I've seen some complaints (about the white background, avatars not representative of the user's actual appearance, smilies reminding them of a preschool playground, people hiding behind pseudonyms when they should be using their real names, etc.) but I think most are handling this switch in a mature fashion. there may still be some forums that don't allow avatars or smilies or image attachments, but they're getting rarer as the internet evolves. a good place to go if one hates all these newfangled gizmos would be the usenet, a crochety, antiquated, feature-free morass that preceded the www by several years. :lol: however, why is there a circled pentangle (star) in front of all the threads and all the messages, even though I've read 'em all? obviously, it's a trivial matter, but I hope somebody knows.