the like...beginning of the end.

:blink: :blink:

But CC is great..... :ok: :ok:

It can be a bit confusing.. personally I like the divided sections, as sometimes I only want to see the postings relating to the ATP, so can hone in on that. :) There are some great posters on the women's game as well, so quite like dropping by there too, and quite like viewing that separately as well..

I guess it's like moving from an office where everything was open plan, to one where department has their separate room.. ? :shrug:

There's been quite a lot of thought put into the format, I think.. and I think that it's worked really well... but I'm sure that the mod's would welcome constructive suggestions.. And that is one difference compared to the beeb.. the mod's here are very proactive, and very helpful :bow:

And also I would mention that this format is quite common in terms of the tennis message boards that I have seen.. I think that the beeb is the only one that I have seen in that format, come to think of it :)

If you hit View new posts (top right) , it gives you all the posts since your last visit, in every forum . So , you wont miss any and can avoid threads/forums you dont like. :)
I havent been doing this up to now, as I know my way around fairly well, but as the board gets busier its the easiest way to use it. Its just the same as the Beeb if you do this. Or am I missing something? :o

I was missing something :blush: It doesnt list the latest post in every thread , just the latest in the forum . Doesnt help that there are two forums called 'Off the Court' . Hopefully it can be set up with more flexibility as Nick said.

Don't stef, i'm getting all emotional about what used to be roflmao

Yes now that there are so many more threads, it woudl help if it showed all threads with new replies. When i came back tonite it onyl showed me 4 threads, and yet I waded around and found replies to other threads I'd been in. I woudl welcome improvements to this feature, as I have found myself spending more and more time going aroudn the threads and I've been missing some new posts in threads I replied to. :)

Is there a way to bookmark the Portal / 10 latest topics page? When I do I always get back to the main page.

Also. I am sure that it has been discuss before but these huge signatures with photos or Font 1000 take a lot of space.

You have done a great job and thanks to you guys we all still can read each other posts but this is my view and if other share it, great.

I like things simple but I must say to be able to edit my posts or even quote easily is really great.

In My Controls, theres Subscribed threads and forums, but it doesnt appear to be working !

Yeah I'm finding it tough to navigate too but at least there's not that ridiculous 3 minute posting rule here.