I'm going to chime in as one of the writers. I have to say, I really miss the banter, constructive comments (good and bad) and general camaraderie that followed nearly every post on autos.ca.
a) needing to go back to the autos.ca forum to see if there are new/any comments is irritating for me
b) there is a very obvious withdrawal from this commenting process since the shift - the numbers are clear
c) I have never used FB commenting myself because I do try to maintain an iota of anonymity in forums and I don't want people following me to my FB page - I know there's more to that, but that's just my general approach
d) I don't appear to be alone in this - I'm not seeing a fraction of the comments on the expert reviews, whether we're talking about the FB business underneath, or even back here
e) I have no issue with the new layout at autoTRADER, although the expert reviews (which is what interests me) feels buried
All of that makes me sad. It doesn't change what I do here, but it does have me longing for some of that chatter. I note that someone mentioned a fatal blow to the sense of community. I certainly hope not as it was that which brought me here as much as the expert content.
I have no say in what happens at autoTRADER, and so this is way beyond me. But my vote is that things were better before. I completely understand the money model, and that autoTRADER isn't a non-profit organization. But I guess I can still offer up my opinion.