Everyone look! Important..

i have gotten alot of feedback i want to get some input from everyone. First of all, let me say this.. i am not married to anything on the new site. I can and will change what needs to change in order to make the site be what people want and what will bring traffic back. It's my life's goal right now to somehow resurrect this bad boy.

I have gotten a lot of comments about the new site. The way the site is built, it is setup to showcase everything as conversations (hence the "chat" like bubbles"). Maybe people prefer that the forums go to being more of a typical forum type interface with sticky threads, etc..? If so, i'd like your comments. The difference between a site that gets lost in the shuffle and one that changes the world could be small changes. And some changes that may SEEM big to you may actually not be so big for me to do.. So any ideas are great.. I'd like to get an idea of where we should head..

The change from owner profiles to the builds concept i think will work wonderfully well if we get everything meshing well..

i need comments like "i don't like x, because y..." or "i like x, but it would be better if z..."

I don't like the "conversation" style, because it is harder to navigate, doesn't keep a nice list of topics, doesn't show pictures as big (or you have to click them to enlarge), pics don't upload, etc. If I wanted to go to facebook I would. I don't think Street Source should be like facebook. I'm not into it, sorry.

Im not into the new setup either, too much like facebook. it's hard to find everything but much too easy to type in every little subject that pops up on the page...

Things so far that i can't figure out...

Where the forums are. (I only see hot topics)
How to change my user info (About me and pics).
How to upload new pics to my current vehicles.

Also as a general comment. I feel like the overall site design looks very dated. The 1st thing I thought when I came on was "What year is it?" I know it's going for a more "facebook feel" but from a design standpoint it looks old and outdated. Very early millennium. This could just be a simple as the color pallet.

There also is a big lack of photos. Take this area we're in right now, I feel like there is a spot for a section photo at the top, but there is just a gradient.

I think the direction of the site is positive, but there appear to be many bugs and creature comforts to be ironed out.

The old forum was better. So now all our build threads and everything are gone?

The chat bubble style thats going on right now is a pretty neat concept and I see why you went with this type of style. But, I dont think it really works here. People want more of a "forum" style when it comes to SSM...its just easier for everyone to use. We'd need to go back to the way the site was laid out right before it switched to the black/red theme. Thats when SSM was top of the line. Just make the "search" feature work better on that style and I think it will be golden. Keep the "like" and "subscribe" type of options on each post if possible, little features from the "facebook style" still would be awesome to use. Also, the mobile addition is a great feature as well.

I also do not like the new convo style look, I like knowing where topics were in the forum under their own sections.

Not really feeling it. Would like a more traditional forum setup, and where are the fullsize and car forums?

I agree completely with what brian said.... but, i cannot quote his text and elaborate on what else i think would be helpfull.... because this is not a forum anymore :(

the old forum style was much easier to use/navigate. This