Author Topic: Thread listing count  (Read 6574 times)

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Thread listing count
Who changed the number of entries listed on each page?  Is there a way of enabling more threads per page, right now theres way too few.. heck the Saga work page is nearly full of just stickies.
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Offline Starman01

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What happened to the page length of the forums ?
Hey,

what happened here ? Suddenly the pages are so short. Having around 10 Stickies in our subforum, and now I can only see the last 5 threads on the first side, that's not really good :(

Have you guys done that on purpose (if so, not really practical IMO) or is it some sort of error ?

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Offline Fury

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Re: Thread listing count
Topics merged.

Number of topics and posts displayed per page have been reduced because earlier values were ridiculously high for global default values and because SMF does not support per-user or per-board values. Meaning these values are used by everyone, including guests. As you know, number of concurrent visitors browsing these forums have been on increase especially since the BtRL release, but first signs are from late last year, probably from the time of the first WCS release.

It just slows down sql queries unnecessarily for having every page refresh to display 50 topics and 25 posts per page. The more people are browsing the forums, the more difference these lower values make. For this reason the values were returned to their SMF default values. Just so you know, values that are generally used in discussion boards for topics and posts per page are typically 15-30.

Now, this does not mean that SMF default values are here to stay. While earlier values were a bit on the high side, we may increase current values to find the sweet spot majority of people will be happy with, but without going overboard like 50 topics per page.


I guessed that the WCS staff will be the first to complain, seeing as they truly have ridiculous amount of sticky topics. :p
The solution? Create one sticky topic to include links to the important topics and unsticky the rest. You'll find it will make your first page look much cleaner and easier to pick out the updated topics.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2007, 05:53:46 am by Fury »

 

Offline vyper

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Re: Thread listing count
:rolleyes:
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Offline Fury

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Re: Thread listing count
Yes, naturally rolleyes is very helpful in determining optimal number of topics per page. Jeez, why didn't I think of that!?

 

Offline CP5670

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Re: Thread listing count
The new topics per page setting is fine with me, but the posts per page should definitely remain 25. 15 is far too low. It's quite annoying to have to flip through a lot more pages now when trying to find a particular post in a thread.

If the guests are causing a problem here, is it possible to make the setting user definable? Registered users can then set it to whatever they want while it stays at the default values for guests.

 

Offline Fury

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Re: Thread listing count
If the guests are causing a problem here, is it possible to make the setting user definable? Registered users can then set it to whatever they want while it stays at the default values for guests.
Like I said above, unfortunately SMF does not support per-user or per-board values, there are only global values. More the reason to find a good compromise between low and high values that the majority of users would be relatively happy with.

 

Offline Starman01

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Re: Thread listing count
Point taken, I cleaned up the forum a bit  :)

But I still think it's a little to less, at least 5 threads more per page wouldn't hurt. Sometimes when I check our forums at the evening, there are 10 and more threads with new posts, and that way I will have to go to the second side, not so good IMO  :nervous:
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Offline gevatter Lars

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Re: Thread listing count
If the current number is 20 then I would say give it about 25 to 30. That should be enough.
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Offline CP5670

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Re: Thread listing count
If the guests are causing a problem here, is it possible to make the setting user definable? Registered users can then set it to whatever they want while it stays at the default values for guests.
Like I said above, unfortunately SMF does not support per-user or per-board values, there are only global values. More the reason to find a good compromise between low and high values that the majority of users would be relatively happy with.

Well, I think we already had the sweet spot at 25. I'm actually used to 50 or 100 on the other forums I go to. It should definitely stay above 20 though. IMO it seriously interferes with usability at the current setting of 15.

 

Offline Fineus

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Does it really?

Come on guys, I'm guessing you all know how to bookmark important topics and I'm guessing a lot of you do. Do you really need it as high as 25? How far back do you guys search this way?

 

Offline CP5670

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I actually tend to do that a fair bit, especially if I haven't come here for a while and want to catch up on a discussion that has been in progress for some time. 25 isn't all that high in any case. Most other forums I have seen are between 20 and 30 by default.

I understand that you want to conserve server bandwidth here, but I think 15 is going a bit too far with it. It needs to be at least 20.

 

Offline Sandwich

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For the thread listing, I don't care, but I actually do agree with the others that 25 posts-per-page should be retained if reasonably possible.
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Offline redsniper

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I vote 25 threads per page.
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Offline RazorsKiss

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Does it really?

Yes.  I've administered dozens of forums, and anything below twenty seriously hampers usability, especially in an older-style format with solely numerical links to the next page, such as this one.  Anything below 30 causes annoyance - but manageable annoyance.

Why did you pick SMF, out of curiosity?  PHPBB2 has a LOT more features.

But, to each their own :D  25 is fine for me, as well.


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Offline gevatter Lars

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@Kalfireth
Quite often when I look into our project part we have a lot of new posts in different topics so that its nice to see them all. Also sometimes I search for an older topic that has been laying around for a week or so and because of this is near the end. Its just nice to have it all on one page.
So 25 would be ok I think.
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Offline Fury

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Why did you pick SMF, out of curiosity?  PHPBB2 has a LOT more features.
1. HLP switched to SMF 1.x from vB 2.x over two years ago.
2. At the time phpBB3 was competing with Duke Nukem Forever which would beat it to a final release first. Jury's still out on that.
3. phpBB is like windows of BB's. Poor coding and too commonly used for its own good. I wouldn't trust phpBB to run any forums, least HLP's.
4. SMF was the best of free BB's at the time of switch and to be honest, it still is.


Topics per page is now 25 and posts per page is 20.

 

Offline Starman01

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Current setting with 25 threads is fine now   :yes:  ***end of WCS complain mode***  ;)
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