Last Post

[Gary]

This forum is not sorting the threads in "Last Post" order.
Do you have a bug ?

[Gary]

Ok I see. You are forcing 3 favoured threads to the top. {yawn}

[Legman]

I thought you were leaving! What a relief to see you just didn't do your homework properly.

BTW, I don't know what to think of this sticky thread phenomenon, now that it's been in place for a couple of weeks. At a glance, it's a most helpful hack for the mods and admins to use on the more important of threads, but OTOH it does seem to clutter up the forum pages a bit more than one would want. I guess most of us are somewhat used to go looking at the top of the page for the latest new topics and posts, but we're continously fooled by those pesky stickies...

I'd tend to say that the admittedly slight inconvenience of being fooled twenty odd times a day does outweigh the benefits of the sticky concept, at least to me. As it is, I'm already in the habit of looking at all the thread titles on the first page on a daily basis.

What do the admins think? Are we stuck with the stickies or is there some sort of evaluation coming up?

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Legman (edited August 18, 2000).]</font>

[Scouse Gits]

How about a simple convention such as all sticky thread titles must start !*! or something - then we would know that it was a sticky (and ignore it)


-not that I would ever ignore an important announcement thread from an admin or godlike moderator - would I?

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[Ming]

I actually find them annoying too. While they serve a good purpose, old habits die hard. I look at the top thread to see if anything new has been added... and I get fooled into thinking "same old"...

Maybe !*!, or something else should be added into the title to let people know.

What do you think MarkG and DanQ?

[Legman]

I have a suggestion which I just thought of by looking at the forum page of the Apolyton Forum, where all three of the sticky threads have the arrow icon attached.

What if this arrow icon was to be reserved for sticky threads, so that only admins and mods could use it for new threads? Don't know if it's even possible, but I think it's worth a thought because

1) It's visually very distinct from the other icons and would thus signal clearly that the thread is at the top to stay and

2) It'd be no great loss IMO if regular posters couldn't use it. It seems it's already one of the least used icons.

Just a thought.

*Makes sure to put arrow icon in this post just in case the admins go Hey! He's right! Let's do it right away!* As if...

[Paul]

I don't think that using the arrow icon would work. It would probably be better to have a different background color. Or maybe it would be possible to have some empty space between the sticky threads and the regular threads?

One other thing I don't like is that the sticky threads always have a pink folder, even when there are no new posts in them. Is it possible to give sticky threads yellow folders when there are no new posts in them?

[Gary]

I keep telling myself I ought to go. I spend far more time than a responsible adult should do looking in, when I ought to be working. And there does seem to be fewer threads that I have a high interest in these days (as opposed to a general desire to put my two cents in anyway). But I always seem to come over before getting started, and then looking in every now and again throughout the day. What was that about addiction .

Anyway, what fooled me was the fact that the thread I had just posted in, wasn't at the top. I thought my contribution had been lost for a moment or two.

The arrow icon idea might work, but I can't say I look at the icons, just the title.
Maybe a different title font as well ? Or the letters "STICK - " automatically applied at the front of the title.
Or a different title background colour ? Or a combination of all these ?

PS you'd only need to restrict the arrow for title icons. Posters could use it all they want for additional post icons.

[Urban Ranger]

Use a different color for the folders.

[Gary]

What is all this talk of different coloured folders. all of them are always yellow on my screen

[Tom DeMille]

I agree with SG1's suggestion for sticky authors to add a *** or some such thing to the title of the thread.

I find the sticky threads quite distracting. There is certainly a need for them in the Apolyton forum, but it would be nice if the stickiness could be set to expire after a week in other forums.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Tom DeMille (edited August 21, 2000).]</font>

[DanQ]

Those threads to which you are referring, Gary, are "sticky" which contain information that we like to keep at the top of the forum listing.

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Dan; Apolyton CS