my view only: i’ve written quite a lot of user documentation in my life and i am stickler for terminology and making it clearer for users. thus, i now try to refer to it as the navigator (or navigation) menu because that is what it really is. the hamburger icon is what most folks seem to keep referring to and is the accepted name for that icon in other apps too. the legacy navigator menu still had the hamburger icon. the new navigator menu is configurable in drop down or side bar (but i don’t get why it’s still called a sidebar when in drop-down mode?). i used to call it a hamburger menu when it was legacy, but when i made the switch, i decided to change the terminology for my own users and am now referring to it as the navigator menu (or sidebar) and the icon as the hamburger icon. (eg: click the hamburger icon to get the navigator menu).
anyways, this past weekend i migrated to the new navigator menu from the legacy one. i started off by using the drop down mode in order to make it as much like the legacy menu as possible so my users would find it easier to adapt (i have an older user demographic, mostly ages 40-80). the roll out went much better than i expected and the users quite like the customizable features. i had planned on keeping the menu in drop down mode but after a few days i realized how much better it is in desktop when in the slide out mode on left. i also like that it is more like the mobile view. so i switched it to the slide out on left side over-night last night and i am very happy with it. in retrospect, i think this inadvertent staged migration was a good thing.
some feeback:
- my only major complaint is that i want more control of customizing the top section (i easily renamed “Community” to my forum title in the text replacement console). i have used some CSS to change a few things in that part but it’s a bit tricky to access those elements.
why is Latest called Everything? i changed that tooMy Posts should not be above the Admin and Review options for Staff - what happens is it pushes Review down into the …More section. please make the Staff controls precedent.
love the menu so far. great work Discourse team 
edit: ok so i found out soon after i made this post that Everything is dynamic and changes from latest to new. i didn’t notice till i had switched on the power user option and someone pointed it out (doh). love this. i just had to figure out a better name for it (Recent / Unread). cool feature. i have also since noticed that Review moves up when flags are pending, so that isn’t an issue either.