diff --git a/CONFIGURE b/CONFIGURE
index 285ccd11b3..c5fac78730 100644
--- a/CONFIGURE
+++ b/CONFIGURE
@@ -859,3 +859,12 @@ performance
 high: if you need high performance, or if you're seeing bad
       performance, set this to true. It will turn off some high-intensity code from
       the site.
+
+oldschool
+---------
+
+enabled: enable certain old-style user settings options, like stream-only mode,
+	 conversation trees, and nicknames in streams. Off by default, and
+	 may not be well supported in future versions.
+
+
diff --git a/classes/User.php b/classes/User.php
index 2c84ac1995..65bc0485bf 100644
--- a/classes/User.php
+++ b/classes/User.php
@@ -1148,31 +1148,36 @@ class User extends Managed_DataObject
 
     function streamModeOnly()
     {
-        $osp = Old_school_prefs::staticGet('user_id', $this->id);
-        if (!empty($osp)) {
-            return $osp->stream_mode_only;
-        } else {
-            return false;
+        if (common_config('oldschool', 'enabled')) {
+            $osp = Old_school_prefs::staticGet('user_id', $this->id);
+            if (!empty($osp)) {
+                return $osp->stream_mode_only;
+            } 
         }
+
+        return false;
     }
 
     function conversationTree()
     {
-        $osp = Old_school_prefs::staticGet('user_id', $this->id);
-        if (!empty($osp)) {
-            return $osp->conversation_tree;
-        } else {
-            return false;
+        if (common_config('oldschool', 'enabled')) {
+            $osp = Old_school_prefs::staticGet('user_id', $this->id);
+            if (!empty($osp)) {
+                return $osp->conversation_tree;
+            }
         }
+
+        return false;
     }
 
     function streamNicknames()
     {
-        $osp = Old_school_prefs::staticGet('user_id', $this->id);
-        if (!empty($osp)) {
-            return $osp->stream_nicknames;
-        } else {
-            return false;
+        if (common_config('oldschool', 'enabled')) {
+            $osp = Old_school_prefs::staticGet('user_id', $this->id);
+            if (!empty($osp)) {
+                return $osp->stream_nicknames;
+            }
         }
+        return false;
     }
 }
diff --git a/lib/default.php b/lib/default.php
index 8748b64580..673c94769a 100644
--- a/lib/default.php
+++ b/lib/default.php
@@ -352,5 +352,6 @@ $default =
         array('cache' => true), // whether to cache the router object. Defaults to true, turn off for devel
         'discovery' =>
           array('cors' => false), // Allow Cross-Origin Resource Sharing for service discovery (host-meta, XRD, etc.)
-        'performance' => array('high' => false) // disable some features for higher performance; default false
+       'performance' => array('high' => false), // disable some features for higher performance; default false
+       'oldschool' => array('enabled' => false) // enable users to use old-style UI
     );