As you may recall, some months ago I asked for your opinion on whether or not the Latin America forum should be split into two forums--Mexico & Central America--and--South America.

There was lively debate and we discussed pros and cons on both sides. You can view that discussion here: http://www.fodors.com/community/lati...lit-in-two.cfm

After weighing these pros and cons, we realized that it was in the site' s best interest to go ahead and split the forum into two. We aimed to do this prior to the forum's relaunch, but were unable to make the change without first transitioning to the new platform.

We'll be "flipping the switch" later today. The site should not need to come down; but obviously when things shift it may be a little disorienting at first.

Everything should redirect appropriately. The "default" forum is Mexico & Central America; so Latin America topics that do not have any tags will be in that forum. We'll need to go back and manually move untagged items over. If you have old trip reports or topics that are missing tags that you'd like us to tag for you, please feel free to send them to us at [email protected]. Otherwise, we'll do our best to go through and identify topics that need shifting/moving.

Thank you in advance for your patience throughout this process--and for your feedback in general .

I can live with that change. But the single most irritating thing with the new design is the "View More Activity" link at the bottom of the left sise column. It was much, much better before the redesign when it said "Read Next 50 Posts".

Thanks for letting us know, Katie. Is there any chance the "Next 50 Posts" feature will come back?

We're working on an alternative; it's just not "there" yet. I'd like the recent activity to revert to being broken up by number too (especially on the sub-category pages).

What's not clear at the moment is whether we'd be able to display the "next 50 posts" in the left-hand column. They might display instead still in the "middle" pane.

Thanks Katie. Glad to know that it is one of the things you're looking into. I used to tell friends to look at these forums for ideas on how to design a discussion forum for their own blogs etc. And often enough I'd heard that new software made it hard to match the look & feel of the old forum, unless the code was written from scratch. Now I suppose you are realizing the same limitations. Let's hope the "Next 50 Posts" can indeed be placed in the left side column. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Just to clarify---you want to be able to both view "the next 50 posts" and view them within that column. Is that right?

The problem, as I understand it, isn't that we can't display the next 50 in that column. It's that the column refreshes with the page so it won't stay with that "list". So if you click on #121 the page will refresh with that topic---but the column will be displaying #s 1-25. Still, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to improve on this. We're just considering multiple options.

We knew we wouldn't be able to match the look & feel of the old forum completely--especially since we were forced to lose the "frames" that supported that column. Shifting to this new setup has given us a much better foundation to work from and it's enabled us to improve upon many things; but we definitely acknowledge that there are still improvements to be made. Thanks for the feedback.

Any chance for separate columns with up and down options, or numbering the posts again? It is really frustrating to read down through, hit a post, maybe respond to it, and that not be able to find where I was in the list. The separate column bit was genius but at least numbers would help. Thanks for the heads up!

One of my main complaints is the missing top 50. I can't confirm what others are referring to, maybe the same, but I would like to look on the left hand side of the screen and see the most recent 50 posts - not the 25. Basically, for me, once I get to the bottom of the 25, I don't continue - too complicated. So threads get lost or no replies to, especially if the board is moving quickly.

So I would think if they can do 25 on the left - they could do 50. At the very least it would increase my time on here, whereas now I spend less.

Me too - what tully said. I think a lot of people just quit when they get to the end of the list, so could the list be longer to show the most recent 50? Posts seem to drop quickly now.

Technically we could show 50. We've tested it with 50; it's just a lot of scrolling without the frame capability (we would not have separate scrolling for that column). It's definitely something we're considering; we'd definitely need to display numbers if we did that I think.

I am sorry to hear that... it will be the death of the Mexico forum, which was hanging on only by a thread as it is.

It wouldn't be a problem for me at all if Costa Rica had it's own forum and Mexico/rest of CA had a separate one. Since I'm uninteresting in Costa Rica and 80+% of the CA posts are CR, top 25 would be plenty.

Katie, the posts I click on aren't graying out like they used to. Is this just a temporary glitch?

We're optimistic that being clearer about the two regions will make it easier to attract more traffic to both forums. If traffic seems low in the forum, it may be partly due to its organization.

volcanogirl---the graying out should work--are you finding that it's working in the "column" but not in the profile?

Sorry it happened, but at least I haven't got wade through Buenos Aires posts anymore. Come to think of it, why not create an "Argentina and Costa Rica" forum, and put the rest back together? "Mexico and Assorted Other South and Central American Countries"!

Bravo Katie for your responsiveness and inventiveness. I also appreciate the renewed 'PREVIEW' and 'JUMP TO LAST REPLY' features.

I think this divorce will be better for the children...

Keep on track, and thanks.

~MarnieWDC

Katie, it's not working anywhere for me. It was working before, so not sure what's happened.

Are you clearing your cache by any chance?

I would really like to see the 50 on the left. Very much so.

My posts gray if I read them but do not if I reply, which is confusing.

When you reply, the topic essentially has a "new post". So it turns blue again. I'm pretty sure that's what's happening in that case.