On many threads, I can't read the OP's post because it is covered over by ads. Kind of difficult to follow a thread when you can't read what the OP said. :-(

Normally, all of the text on a post stays over to the left of the vertical green line, but sometimes the first post drifts over to the right where the ads are normally placed, and the ads are superimposed over the post.

Maybe it just me but it seems alot less people are posting. New threads are appearing but much less responses.

jellytoast, same here.

I posted a picture which shows up really poorly and I couldn't change the size (even thought I tried). I had to put the link in the post to the good photo.

Ads are still a pain too.

Another iPad user here & there are certain threads I can't even open up to read because of the freaking Pantene ad. How frustrating!!!! Hope they can fix this soon.

The raining snowflake ad has GOT to GO!!!

Other problems seem to be resolved for me...

but this ad is NONSENSE, and soon I will quit reading GW !

OK now when I click on any thread I get the Pantene website instead of the thread! I have to close and reopen GW, sometimes more than once,

I spoke too soon. It's fine on my laptop, but tonight on my iPad I got the freaking snowflakes. Totally insulting experience.

Breezy, did you find a way to ad block your iPad? I'm reading there are none for iOS and that seems nuts to me.

I wrote GW about the snowing Pantene ad yesterday and I received a response that they were aware of it and working on it, but it's still showing up tonight. :(

Also, I like to take someone's kitchen drawing and put it into Paint to fiddle with the layout. But when I try to upload my altered image, it comes out soooo tiny I don't know if anyone can even see what I drew. Does anybody know how to fix this?

Slightly related: I used to paste pictures into my Photobucket account with abandon. Not anymore. I don't FB, and they haven't fixed the new and improved (Blech!) PB to accept online images directly. Waaaaaaa!

You can in fact get browsers for the ipad that block ads. The one I use is called Atomic, but there are others. The free version of Atomic doesn't have ad blocking, but the paid version is only $1.99. Well worth it IMO.

My biggest problem since the change is that the thread page can be slow to load, or sometimes never shows the text until I hit refresh.

I've gotten the snowflakes once this evening too; had to refresh to escape it!

Linelle--I have not found a way to block the snowflakes. I've never heard of Atomic, but will check it out tonight.

Debrak--I noticed that, too. Speaking for myself, I am on GW less and posting less. I dislike the new format, colors, small pics, and the ads. I'm just not as interested in fighting through all that visual craziness to check out the forum when I'm already tired from the rest of my life.

I find the pages here slow to load also.

And I'm unable to paste an image HTML code in the message box as I was before like someone else mentioned.

Earlier today is the first time I've gotten the snowflakes covering the thread when using my iPad. It sure was disruptive so I did not stay on GW very long.

Tonight (so far) there has not been a problem.

It sucks!! Its right over the topic area at times and pops on when trying to type. You have to fight it to type , not fun:(

Pantene ad is annoying.

I have a new problem from my iPhone (haven't tried from laptop) where if I click on a topic I get the Pantene ad and ONLY the Pantene ad. No way to get rid of it. If I go back and click again, even on a different topic, the Pantene ad is back.
I have to close the whole page and reopen a new Gardenweb tab to be able to view a topic.
This is new as of yesterday. : (

The download has been incredibly slow ever since Garden Web implemented their improvememenents including using the childish wall paper.

Could any one please enlighten me as WHAT EXACT BENEFITS have we received from the garden web's IMPROVEMENTS?

The Pantene ad is beyond annoying. One thing I am sure is that I would never ever purchase any "pantene" products.

Google "Pantene hair loss." A couple of years ago I tried Pantene shampoo. One day I found an alarming clump of hair near the drain of my shower. Freaked me out. Found some anecdotal accounts of Pantene+hair loss online and threw it out. I have never experienced anything like it since, thank God. I wouldn't buy Pantene products if you paid me, certainly not with annoying ads.

I'm in the crowd that boycotts products when the ads are particularly annoying.
Just this week I purchased two pairs of glasses at store A instead of store B.Store B has been over-saturating the market with very annoying commercials. Another women shopping for frames while I was in the store was also avoiding store B because of the same annoying ads. We found that amusing and wondered how many other people responded negatively to the ads from store B.

They do get name recognition for their brand but at what cost?

So far the ads have not been a problem for me, but the pages are so slow loading. Haven't tried to post a picture yet, but do dislike the size of pictures that I have seen posted. Also dislike the narrow reading area. Why all the wasted "white" space?

IMHO the improvements are a complete failure!

