It is an improvement. The colored boxes are nice, makes it easy to distinguish mod posts. If I manually authorize the .cloudfront.net domain, it doesn’t waste 2/3 of my screen anymore either. These are nice improvements.
It’s still not quite ready to go - you still can’t edit or browse a user’s posts.
Hello There, congrats on making the trip over to this new forum system. My initial feedback:
1. Game Page: No complaints there and thanks for the improvements in game support
2. The Forums: The majority of the feedback is here. I am supportive of this move, however, if you folks are moving to something new, it should atleast be a marginal improvement over the existing feature. This new forum system feels more like a blog rather than a discussion forum. Also not very intuitive. I guess it is a trial and error thing and the new system will improve. This forum lacks the ability to edit posts for starters and you guys can look at reorginizing the layout and how the forums are structured. For example, a separate tabs for Japanese and English games. I dont think there is the ability to quote others also.
Also, if you do nothing else, find a way to archive the old forums. The only reason I say it is because there are some really old and useful discussions there and they will be helpful for others in future. Also, the memories attached to the old forum :)
Now I realize there are seperate tabs for English and Japanese games, but I can't edit my post. See what I mean. In blogs this feature helps reduce spam however here it is frustrating.
@SivanHalen:
RE: Archiving the Old Forum: I’m… actually way ahead of you there, buddy. There is a way to archive the old forums, and I’m currently working on that. The Internet Archive has a feature called “The WayBack Machine” that allows you to save web pages on a read-only basis for posterity. This seems like an ideal solution, because JAST gets to create and develop these pages as their new “storefront” and forums, but the old forums with their wealth of history and info are still available to whoever might be interested. Also, JAST won’t have to curate or manage them, as the saved pages can’t be interacted with – kind of like photographing a building about to be demolished. I’m hoping to get at least all of the forum sections directly related to visual novels saved before the August 2015 "demolition."
This is an unfinished project, but you can view what I’ve got so far here: JAST USA Forums • Index page
So far, I have all of the old newsletter archives and the entire “Bishoujo Games: Help!” section archived. I’m currently working on the “English Bishoujo Game Discussions” section, starting from the last page and working forward. It’s just a really slow process, involving clicking on each topic and telling the WayBack Machine that you’d like to archive it. If anyone else wants to lend a hand and save my right index finger from permanent disfigurement, I haven’t touched “Japanese Bishoujo Game Discussions” or anything in the “Miscellenous” sections. Starting from the present and working backward on the English Game discussions would also be nice, as that section is huge. 
I’d like to add a quick “P.S.” to the post I wrote earlier (*or later? more on that in a second…) about archiving the old forum – if anyone else is interested in that project, great! But understandably, Nicholas or whoever else is moderating will probably get aggravated if this thread gets hijacked by that mostly-unrelated discussion. I plan to post it as a separate topic once that project is further along, so let’s wait to discuss “old forum stuff” there. (Just wanted to give you a heads-up, SivanHalen, since you specifically mentioned it as a concern…) In this space, let’s keep focused on feedback for the new website and new forum. And getting back to that…
Now that you’ve improved the visual cues for the text boxes (thanks for that!), my next forum-feedback request would be to loosen up control just a smidge in terms of making posts more real-time. I posted something several hours ago that had a single external URL (to your own website, in a roundabout way), and it still hasn’t appeared. My guess is that the URL probably queued it for manual review before it can appear on the forum. I’d be interested to know if this is correct and if certain things flag posts for manual review (such as URLs or attachments), or if all posts have to receive a manual thumbs-up. I guess this post might be a good test – if this all-text post goes through and appears first, that would cinch the “trigger” theory. Either way, it’s a little awkward, not knowing when things will appear and in what order…
I guess this is related to one of the oldest questions in web design: how much freedom do you give your users to post and create content versus running quality control on your website? On the one hand, I understand that you’ve just gone through this ton of work to improve the look of your site and want to keep it as pristine as possible. But personally, at least where the forums are concerned, I wish you would consider relaxing strict control in this one area. I’m anticipating an argument that you now have Facebook and Twitter accounts where customers can interact with you in real-time, but that isn’t what the forums traditionally were all about. This was / is / can be an ideal space for fans to interact with each other. Fans can have thoughtful, enthusiastic conversations in a long-form forum that aren’t replicable in social media – there, even if a few people manage to have a good conversation, good stinkin’ luck finding it more than a month later. Besides the perks for us, it also helps you out. By letting fans sit around and shoot the breeze uninhibited in a forum, you’re going to gain a more candid insight on user attitudes, props, and complaints than you would in a more heavily-regulated arena. Think of it like reality TV – we’re idiots, and we’ll forget all about the cameras as long as they don’t draw attention to themselves! 
