Too many news topics

[kimsland]

I don't know about the rest of the members here. Including those wanting support and those trying to help
But, approx 50 TechSpot News & Comments new Topics, in the last day (I'm not even going to mention previous days)
And then with multiples and multiples of members replying to these topics (mostly due to the "giveaway" competitions that are about (often), it seems now)

Is increasingly pushing down the members who actually need help
And (for me) making it more and more difficult to actually see these requests for help posts in the Currently Active Topics area.

Maybe I'm not alone But is this just getting beyond the joke now?
I mean really, I could post a quadzillion news posts too, but is this the new way of TechSpot? Are we just going to have to feed through the news to actually get to help posts and topics?

Maybe other members don't mind as much (especially members in the competitions)
But for all us others who come to TechSpot for support, it does seem a tad annoying (ok a lot)

Neowin had a similar issue, with many complaints as well (similar to my post here)
I remember because I posted and agreed with them

Maybe there could be an option to filter them out of new topics on the forum, I definitely would vote for that. How about you?

 

[Kcircyrd]

We agree whole-heartedly!
Those who want the news (which is always biased, as anything is) can easily find it, or subscribe to it any time they want.
TechSpot cannot be everything. But we can filter what we do so as to provide what people need.
We should use the requests of our visitors and "members" to decide what is used, wanted, and needed.
We have not analyzed how many visitors to news reports, but they do not appear to be of high interest, based on the numbers we looked at today.

 

[Rick]

Kimsland, Raybay...

For now, these are just contest-driven posts and they will promptly disappear after the holidays. As you both know, the news forum is not even a 10th as active when these contests aren't in progress, so don't worry too much.. things should go back to "normal" in the next month or so.

You bring up a good suggestion though, for the possible inclusion of a new VB mod. Just a quick search yielded this, which may provide a feature that meet the needs of those in your predicament. It'll be up to the head hanchos here to include anything like that, though.

 

[SNGX1275]

Well, this isn't a problem for me, as I don't ever use the Currently Active Topics area. I just go through each forum individually and if a thread is lit up then that means there is something new from the last time I was here. To me that seems like a much more directed and precise way to go through the forums because there are some areas of the board I rarely visit, and thus don't need to see new stuff written there.

 

[Bobbye]

I don't use that area either- go through the forums. Rarely get out of V&M anyway!

But we all know that there is a multitude of wasted space here> threads need to be closed!

 

[red1776]

I think you all are leaving out one thing,....Julio has a business to run here. attracting new membership is of vital importance for advertising , sustaining and growing this endeavor.
Just my two cents....and twenty five years in sales and marketing.

 

[Julio Franco]

Kim, you bring a valid point as far as usability goes, however I completely oppose some of your comments regarding the outcome of the contest and how the forum should keep in line with its priorities. Tech support content is just as important as conversational/commentary material (always tech related) and that's just what we're trying to encourage with the giveaway. Bring more participation and new regular members to the community given the site's large readership and exposure.

Rick's recommendation of the vb modification is just the kind of solution that could make everyone happy though. Give me until the weekend to test this and hopefully have it installed.

 

[B00kWyrm]

I seldom use "currently active posts" - To me, appearing here means one of two things...
Either a thread has just been started, or someone has just replied to a thread.

If I am looking to help (which is why I come here, mostly), then I go to the Quicklinks,
and look at the unanswered posts, scrolling to find those areas where I might be most useful.

It occurs to me that this might not always get help to the person who needs it most...
I like the approach posed by SNGX1275.
Bobbye's point about closing (locking?) some threads could also help,
One Specific Example: it would prevent newbies from posting their intros in a tutorial thread.