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I could turn the activity meters off again, it's just a setting. What's the overall opinion?I could also give members a preference setting for activity meters so they can choose for themselves whether they want them displayed.Or I could add a little link to thread list pages where a single click would turn them on and off. It would be instantaneous and wouldn't require reloading the page. I think I could make it sticky so that subsequent thread list pages maintained the setting.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

They just want to be smaller, and less obtrusive, I think. Perhaps, if they ran vertically and sat to the left of the thread entry?

I agree. And I'd love to see it shorter overall.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

They were just an unexpected change. From the previous scheme they do kinda hit you right in the face if you're not ready for them.I think we will get used to them over the next few days.Then you can take them away again and we'll get to complain about how suddenly naked the page looks.

I like the activity meter. Even though I read almost every thread, it is nice to know what ones are hot and active. It is always good to know where the feeding frenzy is happening. I do agree a little smaller may be better.ABE
On second thought I like it just the way it is. In another week no one will even remember that they didn't like it.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

I also like the activity meter. It is useful when I view the sight on my i phone as it's quite eye catching.

I wonder if the activity meter wouldn't look so, uh, startling if it used colors that fit more into the EvC Forum theme. Right now I'm just using green to yellow to red, but I could use more thematic colors. They'd be settable through the control panel.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I like the idea of a vertical bar. It could be in a separate column on the right side somewhere.

I like the vertical bar idea, too. The only problem with it in the short term is the amount of work it would require. Implementation of the vertical orientation would be a bit more challenging, and the orientation and position would have to be made selectable through the control panel. I'm putting most of my effort toward productization now, but I'd be glad to do anything that can be done quickly.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Percy,I think that changing the colour scheme is a good idea. In fact, I was about to post and suggest exactly that. You could have it run from a light pastel blue to mid-blue to dark blue. It would be just as easy to understand yet not interfere with the general aesthetic of the page. I think this would look much less cluttered.Mutate and Survive

Hi, Percy. In the grand tradition of brainstorming, I'll inflict some random thoughts.I like having an activity meter, but wonder if you need to register activity with both the progress bar and the color change: maybe some other already present element could change color with activity.I have noticed that the bar sometimes fills completely when a topic is busy, which looks odd; and at the low end the correlation between the progress bar and number of messages/message rate seems unclear. How do you calculate activity for the bar?How about the third column from the left, showing the topic mood? I frankly don't get a lot of useful info from that column, though I like clicking to a msg index.Maybe the current symbols in that column could use color changes to indicate activity, without using a bar. If you did later make a vertical bar, that might be a good spot for it, and it could still click to a msg index.Alternatively, you could make that column display an actual meter (perhaps as simple as just the meter's needle pivoting left to right while changing color), perhaps still clicking through to a msg index, with the column head clicking to a sort by activity level, though I suppose the All Topics list does that pretty much since the most active threads will have recent msgs.I do like Granny's elaboration of your idea about different colors, though I'd probably make dark blue the low level of activity and bright cyan the high.NB: I was reminiscing with someone about how difficult it used to be to work with a team when coding database and/or document management software, keeping everyone up to date through countless iterations...I thought of your section, thread and intra-thread msg/reply structure, and it occurred to me that what works so well for a forum could also work well for a project, whether the team be coders, technical writers, or a bunch of perverts writing a new Naked Lunch any sort of text- based collaborative effort could benefit from your structure.

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello

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Real things always push back.
-William James

The meter pegs (maxes out) at (I believe) 50 messages in the last 48 hours.Maybe just do away with the color changes and just go by the length of the (pleasant green?) bar.Or a little digital "x messages in the last 48 hours" box (with or without the bar).Moose

That sounds good to me.

+1

I like that.