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[ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Hi,
Chiming in with an observation/suggestion about the page layout of the TMO top-level page: OBSERVATIONS: As our community has grown, so has the number of new members initiating duplicate threads on common topics like "when's this new firmware due?" and "WTF Nokia?!". At the same time, there's a ton of wisdom emerging here from the community that's perhaps not as easy to find as we could make it. I've been in TMO for a year now, and when I visit each day, I take these steps:
In other words, I ignore virtually 90% of the top-level page content. Why? For me, it's a nearly static menu of 5 top-level Forum headings & 30 sub-forum headings (a great scheme that only makes sense once you've been here a while). Despite the high real-estate cost, it provides little currency or 'newness' except for the 1st ~24-characters of the post title of the last post in each of 30 sub-forums. And the "Active Topics" sidebar contents are only slightly better at revealing active threads. With 500,000+ posts & 1500+ concurrent users on TMO any afternoon, the sidebar should really be called "The Last 12 Topics in Which Someone Posted Anything Just Before Your Browser Loaded This Page". I imagine that for newer members to our community who seek answers (like all those great 'sticky' posts one-level down), this static landing page presents a challenge to discovering it. In short, the barrier to discovering a meaningful thread is higher than the barrier to starting a new one. (And somewhere in between those two options lays the seasoned forum-navigator's retort, "Use the Search function, noob!") We're already surfacing on the top-level page the # of current viewers in each of the sub-forums. The top five sub-forums (based on current users as of this writing - an albeit better representation of 'active topics') includes in descending order:
Notice how the sub-forum sort-order above is different from the static sort-order on the top-level TMO page. SUGGESTION: Would it be possible to insert atop the main landing page (between the "Intro/Downloads/Community/etc" global menu and the "Talk" header) the following content:
The long list of 5 Forums and 30 sub-forums would remain on the main landing page, below the above content. But the impact of doing something like the above is that the truly active/top/current 25 - 50 threads/stickies in this community would be visible right on the top-level page to new visitors and seasoned forum-navigators alike. Enabling discovery like that might ease the burden for new members, reduce the number of duplicate threads that drive others bonkers, and accelerate learning. Just my humble offering to more easily surface the great wisdom of this community for all. Kind regards, digittante |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
I've thought in many forums, a huge improvement might be a system like this:
1) When new thread is started, it first asks about the topic, and won't let to write anything to the body of the message. 2) After author has written the topic, and press the "Make new thread on this topic"-button, the system will execute a search using those words on the topic and will show them in some relevance order to author. 3) Author then can choose either entering to some already existing talk-thread, or push "Yes, I really need to make a new thread"-button. Also unmercifully moderators would delete threads which has misleading or "bad" topic. |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
@digittante, i do believe you're right in your need to make the helpful threads more visible, and I think that the "Active Topics" sidebar would help that a lot except for one thing. The negative (and often repeat) topics tend to be the highly active ones, so you get an abnormal amount of negative threads there. the helpful threads get a few responses until a particular problem is solved, and then that's it.
It's not really a problem for the helpful topics, as they do what they need to do, the problem is the negative threads where everyone feels the need to respond, even if it is to say "quit the whining". That keeps the thread active and so it overrides the helpful threads. Afraid I've got no real solution for that kind of thing though, that would require a measure of tolerance and the ability to ignore so called "whining" threads that seems to be lacking. |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
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Before the previous post I did "try" and looked (too) quickly that it looked same as in many other talk forums. Ahh Quote:
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Could the total number of "thanks" given in a thread separate helpfull-threads from flame-wars?
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
FAQ page easy
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
how about......
