StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This has been talked about in another thread, so I think it might be good to talk about that issue down here. A number of people are proposing that we should move the History sub-forum from Off-topic to SLAM. However, I would think that it would be better to upgrade the History forum from a sub-forum to a full forum of its own, given that there are a few people who has raised the point that they would not notice any new post in the various the sub-forums.

What do you guys think?

I don't have a vested interest one way or another in terms of this particular forum, though I have read quite a bit from there. The amount of traffic and posting it receives qualifies it for main forum status.

I think the forum and Thanas deserve better than OT. It doesn't have the traffic to warrant it's own forum, but it should certainly be in SLAM.

Havok wrote:I think the forum and Thanas deserve better than OT. It doesn't have the traffic to warrant it's own forum, but it should certainly be in SLAM.

Then again, there are a number of people who disliked the idea of sub-forums, or feels that sub-forums isn't promenient enough.

Example:

RedImperator wrote:If anything, making them subforums might slow them down even more. I can tell you that, as a "main page" browser, I always wind up paying subforums less attention than top-level forums, even ones in which I'm interested, like History.

Stark wrote:Subforums could be made more promenient on the front page.

Destructionator XIII wrote:I loathe subforums. Please don't use them.

A new forum is created for a subject when the threads about the subject are overflowing other forums. We do not exactly have a flood of historical topics going on. If history did not exist no one would exactly have a problem picking the occasional history thread out of SLAM or OT unless they have severe lack of reading comphrehension. Still this board has real historians like Thanas and many more amateurs who have enlightened everyone for years now with their knowledge. So the history forum is a fascinating tome of knowledge. But does it get enough traffic to justify becoming an independent forum ? Maybe, if SDN became like Totalwar center forums and half our threads in a given day were about alexanders phalanxes and invention of stirrups.

So no. History sub forum is fine as it is.

Sarevok wrote:A new forum is created for a subject when the threads about the subject are overflowing other forums. We do not exactly have a flood of historical topics going on. If history did not exist no one would exactly have a problem picking the occasional history thread out of SLAM or OT unless they have severe lack of reading comphrehension. Still this board has real historians like Thanas and many more amateurs who have enlightened everyone for years now with their knowledge. So the history forum is a fascinating tome of knowledge. But does it get enough traffic to justify becoming an independent forum ? Maybe, if SDN became like Totalwar center forums and half our threads in a given day were about alexanders phalanxes and invention of stirrups.

So no. History sub forum is fine as it is.

Won't traffic in the History forum increase if it is a full forum of its own?

I don't know why people browse by 'looking at the main page' instead of using 'View New Posts' or 'View active topics'. It's horribly limited. Is the testing spam on the later really that bad? If it is then we need a filter. But I digress.

It would be technically straightforward to add a little 'has new posts' icon to the subforum link on the main page; on DarkSoul that would be a little grey orb in front of the subforum name that lights up green when there are new posts. With that in place, we could also stop allowing subforum posts to light up the main 'has new posts' icon for the parent forum.

On my monitor there is also ample room to list poster and date after the subforum name, e.g. 'Debating Help (Stark, 4/5/09), Library (Thanas, 3/8/09)' instead of 'Debating Help, Library'. However this may cause too much clutter or screen space issues for some users.

I am trying to collect all the sane, easy code change requests together, so that I can do them (and get DW to look at them) in one go in the near future.

Starglider wrote:I don't know why people browse by 'looking at the main page' instead of using 'View New Posts' or 'View active topics'. It's horribly limited. Is the testing spam on the later really that bad? If it is then we need a filter. But I digress.

On this particular point - is there a mod available for phpBB3 that allows one to set filters on the New Posts or View Active Topics views, to exclude particular forums from showing in that view?

For instance - clicking "View New Posts" might have an advanced button or feature, allowing one to view all new posts from particular fora. Would such a thing be possible?

rhoenix wrote:On this particular point - is there a mod available for phpBB3 that allows one to set filters on the New Posts or View Active Topics views, to exclude particular forums from showing in that view?

Not that I know of. Someone was making one for phpBB2 but I don't think they finished it.

For instance - clicking "View New Posts" might have an advanced button or feature, allowing one to view all new posts from particular fora. Would such a thing be possible?

Yes, that's not particularly difficult. I would put a bar across the top of the new posts screens, containing a checkbox for each forum, and 'show all' and 'hide all' buttons. Only posts from checked forums would show in the list. This bar would only appear for logged in users, and the filter mode would be persistent. I'd prefer checkboxes to replicating the 'search in forums' selector on the general search page, because IMHO that's unnecessarily fiddly.

As usual please get approval from DW for that before I invest time in coding it. AFAIK the only mod for the new code base that he's definitely approved so far is the return of the 'Senator' badges.