Presentation of topics

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Bill_Posters
Posts: 22
Joined: 17. Dec 2020, 19:14

Presentation of topics

Post by Bill_Posters »

Hello, I find the presentation of topics quite unusual and different to what I have seen in various other forums. Obviously "Last post" refers to the last post in a thread instead of ordering (and presenting) the topics relative to the most recent post. For instance, the folder "Using Virtual Box" starts with a thread with last post from Dec. 17. Next come 10 threads with most recent post somewhere in the past (one from Feb. 2015 !). One has to go down the list until one finds the topic with most recent post at position 12 (at the time of posting this comment).

Consequently, a fresh topic is buried somewhere in a folder. No wonder, that the response of a question is rather weak in this forum as no one searches a folder for new topics. At least a button for "Show most recent posts" would help (if not using a modern forum software instead of this old fashioned forum style).
scottgus1
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Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
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Re: Presentation of topics

Post by scottgus1 »

On my listings, I see the most recently replied-to post first, then on in descending order.

On the bottom of your page for a subforum's list of topics, what do the "Sort By" dropdowns say? Mine says "Post time" and "Descending".

The times listed for a topic are like this:
post times.png
post times.png (26.44 KiB) Viewed 11558 times
The dates the topics were started do bounce around. The date of the last post in the topics are most recent first.

As for no one searching, well, that's human nature at this time. "lmgtfy" is a thing because of this. Also, the forum search is not strong, example: "USB" returns no matches. :shock: A new search function would be better. Most recommendations to search involve regular web-searching with the site restrictor "site:forums.virtualbox.org" added to the search terms.
Bill_Posters
Posts: 22
Joined: 17. Dec 2020, 19:14

Re: Presentation of topics

Post by Bill_Posters »

I mean the the ordering of topics within a folder like "Suggestions" or "Using Virtual Box". The topics in "Suggestions" are ordered according to the most recent posts in any of the topics which is fine. The topics in "Using Virtual Box" are not ordered in this way, and this was my "complaint".
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
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Re: Presentation of topics

Post by scottgus1 »

That's what I am referring to by "subforums".
scottgus1 wrote:On the bottom of your page for a subforum's list of topics, what do the "Sort By" dropdowns say? Mine says "Post time" and "Descending".
mpack
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Re: Presentation of topics

Post by mpack »

Bill_Posters wrote:The topics in "Suggestions" are ordered according to the most recent posts in any of the topics which is fine. The topics in "Using Virtual Box" are not ordered in this way, and this was my "complaint".
In fact all forums have the same sorting rules. It is just that "Suggestions" has a particularly flat structure, which is not universally practical. Some forums (such as "Using VirtualBox") contain subforums, and those are always listed first, just like Windows normally displays subfolders first in a folder view. Also we moderators may mark some posts as being announcements or stickies (all forums/one forum), so that new users will see those posts first.

I agree that sometimes there can be too many stickies and announcements, but it was way worse in the past, before we moved a lot of the tutorials into a dedicated forum. Perhaps it's time to do another spring clean some time soon: I can see 2 or 3 stickies in "Using VirtualBox" that I think could be un-stickied or moved elsewhere.
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