Resolved: Page One of Each Forum Should List 150 Threads, Not Fifty.

…first page space in any forum is at a premium. - Lynn

In practice, threads on page two tend to die. It would be nice to extend the shelf life of some of the slower moving discussions. Currently GQ - one of the core forums - has about 6 hours of threads on page 1, which seems short to me.

Comment: I don’t know whether this is possible in vBulletin. If change is not straightforward, I would suggest that this would be a worthy project for a volunteer coder.

Objection 1: What about dialup?

A: This objection should decline in relevancy over time. But I’ll note that a full page of postings contains 318K of .html and 227K of images and scripts. The total is 545K, which is over twice that of page 1 of GQ (131 of html, 134 of scripting and imaging= 265K). If we tripled the size of the .html portion of the first page of GQ, then we’d get something like 393+134=527K < 545K.

So if the page 1 list contained 150 threads, that would be something less than a full page of inside thread postings using the default settings.

Now admittedly, I’m working with a sample size of one here. And I’m not moving to make a recommendation to management (yet): I’m merely putting a topic up for discussion.

Objection 2: Isn’t that calculation a little rough?

A: Yes.

Objection 3: People can change their thread display options to 150 right now.

A: No they can’t. You’re thinking of the number of posts within a thread.

Objection 4: The Reader has bigger fish to fry.

A: Indubitably.

Objection 5: We’ve discussed this before.

A: Indubitably. But I couldn’t find it in the archives.

Objection 6: If you’re committed to a thread, scrolling down to page 2 or even 7 of the thread list shouldn’t be a big deal.

A: Agreed. But I suspect that in practice it is though.

Objection 7: How about 100 threads?

A: That would give us almost 2 days of threads on GQ, which would be a big improvement.
There are other issues of course. Comments?

Sounds good to me. When I use http://bible.gospelcom.net, I always select to show me 500 verses at a time. (The list box ranges, I think from 25 to 500.)

You can set this up yourself to show 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 150, or 200 threads per page.

See User CP/Edit Options/Thread Display Options/Number of Posts to Show Per Page.

TubaDiva, see OP’s objection #3.

I read the Dope from my Blackberry frequently, and I’m not sure that it could handle a page of 150 threads. For reference, I have my display set to show 40 postings per page, since that’s all it can handle.

I agree that p.2 threads tend to die. As a general rule, though, you can keep your threads on page 1 by prefacing your thread title, whatever it is, with “Sarah Palin thinks…”

Yes, it can.

@Ponderoid

Not likely to happen.

You’re right – yes, you are, I had confused thread views with post views, which are two separate functions.

Thread views are ruled not by number of threads but by time. Once again look in the UserCP, right under “Thread Display Mode” for “Default Thread Age Cut Off.”

Which says:

“Default Thread Age Cut Off – You may specify a time period from which to display threads. Threads older than the age you specify will not be shown.”

There is a drop down box for your choice of thread age to display. The default for all forum areas is two days. You can make it anything you like from “last day” to “all threads.” If you choose “all threads” you will get the first 750, I do believe.

Somewhere between “one day” and “all threads” is the setting you need.

This determines how many threads will be shown in total - the number on each page is not affected.

Can’t differentiate between page one of a forum area. The only designation is how many threads before the page breaks to a new page.

The default in the system was 50. I have changed it to 150.

Note that this overrides the two-day show threads by default function in the system.

If this is what people like I’ll leave it, or tweak it as needed.

What exactly did you do? I was just on page 2 of a 3 page thread (the boobies thread if you must know), and when I clicked on page 3, I got a page with all 120ish posts on it, instead of posts 101-120ish. Freaked my right out it did - put me right off reading about boobies.

Seriously, I thought the intent was to change the # of thread listings per forum page, not the # of posts per thread page?

Actually, no, upon experimentation I see if the forum default is checked you’ll still only see two days worth of threads regardless.

If you extend the timeframe you’ll see more threads per page, but that’s the only way it happens, as we have no forum where there’s 150 threads getting action each and every day.

Me no likey. I want 50 posts per page back. My scroll finger is getting tired.

Try it now.

Same here. It makes it harder to find where new posts will be if you’ve been away from a very active thread for a while. Plus, only one person was bitching about it at all anyways. I wish I had that kind of power.

Measure for Measure, I don’t think you’re going to get what you want here. Sorry.

I prefer 50 posts per page.

I thought that those who didn’t like the excess of political topics or fans of the high turnover MPSIMS might like this idea.
Anyway when I get a chance, I’ll try to draw up a graph plotting hours on page 1 against number of posts on page 1. Maybe we can find a sweet spot.

I’m in the minority…I like as many threads per page as you can give. How it is currently is nice, but if enough want the fifty per page back, it should probably be that way.

How does displaying more threads per page make it harder to find a current one? They are in order from the most recent post to the next most recent post. Start at the top and work your way down.

I can live with 50 or more threads per page. I don’t care either way.

It’s not that clear to me either, but I appreciate the feedback.

A made a chart plotting hours of material against the number of posts on the page. It curves upwards like a bowl: I thought it would have a positive slope but a concave shape.* Anyway there’s an increase in the slope at about 50 posts and 80 posts, indicating a greater time for each extra post permitted on the first page.

Here’s the graph:
http://wm54.inbox.com/thumbs/17_130ba7_ab8b387_oJ.jpg.thumb

“Change in regime” indicates the time that TubaDiva kindly initiated this experiment. I confess that some of these patterns may reflect a weekend effect or the ebb and flow of activity throughout the day.

The real test though is whether this system gives greater attention to some of the tougher questions that may get buried prematurely from time to time.

• I was probably wrong to think this: older posts should be spaced further out as younger ones get replied to more often.