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originally posted by: hutch622
a reply to: ForteanOrg
What the hell is white space .
originally posted by: FauxMulder
First world problems.
originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
I cannot imagine the agony you must be going through.
originally posted by: FauxMulder
My thumb hurts from scrolling past your comment.
originally posted by: ForteanOrg
Indeed, you can't.
originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
originally posted by: ForteanOrg
Indeed, you can't.
I hear you.
The only truly painful issue I had in my own life that may have potentially rivaled yours was solved when some genius invented Velcro laces.
Folks,
it is very difficult to read long threads here - let alone catch up with an active thread. There are two main reasons I see: firstly every post in a thread has a minimum length that is dictated by the logo and other information about the posting member, resulting in large chunks of whitespace between individual posts. Secondly many members quote entire posts just to add a few (often meaningless) notes or even just a "cheers" logo. The effect of all this is that it is almost impossible to read more than just a few pages before getting tired of all the useless whitespace and fillings. You simply get tired from filtering the chaff out and often either you simply skip 20 pages of comments and bluntly add your opinion at the bottom - or you are a decent chap (gall) and as you don't want to pollute the thread, you simply do not add anything at all but simply call it a day.
This means that many threads are full of repeating statements, whitespace and member logos, where they could be full of meaningful and non-repetitative discussions. I am a fan of the latter.
So, some suggestions.
Ditch the avatars/banners we now have to the left of every posting, and do the same for the signatures. If members need to advertise their personal beliefs it's allright with me, but I don't need to see it in every post, sometimes ten times per page. It's tiresome and does not add anything to the discussion.
to satsify the egos of members here, you could allow a smalller version of the avatar (thumbnail), say 20x20 or 30x30 pixels and make it so that a popup appears when I hover over these thumbnails. In that popup I could still find the useless statistics, banners and signatures that now riddle my reading space. But I simply would not be forced to scroll through them every time.
make it impossible to post messages that contain mostly quotes. This can be checked when the member tries to post: a warning could be given that the user has overquoted and he could be returned to the editor to correct the matter.
edit on 9-6-2017 by ForteanOrg because: he discovered that the numbered list does not work as he expected, hence he replaced them with a series of bullets..