I'm doing some upgrades to the forum to help them run more quickly. I'm minimizing the sidebars we use to the absolute necessary ones, so the forums load more quickly. That should help to encourage people to stay while they load.

Also I'm tweaking the settings so by default when someone posts or replies it "watches" that thread so the poster knows when a reply has been made. It's the default way Facebook and other systems work. I think many people post and never know they've been replied to because they don't get an email. So this should help people know when someone has responded to them, so they know to come and read the response.

I should finish up the changes tomorrow and then send a system wide message to everyone so they know what the change are.

As part of this update I'm planning on splitting off the "Romance" area so it goes over with RomanceClass and isn't here in this area any more. That way people coming here get the LisaShea content - about parakeets and religious discussions. The RomanceClass site was and is an entirely different site and it's a bit confusing to have its content in here.

You might recall a few years ago that the WineIntro content used to be here in this forum and I split it off for the same reason. So this will finalize the separation so that each site has its own forum.

It makes more sense for each site to have its own matching forum, rather than having the LisaShea forums "hold" the content for the RomanceClass site.

The RomanceClass content is now separate over on the RomanceClass site. I've removed all the RomanceClass content from this forum. So this forum here is "clean" and clear of that content.

I'm still in the process of fixing up that RomanceClass forum to have only those Romance related posts and to have its own pink stylesheet. So I'll work on that Saturday, after I get some sleep! But the main part of the "separation" is now done.

Hopefully this change will help this forum run more quickly, so that users are more likely to stay, read, and post!