As long as we're making suggestions:

[Fenris]

So as to not hijack Lexi's thread, can I make a suggestion for the board?

The Last Post field doesn't do much for me. I mean: If a thread's it's at the top of the thead list, it was posted to recently. How much more info is needed beyond that? I'd love to see it changed to Date Thread Started. That way if someone revives a 2 year old thread it would be immediatly obvious. It would also give an indicator of how busy a thread is. A thread that was started 10 minutes ago that already has 40 responses and 200 views is obviously a busy one and given the amount of activity, might have something interesting going on, even if the topic doesn't excite me.

I suspect (and I don't know all that much about HTML and even less about the board software, so I'm just guessing) that it wouldn't be too hard to point the identifier to the first thread in a post rather than the last.

Thoughts?

Fenris

[Coldfire]

I kinda like this one!

With the speed of this message board, the "last post" info is indeed a bit superfluous. Maybe not in every forum (CCC comes to mind), but certainly in the fast-paced ones.

[JeffB]

I'm torn on this one. I've often thought that having "date started" on a thread would be helpful for the reasons Fenris states. On the other hand, I do use the "last post" information, particularly if I am tracking a thread and want to see if any new posts have been added since I last check it. It would be nice if we could have both, but then things get crowded.

[TubaDiva]

I'll add this to our list of "stuff we'll look at as soon as we get a chance."

This is not a bad idea, I just don't know if we can implement this or where we can put it.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

PS If you don't hear back on this within a couple of weeks, please sent me an email and remind me, we've been really slammed lately and stuff like this gets pushed to the bottom of the list. I'm sorry but that's a reality.

[Lord Jim]

I like the idea, sorta. I don't like the idea of giving up the 'Last Post' column, but I do like that the Date & Time was shown along with the rest of the information.

The way I would propose to implement the suggestion would be to add the Date & Time to the 'Thread Starter' column. And put a line break in the 'Last Post' column. That way both columns would look like the 'Last Post' column on the main 'Forum List Page'.

It would also make the 'Last Post' column narrower and less likely to expand because of a long user name. That would make the 'Title' column wider. I like that.

And it would give a consistant look; the 'Last Post' column would look the same as on the main page, the 'Thread Starter' column would look like the 'Last Post' column and, except for really long titles, each thread would take up 2 lines.

As long as we're making suggestions.

Jim

[Homer]

I don't like the idea of removing last post. I don't get to post as often as I'd like, so I depend on the last post marker to tell me when I've gotten to threads that haven't moved since I last read.

--Tim

[Patty O'Furniture]

How'z about a default feature attached to our profiles that allows us to automatically show our witty sig lines without having to check that little box each time we post.

The option could them be changed to "check here to remove sig line from this post" since I suspect that the majority of us would rather have our sig lines included by default than excluded by default. And those of us who never want to show a sig line when posting will probably not have one in their profile in the first place.

[Alphagene]

Originally posted by Attrayant
I suspect that the majority of us would rather have our sig lines included by default than excluded by default.

This is exactly why you have to check it every time you want to show the sig. The extra lines in a sig are really unnecessary and let's face it, no matter how witty your sig is the first time someone reads it, by the fifth or sixth time the joke is long dead. And a default sig would mean people would post a couple dozen times a day, 7 days a week, with the same tired resource-eating sig joke. It's really superfluous.

That small bit of extra effort a poster has to take to enable the sig with each post is enough to stem the tide of excessive sig posting without having to disable sigs altogether.

[Polycarp]

Um, I'd vote for having both date started and last posted/by whom. The first would, among other things, make it very easy for Mods. to spot "resurrected threads" -- about which I don't fully understand the problem, but I gather there is one. It would also help newbies (and casual readers of any experience level) note that material may date a ways back. The second would be useful to everyone as they follow threads they're interested in. F'r example, if I've asked a question of Gaudere or sought input from Freyr on an anthropological question in GD, or am watching for particular posters to respond to a thread in MPSIMS, knowing whether they have can be most useful.

[Alonist]

Originally posted by Alphagene
The extra lines in a sig are really unnecessary and let's face it, no matter how witty your sig is the first time someone reads it, by the fifth or sixth time the joke is long dead. And a default sig would mean people would post a couple dozen times a day, 7 days a week, with the same tired resource-eating sig joke. It's really superfluous. [/b]

I disagree. Some sigs are amusing time after time. Some people are known by their sig, others change theirs frequently. It's not like anyone is likely to bump into all of a particular person's daily posts and expire of oversig syndrome.

As for wasted space, if I post less than 11 lines, there's space below my post. What about doing away with that? If there's going to be white space I might as well get my sig in there.

[Alonist]

Well, I don't see any of that white space I talked about in this forum; maybe I was doing it wrong?

[Alonist]

O.K., that white space. How am I getting that?

[Alonist]

Oh, okay. Stupid. An annotated post can't be fewer than six lines (not 11) because of the side info. So if you post fewer than 6 lines, a one-line sig won't take up extra room. And sigs don't show up in topic review, so they don't waste room there.

