Alright - I'll address this, and this will be the last time.

I'll start off by saying I had ZERO PROBLEM with the actual issues that were being reported at the time. They were obviously valid, and I would have been happy to look at (and correct them). But the moment I came to this part of the post, "it feels like something made in geocities..." - well then, I immediately tuned out everything else that was said...    ...in fact, I tuned out the entire post at that point. There is just no fucking reason to be so antagonistic, when reporting problems - especially when you don't have a clue as to how things have actually been done, the development cycle we've been following, and you're just making blind and uninformed assumptions.

I will address the post in its entirety, right here if anyone cares to follow along - I doubt many will bother because this is all old news in my opinion, but since this seems continue to flash up from time to time, I'm just going to try and put an end to it. I will say, I was as shocked as anyone else that ioi jumped into this thread - and while it was absolutely appreciated (based on his and my history), he didn't have to do that. He absolutely nailed it as to what the problem was, but I think it's only fair that I tear this thing right down and give @Ganoncrotch the full answer he wants:

 - right, so the report function seems to just bring up an empty screen now that doesn't load any follow on messages, no confirmation, just an empty window after clicking submit.

This started (my guess) about two weeks ago (right around the same time the "confirm friend request" stuff stopped working). It was also probably right around the time that "preview" functionality for the GameDB admin stopped working (and only God knows what other features were affected). Trucks had introduced a very MINOR change to the code to allow him to work more freely in an offline "sandbox" mode (to prevent the very problems you and others have complained about) and it's this change that likely affected these separate areas - there is no rhyme or reason as to the pages or functions that are affected, just intermittent bug reports here and there. And obviously, none of us were aware of any actual problems with it as reports only started to trickle in regarding the friend request problem. I did fix the friend request problem a few days ago and, based upon what I found happening with that function, it's what lead me to believe that it's also the same culprit for this and other unrelated errors that have recently cropped up. What this has to do with "New Forums" (the entire point of this thread), I have absolutely no idea.

 - the popup on mobile about the advertising continues to popup and in no way can be gotten rid of on my phone, the "continue using site" button isn't clickable in browser and changing the settings having a "allow all" but no "disallow all" is a pathetic way of making your users click down through 60+ things to say "fuck off with sharing my details to these places" it nearly feels like a malware attempt to make the "go away" option so much more difficult than the "sell my data" option. Awful, it just makes it more annoying the fact that the actual popup window as a whole has buttons which are non functional such as "continue using site"

This was previously asked right here in this very thread (http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8816534) - again, what it has to do with "New Forums" I'm not really sure. But more than that, I had no idea what it even was or anything about it. In fact, I had discussed this in another (unrelated thread) when a different user brought it up and explained that this was something ioi added himself, I knew nothing about what it was, how it was done, or why, and I simply forwarded the details over to him at that time. 

- honestly the site feels completely broken for me the last few days/weeks , it has not been something which I enjoy using in the slightest, it feels like something made in geocities by someone who doesn't know how links should work or who has altered a major aspect of the site without propagating that change through the rest of the website, to see the replies to peoples criticism in such a high and mighty "WELL I'M DOING MY BEST SO STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE" is just terrible, if someone was doing work for me and replied to the fact that the work is subpar with that kind of attitude I would not allow them to continue working and I most certainly wouldn't allow them talk down to users who are reporting issues when they appear, that is a way that you not only don't get new users in as the site has area's which don't work but you are going to lose older members in doing so. You need a division between forum user and forum worker, it's missing badly and taking people saying functionality has reduced as a personal insult isn't helping. Functionality of the sites most basic features has reduced in the past month, this isn't an attempt at an insult or a personal attack, this is a simple fact, features are working less smoothly than before and some portions of the site feel like they're held together with string and hope rather than correctly coded.

I've been on here for 6 years and nearly 10,000 posts but the state the site is in now both mobile and main browser is just horrible, it's half a step forwards and 10 steps backwards.

