[Mindi]

Actually, the 'marked all read' link disappeared on accident when we were trying to change something that other people wanted changed. Even though technically there was nothing 'broke', we were trying to make a small change that we felt would satisfy some users without changing the functionality that we were trying to achieve.

As for the original problem that this thread was created about, we hope you find some vast improvement with the back-ups slowing down the forum. We've worked at optimizing the back-up system and I think you will find the time has been greatly reduced.

We try to listen to everyone's suggestions and we often implement the ones that are attainable and don't distract from functionality and intended purpose. However, ultimately everyone will disagree, even among the users. That doesn't mean that we haven't listened to everyone's concerns, but it is impossible to please everyone and we're not even going to try. Like all changes, these changes will take a little time to get used to, but this is something we go through everytime we make any change as most people are creatures of habit. That being said we often have people later say that they like the changes now that they are accustomed to them and would complain if we went back to whatever the 'old way' was.