[Coldfire]

The problem is that the system has to retrieve the sig from the database to put it into the post. It's in your profile, and has to be put in the post. This is yet another server action that, if the default would be "on", would slow down the boards.

And that's why it's "off" by default.

[Alonist]

Gotcha. I agree, the boards
are slow enough when busy.

[Lexicon]

Yeah, and cheese dip, too.

Since my suggestion seems to have sunk to the bottom of the abyss that is a few days ago, and since more than 3 people have seen this thread, I am going to make my original suggestion here.

I would like to see a Forum Jump drop down at the top of the thread as well as the bottom. From what I know <holds forefinger and thumb about half a micron apart> of HTML it shouldn't be too hard to do, and would make my lazy life much easier.

Really, I think it would be useful and make browsing around much easier.

Further, I have thought of something else...

Could we add a modifier (if one doesn't already exist) to the search engine to allow users to search for their name in threads to which they have not posted? Kind of like a "Let's see who's talking about me..." type of thing.
That, or maybe we could just add a lil modifier that would ignore your posts and only find your name if someone mentions it. Either way, it would accomplish the same end, no?

Anyway, thanks for your consideration...

[wring]

Originally posted by Lexicon
Could we add a modifier (if one doesn't already exist) to the search engine to allow users to search for their name in threads to which they have not posted? Kind of like a "Let's see who's talking about me..." type of thing.
That, or maybe we could just add a lil modifier that would ignore your posts and only find your name if someone mentions it. Either way, it would accomplish the same end, no?

Anyway, thanks for your consideration...

hit search, type in your name in the 'keywords' section, select the time frame, hit submit search et voila.

of course, in your case, I'd put 'lexi' instead of 'lexicon' since some times folks call you 'lexi'. In my case, it also gives me all the threads where they talk about 'Hand wringing", et al.

[MsRobyn]

If I can make a couple of my own...

I'm wondering if it's possible to add two new fora. One would be for Dopefest information. It's not that they're not interesting, I'm just not crazy about seeing a three- or four-page thread about how drunk everyone got at the NY Fest, or whatever, everytime I went into MPSIMS.

The other one I'd like to suggest is a forum specifically for religious discussion and debate. Again, when I go to GD, it's difficult to have to scroll past several religious debates. I also think this would help keep repetitive topics down to a minimum.

Robin

[TheNerd]

Here's one that'll never get implemented, but would be great:

I'd love to be able to designate posters that I just don't want to read anymore. Then, when retrieving a thread, the posts by those posters would simply not be included.

Yeah, I know that's a major rewrite, but hey it's a wishlist.

[Alphagene]

Originally posted by msrobyn
I'm wondering if it's possible to add two new fora. One would be for Dopefest information...

I don't think we have enough dopefest threads to warrant a new forum. Although I think a good idea might be to limit one thread per 'fest. I agree that having one pre-fest, one mid-fest and one morning-after-fest thread for each fest can be overwhelming.

The other one I'd like to suggest is a forum specifically for religious discussion and debate.

I think creating a forum based on the subject of a thread rather than the nature of the thread would be tough to implement at the SDMB. A religion forum would likely get GQish religion threads, GDish religious debates, Pitish rants about religion. I think subject-based forums don't mesh correctly with the forum setups that we currently have.

[iampunha]

How about seasonal thread? Would make things easier in MPSIMS, GD, GQ, and the Pit . . . though it a designation similar to Robyn's ideas.

Homer said: "I don't like the idea of removing last post. I don't get to post as often as I'd like, so I depend on the last post marker to tell me when I've gotten to threads that haven't moved since I last read."

Can't you just click on the link "view new posts"?

[Gadarene]

I'd personally like to see a new forum for sports discussion and another for discussion of books and movies, but I recognize that both might be comfortably fit under IMHO and MPSIMS.

[Alonist]

Religious discussion? Sign on at Beliefnet (not the greatest boards, admittedly), or, better, try the Mind and Spirit boards at Salon.com Table Talk- although one Table Talker has quipped that Mind and Spirit threads always deteriorate into an argument over the existence of God.

[HeyHomie]

I'd like to see each member's posts field split up into two sections: one side for number of posts when they posted the thread you're currently reading, and the other side for the number of posts they currently have. To use a moderator as a fictitious example:

DISCLAIMER: All information regarding threads and post counts presented in the following paragraph is entirely fictitious. If I knew the correct information, I wouldn't have made up fictitious information.

Let's say yet another thread about the third word ending in -gry comes up. Someone posts a link to TubaDiva's very first post, which is where she asks that very question, and Alphagene answers it correctly and distinctly. When a person reads that oh-so-old thread, TubaDiva's post count will look like this: 1/2099. When someone reads TubaDiva's more recent posts, her post counts will look like this: 2097/2099, 2098/2099, etc.

Get it???