Post Date

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#1
Frankly  
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Every forum post displays the date and time of the post. Sometimes it useful to know how long ago the post was made. Also dispayed with every post is the date the poster joined the forum. The join date can be useful too, as well as other info about the poster, which is found by clicking on the poster's name.

Quite frequently I am fooled into thinking that the join date is the post date. While the post date is useful, how useful is it to display the joined date on every post? I find it to be confusing and would suggest it be removed.
 

#2
chris  
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I'm not sure how important it is to this community, but on other forums (e.g. the automotive forum I run) it's somewhat important to understand how long someone has "been around" as part of the mental assessment one does when reading advice from the poster.

For example, on the automotive forum I occasionally get a newbie who goes "post happy" upon joining and literally will dial in 50-100 posts in a couple of days, slinging advice left and right. The advice is usually questionable at best.

Without the join date someone else who is new could think the person has been around for awhile and is giving good advice.

So the next question is "how important is the post count?". This is why I personally believe the combination of post count and join date does give some sense of legitimacy. We could click through to the profile of the member to see this info, I suppose. Or I could make it so that hover-over the member name reveals that info.

For now I'm not sure if simply removing the join date is the exact right answer but I understand what you are saying.
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 

#3
Frankly  
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I have the beginnings of dementia and any extraneous information on the screen interferes with my concentration.

Regarding post count - that can possibly be an indicator of the value of a person's comments. It does have a down side in that there are those individuals that crave a high post count, as if it is some kind of prestigious award. In some forums the post count, or rankings or such leads to users to go "post happy" as you said for no other purpose than to get points, ala
"Here's my (useful) comment..."
"Thanks for helping"
"You're welcome"
"This is a great forum to get help"
"Yeah, sure is. HEY I just got platinum level, 10,000 posts!"
"That reminds me of a little story"
"blah, blah, blah..."
 

#4
chris  
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Sorry to hear that, Frank.

The theme (style) for this board was derived from the basic style that ships with phpBB - I started with that and stripped out almost everything not absolutely needed, to make it as 'lightweight' as possible. For example, no user rankings and no user avatars. I will continue to refine it to make the site as easy to use as possible, for everyone.

Regarding the post count, you are correct - but I suspect we won't have that phenomenon here. So far what I've seen is that the posts are on point and relate to the topic.
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 

#5
RuthC  
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For my purposes, I really don't need the number of posts someone has, but it may be helpful to others. I don't see any problem with having it if it helps others. This only makes more work for Chris even if it is only a few minutes. We should be grateful for all the work he hs done on this site!
 

#6
chris  
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Thanks Ruth - and I know that Frank and the other folks here appreciate the new site, so absolutely no worries there. In fact the help I've gotten from Frank and others, and the enthusiastic use of the new forum has really encouraged me.

I think the bottom line is that no matter what the layout is there will always be suggestions, which is fine with me. Some I will be able to accommodate but others might be too narrow or technically not worth the ROI...
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 

#7
Frankly  
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I agree the site really looks great and you've done a good job with it Chris. You've left off a ton of trite cutesy little "features" that essentially have little value outside of an initial cleverness for which my atrophied brain thanks you.

By the way, I would have put a little smilely thingy after my dementia comment but refrained from doing so knowing that the majority of users hate those little things. Reminds me of the button I had in the old days - "STOMP ON A HAPPY FACE" :twisted: . And you're right about complaints, er "suggestions"; everybody's got one.
 

#8
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Part of the problem is that the post date is placed in the header bar, which the eye tends to skip over. Unlike my other recent post, where I take issue with the idea of "N months/days/hours ago" for post dates, I have no problem with "member for N months." The difference is that for membership, I might be interested in how long a person has been a member to the nearest month, while for a post, I'm not interested in how long the post has been there but rather when was it made in relation to other events that are also cataloged by date and time.
 

#9
Frankly  
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Chris wrote:Regarding the post count, you are correct - but I suspect we won't have that phenomenon here. So far what I've seen is that the posts are on point and relate to the topic.

We have in this forum a different breed of user that is more attuned to content v. fluff. Which by the same token could be an argument for post count having little value. Bad info is quickly refuted by others, and I suspect that any post happy user would be quickly ignored, and due to not getting postive feedback, Mr. Posthappy would fade into oblivion.
 


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