Thread about using thread titles/subjects/headings

[Mark Hammer]

The old format forum showed all the subthreads and respondents for each topic, many of them providing their own headings.  This allowed you to:
a) see who had responded (which gave some indication of its content)
b) have a better idea of what it was about and whether it might interest you
c) figure out where to "break in" without having to look at all the preceding messages

The "new look" forum does not provide this, although it certainly has enough other advantages to justify the transition.

What the new look DOES require, however, is attention to thread headings since for many people this will be the deciding factor in choosing to check out a thread or not.  So, while this is certainly not a complaint, I would just like to remind people to try and make your headings as clear to others as possible, since that will likely lead to more responses to your original posting.  Once the posting/thread provokes enough viewing/responses (which the new look permits you to see), the obvious popularity of the thread will carry it along nicely, but until then people can help themselves by helping others to easily recognize thread topics that might be of interest to them or where they might be of help.

I suppose the other thing, from a personal point of view, is that not all of us have high-speed net connections (mine is around 26kbd at peak).  While not overly graphics-intensive, the new format does take longer to load because of all the embedded graphics, so folks like me get very picky and choosy about what threads we peek into.  A good heading will entice us to look.  Good titles are a useful skill to acquire anyways.  May as well use every opportunity you have to perfect it.

Thanks,
Mark

[Rob Strand]

Those were some of beefs I mentioned in Aron's original thread on threaded vs non threaded.  Non threaded is full of problems.

The "new look" forum does not provide this, although it certainly has enough other advantages to justify the transition.

I've come to that conclusion too.  I quite like this new format.

Although I totally agree with the good thread name idea it's almost  impossible to enforce.   I think Aron covered this type of thing in the blurb on the old group.

Another issue is when you break off an old thread and start a new one on the same topic.  While it's useful to break off and start a new thread it's going to be harder for new readers to follow the new thread because the old one is harder to find with this new format.  The only thing I can suggest here is posting a link to the old thread when starting a new one on the same topic - a clear title will also help here as well.

Regarding speed:  I'm on a dial-up and this forum is *much* faster for me.  I know on the old forum you could select how far back you wanted to list posts and I usually set that to a week (sometimes two).  The new forum shows much less than a week at any one time so that's perhaps that why the new forum is faster to me.

[Mark Hammer]

Like you, I don't think that title/heading clarity can be enforced.  On the other hand, I wasn't really thinking of enforcing it, merely *re-inforcing* it; people tend to overlook the impact of strong and weak titles/headings, so a reminder now and then is helpful.

Having laboured under a power outage last week that affected most servers in the region (not to mention worms, etc), I may be confounding the true speed of this new format with the speed of this format under adverse circumstances.  Now that things are getting back to normal in this region, perhaps the speed advantage you detect will become more apparent to me.  I'm at work right now (after a week off because there was insufficient hydro power to produce ventilation, elevators, and lighting for government tower buildings) so I can't tell from here.  So, for the moment criticism withdrawn.  I look forward to my local speed mirroring your own.

[moosapotamus]

Another reason to be as descriptive as possible in the subject heading is that it makes it much easier for folks to find what they want/need when searching through older posts. A lot of concern has been expressed, during this transition to the new forum, regarding the fate of the archives. "Dumb Question" may seem like a reasonable subject title. But, it can prevent folks from retreiving good info that may have been posted in reply. And, as already mentioned, is also likely to prevent folks from reading it in the first place.

~ Charlie

[Rob Strand]

On the other hand, I wasn't really thinking of enforcing it, merely *re-inforcing* it

To be honest I've thought of bringing up the same issue (even on the old form) - I just didn't have the guts to do it.  So thanks for bringing it up, I personally think it's an important issue.

A good title does focus your attention, and it certainly helps in keeping a mental index of what topics are being discuss - not to mention the helping the archive index, as Charlie mentioned.