Move stickies out of forums

[farnsy]

I love this site, but I don't love having to scroll past the large number of sticky threads on every page in every forum--stickies are more numerous here than in any other forum I have ever seen. I think a little organization could benefit everyone greatly. I wonder if you could give this some thought.

For example, create a forum only for stickies and put them all there. Then at the top of each forum, place a single sticky with only one post in it: a list of links to sticky threads that are relevant to that forum. In this way if you want a special sticky with something like rules for the forum or something else important, it is more likely to be seen and people will not have to scroll past so many sticky threads.

[toodles]

That's the main reason I use the "Today's Posts" link Of course, to stay current, you have to visit daily.

[Admin]

The FAQ channel is all sticky topics by design. The Hammond channel, the most active area of the Forum, has five stickies, and the Classical & Church Electronic Organ channel has seven. The rest of the channels typically have three or less, so I think don't think the problem is as bad as you portray it, but I get your point. The intent is to move some of the stickies into the Articles area of the Forum eventually, when I have the time.

Having said that, if the stickies are troubling you, you're not optimally using the resources available to you. There are multiple ways of navigating directly to the latest Forum content without scrolling through a bunch of messages.

• As toodles points out you can use the Today's Posts link to see a list of posts made within the past 24 hours.
• I think the New Topics link is a more useful option as it will display a list of posts that you've not yet read. After working the list, you can clear the list of posts you're not interested in with the Mark Channels Read button at the bottom of the Forum home page. You can also clear posts from individual channels by clicking the Mark Channel Read button in the channel itself.
• Another alternative is to use the Latest Activity tab available at the Forum, Channel, and Topic levels. This displays the activities in these areas in reverse chronological order, newest first. The items in this view are displayed in a condensed format enabling you to preview the first few lines of each item. If the item is of interest you can then either expand the item in place, or jump to the item itself in the posts list. If you find this view helpful, you can make it your default view by editing your profile.
• The best way of keeping abreast of Forum activities, in my opinion, is to avail yourself to the Forum's Subscription and Notification options. These subjects are covered in the Articles section of the Forum.

All of the options above will avoid stickies entirely.

[farnsy]

I'll take a look at the approaches you suggest. Thanks!

Note that in the classic and church organs forum, which is where I go most frequently, there are 7 stickies, which leaves only 10 regular threads on each page. In other words, a full 41% of the threads a reader sees on every page are sticky. If the stickies were only on page 1, it would be less problematic, in my opinion. Is there maybe a setting for stickies to only show up on page 1?

One of the things I did when I first joined the forum was read through the threads for the last few years. I had to scroll past those stickies dozens of times in doing so. With the ads and other top material, I had two full screens to scroll past on each page. To me, that doesn't make sense. Looking over those stickies, they aren't that critical anyway. The safety advice thread and the master list of Allen organs both make sense, but the others are, in my opinion, just nice threads that should be saved somewhere but not present at the top of each page.

Take a look at the digital piano forum for reference:

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthrea...Synths_&a.html

In that forum there are two stickies and 20 regular threads on the first page. On the second page there are no stickies at all. Much more convenient.

I'm not really one to whine about something I like and am not paying for (like this forum), but I thought it would mention it. If you are using subscriptions or "todays posts" you may not realize how intrusive these stickies are for a new or infrequent user.

[Admin]

New Topics has been renamed to Unread Posts

[Admin]

farnsy I should have mentioned this in my previous comment, but you have the ability to configure the number of posts you see per page in your User Settings, with a limit of 40 posts per page.

[myorgan]

Following Admin's advice outlined above, I haven't seen a sticky in-weeks, and only then because I was looking for a sticky I knew existed.

That said, however, thank you for not being one of those people who just complains. You actually made a suggestion to correct what you perceive to be a problem, and I appreciate that thoughtfulness.

Michael

[toodles]

To be honest, the suggestions including subscription & notifications is much more effort for me since I visit regularly. I don't want to manage my viewing of the forum, I just want to get to the new stuff and do a quick visual scan to see if there is something or interest or where I can assist.

[you795a]

That is the exact same thing that I do.

[Admin]

To be honest, the suggestions including subscription & notifications is much more effort for me since I visit regularly. I don't want to manage my viewing of the forum, I just want to get to the new stuff and do a quick visual scan to see if there is something or interest or where I can assist.

I'm on the Forum several times a day, and subscriptions and notifications are very helpful to me. I don't understand how the frequency of participation makes these options any more or less useful, but to each his own. The Forum provides many options. Use the ones that work best for you.

As Administrator, I have to monitor the entire Forum, but I find Subscriptions and Notifications are useful for alerting me to activity in the areas of the Forum I have personal interest in. I use New Topics for the rest.

Subscriptions are especially useful if your areas of interest are limited to a small number of specific channels. Today's Posts and New Topics are global listings, so if you're only interested in Combo Organs, for example, these two lists will contain a lot of "noise" consisting of posts you've no interest in. Much better to subscribe to that channel. Then new activity in that channel, will be at the top of your subscription list. Alternatively use the Latest Activity view for the channels you're interested in. Subscriptions simply allow you to aggregate all the channels and topics you're interested in in a single location.

[toodles]

I find it only takes a few seconds to scan down the list of today's posts--usually there are 2 pages, and rarely a 3rd page, and then I don't have to open notices and clear/delete them.

But I certainly understand how in administering the forum those services help a lot!

It is acutally nice to have a forum platform that provides so much flexibility--features can be used or ignored as a user desires

[Admin]

Reading a post clears its notification for you, as does using the Mark (All) Channels Read button. Notifications can also be dismissed en masse from the notifications page.