justlittleolme

"apparently" has a crush on you, indeed.

Don't get me wrong, I love change. I embrace it, for the most part. But a number of the changes that were made don't actually improve anything or increase functionality - in fact it reduces it.

And aside from all functional issues, the new design, in my opinion, significantly reduces the uniqueness of this site. Now SG has the same general look and feel as dozens of other web communities. When asked why I spend time on SG or why I pay to be here, the answer is two-fold - the community, and the look and feel.

The community issue has been a bit frustrating at times, because some of the friends I've met on the site are no longer on it (either because they let their accounts expire, or because they've been thrown off for one reason or another). Over the course of the summer, though, I've noticed about 75% of the SG community has also become involved with Friendster. Granted, Friendster doesn't have a great community-harboring environment yet (no journals, no message boards), but that will come in time (most likely as part of the subscription service).

The look and feel issue was always an easy win. But with this new design, SG is now no different than dozens of other places. And yes, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, and assuming it will get past the current 'frankenstein mode' where design elements from old SG are almost randomly mixed with the new. It probably doesn't help that I don't care for the style of art they're using at the top of every page or as wallpaper lol...

So rather than sit here and bitch and complain and shit all over the site day in, day out and become like one of the whiny old schoolers that constantly pines for the days that have gone before, I'm taking the minimalist route. I'll stop by, check journal comments and respond to them, and participate in the group events I'm already engaged in. But other than that, I'm done - at least for a while.

trilo