Limiting number of replies in a thread

[dev_null]

I see no reason to do that. My rationale behind having them moved separate still stands, and I already explained them. And as I said, moving to a sub-forum had absolutely nothing to do with the idea of having a size limit, as that change was decided upon without I even knew about the plan of limiting thread lengths.



Also as I explained, this was tried, and it quickly became evident that this was a bad idea, it was hard to notice the lone sub-forum link at the top of the forum content. And sub-sub-sub-forums are a bit silly in terms of organization.

OK, thanks. I'm not the only one who doesn't feel the new setup make sense. Certainly makes forum visits less "sticky"... not as enjoyable to judge the totality of recent Merlin developments. I've noticed I'm spending about 10 mins a day rather than 20 or more, making my visits just "transactional".

 

[dave14305]

I agree that searching for old posts is harder when two forums need to be selected to catch all the history of Asuswrt-Merlin and its addons. I’m not sure how many people care about how the forum structure “looks” versus how it “works.” I can’t think of a situation where visibility is more helpful than searchability.

If I was going to stage a peaceful protest about a forum change, it would be against the addons forum placement.

But I love you all.

 

[RMerlin]

OK, thanks. I'm not the only one who doesn't feel the new setup make sense. Certainly makes forum visits less "sticky"... not as enjoyable to judge the totality of recent Merlin developments. I've noticed I'm spending about 10 mins a day rather than 20 or more, making my visits just "transactional".

Has nothing to do with forum organization. I already warned people at the 384.19 release time that development would be mostly suspended until after Asus cleaned things up in regards to their GPL releases.

 

[RMerlin]

I’m not sure how many people care about how the forum structure “looks” versus how it “works.”

It's not about how it looks it's about discoverability. The sub-forum was mostly invisible when it was set up as a sub-forum, and would have been missed by the vast majority of visitors.

 

[dave14305]

It's not about how it looks it's about discoverability. The sub-forum was mostly invisible when it was set up as a sub-forum, and would have been missed by the vast majority of visitors.

I am genuinely curious (not trying to trick you guys into taking my point of view), are there site stats that suggest how the majority of non-bot users engage with this site? My entry point is a bookmark to https://www.snbforums.com/whats-new/posts/

Statistically, do users drill down from the top forum level, or use the what’s new link, or search, etc.? I suppose it depends on registered users with profiles versus guest users also.

 

[L&LD]

That is my entry point too @dave14305.

I have never gone to a forum to search by section/topic, etc. That is a huge waste of time. I search for what is broken and needs to be fixed (if possible) and click on the links returned. I don't care how it is organized either in that case.

But, having the Addons subforum included within the RMerlin forum makes sense to search for everything at one go!

 

[dosborne]

Personally, I'm very used to the typical forum setup that goes essentially
Forum Home -> Main level -> Segments -> Specifics

For example
Asus Wireless -> Asuswrt-Merlin -> Releases
Asus Wireless -> Asuswrt-Merlin -> Alphas
Asus Wireless -> Asuswrt-Merlin -> Betas
Asus Wireless -> Asuswrt-Merlin AddOns -> Diversion
Asus Wireless -> Asuswrt-Merlin AddOns -> AMTM

Those *could* be a few examples. The forum templates dictate the *visability* from the main page.

Each sub forum could have the appropriate "stickies". Searching can be done at any level. Information and questions would be easy to find, see, read and digest. New ideas, in development, bugs, changes etc all nicely living in individual threads instead of 1 mega monster that very few noobs (or seasoned veterans other than the actual developer) would read through. Also allows user to "watch" or " subscribe" to forums of interest to ensure they get notified of something new.

This is how 98% of the forums I've run or participated in have worked for the last 30 years.

 

[RMerlin]

I am genuinely curious (not trying to trick you guys into taking my point of view), are there site stats that suggest how the majority of non-bot users engage with this site?

I use https://www.snbforums.com/forums/asus-wireless.37/ . Because I browse all Asus sub-forums multiple time per day, but only once or twice a day for anything else. That allows me to better prioritize my time spent on the forums than if I were to browse everything every time through a global what's new link.

That layout also means I have only one single sub-level to drill down, and I can go back to the parent level just by hitting my back button. Makes navigation very quick.

 

[thiggins]

The AddOns sub-forum will stay where it is. Having its own sub-forum also makes its traffic clearer easier to track.

There has been little comment on my new proposal to close threads after 6 months vs. 500 posts. So I'll make the choice on Nov 1. Thread lengths across the site will be limited after that point.

Y'all can keep discussing this if you like. This is my final post on the topic.

 

[el pescador]

Can't a compromise be reached?
Maybe have a main thread for each addon and limit the question threads for each addon?
Come on you lot are some of the most logical people around which allows you to be of such a great help.
That logic could apply to reason?
BTW i have just started to contribute to the users of which I use their apps/firmware. Not a lot i know but will do so on a regular basis from now on.
Come on chaps...see sense please.

 

[Zastoff]

Do not understand why there needs to be a limit for "active/large" threads?
I don`t mind the closing down of "old and unused" threads after some time.
And if a TS want his/her thread closed the person can ask a admin for it.

 

[Butterfly Bones]

Y'all can keep discussing this if you like. This is my final post on the topic.

That is why no comments on your thread of closing threads after 6 months vs. 500 posts. It causes the same issues for serious forum users who dive deeper into issues, or those who try to help as much as we can.

