Sorry if this has already been suggested, but I've been wondering if there is a way to include the category designated by the poster, somewhere in the heading of each thread. Sometimes I find that I'd like to refer back to a thread that has "dropped off" the new listings at a few of the TB2000 forums. If the category was listed in the heading, it might make it easier to find later. Just a thought. Thanks.

-- winter wondering (winterwondering@yahoo.com), August 02, 1999

Answers

I think that is a good idea.

-- Hannah (Hannah@Colonial America.com), August 02, 1999.

Me too! I spent an hour looking for a thread and never did find it. Now .....if old Taz can just figure out what catagory her responses go to. Got one called, "miscellaneous garbage"?

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), August 02, 1999.

the only sure method i know of is to visit each poster, and sit behind them and remind each one. I can't quite do that. Unfortunately, we have to guess at the thread catagory and a near approximation of what the title was and then use the ctrl-f find feature in each archive subject to find the htreads we're interested in.

You think YOU are frustrated. Consider the newest kid (sysop) on the block!

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 03, 1999.

Who once again demonstrates he's the only living illegible typist. THREADS not htreads

CR

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 03, 1999.

Chuck wrote: "the only sure method i know of is to visit each poster, and sit behind them and remind each one. I can't quite do that. Unfortunately, we have to guess at the thread catagory and a near approximation of what the title was and then use the ctrl-f find feature in each archive subject to find the htreads we're interested in. "

I guess I don't quite understand. I know that when we first post a new thread, there is a spot for the poster to select the 'best' category. And I think that the default is "I don't know". I thought that where the threads ended up in the archive was dependent on what the individual selects (or the default), and further that if "I don't know" was left selected, the post ended up in "uncategorized."

It would seem to me that the "category" selection is a piece of captured information, just as the subject line is a piece of captured information. And further, it seems that at least from my experiences with computers and databases, that if you have some piece of captured information, you can use it to actually appear elsewhere. Even if the category selection can't be put into the header, perhaps it could be concatenated onto the end of the subject.

I'm not talking about 'sitting behind every poster and reminding them.' Or about sysops manually having to do anything. I'm talking about a modification to the program. Since I don't know anything about this particular program that is the backbone of these forums, I have no idea how difficult something like this would be. But perhaps someone who has some type of access to Phil could mention this suggestion and see how difficult it would be to implement and do an analysis to see whether the benefits outweigh the difficulties.

Apples and oranges, probably, but with the databases and scripts and so forth that I work with, this would be a snap, especially since the information is already captured (either by selection or default) when the poster submits. Forums and such are probably a lot more complex, but really, this is the exact type of thing that computers are good for. We may as well implement them to the fullest extent while we still can.

Now Chuck, are you telling me that the sysops go through each post and to re-determine the category to which it belongs? If that's the case, I'm not even sure why there is a place to select categories when posting.

Now that I've clarified my thoughts a bit, would appreciate clarification about how this "manual re-categorization" by sysops works. And if this is happening, when a post actually crosses categories, is it archived under each relevant category?

Thanks,

-- winter wondering (winterwondering@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.