I'm not having problems with ads/popups but still have an issue with read threads. When I click on a thread, the color changes from blue to purple (fine) but ONLY until I close that browser window. The next time I visit GW, all the threads are blue (unread) again. HIGHLY annoying. I've been visiting less since the format changes because it's a right royal pain in the butt to scroll through and remember what I've read and what's new.

The "wasted" white space is where the ads would appear if you didn't have them blocked. I'll gladly put up with wasted white space.

The "improvements" do not seem to be for the users, since repeated complaints are not addressed. (Just now got a pop up, saying iVillage wanted my opinion... Ha!) Editing is nice, but that's it. I still prefer to add photos from Photobucket via html than post one tiny view at a time. It's annoying that we need to download things to eliminate problems this is now presenting us, but I guess that's the price for a free forum? I used to check in several times a day. Then daily, and now, hardly at all. My forum addiction was hard to break over the last several years, but they're making it much easier!

Experienced the "Pantene" assault tonight ... no matter what I clicked on, I got a giant Pantene ad. It finally stopped, but not before annoying the daylights out of me (do they really expect to gain customers this way???). I did receive a reply to my complaint about the ads covering the text of some posts, but the problem persists.

That Pantene ad will not go away! I clicked my browsers back button after reading one thread and all I got was the stupid ad.

Jelly--what was the response?

Rhome--You're right that any "improvements" made are only for the advertisers and ivillage, not for us, the end user. And even when ou paste a photo's HTML code in from photobucket, the image appears as a tiny one instead of the original size for which its coded. Very frustrating.

I feel my once-loved familiar forum slipping away from me.....

Hello linelle,

About 6,7 years ago I bought a bottle of Pantene shampoo. After used it twice, I noticed I had significant amount of hair loss. I thought maybe the shampoo did not agree with my body so I threw out the bottle. My hair loss stopped after I stopped using the shampoo.

Not until today I am not aware of Pantene shampoo also causes other people's hair loss. Wow! thank you for the posting.

Back to the subject, has anyone experienced page frozen? The only way to get out of it is to close the browser and start a new session. This is another new "feature" since the Garden Web "improvement".

This post was edited by azmom on Mon, Mar 4, 13 at 0:44

Rehome, I just saw that you posted about being unable to add photos from photobucket using the html. I still use photo bucket and copy the html code and paste it in the message. If I want to add more pictures I just repeat the process in the same message box for each picture. I am not sure why it doesn't work for you and others.
I could be wrong but maybe you and other posters think you have to use the new and improved "chose a file" button to load pictures. It is just an additional and optional way to add a photo. You can (or at least I can,) still post pictures
The same way as before. Hope this helps.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I do still post photos via Photobucket's html, so my point was that I don't find the new feature to add a photo on the forum (one at a time and tiny) that useful. IN other words, as it is, it's useless to me. Breezy, I was having success adding them via FB at the proper size, but haven't tried it too recently, so maybe they are smaller now.

iPad users should be able to block popups through settings under the Safari category. I use an iPad and have never had a popup on GW...

Rhome--when the option to "choose a file" for pics started, I could still paste full size photobucket pics. It was only with the recent Black Monday (I call it Black Monday to show my displeasure) UNimprovements a few weeks ago that all my images are made tiny when importing from photobucket. Have you imported an image since then?

Tmunson--My iPad's Safari option is turned on to block pop-ups, but I am still getting the Pantene ad. The ad is obviously more sophisticated. And annoying.

Like breezy and zeebee, I find myself visiting much less often. On Mar 3 I read this thread and wondered when I was last here. I did a search for my posts and found I was last here Feb 22. I posted one response that day but then was unable to come back and reply on this thread. I came back today to post on this thread so I could close this window I had left open on my computer screen. So yes, I find I am visiting much less often.

Having been a GW member for more than a decade, I find this all so sad. Sad that because of "improvement" for profits, we are losing the advice of great people like rhome and breezy and others. The whole atmosphere of the forums is rapidly changing. The new updated look is not as bad as it could be, so I'm thankful they kept most things the same, but the update has certainly changed my forum reading experience and "feel" when I'm on GW.

Now for some reason, my whole background is sage green (is anyone else's or is this something I inadvertently did in my browser?)

I find the smaller posting area (to the left) annoying, but that is so they have more room on the right for ads, of course.

I adblocked the hideous grass background and ugly brown modernized GW logo that clashes with the blue text. I do wish they'd get rid of the silly purple star (why not update that, of all things? - it matches nothing else.)

And to get the posting area, text, and pics bigger, I have to Ctrl + the screen on my laptop (or double tap on the ipad).

I never see the ads or popups (thank the gods!), either on laptop or ipad, due to my adblocking plugin for firefox, and my use of Atomic browser (paid version) on ipad (no ads).

I stopped using Photobucket long ago b/c I feel their quality has decreased in the past few years. I now post inline pics here straight from Flickr, Smugmug, or PictureTrail. All post normal size for me, (even after the BlackMonday improvements) using the pic-posting directions in buehl's "New to Kitchens" post.

I really do like the ability to edit posts. That is a huge improvement. Now if they would just add an archive....

So I uploaded a pic using the GW image (directly from computer) - it's the last one posted at the bottom here, and then I added some from picturetrail and flickr as well, to see if there's any difference in sizing.

This is what the new GW looks like on my laptop with my adblocker. One pic is enlarged using my Ctrl +, the other is normal size.

From PictureTrail:

From Flickr (800x500):

Flickr (640x400):

From GW:

I also find this very sad. I just sent an email to Tamara. If you have not done so recently and are still having issues, please do the same. I fixed my issues by switching to google chrome with ad block.

Interesting! All the photo SIZES are exactly the same, smushed by the new GW formatting I guess, including the one uploaded from GW site.

The difference is in the quality of the photos. The sharpest image is the (supposedly) larger (800x500) one from Flickr.

The ones I uploaded inline are centered, while the one from GW-direct is left-aligned.

Well, I guess this prevents those people who upload huge images and cause the screen to scroll left-right from doing so, but it also detracts from the overall experience of looking at large detailed photos, like rhome said.

GW is a horror on an iPhone with the Pantene ad. It is also way slower on any platform.

Yes, the quality of the forum is changing for the worse. Don't know about you, but I'm seeing an upswing in the number of OPs who seem unfamiliar with the forum and don't want to learn anything, as well as new responders who give bad advice very loudly and insistently.

I couldn't figure out why the change, or if it was just me. Now I understand.

To write a useful OP, or give good advice, takes some work. You have to read the FAQ, follow old threads, download some pics and play with them, post images, etc. Every one of these steps is now much more difficult and takes more time and requires you to fight with bad advertising.

It seems like iVillage is more interested in user acquisition and not at all interested in retention. So you have some people wandering over here from Pinterest or Houzz or whatnot, and not bothering to familiarize themselves with the forum--at the same time that the old hands are losing interest.

Normally the newbies would be balanced out and the rough edges smoothed over by comments from other posters. However, it's now a lot more time consuming to post that NKBA seating clearance diagram or a new layout than it used to be. So the threads get dominated by newbies yelling, "I have 28" aisles and they're FINE."

I'm not complaining about new people joining the forum. That is not the topic. I'm talking about the fact that everything that used to make this forum great is now a lot more work to do, while it's still very, very easy to post something useless.

ETA:

AND STOP REVIVING FIVE-YEAR OLD THREADS TO ASK A QUESTION!! Sometimes half the front page dates from the Bush Administration. Is that supposed to encourage lively discussion? Do you really think everyone hangs out here for half a decade after their kitchens are done??

This post was edited by marcolo on Wed, Mar 6, 13 at 14:36

I will NEVER buy Pantene because of this. It makes us crazy! They need to fix it fast! But Pantene is on my bad list!!

The old thread thing bothers me too. It seems to me that the old thread just appears, people read it, not realizing the date and then respond. At least it appears that way to me. I've seen at least 1 thread that didn't have any responses in two years but was on the 1st page.

Normally the newbies would be balanced out and the rough edges smoothed over by comments from other posters. However, it's now a lot more time consuming to post that NKBA seating clearance diagram or a new layout than it used to be. So the threads get dominated by newbies yelling, "I have 28" aisles and they're FINE."

Ditto, Marcolo. I look at some threads like this and just walk away. It's takes too much effort for me to try to compose a decent message with appropriate, illustrative image to counteract the sometimes uninformed advice from so many others who know not what they speak.

I see much less posting by our long-time members who offer such eloquent and sage advice. I've also noticed a marked increase in the number of emails I receive from new members who obviously have done no research on the forum and/or who must not be reading comments they receive on their own threads. I'm open to answering questions via email, but the tone and substance of such queries has changed.

There is, once again, a year-plus-old kitchen reveal at the top of the first page, where posters are peppering the OP with questions as if she's still checking the thread every hour.

Meanwhile, the FAQ is on p. 2, along with lots of recent, urgent queries.

I think there's a certain set of posters all coming from the same place online, although I'm not sure where. And they seem to have no interest in how the board works; we are all their servants to use as they see fit, and their ignorance is just as valid as somebody else's knowledge.