And now we take a turn from reporting simple facts, towards being antagonist. Two issues have been reported up to this point in the post (one of which only recently started happening, and one which I had no control over - and most importantly, NONE of them had ANYTHING to do with "New Forums"!!!). I've already asked a few times for examples where I've "talked down to users" where it was uncalled for, and have yet to be presented with a single, solitary example. Not one. Why? Because it does not happen!!! When somebody reports a problem, I fix it (or, at the very least, try to explain why something was changed and how to go about doing whatever it was they used to do, in the new code). I can think of exactly two instances of somebody being "talked down to", and since you were unable to provide those examples, I found them for you. Here you go:

    1. I added a stupid and incredibly minor change to the forums (all of two or three lines of code), to include the "edited  by..." notation - I don't think I've added a more trivial and inconsequential feature to any website in my entire life, to which I was greeted with "The feature is great, the implementation lacks. Like most things in this forum." Why be so damn antagonistic? Was this comment really all that necessary? Do you think this is a legitimate comment? Does this serve any purpose, other than to troll and insult? As with your post, anything else said by this user in this thread, was thoroughly discarded from this point on.

   2. We were getting spammed to death by some asshole who had written a bot that was creating serious problems across the entire website (not just PMs). I had already rewritten the entire user registration system, as getting to the source of the problem (you know, preventing bots from even creating accounts in the first place?), was the absolute correct way to go about this. After having spent about a week on this, I thought the problem was resolved as I had heard no further complaints (and had been checking in with Ryuu on a near daily basis). Out of nowhere, a thread was started regarding NSFW PMs and this comment was added, "How we don't have a filter yet for this is insane. It isn't hard to write a filter program." Again, completely antagonistic (and furthermore, completely ignorant of the work that had already been done to date). And the shame of it really was, I like this user and had been working with him on database stuff - but after having invested hoursdays working to address this at the root, and to then have somebody come along with a flippant comment like this about writing completely useless, waste of time filters...? Please. I did then spend another week or so on this, btw - working with CGI until I got the bots off the website, once and for all.

You seeing a pattern yet? When you address me with an attitude or talk down to me or generally treat me like an asshole, you're going to receive the exact same response in return.

 - honestly right now not only is this not a site that I could ever recommend people come to join for the functions it offers, but it's one that I feel I'm going to go back into lurk mode rather than attempt to use anything other than the front page here because everything beyond that is just cross fingers mode that some page won't load and typing is wasted as it will never reach the site as intended.

I've reworded this post a few times to remove profanity from it (hopefully most of it) but yeah, I write it shaking my head, because I really enjoyed VGchartz and it genuinely upsets me to see it in the current condition. Could I at least suggest a few posts about the place or popups on area's which are being worked on? "beta testing function" on certain parts with the ability to revert to the old versions for those who do not want to be beta testing the site?

More unnecessary and combative comments. The only point worth even talking about here, is the "beta testing" stuff (which I didn't even notice my first time through because, as I said, I had already tuned out your post by this point)...    ...and guess what? These new forums and the new front page, have been in beta testing for nearly TWO YEARS!! That's right - for two years, these pages have been open to Supporters and admin and I felt it had reached a point that if, after two years, there were no significant problems being reported, then perhaps it was about time to move it live. There are still hundreds of other things around here that need to be worked on, but if we can't move functionality that's been in beta for this length of time, then we're never going to get anywhere. 

Did you know anything about this? Of course you didn't. Had you asked instead of coming off half-cocked with your assumptions, I would have gladly told you how long this stuff had been in the works. None of this was thrown together overnight and then dumped on the public - same with the game database which was in development (and beta) for at least two months before it was moved live. The Prediction League had at least a month worth of development and testing, too. And so on...

So - let's sum this all up:
 - you reported two issues (none of which had anything to do with the new forums)
 - followed by two paragraphs of insults, insinuation, and flat-out incorrect information
 - followed by some screenshots (along with more insults) that, while obviously broken, could have easily been reported at ANY point in time and would have been quickly addressed.

I'm not going to delve into the various other posts here with Brett or anyone else - it's not worth the effort, it really isn't. I just wanted to clear up what instigated this entire ordeal here, so there can be no misunderstanding. 

I should frame this for The Moderator Thread (or include a snippet in the Forum Rules). :P

Truly reflective of what a lot of Staff are feeling like right now.

"Protect the Mods". Protect them, how kirby. Give me an area of protection they've received, especially from constant complaints like ones you put forth?

Where was the "Mod Protection" in Rol being Banned and Ganon not? 

Considering you're always at Rol's defense, I don't expect you to understand why he was Banned. But, if we get real technical, Ganon wasn't the only cause for Talon's departure.

It's well documented, kirby. Your very reason for being in here is due to that. Otherwise, your initial response to me wouldn't have been some bullshit about Mod protection.

And frankly, I don't care how "ground your gears" are. You don't have to put up with with half of the crap any of us (Mods/Admins) have to.