Too Many Categories

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Too Many Categories

Postby paulmansour on Mon Nov 30, 2009 12:02 am

No good deed goes unpunished, so here goes.

The main page leaves me nonplussed. I think there are too many topic categories. If I want to add a new topic, I can usually barely think of a good title, let alone the proper category.

I found the "View New Posts" page. This is good, I can see new topics and ignore the category. This is the view I like, and it will be where I go first. It would be great if this page had a "New Topic" that created a new topic in "APL Chat" by default, and perhaps let you change the category (though I would be happy if the entire category concept was just jettisoned.) Then I could easily view recent topics and add a new topic without thinking about what category to put it in.
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Re: Too Many Categories

Postby paulmansour on Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:11 pm

Regarding the "View New Posts" page, what exactly constitutes "new". It appears it might be strictly "new", which I guess is reasonable given the description. I guess what I would prefer is "View Recent Posts", which basically is a view of all posts in time order, most recent at the top. Is there any way to get a view of all posts? Or at least the most recent 50 or so?
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Re: Too Many Categories

Postby MBaas on Mon Nov 30, 2009 10:10 pm

Hi Paul,

the "new" usually refers to "new" since YOUR last visit, so for forums that I visit frequently, I find it of more use than a "View all posts, in descending order of date" which would not consider my last visit (and thus might show too much)...

Michael
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Re: Too Many Categories

Postby Morten|Dyalog on Mon Nov 30, 2009 10:37 pm

Paul, have you tried the "View Active Topics" link next to "View New Posts" at the top of the front page? I can understand the feeling about the number of Forums, perhaps we should cut them down - but the Forums are also intended to apply some structure to the discussions, so that a newcomer to the scene has a better chance of locating useful information, or reading the "kind of dicussions" that interest him or her. I'd like to give it a little time and see how things work out.
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Re: Too Many Categories

Postby paulmansour on Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:26 am

Morten,

On reflection, perhaps there are not too many categories, but just not a great way to ignore them. You make a good point that for a newcomer, just browsing around, the categories may be useful. But for regular visitors, who want to keep up with all of the topics as they are posted, the categories just get in the way. The traffic is not big enough to have to follow separate categories. I have tried the "View Active Topics", and that is better than "View New Topics", and that is where I go first now.

I'd be happy if "View New topics" gave me the option of seeing a lot more (need an option to keep Michael happy!) And more importantly, a way to post without having to pick a category, or at least defaulting to "Chat" or something.
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Re: Too Many Categories

Postby paulmansour on Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:38 am

More thoughts on this...

One thing I don't like about "View Active Topics" is that it necessarily rearranges the topics. I like a view where the topics are always in the same order, just rolling down as new ones are added on top. Perhaps just a "View Recent Topics" page so that you have "View New topics" "View Active Topics" and "View Recent Topics"?

Wonder if anyone else would like that?
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Re: Too Many Categories

Postby alexbalako on Tue Dec 01, 2009 4:35 pm

I completely agree with Paul.
Actually I was going to post similar complain when I found Paul's post.
At yahoo we used to have single stripe of email posts with newest at the top.
(I do not remember time when I was browsing yahoo groups instead of just looking on emails).
One of my favorite forum's structures is located at dpreview.com (may be that is why it is so popular).

/Alex
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