Resolved Bringing past forum threads back to the top of the list

[talvare]

I participate on a few other forums that have this feature and thought it would be nice if this forum did the same. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that on this forum, when a thread is created it continues to move to the bottom of the list as other new threads are started, no matter how many people respond to the thread. And of course once it reaches the bottom of the list it just disappears and never again appears on the main forum list. The only time a person knows if someone has added content to that thread is if that person was a past contributor to the thread and then they get notified via an email message. It would be nice if the thread went back to the top of the forum list when someone makes a contribution to that thread. If the thread isn't particularly interesting to most members, it will eventually just fade away. I say this because I've personally seen a few threads on this forum that seem to be very popular while they are on the active forum list, but they disappear in a fairly short amount of time because they just keep moving to the bottom of the list no matter how much participation they receive.
Anyway, just some food for thought.
Thanks
Ted

 

[GrifterGuru]

Unless I am mistaken, that is to do with threads being sorted by "most recently commented on" which then puts even a "dead" thread back to the top of the threads list if it is commented on, not sure if that is the case here?

It can be a double edged sword too because like you state above, threads without recent comments drop down the list, until they are commented on again. There is no "true" solution to keeping threads at the top other than to keep commenting on them, unless you want to "Pin" threads and that is another rabbit hole best left alone.

I used to run a forum, of a different variant to this one, which died a death due to FB, so I have a little insight into the inner workings of forum software. It has been a while though, so things may have changed somewhat and as I noted above, it may be a different situation with the software for this forum.

 

[talvare]

It can be a double edged sword too because like you state above, threads without recent comments drop down the list, until they are commented on again. There is no "true" solution to keeping threads at the top other than to keep commenting on them, unless you want to "Pin" threads and that is another rabbit hole best left alone.

I think maybe you missed my point. On this forum the thread continues to move to the bottom of the list even when comments are being added to it.
Ted

 

[GrifterGuru]

I think maybe you missed my point. On this forum the thread continues to move to the bottom of the list even when comments are being added to it.
Ted

I did not miss your point, which was that newer threads push even popular threads down the list. That is related to the method used to sort the threads, which obviously is what you asking to be looked into and adjusted.

It can be, though not always, a choice between one or the other of "newest threads to the top" or "sort by most recently commented on".

 

[jwmelvin]

I’m confused because when I look at H-M, threads are sorted by most-recently commented on, not by date created.

 

[vtcnc]

I participate on a few other forums that have this feature and thought it would be nice if this forum did the same. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that on this forum, when a thread is created it continues to move to the bottom of the list as other new threads are started, no matter how many people respond to the thread. And of course once it reaches the bottom of the list it just disappears and never again appears on the main forum list. The only time a person knows if someone has added content to that thread is if that person was a past contributor to the thread and then they get notified via an email message. It would be nice if the thread went back to the top of the forum list when someone makes a contribution to that thread. If the thread isn't particularly interesting to most members, it will eventually just fade away. I say this because I've personally seen a few threads on this forum that seem to be very popular while they are on the active forum list, but they disappear in a fairly short amount of time because they just keep moving to the bottom of the list no matter how much participation they receive.
Anyway, just some food for thought.
Thanks
Ted

Good suggestions and thank you for posting this. One thing I'd like to offer to you and fellow members - the following is not precisely true (emphasis mine): "The only time a person knows if someone has added content to that thread is if that person was a past contributor..."

There are three additional and more effective ways to keep popular forums near the top of lists in descending order of effectiveness:

1) Request the Thread is made "Sticky". This will keep it at the top of the sub-forum.

2) "Watch" the thread. This is akin to "subscribing". This forum software calls it Watching. You will always be able to go back to that thread from your Watch screen. Depending on your alert and notification settings, watched threads will trigger an alert when you have been mentioned or a thread has a recent post.

3) Watch the Sub-forum of the thread you are interested in. New posts in the popular thread will "bump" to the top of the thread list.

Other members may have other methods they use to keep track of their favorite sub-forum, posts and threads.

 

[vtcnc]

I’m confused because when I look at H-M, threads are sorted by most-recently commented on, not by date created.

I believe most sub-forums here are defaulted to most recently commented on. This can be changed. Please let me know if there are problems with this as this forum is quite large and changes have been made over the many years we have been online.

EDIT: look for the Filters drop down menu for donating members and you should see an option sort messages.