That's a shame that the new format will prevail. The new format...

That's a shame that the new format will prevail. The new format is too similar to many other social forums, and I liked the fact that the old HotCopper was different. It had its own feel and I liked to be able to see many posts quickly and also how it was easy to hone in on the best posts through the thumbs up mechanism. A great example is the humour forum, easy to have a laugh because the thumbs up guided you quickly to some pretty funny posts. Much too hard now to have a simple laugh. And a laugh is exactly what one needs sometimes in this crazy market.

I agree that HotCopper needed improvements, but the essence of HotCopper should have remained. I recently signed up for an online course at Coursera. I found there discussion forum format pretty average and now find that HotCopper has cloned this forum format. Great Branding requires differentiation, not commoditisation.

What we got was a total overhaul and the new HotCopper has no resemblance to what made it the most popular forum by a country mile.

By all means improve HotCopper, but keep its essence in tact.

Administrators, you have just had the best customer validation possible over the last three days, use it wisely