Use of Filters

Will it be possible for you guys to add filters for topics, like "Message Type" , "No. of replies" , "Latest Updated"....
This will make the forums more user-friendly and engaging.

Hi Ashwin

We love to hear suggestions for improvements to the site. I wonder if you could give a bit more of an explanation on some of these though.

Where would you see these filters being applied? On forum lists, on "hot topics" lists, on "recent topics" list, on "my bookmarks"? Somewhere else?

What do you define as "message type"?

I'm trying to determine any list that is not sorted by the last update time, so what do you mean by having a filter for "latest updated"?

Note that everyone here is a volunteer, so to get any of these implemented, you really would have to write up your suggestion in a way that makes a volunteer think that this is going to be a really cool job to take on.

Hello,

We could have filters for topics.

e.g.: if i just want to check out only the topics that are hot right now, i will use the 'Hot Topics' filter and all the hot topis will be displayed.
This way i wont have to scroll through pages to see all hot topics.

Similarly, if i want to see all the topics created by me, i will apply the 'My Topics' filter, instead of navigating to my profile and then to my messages.

We can also have sorting for replies, e.g : what if i want to see topics with most or least number of replies, i will use the arrows next to the 'Replies' title to sort the list as per number of replies.

I have attached a mock-up UI , hope this will give you a much better idea.
Please let me know if it is still not clear.

Thank You,
Ashwin.

Ashwin,
Great write up of the suggestion. It's now in our list of things to do at some point. One of the things on that page goes well with a feature we currently have under development.

I'm not seeing how the reply sorting would work because zero posts from 5 years ago is less than interesting. We could take the idea and have filters for 0 replies and less than 5 replies though.

Hello,

Thanks a lot for considering my suggestion

. I went through your comment regarding sorting.

I have one more suggestion in those lines, to make things interesting we could have 'Voting' \ 'Like' system for topics. Users will go through topics and if they find that the question that is being asked is interesting they will 'vote' or 'like' it, and then we could have sorting of topics according to votes. This system will help to improve the quality of questions/topics being posted by users.

As per my knowledge something similar has already being implemented by you guys, I know that right now i can give 'thumbs-up' to a reply or message, but as a user i did not understand the actual use of it. I am not getting where this voting actually comes into play with the forum ( is it used to increase the level of a user ? e.g. If i get enough thumbs up for my replies, does my level increases from 'Greenhorn' to 'Marshal' or whatever is the next level? ). If that is the case then the voting system that i have suggested is slightly different, in my voting system you vote the topic/question being posted by a user.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Regards,
Ashwin.

Currently, the "+1" is just used to signify you like a post. That way people scanning a thread know which posts are good. It may or may not be used for something different in the future.