New Forum Redesign poll - Should content be king?

Former_MSE_Andrea

Should content be king?

Our last poll confused people a little so we thought we'd flip it over to just ask, do you think there's too much content at the top of the forum?

By this, we mean the amount of space taken up underneath Martin's photo masthead but before the first word of the first post, ignoring thread title, subtitle etc for now.

Sparhawke

Yes

Absolutely, half of that stuff I don't believe needs to be there, it is not a stretch of the imagination to say that if anyone wanted to find "card/loans" or "utilities/phones" they would go to the homepage.

I think the forum rules and etiquette are fine where they are though because they are at least relevent to the forums.

I am mainly confused as to why stuff like this is there:

Quick links Glasses Deals: Codes, vouchers & deals for specs | Days Out Deals: Discounts & vouchers for cheap trips | Online Outlet Shopping: Clearance deals from M&S, Argos... | Discount vouchers: Incl £5 off £40 at Aldi | Cheap Beauty Deals: Incl free £10ish YSL samples

OneYorkshireLass

Yes

Yes. I always get annoyed when I accidentally land on the "Reclaim 1,000s" tab instead of the forums index link and end up somewhere on the main site.

The etiquette links should stay but anything to do with the main site doesn't need to be there IMO.

meher

No

i don't have a problem with the sign posts on that - my issue is with those flip downs which keep cluttering the place and the quick links under the thread title is way too much

people will look up information if they need it and that is how it should be imo but as it stands, we're being forcefed with all the information on the site on top of this page and every nook and corner has a link asking us to sign up for email tips, flagposts to the blog, news, email tips etc on top and on the side and everywhere else - now that is getting slightly desperate and overwhelming

the control panel tool bar needs to move up and the navigation bar of each thread needs to come down

fermi

Yes

Even on a 17" display laptop I have to scroll down over half the height of the screen to reach thread content. If fact, on some boards due to other headers etc thread content is virtually off the bottom of a screen.

Does not make for a very attractive and usable forum experience.

Sparhawke

Yes

Also what i find on a lot of boards are stickies that are no longer relevent yet have been up for years.

For instance, in the techie area there is a poll called How often do you back up your PC? that was created 8 years ago which really doesn't need to be there yet I am reluctant to remove it in case it ends up stickied again or there is such an outcry lol

In this feedback area there is a 5 year old sticky about redsave...

Again in the discussion board we have a Madeleine thread that has not been updated in 5 years..

This is not just an empty whine, but it throws new topics halfway down the forums instead of simply allowing people to view topics straight away; it may only take half a second to scroll down, but when you have to do that every time...

Goldiegirl

Yes

Yes ....... and at the side too

barmonkey

Yes

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Yes ....... and at the side too

agree, all that crap down the side is easy to find elsewhere if you want it

aliasojo

Yes

Yip. Get rid of half of it. And the side stuff. No offence to Martin but I really don't care about his or MSE's twitter stuff.

Can't that be on the main site instead?

meher

No

Twitter, blogs and facebook are part and parcel of the forum itself. i was reminded of the isa from one of the twitter messages so i find it very useful specially because i don't have any other source to catch up with the updates. The side panel is imo the appropriate place to have all that but it becomes overwhelming when we have all of that on top. as well as on the sides; and on the main articles, we have it everywhere, no rhyme or theme - on the email tips, it is all so crowded that every week, the emails have started to look the same and it is becoming increasingly difficult to sift through to figure out what's new.

MothballsWallet

Yes

The motto for all design: KISS (Keep It Succinct and Simple)