Crowdfunding the creation of the next version of LFGSS

Will let you know how it works for me. Do you not have a feel for it, you must believe it works...

Oh I do. I'm not in any way deflated or lacking belief. Just tired (35 days of back-to-back work.)

This thing is like an iceberg, and most of where we've spent the time putting the effort in to get the foundations right is the bit you can't see. So when we share it you'll all be judging us more by the small bit that in some ways has had the least effort to this point... the look and feel.

And there are changes, from LFGSS, that you guys have yet to experience. Simple things that work better over time, but may be a hard thing to re-learn.

Big example: On LFGSS the stuff you write is written in a syntax called BBCode, and on Microcosm the syntax is called Markdown.

Writing a link on LFGSS is like writing HTML, you need to know a tag [ URL ] and how to use it.

So you've learned that, and really you never should have had to learn that... and so with Microcosm I've done the right thing and changed it to something that doesn't require learning. Except, you guys need to un-learn how to do it the old way.

On Microcosm adding a link is a bit more natural... but I fully understand you guys are going to really struggle to not just un-learn the old way, but to get the new.

So you write a link by just putting in text and next to the text you put the link in brackets:

This is a link to Google(http://www.google.com).

And to make sure the system knows where the link should start, you hint by adding square brackets:

This is a link to Google.

And that gets rendered as:

This is a link to Google.

Which is more natural... but I can't help but be concerned about taking a large number of users who are really used to one approach, and to introduce them to an entirely new approach.

And then imagine that... but every single thing has changed.

It's not a lack of belief, it's a concern, worry, fascination and wonder about how you guys will experience new software after years of familiarity with this software.

Even if we were not building Microcosm, I'd have to consider other software for LFGSS and this concern would be present.

And for the business it's a really big question to answer. If we hope to migrate other forums and communities to this software... we need the answer to the question: Will users be able to adapt to the changes or will they reject them because the differences are too great?

It's a big question. And we do need the answer. And we hope to be judged on what the new system is already and what it promises... rather than what the new system isn't, which is vBulletin.