Geez we talk too much
It's probably pent up frustration from not being able to talk freely.
Most of the posts on the BetterMost forums are far longer in length, including some of my own breathtakingly long-winded essays. Part of it is just the structure of the forums. IMDBs sort of threw everything into one place and people would just hit reply, add a sentence, rinse and repeat. The end effect is a very conversational-style forum. This software seems to bring out longer messages with my users. You can see that in a lot of the messages. I don't make a value judgment about which is better, because forming social connections and support with each other is paramount in importance to me.
When we get the chat room up and running, I think a lot of you guys may enjoy that a lot because you'll be able to be conversational together outside of a forum structure. It also has boatloads of smileys and other fun stuff. I hope we can get it up and running tonight or tomorrow, barring any technical problems.
We're in the midst of a look and feel change here lately. We've got a pictures project running in the Now What forum which I invite folks to check out, plus the chat room and some other good stuff coming down the road.