So yeah… trust us a little more. From what I can see, JAST forums have a very positive history overall of not getting uncivil or out of hand. We’re not the types to start drawing schlongs all over your website. (The game pages are covered in them already, so you beat us to it, haha!) So unless spam starts to become a big problem, I’d appreciate anything you can do to “real-time” posting a little more. It would definitely facilitate discussion.
Also, a much shorter request about a valuable forum feature I’d like to see return: the ability to block-quote certain areas of other user’s posts. That will become a big deal once forum threads start getting long or specific. Thanks!
Thanks for everyone's comments. They're greatly appreciated.
We're looking into the edit issue. Hopefully an update to the software we're using will be forthcoming. Obviously when any change is made, some things will be an improvement but something else will be less functional.
One of the realities we've tried to face when deciding to move the JAST USA forums to a new platform is that the age of "forums" is largely past, just as the era of "blogs" has been taken over by new forms of online communication, social media like Facebook and Tumblr and what not. So while we want to keep forums as a place to discuss issues, get support and suggestions from dedicated users, I don't expect that we'll see a return to the old days of 100 active users making posts about VN-related issues of the day, though if that happens it'd be great. Mainly we want to have an updated forums which meshes well with the new site (this software does), and which also ties in with the new support ticket system (as this software does).
The main reason we need to maintain forums is to have a place for fans to trash us when we do something they don't like ^_^
@JackSprat1, you're right, the old forums were always a good place to talk about stuff, and there was not a lot of negativity. I like that about them. One reason we wanted to upgrade was to...upgrade. Using the old forums felt like we were using software from the last century, which I believe PhpBB was from. For the sanity of us as admins as well as users, we want/need new features like the ability to sign in via social media accounts, etc. Though not everything about the new system is perfect.
"The main reason we need to maintain forums is to have a place for fans to trash us when we do something they don't like ^_^"
This is the first time I've seen a company establish a social platform specifically for the purpose of facilitating negative feedback. While we're on this topic, I emphatically insist that lolis not be censored in Shiny Days. That is all.
I like how this new forum sends regular emails when a thread has an update. Neat
@jacksprat1: Yeah, I agree.
I'm not fond of images from one post jutting into posts from others. See this thread (first post) for an example: https://connect.jastusa.com/support/discussions/topics/5000025209
Also, there needs to be auto-formatting for http links. See my post above.
Thanks everyone. Like you said, an edit feature is important. We're looking into this feature and have talked with this system's devs about it. It's a feature that was turned off by the devs to protect the system against spam, but they know users would like to have it. They're looking into a way to implement it safely.
@jacksprat1
Thanks for the feedback. To answer some of your questions:
@jacksprat1... Cool project. Let me know if I can help. Maybe I can start off a new section, say Japanese Bishoujo game discussions?
@SivanHalen: Yes, I’d really appreciate that! And the Japanese Bishoujo Game section would be a great one to start with, since I haven’t touched that yet. The archiving process is pretty simple. Just start from that link I posted earlier and navigate your way through the forum. Each time you visit a URL that the WayBack Machine hasn’t archived before (basically all of them right now…), it will tell you so, but it should also say “This page is available on the web! Help make the Wayback Machine more complete. Save this URL in the WayBack Machine”. When you click save, it will archive that page and take you back to it. Personally, I’ve found the fastest method to be opening up a lot of tabs at once and then clicking save on each of them rather than going through it one at a time and waiting for each page to save, but you can work however you like. (Also, do note that some topics have multiple pages.) Again, I sure appreciate any help you can give to save my poor right index finger, haha!
†
@Peter: Replying to your comment, I hope we can have a bit more fun here than just using this space to trash-talk! (Although, admittedly, that’s gonna happen here and there.) I concede the point that this probably will never be as happening a place as your forums were circa 2000-2005, just because people have so many new and varied avenues to communicate online now, but that doesn’t mean it has to be relegated to being the company dartboard. One big advantage of this space is the use of pseudonyms. I personally feel a lot more comfortable talking about visual novels and bishoujo games with adult content here than I would on Facebook or Twitter, where, say, my employer or sweet old grandma might take an unhealthy interest in what this “Starless” thing I’m so interested in is.
