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I'm starting to see where the other member's opinions are coming to play here. You're begging for our opinions but you're warning us beforehand that you're only going to act on the ones YOU like. I'm not saying the entire site must look like an ocean, but if you look at the votes above, it's pretty clear that not everyone is happy with the brown. (Of, course very few people voted as well, but that is besides the point.) Anyways, I think it's wrong to make the entire site have to put up with a color because you feel it's what trademarks the site? Colors don't trademark this site. The people and the music do. The whole world is not going to end if you change the colors of this site, but it's what you're making it out to be. I'm not going to leave YC if you continue with the fall harvest theme, I will throw a mini scallop-fit, but I'll stay. My point is, I feel, (and i'm sure members will agree/disagree) that in several areas in this situation that you are holding the site back. You claim that you want our opinions, but you're only going to act on the ones that YOU see fit. I haven't talk to James personally, but looking through some of the threads on here, it's clear that he's in it for the people. He's responded to every suggestion, said why/or why not it would/would not work, and has been helpful. On the other hand, every time someone brings something to your attention, it seems like you result to petty excuses and we hear the same lines in almost every thread. "Oh, I'll address that." "Oh, it will be better with the updates" I don't mean any disrespect in this reply, my point is if you're going to spend the time and the money to rebuild the site, lets make the entire community happy, not just Chopin.

Not good or bad, but not something the site would benefit from. I don't want another facebook, I come here for the forums and the music.

For a second there I thought those links had taken me to my facebook wall.

BOOM! There's the buzz words. Nice to have some honesty finally. No more BS please. :)

I hate to state the obvious but we are composers - the last time I touch a website design was when I was 15 and that was basic html :D If I had the time to study and learn the codes needed to design this site - by now, you would have had a couple of samples done by me to show what I am talking about because I am not trying to be critical but the only way I can comment is in context of what you have post. Why don't you try some IPB Forums for suggestions on what we could do? Where we are geeks for music, they are geeks for website design and as for specifics on how to accommodate our needs and they probably have some idea of how to approach a modern design. If I didn't think I would be stepping on your toes, I would describe my idea for the site to one of the skinners on there so I can show you with an actual example what I would consider a modern design. One last thing, that post reads as one desperate excuse after another for us to get off your back about this. Let me please remind me that you asked for suggestions, we complied. The only reason we are in this position is because you have repeated ignored our ideas and gone full steam with your own. I spent 90 mins earlier on a big long post, the same amount of time I have spent on others with suggestions. You just avoided that post and replied to Tokke's post which read as the biggest bunch of bull I have read in a long time. Yeah, your using IPB 3.0 - a recent software - but that does not mean the site is modern. Rebuilding the site from the ground so it is actually a cohesive, modern, user focused site would not kill it and is actually (from my understanding) what many of us want. This site is slowly dying because its isolated, it does nothing to link to others for the promotion of our music (which is why I don't upload music at the moment) and the ideas you are steaming forward with do not fill me with confidence that it will. I might be a little bit out of line here but I am fed up of thinking your blaming the faults with this site and your inept behavior in getting it solved as our fault. You are the owner of the site so I have no right to say you must do it my way, but when you repeatedly do not listen to the suggestions put forward or even comment on them you can't expect the people who spent the time willing to comment not to get annoyed. I am still waiting for a reason to why you pushed ahead with the feed idea and not considered the watch idea - a suggestion that has been on the site for several days and which James has commented about. Surely, I am allowed to asked why a suggestion was ruled unsuitable - that didn't suddenly become against the rules. Finally, you said earlier in Shoutbox "you guys love beating me up." For the record, once more, I am only being critcal of you and the way your handling this whole process because people are making suggestions and you're making excuses constantly about why something can't be done. Take a leaf out of James' book, engage with us, communicate with us and then I wouldn't have to "beat you up" which until this post right now, was not my intention. Since starting writing this message - two people have already posted saying the same sort of thing as me. That is how slowly I type! Please appreciate that, for once.

thanks for your comment

Do you mean in the legal or common sense? Well DUH! But I can gather from inference to see what you do have. Right now it isn't exactly cohesive. What's the "modernized tehcnology" you speak of then? Sure way to end the site? No. It would make the site one cohesive whole, of which it isn't right now, and bring new people to a site that would actually want to be here. In fact, I believe that if you do it the right way, the site would explode in use. Trust me, if I had the money for it, I'd pay for it myself. As a messy amalgamation of multiple technologies, sure. I'm not saying something like that can't work, just that it doesn't work here. I don't know if its so hard to please everyone since we do have a very specific audience and user base. Young, Classical Music, mostly-tech-saavy, Composers. That's a pretty small market and their wants shouldn't vary too much. Indeed, though, one should accomidate the best of all suggestions, not just what's "easiest" or "least-effort" for you and your developers. There's more problems to this site than just layout, and I have a sneeking suspician you know that. But no admission will be made to that I'll bet. :) I applaud your thinking on this point though. Now lets build a site together, please. Sorry for quote-mining, but I don't see any other good way of responding.

You're spot on! I'm not in this for my own personal gain, I want this site to be awesome. But that's impossible. Where is this massive community that the admins (*cough*Jason*cough*) keep touting in our faces? Because, if it exists, they certainly aren't acting like a community.

When I say "my specs" I'm talking about the basic layouts and colors, along with the font choice and logo design. These colors are trademarks of the site, and we can't just change them drastically. And layouts have to be simplistic and obvious, for ease of navigation. I've taken many votes on the skin of this site throughout the years, and the general consensus is that people enjoy the brown layout. The site just wouldn't look right if we used blue. This statement is simply false, and full of assumptions. You don't have access to the YC server, so there is no way you have seen the source code to make this assumption. Furthermore, we are using modernized technology from 2010, not from the early 2000's. Your suggestion to start completely from scratch would be a sure way to end the site. I believe most parts of this site work well. The only problem is the design and layout which I am trying to figure out (and some bugs that are inevitable to show up here and there). It's very hard to please everyone, as everyone will have different visions on how to build the site. The best I can do is listen to suggestions from "everyone" as a whole, and take action on some of the best suggestions.

You'd be surprised. Everyone has different personalities, and different tastes. For every person who appreciates a new design, one may hate it. Problems start happening if "for every one who likes it, 3 dislike it". In the technical sense, the only problems I see are uploading bugs every now and then (and even this has minimized), and staying logged into the network part of the site. I realize the instant messenger, although it works, is clunky. I am addressing this. Functionally, we will be making a better use of profiles. Aesthetically, I want to revamp the design, and as far as the actual layout, I want to remodel the pages to make navigation more obvious. Lastly, I want to "ajaxify" parts of the site so that it creates a better user experience and gives it that web 2.0 feel, as well as match the new design to the forum and wiki. If we can accomplish this, I feel a lot of the problems you speak of will have been addressed. The site should feel much more cohesive with those following updates.