Nicola
Overall I love the look and feel of the story presentations, it is crisp and clean and commenting is a breeze. My comments on comments on my stories have returned which is great. Except for the ones I made after this went live which have now disappeared. The forums look great and its easy to see and access the most recent. I adore the signature block now.
There are some things from the past that I have used a lot and aren't yet part of this version. They may not be mission critical, but are things I would like to see included both here and (maybe more so) on the other site.
When opening up either site, the first thing I look for is what BB messages I have received (and usually answer immediately) and what new stories have been published. At the moment here I see six new stories and an empty IM box. Though I am one click away from the first of 726 pages which lists the latest 15 stories. The BB function has been important to me for the reasons Violet has explained, particularly as my friends' time zones mean they are often most active when I am asleep or working, so I won't labour that point.
The next thing I do is look at my timeline to see new comments on my stories and posts on my page. And then I click the friends activity button to see what they have been up to. Seeing what stories my friends have read is a major driver of my short term reading list. The I read PM's and decide what to do next 😊
So some of that I can do, and some I am not sure I can do, at least not yet. Other things I value. Being able to green-box certain friends. I am often online invisibly, reading and commenting on stories but I do like being able to be disturbed by a select handful. Also, ordering my friends so that those I interact with most are near the top of my friend list. Not a drama here, but will be on the other site. And last, being able to select who sees my pics, I mean at an individual friend level.
I always load and save stories before submitting. Gives me a chance to read through the story in the format it will appear online and do a final edit. And also if I am honest because system stability has meant I have lost things and have had to start again with the submission process.
I do like being able to order my stories on the profile page, so a some of what I see as my best stories are immediately visible to someone looking at my profile.
Two things that happened unexpected for me in the transition were the images in my hidden gallery ending up in my public gallery, not a drama here but would be elsewhere. Though I think I will likely save all my elsewhere pics to my hard drive for that transition.
And secondly I have both published and unpublished writing stored on My Stories on both sites. I seem to have lost the unpublished in the transition. Only two, one of which doesn't matter, but the other a poem was my only copy. Again I will save these unpublished things before transition elsewhere.
Personally I am not too worried if everyone knows when I was last on or that I live in Sydney (Australia and not Canada,) but I know users who will be very concerned about this on the other site. Some have the information they share at very low levels, even with friends and will be looking for that to continue. There will be others who also use the chat rooms a lot who will have views on them, not places I nowadays go to.
Well done, this is a major transition and looks really good so far.
Annie