The New Community Forum Design Feels Impersonal

Change is inevitable, and I understand why any Logos would want to move forward with a new design of the Forum. Many of the changes introduced by the new regime are actually good ones and I LOVE them. The new Community Forum does offer many features. The team effort is noticeable. It's clear what you can do like ask questions, start a discussion (like this one), report bugs, learn more about events or new posts. All great from a functionality standpoint! A lot of right pieces are there.

So, what feels missing, though? The people.

The new layout of the forum feels impersonal and impractical, not because features are absent, but because the human presence is harder to see. Yes, you can still look for your favorite commentator if you already know their name. Shout out to my favorite, @MJ. Smith . I only know about MJ because of the older forum lent to discover MJ. The older format surfaced the people naturally through conversation and engagement .

I am not opposed to change. However, with the new design, if you are new to Logos, it is very difficult to sense who the community actually is. The experience feels more like a set of actions to complete than a place where people gather (Asana, Monday, and other productivity tools). You see buttons, tiles, and categories first, long before you see names, voices, or ongoing conversations.

One of the main reasons I have stayed for more than a decade now, since 2012, and invested in Logos.com is the community itself. In the old forum, you could recognize familiar contributors without trying. You could observe passively, follow discussions, and participate actively. That sense of shared presence made the Logos community feel alive and connected. Let's face it. The people that use Logos even the new users it is trying to attract (college students and every day person of the street), are still a type of "misfits." And these God loving, Jesus following misfits have found a home in Logos (there's your advertising/marketing segment insights for ya').

I hope Logos.com realizes that long time users are a gold mine. These users are incredibly active and deeply invested. But tapping into that value starts with making people visible again. Right now, the tools are front and center, but the people feel pushed into the background.

The current format works well for tasks. What it needs is a stronger sense of who is actually here. ❤️🙏

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Graham Criddle

The new layout of the forum feels impersonal and impractical, not because features are absent, but because the human presence is harder to see.

Can you expand on this please? It's not immediately clear to me why it is harder on this platform to see the human presence than it was on the previous one

Dave Hooton

@Ram Teodosio In the old forum, you could recognize familiar contributors without trying. You could observe passively, follow discussions, and participate actively. That sense of shared presence made the Logos community feel alive and connected. Let's face it. The people that use Logos even the new users it is trying to attract (college students and every day person of the street), are still a type of "misfits." And these God loving, Jesus following misfits have found a home in Logos (there's your advertising/marketing segment insights for ya').

I could empathize to a certain extent until I read this. There are indeed many new users which would indicate success of the "Newly Revamped Logos Community" and their contributions could dilute those from more familiar names, but I think you should clarify how logos.com could start with "making people visible again".

Ram Teodosio

Thanks for responding @Dave Hooton and @Graham Criddle

Answering Graham's human presence follow-up and Dave's request for clarification on how to making people visible again. I've bundled my answers to both here:

One concrete difference I notice is visibility of engagement. In the old forum, there were clearer signals around who was active or well established. You could see top commentators or at least get a sense of a person’s participation without clicking into their profile. In the new forum, you generally have to open a profile and dig to see how active someone is. That matters from a research and trust perspective. Knowing that Dave and Graham have thousands of posts and replies adds credibility to their input. That information still exists, but it now takes several clicks to discover. Surfacing that context more directly would help.
The same applies to view counts and activity signals. I know filters exist, but they introduce friction. What used to feel like a scroll experience now feels more like a click through experience. Before, you could casually browse and see which topics were trending within specific categories, which helped align with what you were interested in at the moment. Theology, technical questions, and general discussion felt distinct. Right now, everything is flattened into Discussions, Questions, or Feedback. That works structurally, but it loses some of the intuitive flow that helped people orient themselves quickly. This could be a good use for AI semantic modeling. Let AI determine categories.
One possible idea could even be a lightweight connection or interaction view that shows how people engage with one another. That might sound a bit social media like, but this is still a community forum, and some sense of relational context could actually strengthen it rather than detract from it.

Overall, the tools are there. It just feels like the human signals require more effort to see than they used to.

Dave Hooton

One concrete difference I notice is visibility of engagement. In the old forum, there were clearer signals around who was active or well established. You could see top commentators or at least get a sense of a person’s participation without clicking into their profile. In the new forum, you generally have to open a profile and dig to see how active someone is. That matters from a research and trust perspective. Knowing that Dave and Graham have thousands of posts and replies adds credibility to their input. That information still exists, but it now takes several clicks to discover. Surfacing that context more directly would help.

Two clicks? In a Forum, or via Notifications, I see if the post would interest me (as a responder) then one click on the profile picture usually tells me what I suspect based on the query e.g. a new user. If a user is responding to a query of mine then one click is needed! But some profiles (more than in the past) are Private.

Before, you could casually browse and see which topics were trending within specific categories, which helped align with what you were interested in at the moment. Theology, technical questions, and general discussion felt distinct. Right now, everything is flattened into Discussions, Questions, or Feedback. That works structurally, but it loses some of the intuitive flow that helped people orient themselves quickly. This could be a good use for AI semantic modeling. Let AI determine categories.

Theology is discouraged. The latter two were in different Forums,and one has to hope that people use the Tags to distinguish them in the current Forums, but many users don't include the necessary platform (Desktop, Mobile, Web). Discussions, Questions and Feedback are confused and sometimes placed in the wrong Forum. That is down to users and Moderators can gently prod them or actually move/add tags. AI could assist though.

One possible idea could even be a lightweight connection or interaction view that shows how people engage with one another. That might sound a bit social media like, but this is still a community forum, and some sense of relational context could actually strengthen it rather than detract from it.

There have been several attempts to show the structure of the conversation but linear seems to win out, whether old-to-new or new-to-old. What doesn't help is showing Accepted Answers by default and then realizing why one's reply does not show!

Overall, logos.com (and users) have to work with the forum developers, and their strategy has the biggest impact in relation to your observations.

Ram Teodosio

Two clicks? In a Forum, or via Notifications, I see if the post would interest me (as a responder) then one click on the profile picture usually tells me what I suspect based on the query e.g. a new user. If a user is responding to a query of mine then one click is needed! But some profiles (more than in the past) are Private.

If a person wants his or her profile private, I am in favor of that. However, most forums assume community. But if there is a way to keep private, that's a good feature. Regarding the actual reading of a post/reply, if this were just one interaction or one reply, then yes, one or two clicks to check a profile feels reasonable. That is not really the issue I am pointing to. The difference shows up when you are reading a thread with dozens of replies, especially one that is trending or of broad interest. In those situations, part of how I orient myself is by quickly distinguishing signal from noise. One way that used to happen more naturally was through visible engagement cues. Being able to tell at a glance whether a response came from an occasional commenter (like me), a regular contributor, or an MVP user helped with feedback prioritization. Even among MVPs, there is a meaningful difference between someone with a few thousand posts and someone with thirty plus thousand posts.

The same applies to topic discovery. Before, it was easier to browse and see what was trending within clearer areas of interest. General discussion, technical topics, and tradition/denomination specific conversations felt more distinct. Today, everything is flattened into Discussions, Questions, or Feedback. It's very mechanical.

Theology is discouraged. The latter two were in different Forums and one has to hope that people use the Tags to distinguish them in the current Forums, but many users don't include the necessary platform (Desktop, Mobile, Web). Discussions, Questions and Feedback are confused and sometimes placed in the wrong Forum. That is down to users and Moderators can gently prod them or actually move/add tags. AI could assist though.

Theology was probably a poor example on my part, especially since I am very aware of the forum policy. A better example would be the denominational or tradition based groupings, such as Verbum users or Orthodox or Reformed contexts. While formal theological debate may not be encouraged, many users still come to Logos to research topics like Sabbath, Holy Communion, or church history, and they often look to the community for guidance and shared experience. That, at least to me, has always been part of the purpose of these community forums.

There have been several attempts to show the structure of the conversation but linear seems to win out, whether old-to-new or new-to-old. What doesn't help is showing Accepted Answers by default and then realizing why one's reply does not show!
Overall, logos.com (and users) have to work with the forum developers, and their strategy has the biggest impact in relation to your observations.

I appreciate the technical perspective. I may still stand on my feedback which is less about feasibility and more about how the current experience feels. I understand strategy drives decisions (branding, platform control, rather than open source forum, etc.). I just wanted to share my experience with the new forum. It is less communal or social than its previous iteration.

I'll continue to use it and do hope that the developers and UX/UI designers take my feedback into account.