Not so much a complaint, as a call for consideration...

I was a bit surprised that the following thread:

Russia/Georgia Situation News & Updates

took the form of a 161+ page streaming thread.


I don't know about others, but I often hesitate to contribute to a thread once it gets to a certain length because of the impossibility of reviewing the whole thing. I always felt it was a 'community-friendly' practice not to simply 'jump in' without knowing if some subject had already been beaten to death, or squelched.

How does one contribute to a 161 page thread? I can't say that I have a better idea for dealing with such things, it's not in my nature to tell you how to manage you're own threads and forums - you have a lot more experience at this than I do, certainly.

Could we possibly create a mechanism whereby certain commenter's contributions can be segregated for a reader to glean some continuity out of it? Or perhaps this has been tried. Perhaps a way to pair up comments and responses for ease of consumption? (I hate that word).

Anyway, not meant to be any kind of complaint, just curious on how to deal with wanting to participate in a thread that carries so much content it would take the better part of a day to follow it.

Thanks for listening!

[edit on 12-8-2008 by Maxmars]

I know what you mean, you get there too late, and there is nothing you can add, it is unlikley anyone will take your point into consideration, and they often go around in circles not realising it.

reply to post by Maxmars

Could we possibly create a mechanism whereby certain commenter's contributions can be segregated for a reader to glean some continuity out of it? Or perhaps this has been tried. Perhaps a way to pair up comments and responses for ease of consumption? (I hate that word).

Under the user's post is a button called thread If you click that button it will give you only the posts from that member in that thread.

I hope that helps. I agree with you. Big threads are hard to jump into because someone may have said the exact same thing that you did on page 15, but you have no idea because the discussion is huge.

But if you want to segregate just one posters thoughts and start responding to them the thread button below their post is the way to go.

I hope that helps


[edit on 8/12/2008 by whatukno]

Hello Maxmars, if I understand you correctly there is already such a mechanism available for displaying in thread all posts from a particular member. If you click the 'thread' button underneath any member contribution it displays all posts made by that member in that thread.

Alternately clicking the 'post' button takes you to the post section of their profile which, as well as displaying all posts made within the last 180 days of activity does, on the far right 'In-Thread' column, offers the option of viewing all posts made any particular thread they have participated in.

For example posts from the author of: Russia/Georgia Situation News & Updates

As for the pairing up of pair up comments and responses use of the quote feature or, even better pointing to the exact post in question, use of the 'Reply To' button when responding does help to cast some light on to the flow of conversation.

As for understanding all points which have been covered in the discussion I think, apart from use of the search feature to highlight a particular idea or avenue of thought the only way to discern that would be a long read.

Jak


Edit: Yup. As Whatukno said. He, he.

[edit on 12/8/08 by JAK]

Thank you so much! I knew you guys could help me out!

I usually dislike posting in a thread that's over 2 pages.

Too late to the party.