I posted some feedback on the "old" forums so I'm going to paste it here, with some clarity tweaks, for the appropriate authorities to read. EA_Failroader thank you for your time, I know this post is fairly long.
I agree completely with all of the criticism in this thread.
I think it's necessary for me to add that it really seems like EA doesn't know its own forum community at all. (Do they care? They "claim" to.) The forums have always been skewed in favor of a slightly older and more mature crowd, who like to take time out of the day to write thoughtful posts, read the thoughts of others, and share all things Sims from criticism to creations to custom content. This community delves deeper than the "post-and-ghost" speed runs of standard social media, and the people here want substance in our communication. We build friendships, support each other, and even when we debate and argue we're more like a little dysfunctional family than a bunch of strangers who play the same game. We like to slow life down because many of us are neurodivergent, overstimulated by the crazy of social media, or just like quiet places to gather our thoughts and express them safely where we feel heard. In the last ten years, we've come to know a little something about each other, and that's what made the old forum so special. There's an emotional investment, not only to the years' worth of threads and discussions and creations, but also to the other people in this community. To take that away from us for what feels like a superficial, trend-chasing, dime-a-dozen, clutter-fest that rips away our community identities is cold and cruel. We've essentially been lumped-and-dumped on a generic half-thought that didn't seem to know what to do with us. It's depressing.
EA always talks about wanting to lean more into the community aspect of The Sims. Well fellas, we're here. And you need to seriously consider both sides of what that means or you will inadvertently do more to ruin a great thing. We all have a passion for this game, and we want to celebrate it in our own creative and thoughtful ways. We can't do that on X, or Discord, or YouTube. We like to keep track of each other's threads and creations. The old forums are like a book, photo, and design club for us, where we take the tools of the game and weave them into our own concepts. We root for each other and support each other because the old forums make it easy for us to do so. We've learned who each other are through a single, common interest.
Please don't take this organic collective that is our beloved Sims community away in favor of simplicity and convenience for you. If you do that, you may not need it anymore. Listen to the people in this thread and do your best to give us what we need to continue together.
Thank you.