The following has been stated on this thread. But I’ll re-emphasise it….

Email alerts should be automatic. Doesn’t everyone who posts on a thread automatically want to know when there are further comments on that thread? If they don’t, they can just turn off the alert.

I still find that after nearly four years of being on this forum almost every day, I forget to turn on the email alert facility sometimes. And it bugs me greatly!

chainsmoker, you might enjoy this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&ei=5058&partner=IWON&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

I've just put a suggestion for a "Developing Authors" tab on the relevance of OLO thread http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2024#42013

It seemed to fit there but was also relevant here so I've linked it here.

R0bert

I wish that there was a bit more colour, different fonts, different text size, italics and bold options…and the potential to use a wide variety of emoticons and even illustrations!

All of this sort of stuff would really add to the attractiveness and entertainment value with out detracting from the professional presentation of the forum....wouldn’t it?

Yesterday it appeared as though this thread had been removed. Even when I hit the ‘show 50 discussions per category’ option, it still wasn’t there.

I didn’t even think of hitting the ‘one quarter back’ option, as I have never needed to do that before for a current thread.

This thread had dropped off the default list as it is now over a month old. But it is still current. So I’d suggest it surely had to stay on the default list.

I find myself nodding in agreement Ludwig. Occasionally I notice all the action is happening on some topic that has long since vanished off the General Index. Its not obvious how to solve it though. The current system keeps the topics "fresh" by ensuring new ones displace the older ones. Anything you do will weaken that.

If I was going to change it, I would dispense with the current categorisation, and replace it with three lists. The first two would be "Top 10" lists, which work like the "top 5 lists" on the Journal main page. List 1 would be ordered by date of submission, the second would be ordered by posting rate or something like it. It could be top 5 or whatever, the exact number tunable as it is now. As I said before, it would be nice if it remembered what you set it to.

The third list would be "Technical Support", as it is now. These should threads be prominent longer than the others for the obvious reason that technical issues don't go away simply because everyone has given up whinging about it.

I was fully aware of what was going to happen when I posted this article, and was perfectly happy to game the system by putting this discussion into the "Technical Support" category where I knew it would remain visible for a long while. That said, it has had a reasonable go. Anybody who wanted to contribute has done so. Its time for it to vanish. I am hoping when OLO gets the energy to redo the site layout again they will look at it. That is the best outcome I could possibly hope for - anything else is unreasonable.

That said, I wish they would fix the article index bug. I don't know whether its just because I know its there or what, but now I find myself thinking "if only I could look up all articles" over and over again. Maybe I should start another "Technical Support" discussion about it, just so GrahamY has to look at it for a month.