Comments about forum subscriptions, seeing your threads, and new posts

[lach]

I went on a mini-rant in a homeschooling thread (it was like 4am, and I was BFing is my only excuse!) about how I don't like how when you subscribe to a forum you also subscribe to the subforums.  I subscribe to the homeschooling forum, which means all the unschooling forums come up on my subscription list, and reading those posts is irritating at best and they make me want to call CPS at worst.  I'd rather not see them at all.  Dar suggested that I come here and mention that I find this irritating. 

There also doesn't seem any way to just see threads that you've participated in?  That's how subscriptions used to work on the old forum, and it made it possible to have pretty quick conversations, because when you logged in you'd see the threads you'd subscribed to (almost always ones you'd posted in) immediately.  Now if you subscribe to a forum or two, every post in those forums (and subforums) is also on your subscription list, which means that other threads get bumped way down.  It doesn't make sense to me, from a user perspective, that threads I'm actively participating in are lumped in with forums where I'm sort of maybe interested in some of the posts therein.  It makes it very hard to have a conversation on a topic, unless that thread is a very popular and fast moving one and always stays to the top.

And it just plain doesn't make sense to lump all the forums I subscribe to together.  It makes it hard to figure out what's what, and far too many posts that I'm actually interested in get lost among ones that I'm really not.  I'd much rather they were separated out by forum.  Individual boxes that show, say, the last 5 most active threads and then you can click through to the whole forum would make so much more sense and be so much easier to read.  Some forums are more active than others, and the less active forums get choked out by the more active forums in the current organization.

I also don't understand why the only way to get to a "new posts" screen is if you're reading a thread.  That's very poor UI design.  The ability to get to new posts should be available from any screen.

Just my opinions.  Since the redesign, I hardly ever come here anymore.  It's impossible to have a conversation, and I have to sort through lots of posts that I'm not interested in to get to ones that I am.  The ones that I am interested in seem to usually be completely lost in the glut of unschooling posts.

[Cynthia Mosher]

You're right about the subscriptions thing. It is not the best set up and you should be able to limit your subscription to a single forum. I think I may have a solution for that. I'll let you know after I discuss it with our tech team.

I wonder if the new drop down box for New Posts might help?

The "I've posted" option lets you view all of your own forum posts, and if you're viewing through the "unanswered" filter, you can quickly home in on any conversation where you feels you can contribute. There's no need for you to hunt for All New Posts, now that the "New Threads" filter shows you fresh topics in the forums you're subscribed to.