I voted to keep it as it currently is, but as I said in the other discussion it would be best if any off topic categories are excluded.

And as per my reply, good idea. Test running it now (lounge category excluded) .

Too late to adjust the poll, but feedback on the Michael option (now being test run) welcome.

Technically you could remove the poll, save it, then add it back in again.

OK. Apologies to those who voted. Please revote. Option three regards excluding the lounge only. I believe that's the main offender for drawing energy from more serious discussions. If you think more should be excluded, choose option 4 and specify.

(I meant to write 'categories' not 'categoried' for option 2. Thanks phone! But it still makes sense, so I'm not doing the whole thing over again.)

I voted for "Other" as perhaps Feedback should also be removed.

Last thing we need is more bloody feedback, eh? :naughty:

I've gone with option three for now.

Anyhow, if we do implement this, I personally hope it will help in encouraging me to post less about the orange-faced circus freak some people have the misfortune to call President. Can't remember his name. Must be working already... :)

Same. I've been focusing too much on politics and current affairs and not enough on philosophy.

Note that "All discussions" is effectively active discussions or new posts. That's what I like about it, but I have noticed that it means the front page often doesn't have much quality philosophy on it, and is taken up with politics and lounge stuff.

So from that point of view I quite like the idea of using the categories as the home page. I'll wait for a while and then I'll probably try it out.

Oh, it looks like we've already implemented the third option, All discussions excluding the Lounge category. Very well.

The thing I don't like about using the categories is that the individual active discussions are not listed. I think this is pretty bad for a forum home page.

Oh, it looks like we've already implemented the third option — jamalrob

Yes, test running that. Categories is ahead on the poll though.

The thing I don't like about using the categories is that the individual active discussions are not listed. I think this is pretty bad for a forum home page. — jamalrob

Yes, and doesn't seem to be any option in the settings to deal with that.

Categories is ahead on the poll though. — Baden

Yes, but then the other options split the vote, making it more likely that the "categories" option would take the lead, which is a problem in my view, and one that would be resolved with a simplified two option poll. Essentially, it's currently 50/50, as half of the voters want to keep things as they are, with some preferring one or two minor changes, instead of the "categories" option. (8 votes, 4 in favour, 4 against).

I'm in favour of keeping things exactly as they have been (before the trial) for sake of convenience. And I would still prefer the other options to the "categories" option for the same reason.

In the end, it looks like it's going to come down to categories vs. some exclusions (being test-run now), and it will be up to jrob to choose which. Hardly anyone seems to like the exact status quo much, which is as I expected. What did you vote for?

I'd support trialing categories at the least. I suspect, with JRob, that having individual active discussions not appear might affect traffic - there's alot more immediacy and 'jump-in' potential as it is now - but maybe the loungy/political discussions might be conterveiling forces for some potential new posters too. Hard to say.

What did you vote for? — Baden

See my edit.

Well, we've removed all Lounge discussions now, and that's now my favourite option.

Anyway, it's funny, I must have forgotten that this was optional. I'm sure, in the past, I've told members that it couldn't be changed.

I didn't know it was either until our resident IT whiz kid Michael suggested it might be.

Cool. Funnily enough now I'm worried about the lounge! Would it be too much to pin a notice - at least for those who miss this discussion - that the lounge will no longer show on the front page?

Would it be too much to pin a notice — StreetlightX

I was thinking of doing that actually.

So we'll have 4 pinned notices and 2 pretty much identical feedback discussions taking up the front page.

Well, I've just unpinned the latest fundraiser as it's run its course. I feel like we should make the presence of the lounge apparent anyhow, especially to newbies. Got an alternative way to do that?

If the objective is to improve the philosophical content of posts, are you not risking making matters worse by removing the lounge from the front page of those who want it there? Will not those who are inclined towards trivial or political posts simply be more likely to add such comments to any vaguely related thread they see on the front page rather than navigate to the lounge to do so?

As things are, those who have little interest in such comments can simply remove the lounge from their homepage themselves.

Will not those who are inclined towards trivial or political posts simply be more likely to add such comments to any vaguely related thread they see on the front page rather than navigate to the lounge to do so? — Pseudonym

They'll be deleted. If someone wants to post off-topic/low quality posts then they can click on the lounge category option.

I voted "all but lounge topics" -- mostly because I've been on forums where when categories were presented there still ended up being a main discussion hub. So the highly specific categories would often go unchecked.

But it would be nice to have the broad separation between more philosophy-specific and more community-specific topics that you could hop between depending on mood.

I voted to keep it as is.

At the very least The Lounge should be above Feedback but that is just my opinion.