Sorting forums

I agree that would be a nice feature.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Most recently replied to is the most common practise in forums.

-- Lis - Michigan - http://www.missmooseart.com - https://www.etsy.com/people/lisbokt

Most recently replied to is the most common practise in forums.

It does seem to be (which doesn’t make it right, of course – programmers seem to programme what they want rather than what people want) – but I see Tooties’ point – as it stands the main forums page really only shows you “what’s hot”. If you only go on once a day, or even less often, you may well miss topics of interest because they get pushed down by some of those “famous” threads.
A “solution” (workaround really), would be to subscribe to the RSS feed for forum topics. Then, in your newsreader (may also be your email client), you’ll be presented with a list of “new topics”, in order of posting if you want, and you need never miss a new posting. This is the approach I take.

-- "Do not speak – unless it improves on silence."

I’m well aware that most recently replied to is most common practice in forums. I’m not knocking that ir suggesting that it should not be used, even as the default way of sorting the forum. All I suggest is that an alternative be available.

Let me demonstrate with an example. As I write this, my post is described as having been posted 1 day ago – the last time I visited LJs. There are currently 70 topics that have been replied to 24 hours ago or less. Of those, I have counted 29 that have been posted 24 hours ago or less. That means that only a little over 1 in 3 are possibly of immediate interest to me.

KnickKnack, I’m sure that I could use RSS feed to ensure that I don’t miss forum topics (and thanks for the suggestion) but I choose not to use that because, just like e-mail notifying you every time a new message arrives, it is an unnecessary distraction and time waster. I choose when to check LJs and my e-mail, I don’t let others decide that for me. Also, I don’t feel that I miss new topics, just that it takes more effort than needed to find them

-- I may have lost my marbles, but I still have my love of woodworking