Request for new category

[jeff2006]

I try to keep up with the forum by reading the "50 most recent posts" when I visit. Because of the large number of posts, I fall behind, and miss some things that would help me.

Many of the posts, however, are of no interest to anyone except the poster, no doubt including some of my own contributions. These clog the forum.

So -- how about a new category, where the posts are not included in the "50 most recent" list? You could call this category "trash" -- might include politics, religion, international relations, homosexuality, unscientific polls, and bodily functions, for example.

Anyone interested in other peoples' thoughts on these topics could read them. Everybody else could skip the category, especially those of us who try to use the 50-most-recent function.

Thanks!

 

[Martha]

We can talk to Dory and BMJ about it, but I don't know if the software can do that. These kind of discussions are for the Other Topics section. Interesting how many posts there are in Other Topics as compared to Life after FIRE.

One problem is that "trash" appears where you least expect it. For example, Bookman started a thread asking specific questions about health insurance. Some of the posts on the thread addressed the specific issue and some went the political route.

I suppose we could more intensely moderate and split off the more off topic comments. We used to split more threads and it looks like we have done little of that iin the past few months. Probably because it is a lot of work on this forum given how good we all are at the hijack.

 

[Nords]

I try to keep up with the forum by reading the "50 most recent posts" when I visit.  Because of the large number of posts, I fall behind, and miss some things that would help me.

The "Show unread posts since last visit" link would give you more than 50 posts, but I don't know how this feature works when switching among various computers.

Many of the posts, however, are of no interest to anyone except the poster, no doubt including some of my own contributions. These clog the forum.
So -- how about a new category, where the posts are not included in the "50 most recent" list? You could call this category "trash" -- might include politics, religion, international relations, homosexuality, unscientific polls, and bodily functions, for example.

Which is trash and which is treasure? I'm sure that at least one of the posters is now planning a thread that will attempt to combine all those topics into one.

Herding these cats onto topic hasn't worked yet, and it's possibly perceived to be one of the board's charms. There are some threads that clearly merit splitting, but most splits affect context as well as content. I think that affects readability more than it improves a thread's topic focus.

 

[retire@40]

Maybe we need a "Political and Religious" category so as soon as someone starts or spoils a good thread with any of these topics it gets moved to that category so it can fester on its own.

Those political and religious discussions lead to nothing anyway and are almost always started by someone who is looking to inflame the board to get attention for themselves.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

The "Show unread posts since last visit" link would give you more than 50 posts, but I don't know how this feature works when switching among various computers.

It works as it should. I constantly switch from my work to home computer.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

There's not a way to tag a category or board to not show up in the recent most 50.

On the other hand, I just noticed by toying with the URL parameters you can get the 50 most recent messages in any board:

Just add "action=unread" to the end with a "?" or a ";" if a "?" is already in the url:

Forum Admin: http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?board=16.0;action=unread

Hi, I Am: http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?board=4.0;action=unread

FIRE and Money: http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?board=6.0;action=unread

Life after FIRE: http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?board=9.0;action=unread

Young Dreamers: http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?board=10.0;action=unread

Other topics: http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?board=5.0;action=unread

That way you can see the 50 most recent unread posts in each board. I haven't been reading much lately, but most of the chaff used to be in Off-Topic.

My original suggestion idea was to use an RSS reader to consolidate your favorite boards. RSS readers include web portals like My Yahoo, My MSN and Google Homepage.