h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you're going to read and post to forums I presume you are the one to talk to about the way forums run - how they thread etc..

If that's so, could you have a look at this page: http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?forum=9157&thread=5953 which is a thread on the forum for the article on 'The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything' (which I wrote, jsut to declare my interests). One of the problems is that this is one of the most popular of all forums in the guide (I think it's possible that it is /the/ most popular, but it's not easy to tell, with all the different threads), and as you'll see if you have a look the biggest thing stopping people from writing to it is its popularity itself - it now takes FAR too long to download the whole lot...

I know that the point is to be able to read everything said before you respond, but in some cases this is too big a task - perhaps the forums need a 'lite' mode? People have tried pointing people to other threads to continue there, but this doesn't really work, and people have to read all the way down to see that anyway...

Anyway, I'm sure you're doing a great job, and keep up the good work!

hullo. bludragon here.

same thoughts about length of forum entries. I went to a really great party in a forum, but the entries got soooooo long that it became hard just to get to the point that you could help yourself to an hors d'oeuvre, you had to wait so long for everything to load.

Maybe a setting like 'entries for the last day, three days, week, etc.' or limiting downloads to the most recent 10 or 20 or 50 entries???? [with the option of being able to go back and read older ones of course]

And the screen arrangement of the lists of postings
with
.....the
...........steps
................makes
.....................it
..........................hard
...............................to
....................................keep
.........................................reading
..............................................as
...................................................entries
........................................................are
.............................................................added
..................................................................isnt
......................................................................there
...........................................................................anything
................................................................................that
.....................................................................................could
..........................................................................................be
...............................................................................................done
....................................................................................................about
.........................................................................................................that?
..............................................................................................................thank
...................................................................................................................you
........................................................................................................................very
.............................................................................................................................much


oh, and welcome to the ranks of the Powers that Be! just remember to keep moving, it's harder to hit a moving target...

Has anybody thought how bad it gets if you haven't got a screen as big as 960000x640000 ? it is hard to make head or tail of a big forum on my laptop?

Thanks for the pointer! We know there are a few problems with the way forums are presented, and we're going to fix them as best we can.
We're considering several different viewing schemes, ranging from frameless plain-old HTML to ultra-modern DHTML. We'll probably end up putting a few different ways in and letting the users configure to their own preferences.

If you have any suggestions as to how forums should be displayed, please let me know!

-- Yoz

Display only last 50 posts? Click to display earlier?

Another problem is that in a forum with a lot of threads, it gets hard to find the most recent messages. Perhaps some options buttons, like "display by time" "display as thread", etc. A bit like Slashdot...

I look forward to the user options, sounds like the best plan. Thanks for listening.

Right... ideas for forum entries... Well... I think that the forum to 'The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything' has become so integral to the guide, its life and culture, that the front page should show the day's new entries to that forum....




teehee...

Seriously though, it sounds like you have the right idea. We need a way to read them without having to load the whole thing, at least for the long ones...

Also, could you show with the 'most talked about forums' what time frame that means? Does it update by how many entries in a hour, or a day or what? Perhaps it might be nice to also show which has been most talked about overall?