A democratic Forum Question to all, Too many pinned subjects above? Options

[conti_rowland]

Hi All

I'd like to ask users of the scratch builders forum whether they think that there are too many pinned 'important subjects' at the top of our forum page.

What i've noticed having used this forum for several years is that only having 8 'new / current' subjects at the bottom of the page often means that subjects which are in fact quite new get very quickly forgotten / lost / not commented on.

My feeling is that there are several, linked reasons for this:
a) people do not always take the time to click on page 2 to check threads that have dropped off
scratch builders might not all come on every day or even several times a day but perhaps only at weekends or on the night they do their scratchbuilding, or even less
c) as people have their own field of interest (F1, or Saloons, or Muscle Cars), they will make several comments on the threads they are interested in, in one go
d) so when one person makes comments on say 4 threads in one go, that can mean HALF of the current front page threads gone

My suggestion is that the pinned threads are given instead a SUBFORUM heading called, originally enough "IMPORTANT PINNED SUBJECTS" that takes up far less space, leaving as much space as possible for our builds which therefore stand a little bit more chance to be seen and commented on by a larger audience.

What do people think?

Clearly the pinned subjects are useful resources but equally obviously some of them are VERY rarely used....

[DJ]

Not sure how others use the forum but when I browse the forum I just click on "View New Posts" and then scan through every topic to find anything I think may be of interest. It is very rare that I click on "Forums" and then select any sub-heading. The scratch builds tend to be the thing that most interest me and I always find them by this method.

Having now looked at the scratch building area I agree that there are too many "important topics" and they take up space on page 1. Not sure that any of them are that important anyway?

Perhaps a little tidy up would help?

[MAF]

I totally agree. Remove all the pinned topics, so there's more space on the first page, if I'm that desperate to keep a topic readily available I'll bookmark it anyway, doesn't need to be 'pinned' on here.

[ClubSpecial]

Agree, totally. I've never even looked at the pinned subjects!

It would seem opinion is entirely with your proposition, Andi.
I know things are changing here very soon, so this may well happen and for the very good reasons you raise.

Cheers,
Martin

[JEXY1]

How about I start a new thread that contains links to all those currently pinned topics and then just leave the new topic as pinned?

[ClubSpecial]

Bingo!

Martin

[JEXY1]

Brain freeze - give me a name/title for this new pinned thread?

Scratch 101 - a links & list of useful info

[RikoRocket]

How about I start a new thread that contains links to all those currently pinned topics and then just leave the new topic as pinned?

Thats what we did in the digital forum, and it works well

[biedmatt]

Instructional and resource items are helpful, but why all the pinned topics of liveries done and wanted? Can't those be left for you to search? If the thread topic is well defined, you should be able to locate what you need.

[JEXY1]

New thread started;

Link

Take a quick look (before i unpin the previous topics) and let me know if you would like anything changed.

Gareth

[ClubSpecial]

I think that is what people were after, Gareth.

Martin

[Coides]

I think the 'Last Action' column says it all - Most of these supposedly important topics have had no contributions since September last year - that says it all for me.

That said, this is a highly diverse field and there are lots of members who are fascinated by topics that are totally boring to others. To my mind this highlights a key point made right at the start of this thread - "subjects which are in fact quite new get very quickly forgotten / lost / not commented on."

In my opinion old topics aren't boring - they are often just as interesting as new ones. I use the search feature a lot to find neat stuff from the past - that's one way to focus in on topic areas that are interesting to you. I even bookmark posts from many years ago. When you do this you often see questions and comments that are showing up in new posts.

One nice feature of this forum is that these old Topics are all still there and they bump right to the front when a new post is made. If I were a Forum God I'd add more firepower/versatility to the search engine and make it more prominent on the web page.

Andy

[conti_rowland]

For me that's perfect Gareth.

Thankyou
Andi

[JEXY1]

Good - i will unpin the topics now.

Just a quick point that Andy mentioned - many of the topics don't have much activity (as in replies), but i guess many are looked at by members without coment?

[DJ]

Great job Gareth, wish my wife would tidy up as quick as you...