pothos.org

HiI don't know if fight club rules apply here, but I wonder if it is possible to increase the number of threads visible? I may be in the minority here, but I can't really make time to visit more than one board. I hate the idea of the community being split, and I like the heterogenous nature of this forum. Tim suggested separate forums for topics (in his new redesigned site). This may be a good idea but it struck me that if there were more messages displayed on pothos, then some topics may keep going for longer. Some are pretty interesting, and merit longer exposure. Linda

i totally agree

Hi Linda,I think your suggestion is a good one. I don't always have time to visit the site on a daily basis so more messages would be great.
Cheers,
Kate

a suggestion, let the forum post a thread with last 3 posting of the person posting, fot the benifit of those who may have missed them ,before scroll off.as

Good idea. There have recently been over-lapping threads...mainly all the various ones about the movie. And these tend to take up the space allowed to the threads which could be used for more intriguing subjects and debates.

I think this a good idea, but I think I should hide
my head here. I promised to help Thomas with
the board's programming, and haven't found
time yet. Also, it uses technology I'm not too fond
of (asp and XML). Increasing the message
number shouldn't be too hard though.

Also; you can left click on the subject heading, drag and drop it to your desk top and you'll always have that message thread to read in future times for the archives on pothos are lacking!(way behind)

Hi Linda,I totally agree.Things might get better once the number of threads on the movie starts dying down - as it seems to be already. I wouldn't want to *stop* people posting about the film, but surely everything's now been said, by those for and those against? We should now get back to discussing Alexander the person, not Alexander the film.All the bestMarcus

You genius, sir! That never occurred to me, but what a simple solution.Of course, I'll never remember to do it, but I'll try!CheersMarcus

I agree too.Another possibility is to re-organize the list of threads every time that a reply is made. That is, let us assume there are three threads A(ornos), B(ucephalus) and C(raterus), of which A was posted on Monday, B on Tuesday and C on Wednesday (assume only one message can be posted each day, for simplicity). The list of threads as we know them would look (from top to bottom) like this: CBA.Now Thursday comes and a reply is made to, say, B.Using the current system, the list wouldnGÇÖt change (still CBA).What I propose is that thread B be moved to the top of the screen, such that the new order would be BCA.If on Friday someone replies to A, the new order would be ABC, and so on.In the end, the system reduces to moving up the thread who got the latest reply to the top of the screen!The main advantage of this method is that the GÇ£hottestGÇ¥ topics would be always on top of the screen, while those who are less popular will fade off and slip out of the screen (we can think that GÇ£they deserved to dieGÇ¥ . This also means that a topic that is interesting will not be replaced by new threads, because replies will GÇ£keep it aliveGÇ¥, thus eliminating the need to start new threads every time the topic reaches the bottom of the screen (which is annoying anyway, because the reply looks out of context many times).The main disadvantage is that threads that become bitter disputes (e.g., Macedonian-Greek debate) or those GÇ£hijackedGÇ¥ by someone trying to GÇ£push upGÇ¥ his/her thread in the list, will be annoying for everyone. However, this could be easily spotted (I hope) by the moderators, who will then eliminate entire/parts of threads if needed.About the GÇ£rightGÇ¥ number of threads, I think there is no such number. I guess the best strategy is to keep GÇ£aliveGÇ¥ (on the screen) every thread that got a reply in the last, say, 7 days, and move all the others to the archive. This would mean that only topics that are exhausted will be GÇ£eliminatedGÇ¥ (rather, moved to the archives), while those who are GÇ£current businessGÇ¥ will remain, and will be ordered by its importance/popularity (not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between these two!).I donGÇÖt know whether this is feasible, or whether it is a titanic task that requires too much work, time and effort from those who maintain and operate the site (I have no knowledge of computer programming or website operation at all), but if possible and not too demanding, I think the discussion in the foru

I donGÇÖt know whether this is feasible, or whether it is a titanic task that requires too much work, time and effort from those who maintain and operate the site (I have no knowledge of computer programming or website operation at all), but if possible and not too demanding, I think the discussion in the forum (or at least its organization) could be significantly improved.Kind regards,Alejandro