forum/topic/replies

[EPICURUS]

You've chosen the best BBS software extant, IMO. Ultimate is right. However, I think some attention should be paid to the sequencing. One of the annoyances of boards like the Speculator is having to constantly keep clicking on posting headings, rather than being able to scrool down all related postings as one can with Ultimate. This is also the problem with winetoday.com and why it has gone nowhere. Too clumsy.

But to do this you must keep virtually all postings restricted to the ~replies~ category or each comment will end up its own folder topic. So for example don't make Cabernet a ~forum~ area which then leads to too many individual topic folders which require too much time to open. Instead make Cabernet a ~topic~ with all comments on any aspect of cabs put in the ~replies~ area and therefore running one after the other as is/was the case with AOL.

Even this comment, itself, should not be a separate topic but be lumped in with the other comments in one folder. I may repeat it as a reply to help make my point.

Nevertheless, I still may not be making myself clear, Jackie. But if not I'll try again, if necessary, after you respond.

My compliments and salutations, and should the migration from AOL go here instead of Mark Squires site, it will drive alot of traffic to your overall site.

[EPICURUS]

Having just written the above post, I do have two reservations. If someone doesn't visit often and wants say all the posts over the last 30 days on Cabs, the list of posts will be immense. And secondly, maybe readers do want separate folders for posts just on Silver Oak or Karl Lawrence. At least with this system you are not forced to go back and forth to the main topic to read each response as you are in the WS forums. So still musing. Anyone else have a thought about speed of reading versus proper categorization?

[Jackie]

Another advantage, I think, of using multiple forums is that outdated topics within each forum can be closed or deleted without deleting the topic area, i.e. without affecting the board structure. Time will tell how well this works out but I am hopeful.