The forum is long overdue some changes. It has been more or less the same since it's creation many years ago and over that time clearly technology has moved on. The forum software has had many add-ons and tweaks over the years which has left it quite bogged down with redundant bits and pieces and now has various issues.
One particular issue is that the site is not mobile friendly - a standard that is now required by search engines. The majority of internet use is now on mobile devices so we need to keep up with that. Don't worry if you prefer a desktop/laptop though, you'll not be left behind, but how the forum is presented to you will be different.
I have spent some time researching options for different types of forums and they all have their flaws. I have no found a perfect solution elsewhere so have decided to stick with the current software by Simple Machines. The main reason is that it would be very time consuming and difficult to transfer the current forum history to a new platform.
So, what's going to change? Well, I have found a new 'theme' for the forum which is mobile friendly and I have been working on tweaking to make it more appropriate for UKC. The theme will make the forum look a bit different than what you're used to but most of the features and usage that you're all familiar with will still be there as the underlying software is the same.
The forum will also be moving to a new web host, partly to reduce running costs but also to allow a new 'clean' installation of Simple Machines to be installed then the current data restored.
There will be bugs! It's simply not possible to fully test every element of this kind of change in advance so once the change is made, there will inevitably be bugs that will need to be sorted out. I will do my best to get them sorted as soon as possible.
I would like to clarify that although I am doing this in my professional time (as I have no other time to do it), I want to keep the cost down as much as possible for Tim and Jane. The forum is not profit making (far from it) so we have to balance what we'd like it to be versus what's affordable and realistic.
I hope you will all accept that change has to happen and give yourself chance to get used to it. :kiss2: