You can sort forums by almost all of the columns, such as Title, Poster, etc. How about being able to sort by the very first column, by whether or not you've posted in them (the little diamond icon signifies if you've posted in the thread)? That way, you could quickly sort the threads you've written in and those that you have not.

Order could be:

Descending
Mine (New)
Mine (New/Locked)
Mine
Mine (Locked)
Not Mine (New)
Not Mine
Not Mine (New/Locked)
Not Mine (Locked)


Ascending
Not Mine (New)
Not Mine
Not Mine (New/Locked)
Not Mine (Locked)
Mine (New)
Mine (New/Locked}
Mine
Mine (Locked)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 9 2008, 3:21 pm by Hercanic.

I think that would encourage a negative attitude for posting. I don't think whether you post or not in a topic should be determined by whether you have already posted in it before. Other than for reasons of wanting to post in topics you haven't posted before, I don't see any other reason why one would want to be able to sort by topics they've already posted in. And posting just for the sake of posting in a topic you haven't posted in shouldn't be encouraged.

Also, sorting by whether you posted in a topic or not gives the impression that since I already posted in a topic I shouldn't post in it anymore, or at least this kind of sort gives that kind of suggestion to a poster. I don't think either of those impressions are good things, because sometimes people just don't post in a topic because they don't like it or have nothing to say so why should they want it to be at the top of their list all the time. Other times people like to post in a specific topic and have a discussion going on so they will want to keep posting in it.

I think just seeing the diamond is enough of an indicator and it's not too hard to find the topics you haven't posted in by yourself. Using the sort would just bring up a lot of old topics that should not really be bumped just because you haven't posted in them. And it's not many pages before you find old topics because just going on page 2 is pretty far back in time.

I think a better option would be to sort by topics you haven't viewed and read at all. That way it allows one to see which topics they haven't seen before, but at the same time it doesn't give people the idea that since they have already posted in a topic they shouldn't post in it again, or if they haven't posted in the topic then they should post in it. When sorting by unread the reason for posting would be because they haven't even seen the topic yet which is a better reason for posting rather than for posting just because they haven't posted in that topic yet.

However, one could argue that the more options the better and that more wouldn't help because different people have different preferences and someone might find this sort useful. But I personally feel that there are more disadvantages to implementing this sort than there are advantages. Even without the disadvantages I think the advantages are slim and are outweighed by the time needed to put this sort into effect. I'm sure Moose and IP have more important and useful things that they can do.

What someone does with the data is their own prerogative. The data is already there; this idea just sorts it for you, and is a natural extension of the existing column sorting.


Eh? I never made such a statement.


To quickly check for replies?

Sorting by whether you have posted in a topic or not encourages people to post in topics they haven't posted in before because those topics will be at the top of the list.

This sort isn't any better for checking for replies than the current sorts.

there is a filter for topics you have posted in. it is at the bottom of the topic page, under "filters and search"