The new Topics

[THECORBYLOON]

Now that I've finished watching the paint dry, I've looked at the number of questions posted in the new Topics.

At the time of posting, it totals 496 and whilst some are more popular than others, that is just over one question per Topic per day.

Will the popularity of the new Topics be reviewed at some point?

[JoolsTwo]

I do hope so - I still dislike the new answerbank - please let us go back to the old one. It is far too disjointed this way.

[jno]

this displays the natural timiidty of the British race in the face of new experience. They huddle round the bar in their hotel, afraid to venture out and meet the locals. The spirit of Francis Drake and Captain Cook has long vanished from their genes; they just cower in their familiar compartments compaining about immigrants.

Still, one a day sounds normalish, considering the posts would previously have been aggregated into the host Topic - that would amount to, say, three a day plus those that are still being posted in the host Topic itself.. Any overall decline in numbers may perhaps be attributable to a loss of chat and blather that (temporarily, I fear) can not find a home.

[THECORBYLOON]

jno there have been many new categories suggested over the past years, are you saying we should have all of them? What benefits are there in having so many new Topics?

[noxlumos]

jno, it's painful. It's slow, disjointed, ill concieved. Chat is neither here nor there, and I am not the timid type i assure you. It's a good idea that been done to overkill that's all, and whilst there will always be teething troubles with any overhaul this large, almost to a man everyone who contributes here hates it. If you are prepared to sacrifice good members and contributors just in the quest for a chat free site, then you might find you end up with no site at all.

[jno]

what I was saying was that (apart perhaps from chat) I wasn't sure there were fewer qustions being asked - I suspect the numbers are pretty much what they were.

Actually TCL, I think all the categories everyone has asked for over the last few years are now with us, plus some more. There are a few anomalies. The distinction between Government and Politics seems pointless. I can't imagine Road Rules will ever draw a big crowd; Celebrity Gossip no doubt will, but I still can't see why there should be two of them. But so what? Unused categories will wither up and die; popular ones will flourish.

The one real oddity I think needs sorting is where the host Topic is the same as the subsection, so you can post in either Film & TV, or Film (or TV); that really will leave people wondering where to go.

But most of the categories seem pretty precise, and I'm not truly bovvered about looking in two where I once looked in just one. To have people stamping their feet and saying 'Do it my way or I'll leave!' seems a bit silly (I can never forget the noble Lord Lloyd Webber promising to leave the country if Labour was ever elected). If I want to leave the site, or if anyone else does, well, it's a free country, and there are loads of other websites; the profoundly dissatisfied can even start their own.

[jno]

oh... one other point... I don't think popularity of Topics ought to be the deciding factor anyway. Genealogy, for instance, doesn't bring in a lot of questions, but it regularly prompts good, serious, experienced advice from dot.hawkes and must be invaluable for those who want it. I don't think it ought to be dropped just because there aren't hundreds of them.

[THECORBYLOON]

jno why stop at 96 topics? Why not have 196? I agree with having the Topics as they were with the addition of one or two but to have 96 is overkill. You query ma point about the popularity of Topics but ido you expect folk to look at them all on the off chance that a question is posted once in a blue moon?

If it's that wonderfu, why are there not dozens of folk praising it?

[jno]

TCL, I don't know what the 'correct' number is. As I've already suggested, I think some of the new ones are unnecessary. But I guess the optimum number would be where everyone could see at once where to post their questions, and where any would-be responders would go to exercise their expertise. That seems to be the direction we're heading. I never went to most of the old Topics, on account of knowing little about Motoring and less about Adverts. Now, there are even more I don't visit. But this is no loss to anyone, least of all myself. Dot can answer genealogy questions, Quizmonster can explain word origins, and Octavius can elucidate the finer points of Spartan warfare, all without wasting their time ploughing past individual questions, in broader Topics, that don't concern them. I think it's swings and roundabouts; and I don't think any individual Topic or Subtopic is a waste of space just because not a lot of people go there - the point is that the few who do go there should know their stuff.

[lankeela]

When my emails show that I have answers on AB instead of going to the site after reading each email, I scroll through and then go to AB to read all the latest answers at once. Problem is, I cannot now find where I posted the questions!

So its back to the deleted emails, and back into AB one message at a time. Will I be bothered? Bet your sweet ass I won't!

[THECORBYLOON]

Can you not see them in yir profile?

[lankeela]

I knew that.

(Not really, thanks, I do now!).

[lankeela]

Ok then, while we are on the subject, what is a subscribed thread?

[muffty]

Hi lankeela,

A subscribed thread, is one where if you are interested in the post, (whether you answer or not) you will be sent an e-mail to inform you of another reply (similar to your own Q being answered). I've done this in the past, to see if anyone has replied after my last posting, although I'm not the originator of the thread.