I think OLO really does have to abandon of the multiple page setup for articles and for the posts written in response to both article and general threads.

I can’t see any reason why a whole article couldn’t appear straight away, instead of just the first page. Does any reader NOT just go straight to the ‘All’ button so that they can read the whole article?

Similarly with the posted responses.

If the list of posts exceeds four or five pages, then yeah maybe there would be some merit in getting a reduced version first-up. But if that be the case, we should get the latest pages, not the pages at the start of the discussion.

Ludwig,

It used to be like that - everything on one page. But people on dialup modems complained it was taking too log to load the pages, so it was changed. (No I don't have inside information - Graham/Susan said this in a post somewhere.) I can't imagine Graham thinking it was a bad idea as it means we get to see more ads.

But yes, the first thing I do is the the entire rss feed into separate tabs on my browser, then I run though the tabs and click on "All", then I start reading. Similarly, reading comments is two clicks, the second one being "All".

It would of been nice if they had of made the option settable in your account. But just putting a link to the post in question when they send their emails would be a great start, and it would be so easy to do.

Yes rstuart. I was on dial-up in those old OLO days. But it doesn’t make sense, because even dial-up customers have to read all of an article, which usually runs to a second or third page, and have to go to the end of a thread of comments in order to catch up with the latest discussion and to be able to post.

So why not just have it all presented at the first click? Or the last four or five pages of longer threads of comments?

Ah but, if the current setup means more ads and hence more income for OLO and hence a better forum, well then maybe it is ok (:>)

We need messages on threads where posts have been deleted or where parts of a post have been removed if they have been responded to.

For example, posts by Judy Spence, who turned out to be an impostor, were deleted which left some people wondering what was going on (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1970#41711).

And part of a post was deleted which made comments written in response look incongruous to readers that missed the original comments (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7679#119843).

I reckon that more photos or other illustrations within articles would add greatly to the appeal and quality of the forum. For example; http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7692

I suspect that is up to the submitters. I certainly don't want to see stuff added by OLO editors that wasn't submitted just to make the site look prettier.

I would be happy if the editors just managed to do their job. They rarely modify the articles after the have been posted, even to fix up mistakes. Replacing the occasional [insert graphic here] you see in the articles with the graphic would be a good start. On a number of occasions I have seen an author say "I am working with the editors to get the links I mentioned added", but then nothing happens.

Actually, its the links that really irritate me. We get a lot of articles on OLO claiming dubious things. If the authors have references to back up their claims, I would like to see them.

Probably the programmers could make the editors job easier by allowing the authors to submit their articles the same way we grunts do: on line. They could then edit and preview the article page to get it looking exactly how they want it to look.