Navigating this forum

Hi all,

Just wondering how people navigate this forum? There doesn’t appear to be any notification system and posts disappear very quickly off the front page become difficult to find… I use a number of other forums that have a number of categories which makes this latter issue easier to deal with which makes me wonder if I’m just using this forum wrong – how do you keep track of topics you are specifically interested in?

Cheers

K.

post in them and check your history – under your name in the top right

you can also RSS a thread.

But best if you never leave the PC so you can keep checking

Add as favourites; can be found here.

Compared to other forums and Usenet navigating on here is next to impossible; there’s no threading, no way of marking posts as read, no way of returning to a thread at the point you left, no way of blocking people or ignoring threads or subthreads and no plans (AFAIK) to do anything about it.

Indeed. And it’s been discussed many times. The overwhelming consensus each time is that most people (me included) like it the way it is and actively dislike the way other forums work.

I like the way it is and don’t like many other forums as I can’t stand the navigation and layout. Keep it nice and simple

Clubber +1, myriad sub-fora are very irritating.

If you’re interested in a thread, look for it!

Can you honestly not keep straight the number of threads you’ve read? Does it matter if you open one twice?

Why on earth would you block people or threads? 😕

numerous subforums are annoying. 90% of the time on those I’ll be hitting the “show all posts since last login” any way.

Should see some of the German/Swiss forums. 1 sub forum for pretty much every component or manufacturer you could ever imagine. Impossible to navigate.

On topic, off topic, and classifieds is about right imho.

Indeed. And it’s been discussed many times. The overwhelming consensus each time is that most people (me included) like it the way it is and actively dislike the way other forums work.

Exactly, I like the casual way it works and TBH, there aren’t many threads I feel I need to keep an eye on. I can remember which one’s I’ve read usually.

Can you post pictures using an iPad?

Can you post pictures using an iPad?

It’s only typing some bb code and an url so I can’t think why that’d be an issue

no way of returning to a thread at the point you left

This would be the single most useful thing that could be added to the current setup. On long threads like the Armstrong ones it can be difficult just to remember which page you’ve read up to.

Yes I’d agree with that, but it’s certainly not a big problem.

If I had one suggestion – I’d replace the “Skip to Top” button at the bottom with a “Back to Forum” button

If you really, really want to ignore someone, I think there is a firefox script you can install.

Does the search function only go back a few weeks? I hardly get any results and always end up using Google to search the forum, which seems a bit pointless.

vhat moor cud u vant?

http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/

Does the search function only go back a few weeks?

not if you use the ‘advanced search’

Can you post pictures using an iPad?
Yes I use Picup,nice and easy.
Recommended here to me of course!

Biggest thing that bursts my chops is the linking, rather a new tab or window it moves on a page, if you then explore the link its a pain to get back to STW.

Biggest thing that bursts my chops is the linking, rather a new tab or window it moves on a page, if you then explore the link its a pain to get back to STW.

that’s an issue with touch screens but with a mouse use the middle button to follow the link

that’s an issue with touch screens but with a mouse use the middle button to follow the link

And on touch screens just press and hold, then select “Open in New Page”

(on iOS anyway, I imagine Android has something copied similar 😉 )

vhat moor cud u vant?

http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/

That looks just like the MTBR forums. Except in Deutsche.

Andy

but with a mouse use the middle button to follow the link

That…is amazing 😀

Click on a tab with the middle button to close it too.

I always just use Google to search for stuff on here, much quicker and more effective!

if you want multiple sub-fora, there are plenty of other resources available.

agree with the long thread point made above, but its very rare, very very rare infact. Until recently if a thread made it to page 4, i would avoid it as it evidently contained bickering and willy waving.

Different approach I guess. I think a lot of things would get missed. Personally a feature telling me that there has been a reply with a link back to the thread would be useful. I suspect it might be a forum that I just dip into now and again, too time consuming otherwise.

Thanks for the replies though.

I would like to see:

– Return to thread at point last visited
– Updates since last visit

I do not want 6419 different subforums like some of the other mtb sites!

One of the things that I like about STW is that can scan through a day’s worth of topics in a reasonable number of pages, and look at the ones that I find interesting.

I’m still getting over not having just the one big forum and having to type OT: for off topic.

‘Tis a good forum layout all-in-all.

I have found myself reading of things that, if they had been lost into sub-fora, I’d not have paid any attention to as they were on a subject I’d not be actively looking for.

On long threads like the Armstrong ones it can be difficult just to remember which page you’ve read up to.

At least at that stage you can pick any page and get the same stuff…..

Interesting, there’s lots of votes against sub-fora and not a sing one for. I want to be able to ignore sub-threads that have gone off topic while continuing with the bit of the post that is still on topic. Without threading that’s impossible.

The ability to be able to return to the point last read would be the single biggest improvement to this otherwise rather good forum.

I agree. Forums such as Ride It Out (previously SDH) are much easier to use.

Sub fora- no thanks
Last unread post – yes please

Personally a feature telling me that there has been a reply with a link back to the thread would be useful.

Look in your “Forum Activity” (top right under your username) – you can see all the threads you have contributed to and when the last reply was.
Not perfect but a pretty good way to see if a thread has been posted on since you last read it.

(or you can subscribe to threads via RSS of course)

Threading: No thanks
Sub fora: No thanks
Last Unread Post: Yes please
Highlighting of threads that I have posted on that have new posts: yes please.

agree, even if you could click on the time of your last post in your forum history to get back to where you left a thread it would be a help.

Forum history does help. 🙂