Super Sticky?

Dominion

... In the typhoon? O.O

Seriously, it's really been raining here the past few days. A lot.

Fastidious

Toby For a forum with an "all discussions" view like Flarum/esoTalk, the conventional sticky behaviour (pin to top no matter what) becomes problematic when you have more than a few sticky topics...

That is not Esotalk/Flarum fault, it is that specific forum management, or lack thereof. Now, the approach you have taken is a compromise, with the exception that you end up having an odd looking post "float" up and down (because pinned topics have those two lines preview). If those two lines preview were to be eliminated, it would look better.

Again, as I commented on another thread, pinned topics are a management concern, not something for the developer of the forum to worry about. What I am trying to say is, it is hard to stop silliness from happening. :-)

→ ADDENDUM (copied over from separate discussion):

I understand the problem you describe (which, by the way, it is not a problem to be solved by programming, but by the managers of the forums), but that is not what I am recommending.

What I am recommending is to have pinned topics behave the same as a regular topic (not pinned at top, no first few lines preview), when seeing under "All Discussions."

I am also a strong proponent that a pinned topic is what its name means, pinned. Having it behave as pinned only when they have new messages defeats the entire purpose of pinning it. Again, management of the forum should dictate the amount of pinned topics per category/label, and should not be solved by software.

Toby

Management should be able to have a single sticky topic for each of their tags (and some forums will have dozens of tags) without worrying about them cluttering up the front page for everyone.

I think it might be worth implementing super sticky by default – there's clearly a common use-case for it. So when a mod stickies a discussion, they get a choice of whether to sticky it globally, or only in its respective tags.

Ghost_chu

I want make rules for every category/tags ,But I found sticky some disscusstion will make this be sticky on ALL DISCUSSION list.
That make my forum be untidy.
So I thinks this is 100% correct for Toby

Berlyn

I think we should avoid having sticky and super sticky, it's just confusing terminology. What about sticky can remain how it is but the super sticky implementation can be called "pinned". I mean, put it in the context of an actual notice board. Pinned is hard stuck to the board, where as sticky is a loose term and means it can be adjusted accordingly, which is in line with the current sticky implementation.

wizgriz

I don't see the need to pin threads globally at all. It usually aren't members that read stickies, it's guests and new members (to whom they are pinned). Otherwise, they're used for reference, and that's why you can navigate tags where they do stay pinned. Even on regular forums stickies can get annoying for regular members where it just gets in the way because you already know what it is. I'd leave this up to 3rd party extensions who might want to just modify how stickying itself works. Having two sticky functionalities seems confusing.

Dominion

The suggestion by @Kulga to add a "Private Discussions" link to the sidebar menu made me wonder if something similar couldn't be done to help people find stickied discussions once they've become unsticky.

There could be a link bearing the pushpin icon and reading "Stickied" (or "Important" perhaps?) under the "Following" link in the sidebar. Clicking it would show all sticky threads for all tags, and nothing else. This would provide an alternate route for people who want to refer to a specific sticky post, but can't remember what tag it was under.

This isn't a perfect solution to the out of sight, out of mind issue, but it could go a long way toward helping keeping people aware of those sticky threads. An alternative to the super-sticky, perhaps?

Franz

Is a sticky search gambit enough?

Dominion

It did occur to me that there is probably such a gambit. But the gambit isn't there until you type it in. What I'm looking for is a subtle way to keep those stickies in peoples' faces. Remind them that they exist, as it were.

Toby

Dominion I feel like a simpler solution is to create a tag for all those important discussions (like the Blog tag on this forum).

Dominion

I could see how that could work. If you wanted to create a sticky "How to report bugs" discussion for the Dev tag, you'd apply both the Stickies tag and the Dev tag to it...

On the downside, this mean's you'd be setting two attributes (the sticky attribute and the "Stickies" tag) for each sticky thread ... and if you made a thread sticky but forgot to add the tag, it wouldn't show up in that list. The link I proposed would simply use the sticky attribute, so two birds with one stone (= less work for moderators, in the long run).

