At the top of the page, there’s the file-path:
“Straight Dope Message Board > Main > About This Message Board”
My recollection was that the “Main” sub-category was inserted to accommodate the tender sensibilties of some posters who could not bear to see the “Barn House” sub-forum on their display.
Now that Barn House is gone, does the “Main” still serve any purpose? or has it become part of the architecture, so to speak, and is more trouble than it’s worth to get rid of it?
What? I seem to recall the Main, has always been there. Predating the advent of The Barn House.
I have frequently used it to return to the main page, while posting, rather than the Jump Forum menu.
I don’t recall a time when it wasn’t there.
Your recollection is incorrect. While I am not sure it has “always” been there, it long predates the creation of The Barn House.
The “Side Conversations” section was set up to accommodate the Barn House, but the “Main” sub-category was there before.
The saga of statistician turned climate science critic Edward Wegman and his protege Yasmin Said has taken yet another strange turn.
The pair’s tenure as editors-in-chief at the Wiley journal they founded three years ago quietly came to an unceremonious end recently.
This is a bad design that needs to be replaced. Key off of the sub-board’s
internal code instead (requires searches, but load file into memory, can be
very fast still).
Speaking of which, when did this happen? I just noticed that “The Barn House” and the “Straight Dope Chicago” forums are gone. Archived links to these forums result in the following error: “Invalid Forum specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator.”
Was there an announcement that I missed?
No, Main is part of the default setup for vBulletin. I’m not sure how easy it would be to get rid of it, or if you even can.
See OP of this thread: Forum changes coming - feedback needed - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board
Yes, those two forums have been deleted because they were low-traffic, and their posts moved to General Questions.
What I find somewhat puzzling is that while “Main” is always there and always a link, the forum is sometimes a link and sometimes not. I can’t see any rhyme or reason for the difference.
Yes, that’s what puzzles me too. If you click on “Straight Dope Message Board” on the file path, it shows all the forums.
But if it’s showing “Straight Dope Message Board > Main” and you click on “Main”, it shows all the forums.
So what function does “Main” have, if by clicking on “Straight Dope Message Board” you go straight to a listing of the forums?
While not relevant to most posters, moderator forums (aka "The Corn Field :), and others) aren’t on the Main file path.
And it’s a good thing that we can’t see the Corn Field. It’s a very good thing, indeed.
And tomorrow will be a very good day!
I see. There’s another file path that I don’t want to know about.
I will try to sleep soundly tonight.