OK, we just got a nifty GW discussion thread, apparently in an attempt to reduce other topics diverging into arguments on certain company policies. I have no strong opinion on how much that is needed or whether it's going to work. I'm here to rant about stickies in general.
I've posted a dramatic tirade on this matter
before. There was some semi-humorous exaggeration, but the opinion in general still holds. We're again in a situation where opening the "Open talk" forum in medium desktop resolution shows
zero actual discussion, only stickies which may have seen activity in the last month but more often they haven't. On a mobile device it could take serious scrolling to get into the actual content.
By a definition I just made up, a forum should be a place where relevant matters are discussed. They come and go. If you want to access something which possibly might be useful now and then, you should look for an archive or a library. Some statistics of the current stickies:
Your favorite whatever - Was created in a response to a short fad in 2010. Saw eight posts in 2011 and two (yes, two) in 2012. Is this something we still need to show to everyone as top-spot content on every page load now and forever?
Latest vehicle received - 28 posts this year. That's nice. Meanwhile, stuff as obscure as "Australian and New Zealand Films on Dvd" has got 92 posts in less than two weeks. That's what people are really discussing and would like to access more often.
Latest plane received - 10 posts this year. Does this need its own thread, again in the top spot which hogs space from everything else. Why not at least merge it with the "vehicle" thread? Do we have to serve audience who absolutely wants to stay up to date on planes received a month or two ago but isn't interested in other received vehicles? How many people is that anyway? Fewer than people discussing New Zealand DVDs, it seems.
Latest toy received - Seven posts this year. You may already guess where this is heading. Another permanently allocated line of screen estate to prevent the scary scenario that one of those seven toys would spawn its own thread somewhere. The horror.
As my very personal view, I never open the "latest" threads at all. I may spot their updates in the general "latest posts" listings, but the slots in Open talk are utterly wasted. A few alternative ideas to handle this:
- Just demote them into normal topics. If something isn't discussed, it deserves to sink.
- Create a "junk received" subforum or even something more general that covers all occasionally needed stuff.
- Combined to either of those, create exactly one "recurring topics" announcement with links to individual threads.
The fundamental problem is creating a sticky for an issue which seems hot for a moment but then fades away, and its importance is never re-evaluated carefully enough get rid of it. This happens in many sections but Open talk is the worst as it's among the most used yet currently the least readable.
Just a suggestion but please think about it. Thank you.
20 September 2011, 01:46:19 PM