These huge, 'official x' threads...

i fail to see what the fuss is about?

- mr snowdon, you chose to create a thread about an event

- *i* chose to place my reply in another thread

- subsequent posters chose to reply in the on-going thread.

YOU are the only one who is disgruntled here, perhaps YOU felt shunned when people had the cheek to post in a thread other than the one you created.

at no point did anyone direct anyone to post in either of the threads - people used their own free will. YOU do not like on-going threads, fair enough, that is YOUR problem.

I actually agree that posts are getting out of hand on this forum.

Why do we have 34 pages of a thread entitled "New ITV1 Idents ... from September 1st", for God's sake? Does that mean that ANYTHING to do with ITV1 idents (such as Next stings) should just become an appendix to a thread created in August which should have concluded the first week in September?

I for one don't think so.

But it avoids threads like 'Did you see that new next slide?' then another thread 'I noticed a Martin Bashir ident then is that new?' and another 'did you notice that Carlton branded ident just then?', plus you'd get people saying was it worth it creating a brand new thread for such a small item

The argument about not being able to find info in the large threads is not really valid because at least the info is still in a thread near the top. If smaller threads were created for individual items you'd get someone logging in on Monday saying something about something they saw on Friday and then another post saying that this also occured last Friday see a thread on page 7!.

The argument about them being long is irrelevant also, as you don't need to look through an entire thread to see if today's cockup or something was mentioned

That's why Love TV has generously created a thread on the subject

But I do agree that dragging up long-dead (or should be long-dead) threads isn't a good idea. I'll return the archive forum soon so anyone got any idea on when the cutoff should be? 1 month since the final post of the thread seems ok to me.

Of course, I'd like members to search before posting if they have an inkling that someone's probably already mentioned the subject and so maybe I should make the search box a bit more prominent. I guess having less dedicated threads would help the cause but sometimes, having non-pres threads (Corrie etc..) are better in their own thread so they don't overrun a forum largely dedicated to presentation.

Cheers, Asa

This is exactly how Nazi Germany started

I would like to suggest that the official regional threads be moderated by their owners.

Furthermore, would it not be a good idea that postings should only be added to these threads upon receiving approval from the threadmaster (as is the case with moderated news groups), and that these threads should have the sticky flag set.

In this way the sacred status quo will be maintained and there will be no danger of upstarts rocking the boat.

And remember, " Careless talk costs lives. "

PS In keeping with the spirit of corporate identity fostered by the beloved BBC and ITV,
would it be possible to apply some standard identification to the regional threads?

tvmercia, as I have said, I do not mind where the subsequent 'Central news' posts went, I am highlighting this problem and it seems that a large majority seem to agree with me (see poll)...

So what seems to be the answer here? Well a similar problem was happening on the WHAT MOBILE? forum so when they relaunched it, they launched a forum for each topic (one for 'Nokia', one for 'Motorola' etc then one for o2, one for Vodafone etc... then users can simply look at and target the thread that interests them most (i.e. Nokia) and read all relevent info there... so imagine if we had a dedicated ITV thread... it wouldnt be that bad if people posted about the smaller items, like the new 'NEXT' ident, because people who are interested in ITV would probably be very interested in any new development, no matter how small. I mean, this is just my opinion and the forum has worked well (before tvmercia jumps on my back repeating the tired line 'it was fine and everyone else had no problem before you came along' (I'm sorry that my expressing an opinion offends you) but there are a HUGE range of issues to do with UK and foreign media branding... and perhaps one single forum isn't adequate considering the diverse number of issues discussed - people are using these large threads like a forum except they are far more difficult to navigate (perhaps the creators of these large threads could moderate these forums (i.e. tvmercia could moderate a new 'Central/Midlands Today' forum).. then we'd get more involvement from tvforum members who would be able to police a forum on a subject that they know about, and have a great interest in.

The way the WHAT MOBILE forum has been designed (and they use the same forum software as TVF does) has made it easy to get to each forum, so although there are many different forums, they are all accessed in one click.

What do you think?

Would that not then result in acknowledging a person's thread as being official and therefore more valid than anyone elses? That would then also give someone more authority for no reason other than happening to be the person who created a popular thread? The only way you could work this is give ALL users the ability to moderate ALL their threads - but that would then create a forum of moderators.

I don't think allowing anything more than the self-moderation (i.e. editing and deleting your own posts) which allready exists can be realistically implemented.

My personal take on large non-specific threads is somewhere in the middle. On the one hand I don't like seeing hundreds of new threads created when the information could fit into another existing thread, on the other I don't think huge threads are friendly.

Imagine that you are new to the forum (or just haven't read that particular thread before). Are you really going to sit down and read the 254 page long "The Wales Thread" in order to get some information? Would you just not create a new thread asking for what you want to know? Added to that, the navigation between pages isn't that great when you want to jump in steps. Referring to the aforemention "The Wales Thread" jumping back to page 100 of the thread is not directly possible (yes I know you can edit the 'start' number in the URL) except for loading each page in turn until you get there. If these huge threads are going to exist, then I'd like to see better navigation (ISTR a time when there was a direct link to every single page at the bottom of the screen, could that not come back?)

So do you think that individual forums for each general subject i.e. 'Welsh TV' could be created so that all new developments, even small ones, could be posted in there? (atleast users interested in that topic wouldn't have to sort through posts about threads about MIDLANDS today, for example, to find their thread)

Subforums is something I've toyed with for a while and the currently-in-production version of phpBB handles this well. However, I'm a bit wary of having a long list of forums dedicated to a particular subject. I think in some ways it adds an extra step of navigation not needed. For example, a member who hasn't visited in 24hrs visits the main forum and looks at the first two topic index pages. With subforums, s/he would have to continually visit forum after forum seeing what threads were created or updated. I can imagine it can become quite a tedious process. Similarly, what do you do about the middle of the road threads? "Regional" threads would have to be split into ITV/BBC forums and where would you draw the line at referring to another channel say, or adding a P.S. to a post that, by the rules given, should be in another forum? Cues of members going WRONG FORUM!!!! ?

I'd be very interested to know people's take on this issue. Just because something has remained the same for a while doesn't mean it shouldn't be changed but there needs to be enough support and justification for quite such a fundamental change!

Agreed! Levels of membership rarely work IMO. Remember "VIP Status" anyone? People would either be power hungry or accused of being power hungry.


100 links at the bottom of each page of that topic wouldn't be very bandwidth friendly. However, I did say a while back I was going to introduce a text box where you can type in the page number and do it that way (more friendly than editing the URL). It's moving to the top of the to-do list!

awwwww I remember that.

I don't see what the problem is here - it's a big change so it does deserve a thread of it's own but as people are already chatting about Central/BBC Midlands in a big thread it makes sense to post there aswell.

Just because people didn't post in your thread it doesn't mean you can demand for the big threads to be gotten rid of. These things just happen.