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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
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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 |
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