Sil: Thread naming

[half]

Now that Sil has its own subforum, there is less need to keep the word 'Sil' in the thread names, but I suggest that we keep doing it. This is because some people (like me) browse the forum with the 'today's posts' feature in 'Quick Links' section and this aggregates all the subforums together. It is still possible to disentangle them by looking at the far column, but easier to have it as part of the thread name. I think this is probably even more of an issue for those people who don't play Sil and want to ignore our Sil posts.

So I'd suggest we keep with the "Sil:" beginning (or switch to "[Sil]" if people think that is more standard).

[taptap]

Now that Sil has its own subforum, there is less need to keep the word 'Sil' in the thread names, but I suggest that we keep doing it. This is because some people (like me) browse the forum with the 'today's posts' feature in 'Quick Links' section and this aggregates all the subforums together. It is still possible to disentangle them by looking at the far column, but easier to have it as part of the thread name. I think this is probably even more of an issue for those people who don't play Sil and want to ignore our Sil posts.

So I'd suggest we keep with the "Sil:" beginning (or switch to "[Sil]" if people think that is more standard).

There are a number of genuine Sil threads without the Sil: prefix remaining in variants.

[Nick]

There are a number of genuine Sil threads without the Sil: prefix remaining in variants.

Is that all now? Let me know if there are more.

[Scatha]

Just to say I don't think it's quite obvious. It makes sense if browsing habits developed for the previous forum set-up benefit from continuing the same labelling, but it's not clear that this will remain the best browsing habit. For example there's now a place to see all the recently commented on Sil threads -- you just look at the top of the Sil forum.

It's also not entirely costless to include these, as it makes it a little harder to browse through the Sil forum and find individual threads.

I think the main benefit will come if it's close-to-uniformly adopted, and I'm happy to support it, but it seems worth checking if it's sensible first. I'm a little sceptical simply because the arguments don't seem special to our situation, but I've never seen this behaviour in a subforum of a forum before, which suggests either that people don't find it worthwhile, or that it's hard to sustain.

[Nick]

I believe it is also true that the name of the subforum (ie Sil) appears next to the thread title everywhere except when actually browsing the subforum, so it should always be clear what is a Sil thread and what isn't.

[taptap]

Is that all now? Let me know if there are more.

I don't see Sil threads in variants anymore, but I wonder whether two of them clouded's vault thread and half's breaking the rules were not meant for a wider audience.

[half]

Just to say I don't think it's quite obvious. It makes sense if browsing habits developed for the previous forum set-up benefit from continuing the same labelling, but it's not clear that this will remain the best browsing habit. For example there's now a place to see all the recently commented on Sil threads -- you just look at the top of the Sil forum.

As I said, I'm more worried about people who are interested in Angband and not Sil (especially as this is the Angband Forum after all, and Sil is kind of a guest here). I appreciate someone (Pav? Nick?) making the sub forum and I don't want this to actually make things worse for many of the people who aren't interested in Sil.

If I'm wrong about this, or the forum etiquette or something, then I'm happy to drop the "Sil:" prefixes.

[WaveMotion]

To give you one data point: I bookmark any forum/subforum I am following, and go to them directly to find posts commented on since my last visit. To someone like me whose main interface with the forum is the forum page, seeing the name of the subforum prefixed to the name of every thread there would be an eyesore.

I tried using Today's Posts to do the same, and it's true that the name of threads are awkwardly distanced from the subforum name. However I don't think this is a frequently experienced problem since I've never seen a policy like the one suggested here. To be honest one of the main reasons I was excited for a Sil subforum was that we could have normal thread names.

[Nick]

As I said, I'm more worried about people who are interested in Angband and not Sil (especially as this is the Angband Forum after all, and Sil is kind of a guest here). I appreciate someone (Pav? Nick?) making the sub forum and I don't want this to actually make things worse for many of the people who aren't interested in Sil.

Pav made the forum, and gave me the power (*cracks knuckles*) to move threads from Variants to Sil.

Personally, I think it's easy enough for anyone that wants to to ignore Sil threads, and it still has enough in common with Angband to make it of interest to most *band players. Also it has features for developers to steal

[half]

OK, I'm convinced. Let's not add the word "Sil" to the start of our threads any more.