Forum Suggestion

[winds]

So I was thinking, a lot of the forum gets cluttered with members creating topics that already have a similar thread. Mods and members constantly have to remind people to use the search function. I have a feeling sometimes it is intentional that they create a new topic instead of searching for an old one and to me, its understandable. On the main site it shows the newly created topics only, and a lot of people just use that instead of checking the forum for updated threads, so a lot of the content gets overlooked.
Why not updating the main page to show new topics as WELL as recent updated topics?
That way instead of people creating duplicate topics just to get theirs noticed, they can update the old threads and not have them overlooked.
Has this been suggested before?

[jfe2]

So I was thinking, a lot of the forum gets cluttered with members creating topics that already have a similar thread. Mods and members constantly have to remind people to use the search function. I have a feeling sometimes it is intentional that they create a new topic instead of searching for an old one and to me, its understandable. On the main site it shows the newly created topics only, and a lot of people just use that instead of checking the forum for updated threads, so a lot of the content gets overlooked.
Why not updating the main page to show new topics as WELL as recent updated topics?
That way instead of people creating duplicate topics just to get theirs noticed, they can update the old threads and not have them overlooked.
Has this been suggested before?

When I log in I usually check out the "View New Topics" link at the top right of the page, then I'll check out "View Your Posts" after that. That seems to have most of the updated topics in it, but I could be wrong. You are talking about updating the front page of the main site though, right?

[Hobie-wan]

If you go to http://www.racketboy.com/ and click 'forums' at the top, you see the normal forum list. It clearly shows sections with updated posts so you can go read and mark things done for ones you're not interested. I get the feeling lots of people don't do this as even within a running thread, one person will answer a question, then 5 posts (hours later) later someone answers the same question with an identical answer. Though that could be people posting without reading first.

[winds]

Ohhh, I actually had no idea about these functions haha. I just checked them out and theyre definitely cool. But I still don't think those address the duplicate topics situation. If there was a recently updated topics list on the main page, more people would see it and people would be less likely to create a new topic of something thats been discussed before, only to get more people to see it and get a quicker response.

[Hobie-wan]

Glad I helped you find something new to help make things easier.

As for duplicated topics, you can't fit everything in the recently updated topics section. Most of the time when someone makes a duplicate, its because the ond one hadn't had a new post in a few days or more. Updating a short list isn't really going to help with that. I think the reason new people tend to make more repeats is because they just weren't on the board the last time everyone talked about it a month ago or whatnot, so they don't have the opportunity to remember such.