For what it's worth I HATE the new forum. Reading it is such a hassle with my screen reader that I haven't bothered to use it much at all, however, I want to post like everyone else. A couple days ago I finally got up the nerve to attempt to do so.

Yes, the message field is a bit tricky. I had to...hell, I don't even know how to describe it...at the bottom of the page is a check box to refresh the page...I pressed enter on it...using JAWS, by the way...which turned forms mode on...which automatically unchecks it so I have to hit space bar to recheck it...then I shift tab or back tab twice...once says post button, and twice says frame...then I guessed I was in the message field and pasted my text which I composed and copied elsewhere for greater flexibility...and then I pressed enter on the post button when I was satisfied. It was VERY inconvenient. There are probably better ways of doing it, but then there are also lots of people who know a lot more about JAWS than I do and are using newer versions of it than I am.

Still and all, I'm less FRUSTRATED by accessibility issues than I am by the sheer amount of CRAP I have to arrow up and down through just to read the messages others have posted. Seems to me all the little extra features, neat though they might be, to those who give a dam, just confuse and obscure the whole purpose of having a forum which is to exchange ideas and get answers to questions.

I'm probably overreacting. It's all probably perfectly normal. However, my first experience with using a forum was on the old GA site, and it seemed MUCH simpler than this. And the whole new site is much the same. I liked the simplicity of the old site. Not to say there haven't been some improvements, but I had no problems with the old site so you might say I'm looking at the new site from the point of view that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just my opinion. However, if this gives you an idea of the impact it's had on me I used to check the forum everyday to see what new messages had been added, now I've checked the forum maybe three or four times since it was overhauled and until recently felt like it was too much trouble to try contributing to.

One last point: I noticed down at the bottom that there were a bunch of formatting options, etc. What does it matter what the post looks like as long as you can read the message and understand the ideas it's trying to convey? Then again, I can't read print, so what do I know?