Feature Request

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Vincent,

Here's a feature I wish the Forge had.

That "jump to" pulldown list that appears at the bottom of just about every page?

I wish that it was at the bottom of the "Show unread posts since last visit" page, too.

Cheers,
Darcy

[Ron Edwards]

Yeah .,. see, my call is to get rid of that damned "show last posts since" thing. I hate it and hate that people use it.

But! Fortunately for everyone else, that's not my call, but Vincent's.

So Vincent, any way to help Darcy?

Best, Ron

[Moreno R.]

I always read The Forge from the "Show unread posts since last visit." link! It's by far the fastest way to follow the forum...  This mean that Ron hates ME, too?

I am destroyed. I am demoralized. No, scratch that, I am curious: Why are you against that feature, Ron? I suppose it's not only a personal preference (you are talking about other people, too) so I think there are other reasons tied to the site functionality.

[Ron Edwards]

Moreno, it doesn't matter. (Um, and I did not say I hated any person for using the feature; I think you mis-read that part.) I'm not going to call for its removal or anything like that. And obviously, anyone arriving here can utilize the options and keep using the feature however he or she wants; my approval or opinion is not important.

I'll explain my reaction, though: this website should not be utilized as a wave-front, reading only new things. People should re-read. They should look at things they didn't look at during their last visit. They should explore backwards, and read a given thread because it looks interesting. Not be addicted to New Post New Post New Post all the time, hyper-aware of whether anyone paid attention to what they posted last time.

This should be a site for stopping here and looking around, using your brain and expanding your awareness of things, like a library. If you arrive and look at the full page of forums, like I do, then you see the whole library in front of you, exactly like shelves. You can browse among them. You can see things you haven't seen before, or decide, hey, I saw that the other day, I guess I'll look at it more closely now.

Now, you personally, you're way ahead on this score, because of the effort you've put in toward reading the past forums. (For those who don't know, Moreno decided a while ago to read the entire Forge, chronologically. He's still working on it.) And as I said above, which is probably being ignored, nothing in this post is imaginably important to anyone but myself. People are free to do what they want with the feature.

Best, Ron

[lumpley]

I'll look into it. No promises!

-Vincent

[Moreno R.]

About the reading of the forum in chronological order, it's difficult because the threads are ordered by the date of the LAST post. It could be possible to add a way (even if not in the forum page, an external link would be all right too) to sort the thread in a subforum (or in the entire forum) by the STARTING date?

(I used to do this by opening a dozen or more consecutive threads in different windows and then looking at the starting date order, but now the Forge usually doesn't allow me to open more than a few pages at the same time)

Thinking about it, it would need to be done only one time (or at intervals), producing a html list available for download with the links to the start of the threads. It could be an encouragement for people to read the older discussions...