And I'm reaching a little here.. The community, as a whole, imposes it's own self moderation. I do not mean the moderators getting actively involved. I do mean, each and every member of the community moderates their own post along the lines of one simple rule. And the rule is AM I HELPING MAEMO5 AND/OR THE N900. if the answer is NO, then don't post. if YES, then do. There seems to be no built in method to prohibit any thread, even duplicates, and I don't think i'd like to see automatic censure either. However, the community can impose it's own form of censorship. If you don't like a thread, then you don't post. "I hate the N900" isn't constructive, so don't post it, or don't reply to it. "OMG, another whining thread" isn't constructive, so don't post it, or don't reply to it. and so on. IF, the community could do such a thing, then the so-called "whining" threads will not be the most active, and so they'll drift into obscurity and die. And, the search for helpful info would become easier. This isn't a total answer, but it could get us part way there. However, it's also possible that I dream a utopian dream, and it is the complaints, the bickering, the endless repitition of useless statements that will proliferate. I can still dream though, and it is in the power of the community to make this happen. |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
maybe we all are simple tired of whining threads, and as an individual i think that they all must not exist
but as a community maybe we could resolve the problems as if they were PART of the community. so, doing technical modifications in the forum method to opaque the whining maybe is not the right path. there should be another way. and, yes. the frontpage needs some redesign, maybe it needs just a complement |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Getting rid of active topics sidebar would go a long way. In the ITT days the forum traffic was slow enough that it worked, now there are simply too many active topics and it seems not enough good stuff stays at the top. Please Reggie consider that simple change.
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
What about if simply remove "Active Topics" from the front page and make it visible from the Category down?
Instead have statistics about size of activities on a sub-forum? And also have a link to the "more" search page in "Active Topics" for those who want to only reply. Another ides is not remove "active topics" and to have a different rank system for active topics: for example: sorted by count of posts and reads in topic in last 24h? |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
many of the most active topics are the rant-only ones. why would you make them even more visible? being "active" doesn't say anything about the relevance or usefulness.
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
You want the RANT topics to be up top.
SO everyone who want's to rant goes there. The rest of the people need some other way to find the "real" active posts. |
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
I've been thinking about a much simpler solution: Add another block to the top of the "active topics" block, which would list the most active most high-rated topics.
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Below 1 star would be a start!
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So I would list zero star and over 3 star threads. |
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Is it possible somehow to see whole discussion thread in one web page? For me, at least, sometimes some busy thread can have several pages and rather than read it through page by page, I would take all articles at once and then search (grep) through the key words I am interested in. (And not ending of asking or talking something already talked again.)
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Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
I think I've complained about slowness of these Brainstorm proposals before, but it didn't help. As Texrat mentioned, he made a great proposal a year ago, and I can think of at least one I made a while back.
So, we don't know what the right answer is -- isn't experimentation permitted? Does the Pope have to signify that the decision is infallible? Can't something just be tried? (When I begged that another thing be tried -- foreign language forums -- I was spurned though on bended knees, and my hat was thrown into a nearby garbage pit.) |
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I usually thank only if I get something new information which I can use, and where is not too much disinformation or speculation. However, I have never rated the thread (those stars). |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Okay, I see that this thread has been sleeping for a week now, but SOMETHING has to be done, and quickly.
Although I'm not an old member, T.M.O is becoming very annoying: every week there are tens of new threads about the same over-discucced topics. I don't mind seeing a thread called "N900 disappointing", or something about the next FW upgrade, BUT it is annoying that every day someone (or multiple individuals) come up with the same! First, why aren't these threads merged immediately? I could point you to at least 10 threads about PR 1.2, or the n900 disappointing, or selling my n900, or anything like that. But I can hardly find those I'm interested in. Seriously, everytime I have to check my profile and my last posts to find the threads where I asked or wrote something. |
Re: [ PROPOSAL ] Increase Forum discoverability = decrease duplicate noob posts
Just another idea:
What if new mebmes on the forum were disallowed to create new threads? Only members with at least 50 or so posts or with 20 or so thanks's could post new threads. While this would not be a problem for people who want to be part of the community, it would force new members to search for other threads to post their problems, and therefore they wouldn't be able to spam the "active threads" section. |
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