Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 21 to 31 of 31
  1. #21

    Long Timer

    Joined in 2007, but I've been reading here a lot longer than that.

    This is a good topic - I'm interested to hear everyone's opinions. I'm sure I am not the standard DBR Board follower, but there are almost certainly people who follow my model.

    I check the board several times a day. Unless a topic is completely uninteresting to me, I click the "last page" of each item on the front page. Merged threads, non-merged threads - no difference in my world, I'm going to read it all.

    I would like to point out that one thing that separates DBR from the scads of fan sites across the internet is the existence of topics like this. The genuine interest in reader feedback is great.

    I'll be interested to watch this board continue to evolve; thanks for everything you do, mods!

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Nashville
    Quote Originally Posted by Billy Dat View Post
    I prefer merged threads. By definition, the newer ideas are on the last page of the thread...just skip to the last page and read. I like that in the mega Austin Rivers thread, I can trace it all the way back or just read the last few pages for the current thinking. To me, that's better than looking through 10 different Austin Rivers threads. Keep merging!
    The problem is, you don't know if the new posts are going to be about a major announcement Rivers just made or a tangential debate about something largely unrelated to Rivers' recruitment.

    I think there might be a happy medium somewhere. For example, it might be more effective if "important posts" in mega-threads (i.e. new developments, announcements, good links) were generally started as their own thread, then merged into the existing thread after a day or so. Then we wouldn't have to comb the huge threads each day in search of actual news, but the information would still all be archived together and the board would remain relatively uncluttered. The only problem is that it would be substantially more work for the mods...

  3. #23
    I like to use the thread titles to see if there is anything new to read. Doesn't work very well with perpetual mega threads.

    Before the proliferation of mods and merging, the board was self sorting and the frequent posters would bump a topic of interest, and you could also see by who started the thread and who the last post was if it was a discussion you didn't want to miss.

    I think having the posters self regulate what stays on the first page by their posts is a loss that I miss. It is the posters that bring the content and the info to the board and if it gets buried or merged in mega threads you risk overcompensating for excess number of threads with seeming obsession on a few topics.

    Maybe a compromise solution would be to still merge but less frequently, say fortnightly? Remember the "colonial animal"?

  4. #24
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Sullivans Island, SC
    I've considered bringing this up before, but when you place your mouse over the link for the thread on the homepage, a little box appears displaying the first post...the original first post...but what good is that really? How hard would it be to change that to the most recent post? So if I want to see what post 2,697 on the Rivers thread is worth reading (i.e. something other than cinder blocks), I can just put my mouse over it for a quick glance? I guess this may belong in the 'Introducing...' thread, but I think it applies here, as well.

    Curious to hear your thoughts, -jk or devil84 or any of the technosavvy mods...

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by DukieBoy View Post
    Question

    Is there anyway we could create a folder on the main pages with general topics (UNC, UK, Austin Rivers) and when you click this folder, there can be many, un-merged threads that people can go through

    That eliminates congestion on the front page, but also doesn't create "mega threads"
    We could, but I'm not sure where we'd draw the line. We've contemplated creating a recruiting board, one where all recruiting news goes until a player signs. Perhaps even including speculation such as projected starters/playing time before we have any idea of what the roster will look like - perhaps waiting until after the nba draft pull out date passes.

    -jk

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by Mountain_Devil_91_92_01_10 View Post
    Joined in 2007, but I've been reading here a lot longer than that.

    This is a good topic - I'm interested to hear everyone's opinions. I'm sure I am not the standard DBR Board follower, but there are almost certainly people who follow my model.

    I check the board several times a day. Unless a topic is completely uninteresting to me, I click the "last page" of each item on the front page. Merged threads, non-merged threads - no difference in my world, I'm going to read it all.

    I would like to point out that one thing that separates DBR from the scads of fan sites across the internet is the existence of topics like this. The genuine interest in reader feedback is great.

    I'll be interested to watch this board continue to evolve; thanks for everything you do, mods!
    If you're going to read it all, try the "New" button rather than the "last page" button. So long as you're logged in, it will remember your place in the thread from computer to pda and back to computer.

    -jk

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by Greg_Newton View Post
    The problem is, you don't know if the new posts are going to be about a major announcement Rivers just made or a tangential debate about something largely unrelated to Rivers' recruitment.

    I think there might be a happy medium somewhere. For example, it might be more effective if "important posts" in mega-threads (i.e. new developments, announcements, good links) were generally started as their own thread, then merged into the existing thread after a day or so. Then we wouldn't have to comb the huge threads each day in search of actual news, but the information would still all be archived together and the board would remain relatively uncluttered. The only problem is that it would be substantially more work for the mods...
    Quote Originally Posted by tele View Post
    I like to use the thread titles to see if there is anything new to read. Doesn't work very well with perpetual mega threads.

    Before the proliferation of mods and merging, the board was self sorting and the frequent posters would bump a topic of interest, and you could also see by who started the thread and who the last post was if it was a discussion you didn't want to miss.

    I think having the posters self regulate what stays on the first page by their posts is a loss that I miss. It is the posters that bring the content and the info to the board and if it gets buried or merged in mega threads you risk overcompensating for excess number of threads with seeming obsession on a few topics.

    Maybe a compromise solution would be to still merge but less frequently, say fortnightly? Remember the "colonial animal"?
    The board is a lot bigger, and a lot busier, than in the old posting code days. We added 1000 new members just last season.

    With the board software we have, merging takes all the messages from the two threads and mashes them together by date. If the threads have overlapping posts, they'll mesh and there's no telling which post came from which thread, you can't tell what you've read, and it completely ruins the "New" button's ability to track your place.

