BOW BEFORE ME YE MINIONS!!! MUAHHAHAHAHA!!!
::Looks around:: …well it was worth a try.
You know, when it comes to even the most trivial changes to the board, people get upset. I always thought this was hilarious on such a liberal leaning board. But maybe that’s a subject for a different thread. 
Anyways, while I would love to have kept it for a bit to see if the opposed were just having an initial “You Changed It, Now It Sucks*” reaction (as my jocular comment above hints), I’m really proud of the administration (and TubaGirl, specifically) for trying something new, This is the type of board I’m proud to be a part of.
Liberal: I saw what you did there. Surely you hoped that **Tuba **would prove you wrong!
Measure for Measure: I’m cowering in front of my computer because I forgot to put on my glasses. Does that count?
*Reference to a website. If you know it, you get a prize.
Don’t know if TubaDiva is still contemplating this thread, but I hate the longer first pages. I like the “Forum Jump” tool at the bottom of the page, and it’s a pain to have to scroll through screen after screen of aging threads to get there, especially on a Blackberry.
On a PC Ctrl-End will get you to the bottom of the screen. Does anybody know if Blackberry has a similar function?
I see that there are currently 134 active threads over the past 2 days in GQ. On Monday it was something like 107. But that could be a weekend effect. But if this pattern holds over the next week, it would seem that Doper attention is being spread over a wider range of threads.
Interestingly, nobody has complained about bandwidth or load times. It seems that the limiting factor is screen size, not internet speed.
I gleen that the UI experience for most users has either declined or stayed the same. But again, this reform is really about increasing the number of active threads. Occasionally, certain posters have complained about there being too many US campaign threads, too many LOTR threads and even too many political threads. I say the answer to bad speech is more speech: more threads per page permits a broader front in the fight against ignorance.
There are tradeoffs. I hope to create another chart in the next couple of days to measure the effects of this experiment.
This is pretty much my opinion. I finally got tired of it so I figured I’d come up here and see the reason for the change. Put me down for 150 thread pages being too long, it might be worth trying 100 though.
Since we’re suggesting modifications to our SDMB browsing experience, can we make it so that when I search my username’s recent posts and pull up the threads that I’ve posted in, that when I click on a thread it takes me to the current page of that thread?
Whatever thread I’ve posted in, I’m most likely interested in the latest post, so there’s no reason to take me to the first page of the thread.
If I reading it off the internet correctly, the admin-only vBulletin option is called “Maximum Displayed Posts Before Page Split”. It is a global setting and cannot be applied on a per forum basis, unless you use (after testing and evaluating) this hack. FYI only.
GQ is up to 141 posts on page 1, so more threads appear to be getting Doper attention.
I updated the title on Monday’s graph, correcting some minor misinformation: http://wm54.inbox.com/thumbs/18_130ba6_bdb5f69_oJ.jpg.thumb
I also took a data sample from this evening:
http://wm54.inbox.com/thumbs/19_130ba5_b84a7e4b_oJ.jpg.thumb
Most relevantly, the two data sets are merged in a single graph here:
http://wm54.inbox.com/thumbs/1a_130ba4_d92543f2_oJ.jpg.thumb
The newer graph shifts outwards, indicating that more posts are evaluated in a given tie frame, especially after the regime change indicated by the x. Personally, I think it would be nice if page 1 of GQ contained 30 hours of threads, so that people returning daily (not necessarily at the same time) would have a decent chance of seeing the latest. But it seems that would imply a cap of around 120, which causes reports of inconvenience for some. Scaling it back to 24 hours implies a cap of perhaps 105. Of course that cutoff presumably varies across the week and at random. A cutoff of 75 might put us between 11 and 12 hours.
I hope to pull up another graph next week, to make an apples to apples comparison. But the real question is whether GQ regulars think that threads deserving of greater attention are getting it. My impression is that they are: the question is how far we might prudently dial back the cap.
Until next week, then, could we maybe not have a bazillion threads on each page?
Well, if it gets really bad…
The idea though is to run a (somewhat) controlled experiment with a “before” and “after”. If we revert to 50 threads per page, the experiment ends. Data collection on Monday results in observations of Monday, Sunday and possibly Saturday.
