All posts in the topic Start a New Topic (Short link)

Sep 09 07:33 UTC

Hi all!

An administrator asked me if the link to the "Start a New Topic" page
could be made more prominent. It could, but I do not think that it is a
good idea. From our observations, reading posts is a more common task
than posting, so the interface tends to emphasise reading. We make it
easier to post to an existing topic than to start a new topic because it
keeps posts on the same topic together, which makes reading easier.
While I do have plans to make starting a new topic easier, they are not
a priority.

One way we help people read posts is by organising messages into topics.
We show the latest topics on the site and group homepages, so people can
quickly find out what is being discussed. We display keywords for
topics, so people can find relevant discussions easily. In addition, the
posts in a topic are arranged from oldest to newest to make reading an
entire topic easier.

Adding to an existing topic is encouraged because it keeps posts on the
same topic together. We do this by placing a form at the bottom of every
topic that allows a group member to add to the topic. We almost hide the
"Start a New Topic" page, only linking to it from the Latest Topics
page. The idea of placing the link there is that the member will have a
chance of seeing an existing topic that is relevant to the post that he
or she wishes to make, and then add to an existing topic.

It is far easier to start a topic using email, so we may have made
starting a new topic using the Web too hard! While I do have some plans
to make the Start a Topic page easier to find, the lack of reported
problems (compared with login and joining groups, for example) makes it
a low priority.

Kind regards,
  Michael