The New CoasterBuzz

What's new? Use this handy guide to navigate the new stuff around the Portal to The Thrill!

Home page improvements

The home page is your starting place for everything happening on CoasterBuzz. At a glance, you can see the latest news, forum topics and photos. You'll also see the current standings on the CoasterBuzz 100, CoasterBuzz Club news, the scoring game and the return of the Roller Coaster Rollback.

Every page has links at the top where you can login, adjust your account settings or view your profile. You can also search for roller coasters and amusement parks in the search box, with results appearing in real time.

The right side of the page has links to the many tools available on CoasterBuzz, including the meeting calendar, your track record and the Feed.

You can also find the contribute links on the right side of the page. CoasterBuzz is powered by the community, and we appreciate your news links, amusement parks and roller coasters, as well as your photos.

The new forums

The new version of the CoasterBuzz forums include a number of enhancements. First, when viewing a thread, you can load posts from the next or previous page without leaving the page. Even better, a button will appear when you reply that will let you know about new posts, before you reply:

The forums also support the "+1" awarding that has informally occurred for years. Now, you can show your appreciation for quality contributions with a vote for each post you like. That member will get a point in the scoring game, and it will appear in their profile. You can see who voted for a post by clicking on the number in the bottom left of the post.

Of course, all of the old features are still available. Remember that when you're logged in, you can click the blue icon at the left of a thread icon to jump to the newest post since the last time you read that topic.

Better user profiles

Each member has a profile organized into the normal forum stats and contact information, as well as their track record, meeting calendar entries, scoring game points and awards. You can find links to member profiles in the forums and other places around the site.

The Scoring Game

The Scoring Game is a fun way to recognize our community members for their contributions to CoasterBuzz. Each "+1" given in the forums will score a point, and more points are given for contributed news items, amusement park and roller coaster database additions (once approved), as well as photo contributions. Members may be given arbitrary awards as well. After a certain number of scores, awards are given. This is definitely a work in progress, and you can expect weekly leaderboards as well.

The amusement park and roller coaster databases

CoasterBuzz has a huge database of coasters and parks, built mostly by you! Each park page is neatly organized into sections where you can find the latest news, map, trip reports, Day In Pictures report and entries from the meeting calendar. The roller coasters are displayed with large icons. Each roller coaster page features stats and photos.