Board Clutter!: Can We Reduce the Stickies, Announcements, & Banners?

[Recurve]

I like this message-board community a lot, but I'm a little frustrated that the clutter of so many semi-permanent announcement-threads, sticky-threads, banners and boilerplate text have been allowed to fill a whole browser page and have now spilled onto a second page.

I run Opera, maximized, on 1280x1024 resolution, and generally have plenty of screen-real estate to actually see non-sticky content posts after the initial page-load at every other message board I visit.

But here, as you can see in my screenshot below, even after I've started to scroll my browser window down, it's still filled with all these semi-redundant perma-stickies which I dutifully read once and now have to scroll past every time.

Why do I say semi-redundant? Because we have 5 (count 'em!) links to rules related posts. Two of these mention flaming specifically, but it's also covered in "The Revised and Expanded Rules of Posting" -- so make that three. Are all these really necessary?

I think, as a moderator, at the point you are making a sticky thread titled "Cut the Flaming" about 2 inches below a permanent announcement thread titled "Flaming is NOT tolerated" it's time to admit that perhaps people are no longer reading the previous announcement and hence it may be time to retire it.

If your response to my plea is "it only takes half a second to scroll past all these stickies", then my reply is: Why should I (and all of us who have dutifully read the rules) have to continue scrolling past them every time we load the board? I visit the board a couple times per day, so it's probably only a few needlessly wasted seconds per week in my life, but how many hits does this board get a month? 100,000? More? Aggregated across the community, it seems needlessly wasteful. :)

http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/1935/oot2qj4.jpg

[open_source.exe]

Wouldnt this be better under Board/Site Issues?

[Rincewind]

No we can't.

[Spiryt]

I know nothing about moderating, but i know it should be in Board/Site Issues. Topic is interesting, but myself, I never felt discomfort beacuse of this few sticky announcements :smallamused:

[factotum]

The post you highlight there (Baron's announcement to "Cut the flaming") obviously had to be made because people were ignoring the Announcement and flaming each other anyway. As for the extra effort involved in scrolling, just look on it as part of your daily exercise regime...

[LordCaelvan]

Personally, I agree fully with you. I've got a new laptop with one of those finger-mouse-scrolling-pads, with which I am not yet particularly skilled. It's a pain in the kiester to have to go past those so often, especailly since about 20% of the time I mess up, fall to the bottom of the page, and have to go back up to start over again. My fault entirly, I know, but isn't the idea to please the members? Maybe that's arguable, but either way it's definetly a part of it. And what you said about the redundancy of the posts is entirly accurate as well.

I'm not particularly upset, displeased, or otherwise, but it would really be nice if this request was given thought.

[SalSar_Thiran]

I hate to break it to you, but your moniter is not running 1280X1024 or what are the dimensions of your moniter?

This is the site at that resolution in Opera:

http://www.rit.edu/~kms9663/server.bmp

And in all honesty that is not cluttered, and my moniter is on the small end.

[Recurve]

I hate to break it to you, but your moniter is not running 1280X1024 ...

Why do people use the phrase, "I hate to... (break it to you), (say this), (mention it)"? It seems like it's rarely what they mean.

Nevertheless, I don't hate to break it to you that I am running in 1280x1024! :)

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3838/oots3to8.jpg

[Tolkien_Freak]

Allow me to say:

a. I agree fully.
b. SalSar_Thiran, you are scrolled down slightly, Recurve is not.

[TheMysteriousX]

It'd take a bit of modification to the underlying code (but then, the whole board has been modificed a bit from default, so one of the adminz must have spent skill points in Profession: Hax0r), but the stickies/announcements could have a little bit of Javascript added to their fomatting that squashes them up when they have been read, to a single line each or similar. As for the forum controls (breadcrumbs, control links etc) They could be thrown to the end of the page (not often used (less often than viewing threads)), integrated into the left hand bar, or floated to the right in a narrow, vertical column (slightly undesirable, as the left sidebar is very wide, and so would leave very little space for the main section).

The news bar, can't really do a lot about that, it contains very relevant and current information, but a "click here ho hide this story" could be added. Also, it seems to have some very wide top and bottom padding, reduce those to less than an em (rather than an em and a bit either side).

[Rogue9dlb]

The amount of stickies and what not do not compare to other boards I've been to. This board is relatively clean.

[TheMysteriousX]

The amount of stickies and what not do not compare to other boards I've been to. This board is relatively clean.

Compared to some, it is, but being better than worst does not make it good.

[cha0s4a11]

Recurve, you are absolutely right!

We should sticky this page for the admins future reference. :smallcool:

[Kyjibo]

i belive the issue with your comparison screenshots is just the percentage at which your browser is "magnifying" the content of the window. if you hold down ctrl and move the scroll wheel all of the content will scale with your mouse roll. this may help you with how little appears to be on the screen at once

but i fully agree with you, the board does seem a little cluttered, not anything heart stopping but a little irritating, kinda like a mosquito bite.
I think the two best things would be to
1. consolidate the rules stickies and
2. make it so that if the announcement has not changed since your last visit it will be hidden, or at least have a button that will make it go away until it changes

all in all, there are more important issues to be dealt with at this time and though I think some changes could be made for the better, until the site stability issues are dealt with it should be on the back burner

[Woof]

The stickies don't bother me half as much as utterly pointless threads (poll #3981: "What makes you want to soak your brain in acid?") or unnecessary threads by people who obviously never bothered to use the search button (thread #2978171 titled "I know V's gender!! Proof here!!!"). The board would be a lot less "cluttered" if folks actually read the forum rules, so I'm glad the stickies are there.

[malgre]

*sigh* This is a really lame complaint. Please quit cluttering up the boards yourself and learn how to scale the browser display in Opera.

[TheMysteriousX]

It's not a lame complaint at all; personally, I'm quite short sighted, so can't have the font size smaller than about 10, or it becomes extremely hard to read, and having to scroll the better part of a screen to get at the new threads is slightly irritating.

[Tolkien_Freak]

I am on a couple of smaller boards (one has about 5 regular users, 60 total, and another has about 15 regular, 300 total) and on both you can just hit the refresh button at the top of the screen to see what's new. This, on the other hand...

[Zherog]

Can you put your image in a spoiler block, please, Recurve? You're giving me an horizontal scroll bar, and h-scroll bars make me cry.

[Rawhide]

The real issue here is the size of the "We are dealing with the bandwidth and server load capacity issues. Please bear with us as we resolve these issues. Some features may be temporarily or permanently disabled. We are addressing the issue and appreciate your patience."

I hate it too, but unfortunately it has to be there until we have resolved the issues.


Stickies and forum specific announcements are up to the moderators of the specific forums. I'll be sure to make sure they have seen this thread, but if they feel it is necessary, they will stay.

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I should also point out that I think there are too many stickies in Board Issues, but that I can't see a way to reduce them at the moment and people keep asking for more stickies.