A filtered alternative to New Posts

[Ian]

I know that some visitors to the forum are put off by large numbers of news article notifications in the New Posts listings sometimes. This is especially the case during peak times of the year, usually around trade show times, when many new products are press-released.

We already filter most of these off the 'portal' front page of the forum, but we do list feature article notifications and others, like Picture of the Day, because these are either relevant to the forum and galleries (like POTDs) or we feel are interesting enough to start discussions on the forum.

But I know that some of you primarily want to see notifications of new posts and threads from the forum members above all else, so I have formulated a page that is fairly similar to the main 'portal' page of the forum, but all DPNow article notifications are filtered out. You can see it here:

http://dpnow.com/forum2/cmps_index.php?page=newposts2

If this proves popular, then I'll add it to the forum navigation bar.

If anyone has any suggestions for changing it in any other way, do please let me know :)

Ian

[Ian]

Hmmm... am I wide of the mark on this?

Ian

[Graham_of_Rainham]

If visitors, or anyone else, are expressing concerns about this then your proposal is well justified.

Personally I'd sooner see "New Posts" being dedicated to the forum members postings and the "filtered" area being "News Links"

As things are at the moment I simply scroll through and select post that catch my interest regardless of them being members posts or news items.

For me, consistency with your other sites would be appreciated.

[Autumn]

I was going to mention this Ian, but you beat me to it, although I have said something about it before I believe.

My way of approaching DPNow (and I know it is not everyone's) is to click on the New Posts tab. Many a time it is full of info input by you, leading to very length reads, when all I want to see is what other members have to say or what photos they have uploaded.

Sometimes, when I have started a thread and not had any response, I look, only to find I can't find it because of the large numbers of news article notifications that have shifted my post (to be lost for ever:))

At this point I get disallusioned and perhaps others feel the same. I was going to suggest that you separated the news articles from the New Posts.

I think what you are suggesting is what I mean.

I now need to see if I can find it without following your link.*LOL

[Ian]

The reason why notification of our new articles are posted to the forum is because we often provide a forum-based comment facility that is seen on the article page.

We have steadily increased the number of articles we publish, and this does mean there are more article notifications on the forum. In the last month we have produced over a dozen features and around 50 news articles. Although the forum is a very important part of the site, its our articles which really drive the traffic, and the success, of the site. They should also attract new forum and gallery users.

All that said, I do of course want to make the forum as comfortable to use for all forum members. That's why I have produce the filtered new posts and threads page (if you haven't seen it, go to: http://dpnow.com/forum2/cmps_index.php?page=newposts2) (http://dpnow.com/forum2/cmps_index.php?page=newposts2)

If there is any fine-tuning I can do, please let me know and I'll do my best.

Unfortunately I can't see a way of filtering the New Posts listings.

Graham, the E-group and FTU sites we run don't produce nearly so many features and news articles, but FTU works in much the same way as DPNow, so there actually isn't any inconsistency.

Ian

[Stephen]

Personally I'm happy with the main Portal page, though I can see that often there are a lot of threads stickied at the top and other threads disappear of the page relatively quickly. So in that respect this filtered approach is to be commended, especially for those that want to see more of the members posts. For me though the New Posts link is not very satisfactory as things disappear off the page too quickly and therefore you are likely to miss things. The forum index page is better as at least you can see if there are new posts in any given forum by looking at the icon to left. The Portal page though is the most accessible means of keeping up with things on a daily basis.

[devilgas]

my usual entry point into the forum is via the realtime link, mainly because it showed more posts than the main forum page.

having now tried the new filtered page, i think this may be my new entry point, simply because the vast majority of news articles i have little to no interest in. as these articles affect the realtime system as well i also tend to miss 'current' threads.

in short - thumbs up for the new portal page.

one request though.....is it possible to tune the number of topics to display / timeframe?

[Autumn]

Sometimes I think I am passed all this new technology.:confused:

Although you have given us a link to the filtered New Posts

http://dpnow.com/forum2/cmps_index.php?page=newposts2

if I didn't have that and I were a new member, I wouldn't know where to find them.

There is no tab at the top of this page saying Filtered New Posts, so where is it and if I didn't know it existed, how would I know it was there?

These other headings are obvious.

[Ian]

Morning Audrey :)

Apologies for any confusion. I originally said that I'd include a link to this alternative page on the forum nav bar if the feedback was generally positive. I had very little feedback until really the last day or so. But it looks OK, so I'll add it to the nav bar shortly.

Ian

[Autumn]

Thanks Ian. I missed that bit, but yes it would be useful. Like Dave, I often go to the Realtime after New Posts.

While I am here, when clicking New Posts, if a lot of News items have been put on, how do you get to the previous page to see what has been pushed off, even on the same day of posting?

Perhaps you can't.:\

I didn't understand Dave's comments about tuning/timeframe, but I am guessing this is what he is talking about, now that I have written it down.*LOL


In that case the filtered new posts will be great.

[devilgas]

another thing that would be useful would be for an option (or just do it as part of the page regardless) to have the page auto-refresh every 15 mins or so. that was another reason i used the realtime page as it saved me remembering to hit F5

[Ian]

I have now added the option of 'Filtered New Posts' to the forum navigation bar.

If you feel it could be change further let me know and I will see what I can do - but no promises!

Ian

[Mowgli]

I liked to come into the forum using the "realtime" option, however I welcome the new tag "filtered new posts". This brings me to the interesting part of this site where we see new pics and loads of comments. Brilliant innovation Ian and I will be clicking on it very often :)
Mowgli

[coupekid]

excellent!

thanks for doing this Ian.

I think in the main this has proved popular. :)