How could TOTV be improved?
 

1) Increase the information density. Even with ads blocked, it is rare that you will see more than one post or answer in a full screen. It has banners, icons, and all sorts of distracting fluff.
2) Does anybody ever use the little icons, F, plus, etc.? What does a plus even do?
3) Because of this, a typical question get n-teen duplicated answers. Who has the time to scroll AND page to check to see if a post is just something that others have said?
4) Grammarly - a grammar checker - badly needed by some, does not work, even though there is some sort of spell-checker.
5) Eliminate paging. It is just too slow.
6) Inhibit quoting. If someone really wants to quote something, it should be intentional, not accidental. Excessive quoting further reduces the information density.
7) Hyperlinking would work more easily if it worked like other applications like GMail, or if it had two boxes, one for the url and one for the text.

For an absolutely free 'blog' service, I think it works fine, I use the "View last thread" to avoid rereading and occasionally will scan a thread if I know I replied so I do not repeat myself. As for grammar and spelling, I get red and blue lines as I am typing for various errors, perhaps you have a setting that has this disabled, or your browser does not support this function. The ads support this site, no ads, no site.
So, I believe it is just fine, my humble opinion.

It could be improved but, as VT said, for a free service it is acceptable.

I do not like constant "improvements" to a website that change how it operates, meaning I keep having to re-learn it.

I guess when one pays a monthly fee....one can complain.

Do you mean the buttons at the bottom of a post (I don't see icons)? If so, then yes, I use them. A plus (+) shows who has "thanked" a post.
I would say it should be incumbent on the reader to take the time to scroll AND page to see what others have said. If you aren't willing to read what others have written then why do you expect others to read what you are about to write?
I find paging faster than scrolling to the bottom of 72 replies.
Quoting is optional. If added by mistake, the quote block can easily be deleted before posting. ToTV already reduces excessive quoting by including only the post being quoted and not any previously quoted text. Better user education or less laziness would be a better solution than removing a valuable feature.
I don't understand this at all. You highlight the text to be displayed as a link, press the icon to Insert a link (blue globe with a chain), then enter the URL into the box. As far as I can tell, this *IS* one of the two ways you add a link in gmail.

I did manage to get "Multiquote" to work once, but have forgotten how I did it. Probably just as well!

I can only read one answer at a time, so I'm fine with only being shown one answer at a time. What might be an interesting option, is if you could click a box in an answer that would pop-out a window containing the original post of the thread, so you don't have to scroll back or page back to find it, and then scroll/page forward and try to find that post again to continue reading the thread from where you left off.
The F I believe allows you to share a post to your facebook page, if you have one. The + lets you see who has thanked the poster of any given post, and the thumbs-up is the thank button, which is only visible if no one has thanked that post yet.

If you're in a hurry, maybe read faster or learn to skim? Or don't read a thread at all until you know you have time to dedicate to reading it.

English is not everyone's first language. In addition, some people are blind and use a voice-to-text translator or braille keyboard to post. I get that it can be difficult to understand some folks - I have trouble with them too. But if it's a topic of interest, and I think the person has thoughts I want to know, I'll take that extra 30 seconds to decipher it in my head. If you don't feel they have something valuable to add to the conversation, just skip their post.
No idea what you mean by that, unless you mean when you get to the bottom of the page of responses, you have to click on #2 to get to the next page? Again - that would be a YOU problem, not a system problem. It's not that time consuming. If you mean something other than that, I dunno, I guess I don't ever experience what you're referring to.
Quoting IS an intentional thing. There are quick-replies and regular replies. There's also multi-quoting, which most people don't know how to use (I use it often). You would know that if you checked multi-post threads where people are just posting in them, and you have no idea who they're responding to.
GMail is a mail application. VBulletin is a forum application. They work off different codebases and serve completely different functions. Be grateful you don't have to deal with raw hypertext markup language.

Residents only.

YES! Or at least some indication that a person has a verified Villages address (owner or non-owner resident)

While I agree that having a symbol for a verified villages residence, we have several people who start participating on this forum prior to moving here. Overall, I think the forum is well designed. Ignoring ads is something I learned as a youngster watching TV. (I thought they were the perfect time to grab some ice cream at night.) The impatience of some who chime in with points that previously been made is always interesting.

I'd like to see the original poster identified when he/she returns with another post on the same thread. Like this:

Fidelity101
Go fast, pull up.
Fidelity101's Avatar
Thread OP

Have you tried Next Door. It might be a better fit, unless you choose to start your own site with the parameters you are looking for.

Is there already a facility to mark posts as read? When revisiting a thread of 40 posts, it would be nice just to see the original and any I've not read yet.

I also dislike the Random Pictures on the start page. If you like looking at other people's dogs and grandkids then fine, but it would be nice to be able to disable it.

Can't believe I'm going to say this, but I agree with OBB. And Bill. This site - especially for a free site - works just fine. The VBB format is common and has been around for years. Many people know how to navigate it. Multi-quoting is not terribly difficult and rarely needed. I do know at least one that does not use it and should. That one person will jump into a thread days after it has started and then make about 3 to 5 posts in a row as they one-at-a-time respond to posts in the thread they only just found. They usually only do this on threads that have a certain, special, will-not-be-named here topic. Simple fix: block that person.

Want a better mousetrap? Go ahead and build it. See if they come.

I agree with you except for the multi-quote thing. I am probably the one you are referring to who makes 3 to 5 posts in a row. While I understand your point, I read the entire thread first, then go back to certain posts I want to respond to. I see each post as separate thoughts or individuals, and prefer to focus my response more to that person, rather than lumping them as a group. Just my style. Sorry if it irks you.