Forum Moderators: open
In the past, the last X days was shown. That has now been switched to the last X number of threads with links to additional pages at the bottom.
You can set the number of threads per page from the System Preferences option on your WebmasterWorld control panel.
Why?
1) usability:
To enhance usability for new members and visitors. There was great confusion among newer users as to how to get to additional older threads in any forum. The combination of the old drop down and the multi-page links confused new and older members alike.
2) crawlability.
While working on the site search engine earlier this week, I rediscovered that it was near impossible to crawl the whole site based on the forum index pages. The requirement of submitting the drop down form was a major barrier to easy indexing.
On the down side. It will take some adjustment. I may update with some options here in a bit based on feedback. I realize there are going to be some who are not fond of the new system. It was so easy to set your prefs at a couple days and know you were just getting those threads displayed.
We may switch back - so give it a couple of days to see if we can all get used to it. Or suggest something else.
Maybe the time based selection should only be offered for the first page, and then switch to a fixed (configurable) number of listings for the rest. The default should probably be a fixed number as you have it now.
First page of forum list:
Well, maybe that would turn out to be even more confusing for some, but it's the most flexible approach I can think of... ;)
Non-logged in members would get the default links set, while logged in users would get the drop down with days selection.