Bumping up old threads will turn out to be the second worst new "feature" on this board, I predict. The first is the social media buttons up at the top of the board. We rebelled against the ones in threads but never noticed those.

Is it just me, or are the pictures all "normal" size again? I just posted an image and was surprised it wasn't tiny, so started looking through a bunch of random threads and everything seems as it was. I also easily posted the photo as I always have, by copying and pasting the html code. It's no different than it was.

Although I did have to endure the annoying Pantene ad (which seems to have gone away, thank goodness!), I don't see any real differences between the "old" and the "new" GW. Using Google Chrome allows me to choose the font and type size, so I can bypass that annoyance very easily. Yes, there is the "column" of white on the right where ads go, but I really don't find that an issue.

Ok, I agree that the old threads need to stop coming back, but other than that, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.

Today GW has been slow to load. In fact one thread never did load so had to go back to the list of threads and try a different thread altogether. So far today, the ad has not gone crazy covering the words. Hopefully the powers that be have mastered this problem.

Like so many of you, I sense a shift in the people who post here and the GW atmosphere. I've only been around for 1 and 1/2 years, but I agree with Breezy that it seems that many of the long time members who posted a lot when I first found GW are not frequenting the site. This makes me sad. It is selfish on my part, but I had hoped that they would be around to help with my kitchen layout for our reno. They really give valuable insight! I have marveled at their skill and also their generosity of time spent helping others.

So Breezy, Rhome, Marcolo, and so many more of you talented people please don't leave GW. Persons like me really need and appreciate your advice. You are Godsends to those of us who are floundering in this remodel maze!

My biggest issue is that the posts are hard to read now due to the white background, light yellow & green side panels, and the font type. For me, it's too white/bright & hard on the eyes. I am not visiting this site as much now.
Hoping the constructive feedback from readers is considered, and there is a "New & Improved" to the "New & Improved."

Wags and anyone else still unhappy with the forum appearance--

Please email Tamara, the ivillage rep assigned to the forum. On another thread Aliris listed her direct email as:

tamara.amey@nbcuni.com

I hold no hope that anything any of us say will influence ivillage at all, but it's worth a shot.

I'm on a PC now using Internet Explorer, and found that you can override the fonts and colors, including background colors.

Go to Tools -> Internet Options - > Appearance

You will see where you can change fonts and colors.

However, to override a website's pre-set background fonts and/or colors if just changing the setting doesn't work, see below:

Override website font and color settings
If you want to have the fonts and colors you specify in Internet Explorer to be used for all websites, regardless of the fonts that have been set by the website designer, follow these steps.

In Internet Explorer, click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options. On the General tab, click Accessibility.
Select the Ignore colors specified on webpages, Ignore font styles specified on webpages, and Ignore font sizes specified on webpages check boxes, and then click OK twice.

Just used the new optional image load feature on another thread and the picture is very large ( maybe too large) So maybe that feature has been tweaked.
I am not having any issues with background or side panel color. Hope things are improving for everyone else

Not improving yet for me, Badger. Are you on ipad?

breezy, I am on an iPad 2. You would think that everyone on the same kind of device would have the same experience. I will not go on garden web on my laptop because it is much more annoying with my laptop's browser or platform or whatever it is.
I do hope all the extremely knowledgeable posters that I have read and followed for the past 1-1/2 years will not completely abandon this forum. You and so many others are a valuable resource to so many of us out here in cyber space.

I was super grateful to the forum during my '07 remodel, as am I now.

We may want to consider the old thread reappearance as a consequence of newbies being told to search the forum before asking questions. When you get the search results, one would have to remember to check the date before responding. Not that it's particularly difficult, but requires conscious thought.

Good thought, kailuamom. Or, if one observed that a thread was older and hadn't had any activity in a while, it might be time to start a new one and in the first post refer to the old one with a link back. It might be asking a bit much of new people to factor all that stuff in.

I'm not convinced the problem is newbies spending too much time reading the FAQ. It's more likely people hit an old thread on a Google search and just post away. This is not a good strategy on any forum, I don't care whether you're researching kitchens, camellias or canker sores.

I'm also about done with regulars who bump really old threads because they're "good to" keep up top. These are the sorts of people who organize all the utterly useless meetings at work where thirty people sit in awkward silence listening to projects they have nothing to do with, because it's "good to" get everyone on the same page/singing from the same sheet of music/put our heads together, or any of the other useless notions that leech billions of dollars in productivity from the economy. Everyone has threads we think are "good to" keep up top. If we all bumped them, all the current threads wouldn't show up until page 47.