In Bungie.next, there should be a change in the way the forums display topics and posts. Namely, modifying the view of topics and forums to focus more on the content that's being created (topics and posts) and less on the authors. To start off, take a look at any forum page. Now look at any individual entry for a topic. You have eight elements: - Status (the icon adjacent to the topic) - Title - Reply counter - Author - Date posted - Who replied last - Date of the last reply - Pager links ("[Pages: 1 2 .. 7 8]" portion) In my opinion, the bare minimum for a useful topic display (just from those above) would include the title, date posted, and reply count. The others are kind of iffy, so I'm going to explain why I do/do not think each of these elements are or are not important. [b]Status[/b][quote]Other than being another place to click on to access the topic (and that's even a bit misleading on topics without an icon), these have no other use. As far as what they indicate, only locked topics have (and should - more on this later) have any useful indicator to them. - The [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconNew.gif]new posts[/url] (ie. those with less than 51 replies [i]and[/i] have a post within the last 30 minutes) icon is somewhat flawed and redundant. Firstly, "Hot topics" (and others) override this, so even if a topic has new posts this doesn't show up. Secondly, the constraint on having a post within the last 30 minutes is redundant because the forum is sorted chronologically by the last post date - I can look at the reply count and the date instead (in fact I can then apply my own idea of what constitutes a topic with "new posts"). - I think the idea of [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconHot.gif]hot topics[/url] is to give a kind of indicator as for whether or not a topic is popular and you should probably check it out (that's the way it seems, anyway). Unfortunately I don't think this is a good measure of whether the topic is actually worth reading or not, and is really just a quick indicator for whether a topic has more than 50 replies (again, something I cannot customise - why does/should it take 51 replies for a "hot" topic?). - [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconBungie.gif]Employee[/url] and [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconLocked.gif]locked[/url] topics fall into a single category - those which have some kind of administrative functionality; "this is an [important] announcement" and "this is a topic which you shouldn't create", respectively. I really don't think these need something as big as an icon. A small tag included alongside/adjacent to the topic (a la Reddit's admin/NSFW tags) would be sufficient IMO. [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconPinned.gif]Pinned[/url] and [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconPinLocked.gif]Pinned and locked[/url] icons are redundant since they both appear in the pinned topics section. Pinned and locked topics could easily have the "locked tag" applied as well. - [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/base_struct_images/forums/IconArchived.gif]Archived topics[/url] could probably have the same kind of tag applied, but I don't really have an opinion on them since I don't think topics should be archived at all.[/quote] [b]Title[/b][quote]Obviously keep this, but make two changes: 1) Allow other character sets to be input; and 2) Keep a character limit, increase it, but don't truncate the string. Wrap it around to a new line. Possibly make the font larger too.[/quote] [b]Reply counter[/b][quote]As odd as it might sound, I think this can contribute to determining whether the topic is worth clicking on (plus, it's always an interesting statistic). Definitely keep this, but maybe move it from the line where the title is displayed and/or decrease the font size.[/quote] [b]Author[/b][quote]While I can't exactly explain why, I think it is useful to see who has posted a topic from the forum page.[/quote] [b]Date posted[/b][quote]Again, I have no justification for keeping this here other than it being useful information. However, [i][b]PLEASE CHANGE IT TO RELATIVE TIME![/b][/i] A rollover which displays the full [i]local[/i] date and time would be brilliant too.[/quote] [b]Who replied last[/b][quote]This I do not feel is useful enough to warrant it existing on the forum page. That is to say, in the context of viewing the forums to look for topics, whoever posted last is irrelevant.[/quote] [b]Date of the last reply[/b][quote]Considering that the forum is sorted chronologically by default, this isn't really all that useful (especially when I can just go into the topic and look at the last reply). The only time this might be useful is if you could sort the forums by different criteria (eg. reply count, etc...). If it were kept, do the same with the date posted and change it to relative time and include a local timestamp on rollover.[/quote] [b]Pager links[/b][quote]I've honestly never used them because I don't find them all that useful. I wouldn't miss them if they disappeared.[/quote] Hopefully that explains some of my justifications for wanting the forum topics to change. Now onto posts within topics. Each post has five elements at the highest level. An avatar, titlebar, the post itself, reply/edit/report/etc... buttons, and a timestamp. I want to expand on the titlebar only though because its sub-elements are displayed as well. So we end up with: - Avatar - Username - Title - Message user link - Groups link - More/Signature arrow - Post - Post buttons - Timestamp Once again, the bare minimum would only include the username, post, post buttons, and timestamp. Here's why: [b]Avatar[/b][quote]Sorry to disappoint, but as far as what people should be focusing on within the topic, it shouldn't be the avatar. It is too prominent and takes up too much space when it is alongside a post. Given the [current] size of the area where posts are displayed, having the avatar there takes up about a fifth of the total space. I think it should be removed completely, shrunk considerably (eg. 45x45, 32x32), moved above/below the post, or added dynamically/on-demand as a panel that appears when rolling over the username.[/quote] [b]Username[/b][quote]Yes, keep this. Although what if its position were changed? Beside/below the post contents?[/quote] [b]Title[/b][quote]Except for administrative titles (Employee, Ninja, etc...) and perhaps an indicator for who the OP is (a nice little addition IMO) titles are kind of silly and a waste of space here. I don't really care if they continue to exist, but I don't like the fact they exist in a context where they have little meaning and are bigger than the actual post text. Having them in the panel I was talking about might look nice, and would be appropriate if I cared to learn more about a specific user.[/quote] [b]Message user link[/b][quote]Very rarely will I use this since I can click someone's profile then hit send message. In that respect it's redundant (and it seems more intuitive to initiate sending a PM from a profile page anyway).[/quote] [b]Groups link[/b][quote]Same as the above.[/quote] [b]More/Signature arrow[/b][quote]While the contents of the box that appears as a result of clicking the arrow isn't shown by default, the contents of this box are redundant since I can click a user's profile and get the same information. Again, this information might be more appropriate if displayed in a dynamically added rollover box.[/quote] [b]Post[/b][quote]No changes.[/quote] [b]Post buttons[/b][quote]I don't really see any other way these could be displayed. Although, what if these were fixed to the browser window while scrolling through a long post?[/quote] [b]Timestamp[/b][quote]Obviously this should stay, but with a few changes: 1) Inclusion of relative time (eg. "10 minutes ago", "3 months ago", "4 years ago", etc...). 2) Inclusion of an English-like timestamp. That means a timestamp like "Today at 5:01 PM", "Yesterday at 11:35 AM", for any recent timestamps instead of what we currently have "10.01.2012 11:17 PM PDT", because if I look at that on its own I don't know whether it's the 10th of January or the 1st of October. Older timestamps should have something like "Wed Oct 17 2012 at 2:44 PM". Structuring and displaying a timestamp in this way is readable by everyone, regardless of their locale. 3) [b][i]LOCAL TIMESTAMPS![/i][/b] Or at the very least set to UTC. This is VERY important.[/quote] That's pretty much it I think. Most of the functional things I'd like to have I've talked about in other topics, and the only other time I've given my opinion on the layout of the site was in regard to the Reach game pages, but never the forums. Anyway, hopefully the Web Team finds this and whatever arises in the ensuing discussion useful for Bungie.next.