Perhaps Parallax management is privately irritated or chagrined by all the extraneous chit-chat and would like the forum to be primarily a resource for customers with questions. I don't know this to be the case but I have no other explanation for the "most popular" default.
Roy Eltham,
Ah trees. I really hate trees in a discussion thread.
A tree is not a discussion thread, it's multiply branching structure of sub threads. In reply to -> in reply to -> in reply to -> in reply to ...
If you really want a new sub-thread why not just start a new topic?
I want everything up front in time order. If people want to respond to some older post that is what a decent quote formatting button is for.
Anyway it's not clear to me what trees have to do with votes. They seem to be orthogonal features.
Does Reddit even have conversations and debates. I can't find any. Or indeed anything useful there.
User Name,
"[Parallax] would like the forum to be primarily a resource for customers with questions."
In that case why not remove the General Discussion section?
The forum is not just about customers with questions. It can be about customers with interesting projects using the forum providers product they would like to share with the world. Or perhaps interesting ideas and techniques related to those products.
In short, a way for your customers to promote your product for you, perhaps in ways you had never dreamed of.
To screw that up is not a good move.
I believe the "most popular" default is there because it is indeed the default that comes out of the box with the vanilla forums software. As is all the style, format, layout etc that we see here. Including the ridiculous "Howdy stranger" greeting for new visitors. There has been no attention paid to any of this.
I believe the "most popular" default is there because it is indeed the default that comes out of the box with the vanilla forums software. As is all the style, format, layout etc that we see here. Including the ridiculous "Howdy stranger" greeting for new visitors. There has been no attention paid to any of this.
True.I also wondered if the (very?) few who tested this, simply missed the moronic default because they changed their own settings, and forgot to test as a new user.
Of course, it was easy enough to click the sort by date added option once and have it just work ( at least for me so far).
Try it as a guest. Visit a thread with more than one page, and down-votes on some posts. Like this one. Change to Date Added. You will find that the down-voted posts come last as you go through the pages, even though they may have earlier dates I imagine being a guest doesn't set the appropriate cookie.
I've noted this elsewhere when people have defended this feature. A tenet of good software design is remembering our own experience is not the only one possible.
Heater, jmg: You are probably right. I like your explanations better. What will be telling is whether this change of default happens quickly, slowly, or not at all.
The argument for sort-by-vote is that the "best" answers will float to the top where they are most likely to be seen. The problem with that is that they are yanked from their context. Sometimes the context of an answer is as important as the answer itself.
I'd be somewhat okay with a modified sort-by-vote if the posts that get promoted are copied to their new positions -- not just moved -- the copies made read-only, and each copy including a link to the original post in its contextual location.
-Phil
I'd be somewhat okay with a modified sort-by-vote if the posts that get promoted are copied to their new positions -- not just moved -- the copies made read-only, and each copy including a link to the original post in its contextual location.
? That would create even more confusion. The only flag a technical forum needs, is a *solved* one, and that is a simple link icon.No gymnastics of posts involved at all.
I think it is time to have a moderator close this thread as it appears we are never going back to VB.
The whiners' topic is something that trending all over the internet in the general public... just Google 'whiners' and 'haters'. Try searching "Donald Trump Memorial Day'' to confirm this.
Internet negativity as a topic has gone viral.
+++++
Just maybe this will be the first new thread to be closed by Moderators. I think it is a good place to start.
Comments
Ah trees. I really hate trees in a discussion thread.
A tree is not a discussion thread, it's multiply branching structure of sub threads. In reply to -> in reply to -> in reply to -> in reply to ...
If you really want a new sub-thread why not just start a new topic?
I want everything up front in time order. If people want to respond to some older post that is what a decent quote formatting button is for.
Anyway it's not clear to me what trees have to do with votes. They seem to be orthogonal features.
Does Reddit even have conversations and debates. I can't find any. Or indeed anything useful there.
"[Parallax] would like the forum to be primarily a resource for customers with questions."
In that case why not remove the General Discussion section?
The forum is not just about customers with questions. It can be about customers with interesting projects using the forum providers product they would like to share with the world. Or perhaps interesting ideas and techniques related to those products.
In short, a way for your customers to promote your product for you, perhaps in ways you had never dreamed of.
To screw that up is not a good move.
I believe the "most popular" default is there because it is indeed the default that comes out of the box with the vanilla forums software. As is all the style, format, layout etc that we see here. Including the ridiculous "Howdy stranger" greeting for new visitors. There has been no attention paid to any of this.
I believe the "most popular" default is there because it is indeed the default that comes out of the box with the vanilla forums software. As is all the style, format, layout etc that we see here. Including the ridiculous "Howdy stranger" greeting for new visitors. There has been no attention paid to any of this.
True.I also wondered if the (very?) few who tested this, simply missed the moronic default because they changed their own settings, and forgot to test as a new user.
Try it as a guest. Visit a thread with more than one page, and down-votes on some posts. Like this one. Change to Date Added. You will find that the down-voted posts come last as you go through the pages, even though they may have earlier dates I imagine being a guest doesn't set the appropriate cookie.
I've noted this elsewhere when people have defended this feature. A tenet of good software design is remembering our own experience is not the only one possible.
I'd be somewhat okay with a modified sort-by-vote if the posts that get promoted are copied to their new positions -- not just moved -- the copies made read-only, and each copy including a link to the original post in its contextual location.
-Phil
I'd be somewhat okay with a modified sort-by-vote if the posts that get promoted are copied to their new positions -- not just moved -- the copies made read-only, and each copy including a link to the original post in its contextual location.
? That would create even more confusion. The only flag a technical forum needs, is a *solved* one, and that is a simple link icon.No gymnastics of posts involved at all.
The whiners' topic is something that trending all over the internet in the general public... just Google 'whiners' and 'haters'. Try searching "Donald Trump Memorial Day'' to confirm this.
Internet negativity as a topic has gone viral.
+++++
Just maybe this will be the first new thread to be closed by Moderators. I think it is a good place to start.