https://www.houzz.com/discussions/wishing-gardenweb-would-go-back-to-normal-dsvw-vd~5330336?n=43

God , I absolutely HARE HATE HATE this configuration. It is like they are trying to run us off. The non alphabetical form list is the pits. Yea, it was useful. You could find them QUICKLY. I think they might even move the order from day to day. I swear the Texas Garden forum moved columns How irritating is that. I can not figure out how to complain.

They ARE asking for feedback (better late than never, I guess) - complain here: [New Look for GardenWeb.[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/new-look-for-gardenweb-topics-dsvw-vd~5342444?n=965)

I agree, I hate it. What is there about the old saying, 'if it is not broke, don't fix it.'

It seems to me also that the random list changes daily. I don't remember ever seeing "Wine" on the list before and it's the first one in the first column on my screen. Unbelievable that Houzz would deliberately destroy the best garden site on the internet!

I had decided to move to Dave's Garden forums, but in looking around I see that they're dead--almost nothing posted after 2017.

Before moving out, at least give them time to “repent”. Let’s see what they do after the absolute flood of criticism they have gotten.

Laceyvail, I participated in Dave’s for a couple of years, but the quality of discussion wasn’t nearly as information rich as here with the exception of the shrub forum. No interesting new plants discussed and very little came up to capture my interest. The northeast forum rarely even discussed plants as far as I could tell.

I'm surprised I've gotten used to it so fast as well!! Still lots I dislike.......the posting to three different forums at once is ridiculous and just confuses the issues being discussed. And I find the forum layout much harder to read, both in font size and coloration. I miss my home page that offered easy access to any forum (all alphabetized!) and the 'all discussions' listing. I haven't tried to start a new thread - I initiate very few anyway - but I understand that many are having huge issues trying to get a new thread to post.

It's obvious they have not yet gotten all the bugs worked out and I am willing to give them some time to do so.

btw, if I go to the 'Explore Topics' heading, those ARE presented in alphabetical order........or very close to it (not at all sure why Winter Sowing Exchange is listed at the top!!). But my own list of topics is just a random configuration - it would be great if these can be alphabetized as well.

When I click "explore topics, this is what I get, not at all alphabetized, or even organized with the forums I've chosen to follow. Surely not in order of popularity, no way "meadows & prairies" is leading the pack:

I have barely been on since it changed because it is such a head ache.

Hmmm.........Tiffany, mine does not look like that at all. First, there is no section for Garden Forums. It is All Forums, so includes the Home forums as well. But it IS alphabetized.

All I can assume is that it must be presenting differently with different browsers and on different devices.

I don't know. I use chrome @ work & usually FF @ home. It is this page: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/explore-topics

It is alphabetized for me too Tiffany. Apart from all the other issues the small pics are not an improvement. People post multiple pics and it is a pain having to enlarge them all.

And my page has a different URL: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/explore-topics.

Once you scroll past the Featured Topics (all the Houzz junk), you get to the All Topics listings. And that for me is alphabetized...with the exception of Winter Sowing Exchange at the very top (who knows why!!).

I'm on FireFox & mine is totally random. Also, the random sequence differs from day to day.

I just opened IE and clicked the "explore topics" link from house plant forum & it looked like this, with the Houzz URL:

I can't imagine anyone new visiting for the first time wanting to stick around & to try to navigate through any of this.

The alphabetized list is back this morning--at least for me. Let's hope they keep it.

I have an alphabetized list of forums under explore topics also. Now if they would just alphabetize the your topics list.

Yes, your topics could definitely use alphabetizing or the ability for us to list them according to our usage of.

I miss the topics grouped too, you used to be able to hop from the Hosta Forum to the Perennial Forum, Daylilies etc. on the top list. Especially Gardening in Shade Forum - from there you could access Woodland, Native Plants, Mosses/Ferns/Cryptograms.... The worst is Nature Net, I found Hummingbirds but I cannot find Name That Animal, Name That Insect and without the groupings...

Many are complaining about creating a post and adding pics to it.

I here that we are restricted to 4 pics per post.

I just checked and I have zip under gardenweb discussions. All it has is the header and it goes to a generalized random list of topics , not forums.

Explore topics is now alphabetical. Still hoping my topics will follow suit.

call me crazy but I dont notice any difference. When did this supposedly happen. I've been a member for years and it still looks the same to me.

So someone on a post somewhere mentioned the Helpful gardener site. I tried to sign up, but was told repeatedly that I was a well known spammer and couldn't. There was more--something about someone using my something-- but I couldn't sign up. And I tried using another email address that I rarely use, but still couldn't sign up. So I guess I'm stuck here. I'm a much better gardener than I am a computer person, and I couldn't begin to figure out what the problem was.

Ha ha! The related topics at the top of each forum are back!

Well thank heaven for small mercies! One step forward & one back, now all posts are highlighted in black for me so I have to go back to see which I have not seen updates on.

"The related topics at the top of each forum are back!"

Not for me!! All of these things appear to be very random in their appearance and application. For example, the list of GW forums under 'Explore Topics' has always been alphabetized for me since the big Friday makeover........

I'm starting to like it more now that I'm figuring out the new features. I always wanted a way to filter out most of the house discussions. Now by subscribing to my favourite gardening forums, I see all of the messages posted in them first by clicking "Stories and Advice" on the upper left menu and then "GardenWeb discussions".

This shows you "Your Topics" which will be the conversations in all the forums you are subscribed to. You can edit which forums you are subscribed to by clicking "edit" on the top left sidebar menu where it also says "your topics."

Maybe you could do that before, but the changes are making me explore the features and how I can make them work for me.

I don't know the whys and wherefores of the change, but I suppose if we consider ourselves a community then we at least should try to figure it out rather than demanding the admins do things our way.

Of course, as in almost all things, better communication in advance of and during the change would have dampened a lot of the ire.

Well said, thank you.

Kaillean, you can go direct to your topics if you bookmark it. I've never had to go in via stories and advice.

You are right that there was absolutely no preparation for the changes so they came completely out of the blue. A bit of forewarning and explanation would have warded off a lot of the anger.

Thanks Floral. I gave the extra directions for those who might not have found it to bookmark or have not set up their subscribed forums yet. But yes, the bookmark is handy!

Strange , I go to stories and Advise like I usually always do and there is Garden Web Discussion and NOTHING under it. NO Garden web forums to click. It has been disappeared. Iff they do not reappear, I will disappear because that was how I navigate. I can not find another way. This stinks. Before there was a disappointingly random list of forums that I could click to from there, now nothing. I have some from bad to abhorrent.

Funny, I’ve not gone into shock like many seem to have here. Maybe because it feels like Houzz has been tinkering with the format for the past year or so, and was often getting variations, especially if I logged in on my smartphone. So you knew change would eventually come, especially as they try to integrate everything together. So aside from some navigation issues, nothing major and nothing that I haven’t been able to adapt to in this ever changing media world (of which Houzz changes in comparison are peanuts!)