I have used many forums over the last 25+ years as a knowledge base. SNB just decided to complicate the ability to utilize the valuable knowledge base that exists here, for no good reason other than a whim to solve a problem that does not exist.

It was obvious early on that you were going to do what you wanted regardless of user feedback.

 

[QuikSilver]

Just a thought but could threads have a setting where if no activity was posted after XX amount of time they auto close? Should help with bringing dead threads back to life and possibly keep active threads going and at top. With that I would suggest maybe no activity after 2 weeks or 1 week would be sufficient??

 

[dave14305]

I'm resigned to the fact that this change is going to happen on November 1. The question for everyone now should be, "Can I live with it?"

My takeaway from all this is that more of us need to unblock ads on this site to let the positive impact of our presence on the forum be felt. It's like we're the "silent majority" now since our ad-blocked visits don't translate into any upside for Tim. For me, that required the drastic step of disabling Diversion and Pi-Hole. After initially whitelisting all the necessary ad domains to allow ads through, I may as well not be running a DNS-based ad-blocker at all. Then I still had to whitelist this site in uBlock Origin and Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection, as well as iOS Safari Content Blocking.

Maybe a deal-breaker for some, but I don't think most of us appreciate the economics of running this site. If I want a louder voice as a frequent user (forget as a add-on developer), I must ensure I'm contributing to it's growth and prosperity first, IMO.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I'm resigned to the fact that this change is going to happen on November 1. The question for everyone now should be, "Can I live with it?"

My takeaway from all this is that more of us need to unblock ads on this site to let the positive impact of our presence on the forum be felt. It's like we're the "silent majority" now since our ad-blocked visits don't translate into any upside for Tim. For me, that required the drastic step of disabling Diversion and Pi-Hole. After initially whitelisting all the necessary ad domains to allow ads through, I may as well not be running a DNS-based ad-blocker at all. Then I still had to whitelist this site in uBlock Origin and Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection, as well as iOS Safari Content Blocking.

Maybe a deal-breaker for some, but I don't think most of us appreciate the economics of running this site. If I want a louder voice as a frequent user (forget as a add-on developer), I must ensure I'm contributing to it's growth and prosperity first, IMO.

We have eleven days to ponder this. All main threads will be locked then. And so are all new main threads that we create, within half a year. Go figure, looks like some of us are no longer welcome here.

 

[Adamm]

My takeaway from all this is that more of us need to unblock ads on this site to let the positive impact of our presence on the forum be felt. It's like we're the "silent majority" now since our ad-blocked visits don't translate into any upside for Tim. For me, that required the drastic step of disabling Diversion and Pi-Hole. After initially whitelisting all the necessary ad domains to allow ads through, I may as well not be running a DNS-based ad-blocker at all. Then I still had to whitelist this site in uBlock Origin and Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection, as well as iOS Safari Content Blocking.

Ads are a dead revenue stream, even without DNS based ad blockers most people run extensions in their browsers (with some browsers even coming with this built in as a feature). A good example of this is LTT, they get over 105 million views per month on their main youtube channel, yet adsense only accounts for 26% of their income even with above average payouts due to their YouTube contract. Here is a link to a recent video where he breaks down the numbers.

If revenue is really the issue here, Tim should be glad these megathreads generate as much traffic as they do and leverage it to host his own sponsored product placements etc.

 

[thecheapseats]

it's always about the money - always... monetizing traffic using whatever method (here or anywhere else) is a dead end... support sites are not revenue constrained (as devs are) by the myriad of open-source licensing models imposed/adopted on the code... and in the end - outside of the code itself - you don't get what you don't pay for...

 

[dave14305]

If revenue is really the issue here, Tim should be glad these megathreads generate as much traffic as they do and leverage it to host his own sponsored product placements etc.

I don't speak for Tim and didn't want to put my words in his mouth, but I keep wondering why the feedback from the "Parts of the Furniture" wasn't enough to sway Tim's opinion on this. If we represented a sizable source of his ad-revenue, he may be less willing to upset the apple cart.

But I feel that collectively we don't "bring home the bacon for Tim," since most new Merlin users are encouraged to use amtm to install Diversion, Skynet, etc. to protect their networks from the evil, hacking, tracking, ad-serving interweb.

Ultimately for me, I get philosophical when there's unresolved conflict like this. I fall back on 2 precepts: 1) follow the money, and 2) if both sides think they're right, try harder to see it from the other side's perspective.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Ads are a dead revenue stream, even without DNS based ad blockers most people run extensions in their browsers (with some browsers even coming with this built in as a feature). A good example of this is LTT, they get over 105 million views per month on their main youtube channel, yet adsense only accounts for 26% of their income even with above average payouts due to their YouTube contract. Here is a link to a recent video where he breaks down the numbers.

If revenue is really the issue here, Tim should be glad these megathreads generate as much traffic as they do and leverage it to host his own sponsored product placements etc.

I occasionally get in contact with Tim to see if any more domains can be auto-whitelisted in Diversion. So far these domains are a reasonable compromise without letting too much through.
The current SNB whitelist can be seen here: https://diversion.ch/diversion/use/hard-coded-whitelist.html

 

[thiggins]

This isn't a revenue issue. @dave14305 I appreciate your unblocking efforts, but you can go back to what you were doing before.

The thing that would be most relevant to unblock would be the Google Analytics tracker.