Also, it makes a nice pair with the "Followed" link (which also has a corresponding gambit, I guess). That link opens a list of stuff the user thinks is important; the "Stickied/Important" link opens a list of stuff the moderators think is important.

Toby

I put a bit more thought into this. I think the issue I take with a Stickied filter in the discussion list sidebar is that it seems to be a bit of a stopgap.

The reason you want a sticky filter is to keep people aware of those sticky threads. I'm going to make the assumption that those most of those threads are about things like rules, guidelines, and reference posts.

Often this information is most relevant when a user is starting a discussion. So the best time for people to see a guideline like "search and read the FAQ before you post a question" is just as they're starting a new discussion. They'll be much more likely to respond if the information comes just at the right time.

Maybe the concept of "sticky" – trying to keep this information in sight amongst the noise of all the other discussions – isn't the best solution. Maybe we need some kind of feature that gently reminds the user about relevant information after they've picked a tag for their new discussion.

Dominion

Toby You're right, it does feel a bit like a stopgap ... but I thought it worth mentioning as it seemed like a new way to approach the super-sticky issue. I do agree that

Toby trying to keep this information in sight amongst the noise of all the other discussions

is not the best way to go, because depending on what the user's doing, the stickies can end up adding to the noise. So as you say, maybe the solution lies even further outside the box.

meetdilip

Toby Maybe we need some kind of feature that gently reminds the user about relevant information after they've picked a tag for their new discussion.

How about a notice which popup when a particular tag is selected. The notice can have thread/threads in it as well. Call it " Tag notification ".

Kulga

There's really no way around it. Static Information that is consistently there will be ignored.
If I read a "Please read the faq", the next time I see it, I can trust that it says nothing new and do exactly what I was planning - even if it blatantly disregards what the message is saying

Rather then just say you need to follow the rules, it needs to have dynamic suggestions. A common one is don't post similar content - then display similar content. If the search engine is good (actually showing relevant content) that might stop me.

People respond much better to choice then saying "do this".
Another example: people not setting tags correctly:
-> Offer to set tags based on content written.

Also, static stuff displayed once or twice (like new posters) is ok. But the content should be very simple and relevant.

Toby For guests and brand new members, and for existing members when new sticky topics get posted, stickies will stick to the top because they'll be unread. i.e. everyone will get the proper exposure to a sticky topic at least once.

I like this idea. Just sticky it and forget. Don't need to remember to unsticky it, it won't clutter the place and if tagged with "sticky" or something - will still be easily accessible at some later point.

flame

Toby Perhaps it would be better left to a third-party plugin.

meetdilip

I want to share a case I posted on another thread

Will that be good if you are going to offer something like " template " for a things iike " Requests " ? They may need to use it more than once. ie, whenever they make a " Request ".

Davis

meetdilip

Toby Also stickies will stick to the top regardless of whether they are read or not when viewing an individual category.

hungyip

I can see the problem of a long list of sticky posts under "All discussions" page. These sticky posts might only be important when users look at a specific tag. I think it's better for these pinned post not to be pinned under "All discussions" page.

I understand that currently "sticky post" would no longer be sticky once it is read under "All discussions", but for non members/visitors, or for users that don't care about the sticky post, these "Unread stickies" would always appear on top of the "All discussions", which doesn't look good.

Dominion

hungyip I understand that currently "sticky post" would no longer be sticky once it is read under "All discussions", but for non members/visitors, or for users that don't care about the sticky post, these "Unread stickies" would always appear on top of the "All discussions", which doesn't look good.

I'm also beginning to feel there's a problem with the current approach.

... Well, I'm not too concerned about users who don't care about the sticky discussions. I tend to think discussions are sticky because the mod team thinks they're important and want users to read them. So any users who ignore them really only have themselves to blame. ?

But as for non-members and visitors ... yes, a long list of sticky discussions on the front page could be a problem. The more stickies there are, the more irrelevant the All Discussions page becomes to such users.

@Toby I don't suppose it would be possible to make the stickies cookie independent of membership?

(I guess that would mean making read/unread status completely independent of membership?)

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