Just as one idea of how you could use this space for fun and to gin up traffic to the JAST USA site, right now RightStuf hosts a weekly reader poll that goes out with their newsletter that invites readers to vote on some otaku-y topic or another. If you wanted to post a just-for-fun topic once a month and have a link to it at the bottom of your J-List newsletter, you might get some interesting and funny responses. Examples:
Like I said, stupid stuff, but I think it could be fun!
I think a simple explanation few post here is that a lot of people can't even figure out how to create an account, or are otherwise awaiting an account import feature that does not and will probably never exist: link
As a poster on the former company forum, it took me more than 10min to figure out how to create an account here that I could log in to. That's 5min longer than most people are willing to invest.
@Dark_Shiki Thanks for bring up the sign-up bug. I think I've been able to fix it, so new accounts won't encounter the bug. Like you said, people who can't access their account can use the 'I forgot my password' link to fix their account. Importing accounts from the old forums is a project that's too large and laborious for our limited staff, so we're hoping the community will take care of itself and re-signup.
I think by now we've already seen that they probably won't. Sure, the board has been mostly dead for a good long while now, but on average the lulls weren't THIS long. If the accounts aren't ported over, most of the previous members will probably just disappear. You guys could have postponed the launch of the new forums until that could be done; you seem to have placed your priorities elsewhere. (And honestly, that might have been the right decision; you guys have more important things to do than try to save an already-dead board.)
But a big part of what kick-started this community such a long time ago was "Kumiko Kamiyama". I'm not recommending creating another fake (really, please don't). But setting the fakeness of the personality aside, Kumiko was an official Jast rep who spent a ton of time on the board - starting threads, chiming in with official answers, and in general firing up conversation. (Of course, there's little evidence of that now, since all 'her' posts were mass-deleted years ago.)
Also, in addition to people having other ways to talk now, honestly there's not as much going on with Jast USA in terms of the VN market. The release pace is so slow Jast is simply being left behind. Keep up the good momentum from the last couple months, and there will be more talk around here just because there will be more to talk about.
@Nandemonai Very insightful, thanks! Now is a very good time to be a fan of VNs, and you're totally right about our release pace. We're going to be releasing more titles in the coming 6 months than we did the previous 3 years combined. This is in one part due the natural time-lag of project start to finish, but on the second part with changes in staff within the company.
To speak on that topic, some might remember Lamuness. He was before my time (I joined 2011 after his leaving). I've heard nothing but good things about him.
Shingo was not the best at multi-tasking projects which caused lots of delays, but he was a great guy, loved VNs and had the vision to push for more titles. His loved talking, but sometimes talked too early too much, causing things such as three years of preorders for Hanachirasu.
Makoto is and still continues to be awesome with everything he touches. He wasn't the type of guy who spoke much or boasted about his work, but he got things done and helped push JAST USA to focus on the quality of our products. We're sad he stepped down from his position, but we're happy he's still working with us to keep great things coming.
So, I guess this is my introduction – sorry its late. I've been focusing our team on keeping a strong pace with our game releases, both on JAST USA and soon Steam. Even though Tomakun also stepped down, he and I still worked together to create the new JAST USA website, and we continue to work towards improving it, adding new features. I have to admit my VN knowledge pales in comparison to Peter but that's not because of lack of trying – more a lack of time doing everything not gameplay related for our VNs. Peter and I are working very closely to get or next titles out on-time and in perhaps the best quality we've ever had. 2015 looks to be a great year!
You're right, I didn't understand your position in the company; until now, I thought you were just the website design person. I didn't realize you were managing JAST's translation projects.
If you actually want to jumpstart discussion on this board, I'd take a cue from Mangagamer: sign up some people to reach out to fans and generate discussion. Even volunteers would probably suffice. Encourage your contractors actually working on projects to engage with fans (especially when the game releases). Not only will you win bonus points with customers, but you might also find that employee satisfaction increases.
Of course, before that you need a functional BBS. I think there's still some work that needs to be done before most people will want to spend their leisure time here.
Welcome aboard, Nick! Though I guess you’ve been around for awhile. I see you referring to Shingo in the past tense; the last I’d heard was him re-joining? He left again?
Also, why isn’t Trample on Schatten on your upcoming titles page? I hope it hasn’t been cancelled, the last update was that a new translator was being sought or something?
And are you really sure about releasing more titles in the next 6 months than the last 3 years? Cause by my count, you released seven titles in the past 3 years. (LWR, Steins;Gate, Saya no Uta, School Days, Downhill Night Blaze, GF is Prez fandisc, and the weird AX 2014 “surprise!” release of Harajuku Dating Paradise). You’re really going to release eight titles in the next six months?