Ok, this is something that’s bothered me for a while, but I haven’t inquired about it. When I visit the message board, I first go to the Straight Dope homepage (which I have bookmarked). I see what the Master might have to say today (or has said on previous days) or a staff report. Then I click on the message boards link. I am presented with this list:
**About this Message Board
Comments on Cecil’s Columns
Comments on Staff Reports
General Questions
Great Debates
Cafe Society
In My Humble Opinion
MPSIMS
The BBQ Pit
**
Does anyone else see it? Am I the only one bothered by it? When Comments on Staff Reports was called Mailbag Answers I don’t remember if it was problematic also or not.
Oh well. As an aside, I’ve notice that I’ve posted now more times in the week since going to paid subscriptions that I have in the last two months. Go figure.
Ok, I guess it’s just me. I was being purposely vague to see if anyone else is bothered by the list. Here’s what I think the list should be:
About this Message Board
Cafe Society
Comments on Cecil’s Columns
Comments on Staff Reports
General Questions
Great Debates
In My Humble Opinion
MPSIMS
The BBQ Pit
It bugs me that there is only one forum that’s not alphabetical by its first letter. (I realize that technically The BBQ Pit should be second, but just looking at the first letter of the string, it’s where it belongs). Anyway, “bugs me” is probably too strong of description. It’s just something I’ve noticed ever since Care Society was added. Now that I think about it, I think I remember thinking the same thing about Mailbag Answers. It was in the same place (3rd from top) that it was, and it was out of order. Then Cafe Society came along and they were both were out of order and it wasn’t so bad. That is, with two forums not in alphabetical order, you could argue that none were in alphabetical order. Then ** Maibag Answers** was changed to Comments on Staff Reports we were back to one forum that was not in alphabetical order.
So anyway, clearly it’s just me that it bothers, so don’t mind me. (Of course now that I’ve pointed it out to you, you can’t help but notice it )
I think I’d prefer:
MPSIMS
The BBQ Pit
Cafe Society
Great Debates
General Questions
In My Humble Opinion
About This Message Board
Comments on Staff Reports
Comments on Cecil’s Columns
or
Comments on Cecil’s Columns
Comments on Staff Reports
About This Message Board
In My Humble Opinion
General Questions
Great Debates
Cafe Society
The BBQ Pit
MPSIMS
The administrators (Dex, specifically, I think) have stated in the past that the alphabetical order is a pure coincidence, and that the actual ordering is thematic, as cityboy916 surmised.
And why do you say that Comments on Mailbag Answers would have been alphabetized any differently than Comments on Staff Reports? Both are after Comments on Cecil’s Columns and before General Questions.
In vBulletin, each forum has a number associated with it that determines its order of placement. These numbers are assigned by the Administrator. Therefore they can appear in any order they wish them to.
Thematic, as is the SDMB practice, seems to make the most sense to me. Though I have to confess to visually liking Happy Lendervedder’s suggestions.
Only half so. The numbers have nothing to do with placement.
2 - About this Message Board
1 - Comments on Cecil’s Columns
6 - Comments on Staff Reports
3 - General Questions
7 - Great Debates
13 - Cafe Society
12 - In My Humble Opinion
4 - MPSIMS
5 - The BBQ Pit
I wonder where those numbers came from. The reason I wonder is that I am the administrator for a vB message board and the order in which the forums appear is determined by a number that I assign called “Display Order”. I’m only on a slightly different version than the SDMB.
The SDMB numbers certainly aren’t in Display Order. Thanks for the correction.
They would appear to be in the approximate order the forums were created in, Comments on Cecil’s Columns being the most basic one and Cafe Society being the one created most recently.
Before the vB upgrade, weren’t the forum numbers different? I don’t recall specifics but it seems to me either MPSIMS or the Pit was in the double digits.
The explanation I heard for the forum order is that they are listed with the forums most closely related to the intended purpose of the site first. So, Comments on Cecil’s Columns is at the top, seeing as how the site conceived and implemented to display the columns and the forums become less relevant to the columns as you move down. (ATMB, being the “Help/FAQ” forum, among other things, is excepted from the relevance order.)
Because it wasn’t Comments on Mailbag Answers, it was just Mailbag Answers.
whew So I’m not crazy. Or maybe I’m just bringing Vetch down with me.
In all fairness, it seems like the old board layout had separator lines or somethiing separating the forums as described above. Oh, well what can you do?
You think you have it hard ? I have to deal with the evil hidden forums screwing up the order. Everything was so pretty earlier, nice and a b c, without the smoke getting into my eyes and the dark dingy corridors with hampsters tripping me along the way, gnawing at my bleeding feet…
Ok, I have to go for my daily whippings now… I’ll tell you more later…
)
