Dionoid Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) I check out this forum on a regular basis (at least once every day) and I noticed that my brain has created a "blind spot" for the 7 topics which are currently pinned to the top of this forum. Kind of the same way as my brain learns to recognize ads and ignore them. When I'm using my smartphone to visit this forum, it is even worse, as I actually need to scroll down a few times to be able to see the first non-pinned topic. I think the "pin topic" feature is misused here and not a single one of these topics should be pinned. IMO a pinned topic - if there's need for one in the first place - should contain essential information which you want a new visitor to read first, usually things like "discussion guidelines". Popular topics will bump themselves to the top automatically, so there usually is no reason to pin them to the top explicitly. An example of valid use of a single "pinned topic" feature is in the Harmony Cartridge subforum, where the first topic contains information about the latest Harmony firmware. My question to the moderators: would you consider "unpinning" the 7 topics at the top of this forum? Edited November 25, 2022 by Dionoid 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) I agree that there are too many pinned topics. I suppose some (Top 100, Easter Eggs) are there to avoid that people start similar topics over and over again. Then there are some which were hot some time ago (Trak-Ball Games, unpinned now), but IMO definitely should be removed from being pinned. Others are still active, but I agree, these will bump themselves to the top. IMO the UnoCart topic could stay pinned, because unlike the Harmony it does not have its own forum. Though it has a club, which might make up for this just as well. Edited November 25, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted November 25, 2022 Author Share Posted November 25, 2022 My point is that topics regulate themselves; there really is no need to pin any of them. For example: If you're looking for UnoCart firmware updates, you probably do a Google search and end up in the right topic anyway. Other forums only pin "forum rules", "start here" or "FAQ" and that's it. Yes, sometimes (new) members create a duplicate topic, but is that really a problem? In those cases, usually someone points them to an existing topic and explains they should do a search first; that is normal for a forum IMO. Also, pinning a topic implies it contains important information, while on this forum that is very subjective. Apparently, someone decided that the topic "Items for Atari 2600 manufactured in Brazil" should be pinned and topic "RetroN 77" shouldn't. Who decides that one topic is more important than the others? Why not stop the regulation and have the popular/active topics bump themselves to the top? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 Yep. Agreed. I asked for this to be changed yonks ago. I hate scrolling through dozens of pinned topics that are old and in which I have little interest anyway. I think one or two are mine, and I couldn't unpin. That's my memory, anyway. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 I think the "fix" is not to change the posts to "not pinned" because in their own forums/context they make perfect sense. For example, a sorted table of contents is definitely something you want pinned in the newbies thread. The issue is that we don't really want to see pinned posts when we are looking at the "home" view which is displaying the content of other/combined forums. There should be no pinned posts in that view. IMHO. @Albert please consider for a bugfix/improvement Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted November 25, 2022 Author Share Posted November 25, 2022 8 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said: I think the "fix" is not to change the posts to "not pinned" because in their own forums/context they make perfect sense. My original post is referring to the 7 pinned topics in the Atari 2600 forum, not any of its sub-forums. Most sub-forums have a limited number of pinned topics, which make sense in their context. But even on a sub-forum like "2600 Programming For Newbies", I think we only need a single pinned topic that contains a sorted table of contents: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 I think part of the problem is, that a moderator might not want to unpin a topic which someone else has pinned. And since you cannot see who pinned a topic and when, you are completely on your own. Personally I am reluctant to unpin other people's pinned topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 7 minutes ago, Dionoid said: My original post is referring to the 7 pinned topics in the Atari 2600 forum, not any of its sub-forums. OK, understood. I'm talking about the "Home" view, where I have dozens of irrelevant (and old) pinned topics to scroll through before getting to new content that I might actually be interested in. Some of them have latest posts 2005, for example. Why are they in my feed? Because they're pinned, and no other reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said: I'm talking about the "Home" view My "Home" view looks totally different. Did you configure something? Edited November 25, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 Just now, Thomas Jentzsch said: My "Home" view looks totally different. Do you configure something? Yes. There are three view options to the left of "Start new topic". I use the third of those, which lets you select which forums you want to get "latest messages" from. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 OK. I agree, totally cluttered with pinned topics. And I doubt this will change anytime soon. I suggest that you switch to using activity streams. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 17 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said: Yes. There are three view options to the left of "Start new topic". I use the third of those, which lets you select which forums you want to get "latest messages" from. Nice feature. If would prefer to use it if the pinned topics wouldn't be pinned in this view. 14 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: I suggest that you switch to using activity streams. Nice too, but it looks like forums can't be selected in the activity streams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said: Nice too, but it looks like forums can't be selected in the activity streams. You can. When you create your own stream, there is Content Type on the left. If you check Topics, then you can detail the forums. Edited November 25, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted November 25, 2022 Author Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) 47 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: I think part of the problem is, that a moderator might not want to unpin a topic which someone else has pinned. And since you cannot see who pinned a topic and when, you are completely on your own. Personally I am reluctant