Feature Requests and Suggestions Thread

I'm a big fan of "viewed" count. Not just number of replies, but how many people have been reading a thread. I almost decided to create a web counter account for adding to threads I started myself. I want to know how many people here are interested in the things I'm interested in. Replies help, but so do page views.Ben

OK, here's a feature that shouldn't be too hard to implement, but may really alleviate some of the moderation pressure as well as discontent on this board.Currently, there's no easy way to do self-moderation and incremental moderation.I say add a button that "warns" a person. You can even give a type off warning (off-topic, personal attack, etc). Make this information public but anonymous (well, non-anonymous in the back-end though). Warning points are accumulated per post that was warned (so if 15 people warn the same post, it's still just one point. But seeing 15 people agreeing on it should make it's own point).These warning levels can be used to automatically set off some penalties. It can also be used for those who are less familiar with a situation to have some kind of knowledge about what a user is doing, and have faith that moderation is happening "in good faith."I guess it's been proposed here before as 'report this post', but this is a more public system. I think making moderation self-guided and public as much as possible will eliminate a lot of the worries. I think most of the worries will change into other things related to self-moderation. But I think self-moderation is ultimately what's needed.It might be flawed at first, but I believe people would catch on. Plus those who misuse a warning system can simply be "warned" themselves.It's a similar idea to the system used by AOL, EBay, etc. I think it could work. And it should be low-cost to implement.

This has been mentioned by another user, and Asagara gave a nicer example of it here.I guess it's called "threading" or "threaded view" ? But I guess you're familiar with it, since the origin of this board is from Yahoo! Groups (yeah, I read!).

I think this was a good feature of the old system, that has not yet been incorporated into the new system. Is it going to make a return?I think it is a good thing, to have a track record of the "Proposed New Topics" process on record and available to the members - A place to see all the proposed versions, and the information on what became of them. It would be very nice to get the processed PNT's removed from the normal topics listings, including the Proposed New Topics index page.Having all the processed PNT's go to the Topic Proposals Archive would do the job, IF those topics would be excluded from display in the All Topics index.Adminnemooseus

This is relatively easy to fix, but I lack the time at present. Here's what is planned:

• Add new thread ordering options for forums: alphabetical and reverse alphabetical by title, and alphabetical and reverse alphabetical by originator.
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• Add new setting for forums: yes/no for inclusion on All Topics page.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Free For All didn't work, Boot Camp didn't work, and the finer forum-by-forum access control hasn't been widely utilized, so I have another proposal that should allow problem posters to remain here while minimizing their impact.I don't have a name for the restriction yet, but it would work like this. Members in this restriction category would be permitted to participate in only a single thread at a time in the Main Topic forums. They could participate as much as they want in that thread, but if they wanted to change threads they'd have to wait for 24 hours to pass. The time period would be settable for the discussion board.Comments? Suggestions?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I really like this idea.No stigma like the BC, not an invitation to abuse like the FFA.I also like the idea of a waiting period before being able to switch threads. This would hopefully make members under this restriction think before leaping into something new.

Wasn't sure if this should go into "Bugs" or not...The search function here is limited, so we often encourage folks to use Google search. Google, however, indexes pages by the default paging mechanism. Thus, when I search, get a result, and click on the link, I'm taken to a page that, because my paging settings are different from the default, the message I searched on does not appear on my page.For example, I searched '"explanatory filter" site:' at Google.com, and I got this link (among others). When I clicked, the thread opened, but there was no text "explanatory filter." My personal paging settings made it so that this page was somewhere else.Suggestions:

• If you detect Google as the referer, use the default paging mechanism

OR
• Pass paging settings around as query string arguments
  
  • This would solve problems where one user is trying to link a message, but their paging settings don't match with another user, and the message is not on the page. Often instead we'll get links like http:///.../&m=11197#30 (trying to refer to message 30), and this (for me, 5 messages per page) cuts the message off the page.

not a biggy but ...would it be possible to turn off the links to replies ("yes") to messages that are in closed posts and cannot be answered?you might call your restriction to one topic a "stick to the point" (or STP) restriction with emphasis on answering points raised by others rather than reposting positions as if nothing was said (aka Jerry)

if you do make that email change is it possible to link the user name of the person responding into the subject of the email? (ie -- EvC response from Percy)?

Actually, this is a rather nifty feature. If you click on the non-link part of this message title it will take you to the message. If you click on the link part of the message title, it will take you to the link. You can even have multiple links in message titles.The only downside to this is that if a message title consists only of a link, then there are no characters on which to place the link to the message itself. The link to the message is there, but since it has no characters and zero width you can never find it. The "Message 145" part should always be a link to the message, though, but it isn't, and this is a bug. It looks really simple, though, and as long as it doesn't turn out to be the tip of an iceberg I'll fix it now while have a spare moment.This message has been edited by Admin, 05-14-2005 09:17 AM

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

yes, you could also get a situation where the link is to another thread which could result in some interesting cross postings.my question related to the {subject line} of the e-mail notifications containing the user name of the respondant.

Okay, you convinced me. Links in message subtitles are now only active when the messages are displayed. Yes, when I make the changeover to HTML email there are a number of improvements I can make.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Can you actually post without being registered anymore? The log-on message suggests (something like) "most forums require registration".Isn't it actually ALL now?

I find it really inconvenient that I can't save searches or link to searches. I'd like to do that sometimes when responding to PNTs, so that I can evangelize the search function (which would help people help themselves in finding relevant topics).If we passed the search terms via the URL, we'd be able to do this type of saving / referencing of searches. Would you consider adding this to your features list?Thanks.