Because this isn't really a beta test, it's an A/B test to see interaction and if more posting on the forums occurs with the (VERY SMALL) batch of people who have it. We can't do that with gold accounts because they already typically have greater interaction than normal users. This gives us a pool of users who are both GA and normal users.

If you have it you're one of ~100 users with it, and it'll likely go away in a day once it's collected enough information about your usage :)

That's how you collect data. If you don't use the page it means we have data that you used it before and don't use it now. If you opt out that doesn't give us any usable data because it could turn out you'd be more active with the new page but "change" is a problem people have.

This is just how data science works and we've been doing it other places around the site, obviously nothing as big as the front page of the forums, but typically small pages so we can figure out how to place things. Your displeasure is noted, but we're going to continue working in this way.

I'd suggest adding some things to the forum pulse, from forums that you like, at least while you've got it during testing :)

Then we see interaction numbers drop from that user for a few hours and have actionable data.

I'll play around with that. I was actually thinking of removing the sub forums from the side bar, even. My idea is that it makes the forums seem a lot more lively if the feed is pulsing a lot with topics being talked about (pushing you to go there) and if I make it so that the forum pulse is on my default (with all of the "regular" non chit chat forums) it'll get people seeing threads they wouldn't usually see.

I'll try switching the columns though and see what that looks like!

Also this will likely be an opt-in option (but on by default) :)

If you guys have better layout ideas can you do me a favor and try to draw it up? I have an idea in mind I'm trying to draw to show Keith but I bet you guys have awesome ideas too. My thought was having it work more like the widgets so you can drag and drop or otherwise organize your preferred forums etc.