Locked thread indication by LeifKB. Forum: General.
administrator 84 posts 2007-10-14 02:31:23 |
I just added a feature for locking threads. Darcey wants them to show up with a special icon on the thread page, to give people a greater awareness about the state of things at a glance. I don't think that's a good idea, since it would draw greater attention to threads that get locked, which are for the most part harmful in some way. I want to put an icon at the top of the thread's own page (thread.php), but not on lists of threads. She's unconvinced. Thoughts? |
administrator 195 posts 2007-10-14 03:44:21 |
At that point, I'd say put an icon on every thread, with a different icon for locked ones. That way, the locked ones are obvious, but you don't have to actually click on it realize that. |
user 31 posts 2007-10-14 07:00:10 |
Well, if you were worried about locked threads giving attention to harmful conversation, why wouldn't you delete them? Though, I do see your point, and I like the lock at the top of the thread page idea. You aren't going to respond before going to a thread anyway, so you don't really need to know it's locked before you're already there. |
user 347 posts 2007-10-14 07:42:32 |
put the locked threads at the END of the list. you already have stickeys @ the top. unless the locked thread is also a stickey, drop it. |
user 347 posts 2007-10-14 07:51:20 |
alternately, just have locked threads act like normal threads, but strike them out. |
user 122 posts 2007-10-14 14:42:36 |
I think eitje has the best idea at the end, strikethrough will not draw a terrible amount of attention whilst also showing that the thread is no longer of consequence. |
user 347 posts 2007-10-14 17:52:39 |
excluding, of course, locked stickeys (which should look normal, i would think). |
administrator 467 posts 2007-10-14 17:57:51 |
I'm all for another column there on the list of topics, with an icon indicating sticky, locked, normal, or redirected to another forum (Leif still needs to make that last feature). Although I dunno what would happen if a comic possessed multiple of those attributes... |
user 347 posts 2007-10-14 18:45:12 |
... thermonuclear war. :o |
user 31 posts 2007-10-15 00:03:51 |
More icons! |
user 19 posts 2007-10-15 00:32:24 |
Bigger avatars! |
administrator 879 posts 2007-10-22 01:14:05 |
I don't think that's a good idea, since it would draw greater attention to threads that get locked, which are for the most part harmful in some way. I want to put an icon at the top of the thread's own page (thread.php), but not on lists of threads. She's unconvinced. If I may be so bold... While flamewars (the #1 victim of lockage) are unpleasant, choosing to read them without being able to reply isn't that harmful - assuming you make it clear you don't want them to continue in a new thread. And if any content is genuinely harmful to read (harrassment, home addresses along with calls for violence, shock images...), I would actually support censorship rather than just lockage. On the other hand, not showing the Locked status in the thread list will disappoint people who were looking for an ongoing discussion to participate in, who have to click an extra link before finding out. I've spent enough time on lousy connections to know the frustration of that. ;) --- Here is an alternative suggestion to get around the "drawing attention" bit: Most boards that implement a "locked" indicator also have other topic icons. Some of them just have Green, Red and Grey for ongoing, very active, and inactive (or read/unread, but that is a huge amount of cookie-mongery). Others allow the thread starter to pick from smiley faces, exclamation/question marks, etc. A Locked icon, among these, would not stick out too strongly. So we'd have the information on the page without drawing attention to it. (I know that this is a low-graphics design, so this might not be ideal. But you could replace the icons with letters...) |
user 241 posts 2007-11-11 01:56:32 |
Is it possible to sticky posts within a thread, as in force one post to the very top? That way you could create a generic locked thread post and make it the first post visible, since every thread opens at the top of the first page. People wouldn't read any farther unless they were unobservant, in which case they'd probably miss any other type of symbol. In the case that you may not want a generic locked thread post, you can specify the reason as to why the thread was closed, letting people know that such behavior, language, mathematical logic, whatever is not appropriate. |
administrator 879 posts 2007-11-11 10:25:30 |
Well, firstly: Sticky posts inside a topic go against all forum nature. If the posts in the topic are not in chronological order, things get very confusing (this is also the reason I hate nested/threaded views). Secondly: It's not about having to read to the bottom (and most people begin to read a topic at the bottom anyway, since the most recent replies are the ones they will respond to), it's about clicking the link at all. Even on broadband, the number of pages loaded is a user interface killer, far more than any amount of graphics. It takes at least 2 seconds for the browser to react to your click, send a request, get back data, and render the page; more if your computer is slow. It is also disruptive to visual navigation. |
user 6 posts 2007-11-12 19:50:27 |
I'd support the strikethrough idea. It's a clean, no-graphic way to convey the thread status, and lets people make a decision about reading the thread before they click it. I also tend to agree with common moderation practice that discussing locked topics is not allowed, so provided people understand that, I see no reason not to make locked topics obvious. I've run forums for going on 7 years now, and I've only had 2 users that insisted on resurrecting locked topics. My ban button was happy for the exercise. |