There doesn't seem to be much concern on the part of those who could do something about it, so although there have been many similar suggestions, not a lot appears to be getting anywhere.

Anyway, in my opinion that little sidebar labeled "Active Topics" is the number one problem with Talk. What i mean is that the lack of filtering for that means that you have random newbies dropping into otherwise technical discussions to make points either irrelevant or pointless or downright wrong. How do they get there? My bet is they clicked one of the topics that was active.

By adding some filtering and granularity to the forum, a lot could be improved. Imagine if newly subscribed people didn't see any topics outside of "general", say, in "Active Topics" unless they went into their user settings and deliberately changed the subfora that they are subscribed to.

I'd personally like to be able to unsubscribe from the general, sales and N900 fora because other people's opinion of the N900 or lack of comprehension of "comprehensive" isn't really something i want to waste my time on.

I realize many developers don't actually hang out here, but i think it serves a valuable role as an interface between users and developers--if only the noise could be turned down so that developers are willing to show up.