    So purely from a back-end, tech perspective, we should never merge two threads that overlap by date by more than a very few posts. Rather we should append a new thread onto an existing one.

    Where two long threads have converged to cover the same topic - and it happens, typically in a thread about a rival (or a not-our-rival) - we have locked one and added a link back to the other.

    So, perhaps more apt questions are: When is it appropriate to append a thread onto another one, lock threads with a link, or just let them be?

    -j "This has been an ongoing mod discussion for years" k

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by JohnGalt View Post
    I've considered bringing this up before, but when you place your mouse over the link for the thread on the homepage, a little box appears displaying the first post...the original first post...but what good is that really? How hard would it be to change that to the most recent post? So if I want to see what post 2,697 on the Rivers thread is worth reading (i.e. something other than cinder blocks), I can just put my mouse over it for a quick glance? I guess this may belong in the 'Introducing...' thread, but I think it applies here, as well.

    Curious to hear your thoughts, -jk or devil84 or any of the technosavvy mods...
    Interesting idea. Of course in the recent UNC thread, you'd have seen a rather confusing parade of bells...

    Maybe we could have analogous mouse-overs on the "new" and "last page" buttons, too. That's for a different thread, though.

    -jk

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Southern Pines, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by DukieBoy View Post
    Question

    Is there anyway we could create a folder on the main pages with general topics (UNC, UK, Austin Rivers) and when you click this folder, there can be many, un-merged threads that people can go through

    That eliminates congestion on the front page, but also doesn't create "mega threads"
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    We could, but I'm not sure where we'd draw the line. We've contemplated creating a recruiting board, one where all recruiting news goes until a player signs. Perhaps even including speculation such as projected starters/playing time before we have any idea of what the roster will look like - perhaps waiting until after the nba draft pull out date passes.

    -jk
    Now we are getting somewhere. DukieBoy has hit on something, and it is encouraging, -jk, that you are giving some thought to the problem. A while back, a separate forum was created for a topic that had everyone's attention as it muddied the waters of the OT forum. That would be the LAX forum. It isolated an important, but otherwise frustrating topic, and let it run its course. Thankfully, it eventually went away. However it serves as an example of how things like th AR thread can be put in a place for enthusiastic followers of the topic to thrive. Then when AR makes his decision the forum goes to the archives.

    One of the things I liked about the old Sagarmatha software was the ability to show a thread in a hierarchal format in which all of the sub-threads kind of hung together. Sometime ago a professional organization to which I belonged had a member designed bbs for members only. It required that each post in a thread be attached to a prior post, or by default, attached to the originating post in a thread. On opening a thread, you chose either a chronological list, or a tree structure. This tree structure made it easier for you to drill down to the parts of the thread that interests you. Beyond that it was rather basic. I don't know what happened to the system. I lost interest when I retired, and the bbs seems to have vanished.

  10. #30
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by Jarhead View Post
    Now we are getting somewhere. DukieBoy has hit on something, and it is encouraging, -jk, that you are giving some thought to the problem. A while back, a separate forum was created for a topic that had everyone's attention as it muddied the waters of the OT forum. That would be the LAX forum. It isolated an important, but otherwise frustrating topic, and let it run its course. Thankfully, it eventually went away. However it serves as an example of how things like th AR thread can be put in a place for enthusiastic followers of the topic to thrive. Then when AR makes his decision the forum goes to the archives.

    One of the things I liked about the old Sagarmatha software was the ability to show a thread in a hierarchal format in which all of the sub-threads kind of hung together. Sometime ago a professional organization to which I belonged had a member designed bbs for members only. It required that each post in a thread be attached to a prior post, or by default, attached to the originating post in a thread. On opening a thread, you chose either a chronological list, or a tree structure. This tree structure made it easier for you to drill down to the parts of the thread that interests you. Beyond that it was rather basic. I don't know what happened to the system. I lost interest when I retired, and the bbs seems to have vanished.
    You can view a thread hierarchically, but the "new" button won't work that way and on some really, really long threads, it breaks a bit. We default it to chronologically. While viewing a thread, look in the upper, right part of the screen, a bit below the search bar, and you'll see a "display" dropdown. Select "threaded mode" to see the thread presented hierarchically. Personally, I'm not real fond of it.

    Anyone else have thoughts on merging/appending, and how we might do it differently? Should we do it differently? Are we close to an appropriate balance?

    -jk

  11. #31
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Watching carolina Go To HELL!
    I hate 98% of the thread merging. It's not really a problem because I don't read the merged threads. I don't read the recruiting threads - first because most of it is dribble and second because if there is something new and worthwhile I'll read it elsewhere without it being post #1658 in a thread I stopped reading on post #27 six months ago. The DBR boards have just about lost me, and I've been here and posting since 1997 in the Juliovision days. I've got well over 10,000 DBR posts combined, and most of them said more than "PM me". Julio and Boswell are friends of mine and the content is excellent. The boards - meh. Bring back the good old days. I discussed this with moderator Devil84 on Saturday.

    The only threads that should be merged are when posters start new topics simultaneously or if a current thread has fallen off the front page in the last day or two and a new thread is started. But to bring back a year old thread with no posts in 11 months and merge it with something current and topical? Well, that's just ridiculous, and it has happened more than a time or two.
    Ozzie, your paradigm of optimism!

    Go To Hell carolina, Go To Hell!
    9F 9F 9F
    https://ecogreen.greentechaffiliate.com

Similar Threads

  1. Combining new threads with old ones
    By sundown in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 06-20-2010, 12:35 PM
  2. Willing to give the NBA a chance
    By rthomas in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 05-04-2010, 11:12 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •