Accessibility/Organization of discussions

[stlukesguild]

I've posted these suggestions/queries to Logos and Admin... but thought I might post it on the forum where it may also be open to further discussion:

Perhaps you could take a look at this thread... especially postings 29, 30, 31. We are discussing the difficulty in knowing when and where there are active discussions taking place on the work of authors included in the Author List. Anytime a discussion comes up on the Bible or Shakespeare or William Blake that discussion is moved into the Author list portion of the site. This has the unfortunate effect of essentially archiving and embalming the discussion as it removes it from immediate view. Is there a better way to go about this? Can we, for example, keep discussions on these authors on the General Literature forum (where they can be rapidly scanned and accessed) until such time as they become inactive? Just some thoughts.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45724&page=2

[Logos]

I understand the frustration some have in missing things or not being able to find things quickly at times, but really, the "New Posts" link in top menu bar is your friend :) Every single time I come to the site I click it and I get *all* new posts since the last time I visited, regardless of how long ago it was. It works fine for me, I've got to stay on top of new stuff posted, and it's pretty rare I miss any new threads or posts.

There's other ways to keep track of things like bookmarking, using RSS feeds available for most pages of the site, or you can use the Subscriptions function for specific author forums or specific threads for email notification.

Beyond that, The Site is laid out so as to integrate the Discussion Forums *with* the Author Index pages and specific etext pages http://www.online-literature.com/author_index.php as much as possible. A lot of people use that area of the site and don't even know the discussion forums exist, so, having links to latest discussions on author biography/etext/overview pages helps in getting people here to discuss if they wish. So yes us mods move things if need be, the purpose being to have an "archive" of threads linked to their author in one place.

Maybe it's possible that Admin could add something like a "Last 5 or 10 posts" feed somewhere on the forum main page so people could watch that and see where the action is. I don't know what else to suggest, besides what is already available.

[Admin]

You can see new posts at any time using the "new posts" link in the navbar.

The last 10 posts are also displayed on the site homepage.

And icons get colored in the big author list when a new post is made there.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

This "New posts" link needs to be advertised better. I'll definitely start using it.

And, I also noticed that it only goes back a few hours, so that's kind of lame for thread in more obscure areas.

EDIT: Nevermind, just re-read that it's new posts since your last visit. Should work on my reading comprehension, :yesnod:.