These loooooong topics

[Frances144]

I realise housekeeping is important on any forum but I find these really long topics hard to follow and difficult to search through for any information.

 

For example the windfarm topic is huge. There are lots of relevant facts and figures in there but all the information is piled into one enormous thread and really lost unless you trawl through page by page.

 

Perhaps it might be an idea to consider having a Wind Farm section so that different threads and topics about the Wind Farm can be addressed rather than just all bunged together.

 

The same goes for many other threads.

 

Thanks

 

Your good work is appreciated, as ever.

[Njugle]

A fair point Frances. Problem is that the answer is paradoxical, a mobius strip, if you will.

 

The more you sub-divide a subject, the higher incidence of off topic discussion and the more maintenance is required. The more maintenance required the less likely we are able to keep on top of it. The less we keep on top of it the more difficult it become to find the relevant information, (like a badly managed filing cabinet) and the more difficult it is to find sub-divided information, the greater the justification to combine it all together......

 

 

....and once it is all combined together, the more difficult it is to sift through for individual facts.

 

If we could rely on posters to be fastidious in their approach to categorising their subject matter it might work but there is no evidence that this would ever be the case, unfortunately.

 

A search function operating on individual threads might get around it.

 

Food for thought.

[Frances144]

I see your point but I think the windfarm, for example, has many different facets that are all relevant to the bigger picture. If folk just tag their posts onto the thread, the thread often goes off on a tangent and never returns to the previous topic.

 

I don't know whether the Search function could be narrowed down to specific pages. I have never come across a forum where it does that.

[Spinner72]

One of the improvements we have pending for the gaming sites I work on is to link directly to the post from a search, rather than to the thread which is how it works, as does Shetlink, at the moment.

 

That will help, but again finding specific posts means being able to remember something "special" enough about them to search for. A date range could help in this area.

 

Something I believe is an advantage of the "big thread" approach, alongside those already mentioned, is that it generally keeps the most relevant and up to date facts and figures to the forefront.

[Njugle]

Well, you've got me thinking Frances, if nothing else at this time. It would be nigh on impossible to separate any of the existing long ones, but the idea may have some potential in the future for big issues that arise.

 

Thanks.

[Spinner72]

Jeezo - I spent 30 minutes typing that tiny post

 

Frances does indeed have a good point regarding multi-faceted topics. It can be frustraating to be involved in a debate only to get home from work and find the thread is somewhere else entirely!