Forum Moderators: open
gimme the real picture, rather than what powers to be, want me to see
>>getting notched up
It looks to me like a highly commendable notching up of plain old ordinary consideration for WebmasterWorld members and visitors, not to mention better meeting the needs of the "constituency".
Even though I really hadn't taken notice to be honest, to explain further why I would personally appreciate a pruning down as much as is possible:
Most all of us here are working professionals with limited time available - with lives to lead, friends, families, homes and pets to love and care for, and either jobs to work or businesses to run.
From my perspective, which I'm sure is that of many others at a professionally oriented community like WebmasterWorld what I'd assume would be priority is meeting the needs of people related to their jobs and/or clientele.
I, for one, can't afford to detract from work time, as interesting as anything may be, to wade through posts about
1. What color socks we all prefer and whether we prefer nylon or cotton.
2. Much as I love George Thorogood and Bonnie Raitt, what rock concert we all may be attending or music we may be buying.
3. Much as I have always loved WebmasterWorld and always will, what is and what is not appearing on the active list.
Not that I'm not passionately interested in all of the above, but I expect and NEED active topics to meet my needs as a web professional, and sorry - but the above do not qualify in that respect.
Yes, I want to hang out and shoot the breeze with buddies whenever I can, like we all do: when I can afford the time to do so. Otherwise, we need to properly prioritize, and hey - we all know how to find the individual forums when we want to, don't we?. It's all there whenever we want it. We're not infants, we're professional adults; we don't need "click here" right in front of us. Hopefully we know how to find what we want; we no longer need to be spoon-fed.
Just my two centavos, FWIW.
At several million page views to those threads a week - that is serious system resources at use and we do what we need to in order to keep things running smooth.
Those threads are also most often used by the experience members and the active list don't mean much there.
At 2000+ messages, it doesn't look taking it off the active list hurt the topic much :-) - lol.
As for Foo and Community, my point of view is quite exactly the opposite from Marcia's. I don't need active topics to meet any needs. In fact, the only reason I look at the recent posts is to see whether I could help out somebody who has needs (i.e. a question). I know which forums are of interest to me and go through the forum index every so often, because I can't always look at the active list for interesting topics. I have work to do. So if something of interest appears, I'll notice by forum browsing and if I have a questin, I'll search and, if unsuccessfull, I'll ask. No reason to have recent posts for that.
To me, the active list serves the community building first and foremost. I.e. see that people have a question, need help, or just want to let off some steam, and answer or join them. In other words, I'll visit the recent posts when I have time to, so Foo and Community should be part of it.
OTOH, the problem can easily be resolved by each member having his favourite forums in his custom insert code, so the links appear at the top of each page.
Oh, and Marcia, black cotton socks, but who the heck is George Thorogood?
