Bingo- I think you nailed it- That is indeed the main entry point- and therefore folks will just create a thread there when it is more suitable elsewhere in the forums- usually perhaps under one of the other categories in “interests”. I really will be interested to see how folks adapt/ get used to this new structure.
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I already consider myself “adapted”. lol It’s definitely a lot cleaner than before and stuff is easier to find. I may question a few choices, but overall I think this reorganization was badly needed and the changes are very positive in terms of organization. Good job!
I’ve been administering / moderating various chats, forums, online communities, IRC, BBS, Discord, etc since the early 90s. Not necessarily on the scale of this forum, but I’ve definitely been around the block a few times over the decades. In my experience, it doesn’t really matter how clearly and concisely you organize something. New and less information-savvy users will post whatever they need to the first place they land. And that will likely be whatever the new “entry point” is.
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General Discussion should be a category on it own since it is by far the most popular forum, it’s now buried under “interests” (whatever that means). This place has descended into a fragmented mess, kinda like the controller options in the game itself.
Interests has 11 sub categories inc. Gliders, Helicopters and Aircraft… Gliders and Helicopters are aircraft and then this;
“This sub-category is for the discussion of using the SDK. We encourage you to become users of the main SDK forums located at https://devforums.flightsimulator.com/, but you may use this space for various other discussions. Please use tags in this space to help forum users easily find post topics.”
what?
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If General Discussions was to have discussions about the Sim, then General Discussions should have remained within the Main MSFS Category.
Now that it has been moved to the Interests Category, some folks may think they can discuss anything they have interests in, other than the Sim.
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That was exactly my thought as well as per my earlier post.
I don’t really see this as having the desired effect of making folks think more closely about posting in the correct category. I could be wrong and time will tell. But if I were a betting man, I’d be putting money on the outcome that this will have minimal effect at best, the opposite effect at worse.
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I wouldn’t mind having an Off-Topic Discussion in the Interests Category, where people could talk about other things. (within the Code of Conduct of course.)
Most forums have that. But this is Microsoft. They don’t operate like everyone else. lol
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Best not to waste the manpower trying to moderate an ‘off topic’ board when you need those folks to pursue leads and feedback on the flight sim this forum was created to support.
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I think ‘interests’ is a bit of a weird name, not that I can really come up with anything better off the top of my head mind, and mentioning ‘niche areas’ is kinda amusing as it vaguely implies that aircraft are a niche area of a flight simulator. I think the categories could be organised better though with interests being placed directly under the top Microsoft Flight Simulator category instead of the current Beta. Beta should be bumped down further I feel.
Another thing I’ve been noticing is really old threads being bumped up in the Aircraft category which is kinda annoying as most these old threads are completely irrelevant and don’t need bumping. Would be nice if auto-bumping could be disabled in there.
Aircraft now being for both first and third party plane discussion reminded me of the early days of this forum where there was a separate category for first party planes arranged into general, turboprop and jet iirc. Not sure why that was all folded into ‘general’ in the first place.
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While we are on the subject of changes to the forum it seems that colours (colors -USA) have been changed also. When I click on my account avatar to view a list of recent posts the highlighting used to indicate unread posts is much more difficult to see and was quite clear before the change.
NOTE: It is easier to see the highlighting in the enlarged screenshot above than it is on my actual monitor.
This forum in general has never been organized in any coherent way from the beginning. I welcome any attempt to fix it, even if the fix attempt is less than optimal.
I also don’t like that darker blue shade. It makes things harder to read IMHO. Particularly on my aging eyes.
Thanks for the feedback! Still working on all the colors - specifically background colors, so you’ll see changes to that while we get them up to par for accessibility standards.
Noted on the term “niche” - while there are niche categories under Interests, there are also broad categories so I changed the wording.
The “Microsoft Flight Simulator” and “Beta” categories will be the first two for now as that is where more official feedback is being requested at the moment, and our priority is for users to see those areas first.
I know there is some disagreement with where General Discussion is currently placed, but we have reasons for it (see tamalien’s post) and would like us all to give it a try for the next few months.
As stated in the forum reorganization post, we see the forums as ever-changing. This isn’t “how it will be” from now on- I expect to see some successes and some failures with our new category organization, and I also expect the categories to merge, evolve, and changes likely 2 to 3 times a year.
Thanks everyone!
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Rather than changing the existing colour theme, a new one with new colours would likely be better while retaining the old. This new darker blue makes things rather difficult on those with poor eyesight and colour blindness (I speak from personal experience here). The previous was the same lighter blue used in the word Flight on the MSFS logo and it worked great with the dark theme. This new blue, not so much.
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If the colours are put back to how they were before it would be fine. There was really no need to change them.
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How they were before did not meet accessibility standards, so we needed change them. Not quite there yet though 
Thanks for the reply.
I hope that is soon then. I am 70 years old, wear eyeglasses, and have a 49inch 5120x1440 monitor and now I am struggling. Never had accessibility problems with it before 
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Well, I’m not quite that old, but I know how failing eyesight can be a challenge. If I’m having difficulty with this new colour scheme, I can only imagine what it will be like for you.
Maybe I need to invest in an 8K monitor now 
90" OLED 8K TV 
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