to unpin other people's pinned topics. That is totally understandable, and you don't want to unpin a topic which was pinned by another moderator. But that probably means we won't ever get rid of these pinned topics. I just think all these pinned topics do more harm than good and it would be great if there was a consensus amongst the moderators to stop pinning topics or have at most 1 pinned topic for each (sub)forum - preferably none. Edited November 25, 2022 by Dionoid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Andrew Davie Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 Just now, Dionoid said: That is totally understandable, and you don't want to unpin a topic which was pinned by another moderator. But that probably means we won't ever get rid of these pinned topics. I just think all these pinned topics do more harm than good and it would be great if there was a consensus amongst the moderators to stop pinning topics, or have at most 1 pinned topic. Put an expiry-date on pins (automatically) of (say) 30 days. All pins removed after that time. If somebody wants to re-pin a topic, they can. Eventually all the old pins disappear. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 1 minute ago, Dionoid said: That is totally understandable, and you don't want to unpin a topic which was pinned by another moderator. But that probably means we won't ever get rid of these pinned topics. I just think all these pinned topics do more harm than good and it would be great if there was a consensus amongst the moderators to stop pinning topics or have at most 1 pinned topic for each (sub)forum. Transparency would help here, but I don't think the software offers this. @Albert Does it? Else we need something like a supermoderator who unpins topics when they become to many. Or a code of conduct for moderators, which describes when you should unpin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) There also is a moderator action called "feature". It stars a topic. Maybe this should be used where pinning a topic would be too much. I yet have to find out what the star does, besides adding a star. 😃 I have featured this topic, maybe you can find out what can be done with it. Edited November 25, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted November 25, 2022 Author Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) This seems to be a hot topic. Can one of the moderators please pin this topic so it sticks to top of this forum? 😛 Edited November 25, 2022 by Dionoid 1 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 7 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said: Put an expiry-date on pins (automatically) of (say) 30 days. Good idea, IMO the number of days should be selectable (e.g. 1 week, 1 month, 1 year). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: There also is a moderator action called "feature". It stars a topic. Maybe this should be used where pinning a topic would be too much. I yet have to find out what the star does, besides adding a star. 😃 I have featured this topic, maybe you can find out what can be done with it. This one looks like it may need further configuration. After doing some poking around, there was nowhere obvious that I could find to search for or sort by starred topics. However, if you create a custom content stream, there is an option to have it display what are referred to as 'Markers' (covered up here by the 'Members' subcategory within it): If you select Markers as a view, this is one possible end result: Note that the heading for this view is called, "Starred Topics", but no actual starred topics appear in it. Also, dropping down the menu in the search bar that lets you select the type of content to search for has an option to search Markers. Using that results in this: So it is at least possible to both create a content stream and search for markers, but how markers and starred topics relate isn't totally clear based on what I'm seeing from using them. The content stream view doesn't show this topic in it despite the 'Starred Topics' heading, and the search didn't turn it up when the word 'pinned' (which appears 47 times in this thread at the present time) in markers was searched for. My guess is it's not a fully-implemented feature, but that would have to be answered by someone with Great Admin Powers(tm). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_79 Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: I yet have to find out what the star does, besides adding a star. 😃 I have featured this topic, maybe you can find out what can be done with it. Apparently it is possible to add a "featured" list to the board index page that will show those topics: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/397705-hq-featured-topics/ Anyway such list doesn't seem to be currently enabled on AA. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mockduck Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 Having been in charge of forums elsewhere, yeah, it is a lot easier to pin topics than un-pin them. My general rule of thumb is: If the thread hasn't seen an update in three months and it isn't a FAQ style single post pin, then unpin it. If people post enough after it has been unpinned to warrant a re-pin, then sure. Thing is, though, you have to remember to go back and unpin topics, and it gets easily overlooked when you are doing a hundred other things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted November 25, 2022 Author Share Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mockduck said: Having been in charge of forums elsewhere, yeah, it is a lot easier to pin topics than un-pin them. My general rule of thumb is: If the thread hasn't seen an update in three months and it isn't a FAQ style single post pin, then unpin it. If people post enough after it has been unpinned to warrant a re-pin, then sure. Thing is, though, you have to remember to go back and unpin topics, and it gets easily overlooked when you are doing a hundred other things. Agree, the problem is un-pinning topics, as moderators are busy and often don't remember to go back and unpin stale topics. But the rule of thumb should be: Don't pin any topic in the first place, if it isn't a FAQ style single post. Popular topics will push themselves to the top automatically. And topics that haven't seen an update for some weeks will be pushed out of the first page automatically. It's a beautiful self-regulating process that doesn't need help from a moderator 🙂 Edited November 25, 2022 by Dionoid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Karl G Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 I'd also love to at least see the number of pinned posts reduced in this forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted December 16, 2022 Share Posted December 16, 2022 Suggestion: what if there was one pinned topics called "hot topics" or "Favorite topics" with links to all the (would be formerly) pinned topics? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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