Not Seeing As Many Posts ???

If this is any help:
New Topics: The name isn't very descriptive. This shows all threads with unread posts in them. Each will only show once, even if it's had a dozen replies. Once you've read everything in a thread, then it won't show in the list any more as it's no longer 'new'.
Today's Posts: This shows all threads that have been updated in the past 24 hours. Each will only show once, even if it's had a dozen replies. Threads with unread posts have their titles in bold, if there are no unread posts the title is unbolded.

I know there's a small bug that can occasionally affect the order in which these are displayed, it's fixed in the next release.

I don't know if the site used the 'Activity Stream' link in the previous version, but that can be recreated here using the below link:
[URL="https://www.ozgrid.com/forum/search?searchJSON=%7B%22date%22:%7B%22from%22:%22lastDay%22%7D,%22type%22:%5B%22vBForum_Gallery%22,%22vBForum_Link%22,%22vBForum_Photo%22,%22vBForum_Poll%22,%22vBForum_Event%22,%22vBForum_Text%22,%22vBForum_Video%22%5D,%22channel%22:%7B%22param%22:%22channelid%22%7D,%22sort%22:%7B%22created%22:%22desc%22%7D,%22view%22:%22%22,%22exclude_type%22:%5B%22vBForum_PrivateMessage%22%5D%7D"]https://www.ozgrid.com/forum/search?...vateMessage"]}[/URL]
This shows all posts in the past 24 hours, but using an actual post view, so each post will display.
If this is found useful, the site owners can add it to the navigation bar.

Apologies for the intrusion!

Quote from Logit

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vbtest

Thank you for the info. The link is displaying more posts than my previous method ( 15 vs 42 ). I'll give this a try for a few days to see how it functions.

The difference between the 15 and 42 is because 42 is a count of results which are individual posts.
15 is the count of results which are threads that contain unread posts, but each thread can have more than one unread post within it.

Quote from Logit

So then participation (posts) has dropped significantly.... :flame:

The software has (and always has had) a statistics feature with the admin tools.
I have used it to go back to the start of 2017 and, slightly ironically, I have the data in an Excel spreadsheet.

I won't publish it without the site owners' permission, however what I can say is that over the course of the year there really isn't very much difference in the number of posts made each day.
Some days can be double the previous day and it jumps up and down a lot, but there's honestly no noticeable drop from when the upgrade took place (aside from the day the forum was closed).

The stats reflect pretty much every other active forum I've ever worked on, including my own. I really don't think you have anything to be concerned about.

What I will also say is that people come for content, not the user interface. A lot of emphasis is put on user interfaces, which is correct but it isn't the be all and end all. Even if someone doesn't like a particular user interface, if the content is there they still come.

Interfaces can also be tweaked and improved, your team here seem very skilled and know what they're doing, I'm sure over time they will tweak stuff based on user feedback.

Not really any of my business as I'm just vBulletin tech staff taking a bit of a personal interest in the site, so please forgive my interference, but honestly, this site isn't failing and it's not going to drop away.

Forums are my hobby, vBulletin is part time work I do in my spare time because I've done work with forums for over fifteen years and I am a big evangelist for forums (not just ones running vBulletin) and what they can offer...especially in these Facebook and Twitter days.

The interface can certainly be tweaked, I have various tweaks that I tend to put on and they are mostly CSS only so don't interfere with upgrades for the most part.
There are also template hooks and extensions and those don't interfere either.
There's a former vB developer who runs his own vB5 modification site, there's a lot of good improvements there.

Personally - I always see the default style of ANY forum software as merely a starting point from which you can evolve stuff into something a bit more unique to your individual site.

I have two vB5 demo sites (they aren't real communities, just demos made to look like they are real communities) that showcase some of the stuff that can be done. I won't link them here but the site owners can have the links if they want them. I like to do stuff like - increasing the font sizes, making the bright white backgrounds light grey, widening the bit of the post where the avatar and username is, increasing the size and visibility of the quote, flag, edit buttons etc, pulling the sigs up to reduce blank space, round avatars, larger avatars, larger message typing box, making the advanced message editor buttons show by default, avatars for thread starters, more solid dividing lines between posts, more borders round stuff, etc etc. It's all personal taste though and the owners can tweak based on feedback.

All of that said, a site such as this one benefits from less bells and whistles and more "straightforward, keep it simple" type things. So there's a balance to be struck.

The short version of that ramble is - don't see how it looks now as how it will always look, it can always be tweaked and improved.

Again - the above isn't "right" or "wrong", just my thoughts based on far too many years involved in web forums!