GQ has maxed out at 150 threads, btw. It won’t get larger than that.
I appreciate the feedback. Could those who complain or complement state their screen size? I’m currently working mostly on a 20" diagonal CRT. Also pls state the forum that you are most concerned with.
I’ve got 18 inches. GD.
150==a bazillion
Believe me when I tell you two things:
- 50 is enough
- You really don’t want the Staff here mucking about under the hood. It cannot end well.
ETA: 17" diag. 1024x768. GQ/Cafe
Well, I have to part company with you on that point. Currently 50 posts covers 5 1/4 hours of material, which seems short to me. GQ mods in the past have noted that many legitimate threads have sunk out of sight without being addressed properly.
More tenuously, GD may be improved when a greater variety of threads are displayed. If you don’t like politics, setting the page splice to 50 gives you about 7 strictly nonpolitical threads. Double it and you get 14, which I’d argue is more likely to deliver “Something for everyone.”
Applying a hack is likely to result in a fair amount of drama. Not everyone is blase.
That said, I can dream. 
Given current data, I’d set the pit at 50, GQ at 120, and the other forums at about 75.
I see that there are various surveys of monitor resolution. 800x600 is becoming fairly rare, and 1024x768 covers about a third of the market. The remainder are mostly higher res. Here’s some July 2009 data, admittedly from a gaming website. This is PC only: Blackberries raise another set of issues.
For CRT monitors, MS says:
Resolution based on monitor size
Monitor size
Recommended resolution
15-inch monitor
1024 × 768
17- to 19-inch monitor
1280 × 1024
20-inch and larger monitor
1600 × 1200
I see that my res is set at 1152 x 864.
If people are interested in properly addressing every thread, they can click the little 2. Since many don’t, they likely aren’t.
Given the current (mal)functioning of the board, we may be looking less at “drama” and more at “crash and burn”. Remember that cold, cold Winter of Missed Content?
MS evidently believes that I’m still the spring chicken I was in April of 99. My eyes couldn’t take that recommended resolution.
Like me many people here could never use those resolutions for those monitor sizes. I don’t think the resolution of our monitors has relevancy to how many threads you stick on a page when you talk about 50 verses more. You already have to scroll for 50. Maybe if you were talking about 10 verses 15 per page it would be a minor issue.
GQ
Daytime: 2.5" (Blackberry)
Evening: 19"
I"m a frequent visitor, and so I vote for 50. I don’t need to keep seeing threads that I’ve already opted not to read. I can understand why less frequent visitors would want to see more threads, but those visitors can presumably get accustomed to clicking on page 2.
Put another way, expanding the number of threads on p.1 caters to people who don’t visit often and don’t care to click on more than one page. Is reaching those people worth inconveniencing the regulars who are more committed to the board?
Maybe if we made the “2” bigger?
I’d suggest a compromise at 100, since I do like the larger number of threads per page.
Home 1152x864
Work 1024x768
100 sounds good to me, too.
1024x768
1366x768
I’d throw in a vote for 100, too (if votes are counting. 
)
With respect, this isn’t really a UI issue. If it was just a matter of the interface, I would personally prefer 50 threads. As it is my sweet spot is 120, while a decent number are leaning towards 100.
Rather, it’s a matter of giving due exposure to some of the trickier questions. On more than one occasion, moderators have lamented decent questions not receiving the attention they deserve, which is to say, “First page space on any forum is at a premium”.
The Blackberry does present problems though. Currently, I can reach the bottom of the page with 10 page downs (15 threads per page view). That’s manageable IMHO. But a Blackberry displays… how many threads per page? At any rate I can see how it would be inconvenient. More generally vBulletin isn’t especially friendly to portable telephony devices at the current time. That said, according to this list of Blackberry keyboard shortcuts, “B” will move the user to the bottom of the page.
The twin missions of the board are to fight ignorance and make wise cracks. Now a larger page would hardly assist with the second. But delayed page splits permit discussions that have gaps larger than 5 hours or so.
I have the data to back it up. On Sunday, 8/16/2009, 6:28PM US Eastern, 109 threads had been discussed in GQ within the past 2 days. Yesterday, it was hovering in the 160s and now it’s at 141. If there were no interest in these discussions, responses would not have been posted.