[theflow]

wluke, all good points... Some further comments and replies because I don't see this as adversarial, nor as an either/or proposition. We all want the same thing: easy access for users, less strain on Mods. Give this a read, folks, and I'd love to get feedback from others as well. I may go ahead and work on this project alone, as I get time. But if any of you like the ideas here and aren't speaking up, drop a note just to say "I don't care", "decent idea but it needs to be refined", or "an idea that doesn't help at all."

Originally posted by wluke
Sites are classified wrong or not at all depending on the whim of a single person.

I agree. Any directory classification attempt is imperfect. Just like in a video store: is "Planet of the Apes" on the shelves in the "Sci-Fi" section, or the "Action Adventure" section, or did someone put the only store copy under "Directors - Tim Burton" or even "Classics" (the original version of the movie)? Imperfect, but I would argue still helpful. If I don't find it by browsing, I ask a clerk "where is...?" But one too many genre or special categories, for me, is a little better than too few -- like "Color Movies" and "Black & White Movies".

The standard that links should be the same color or clearly designated as links.

Absolutely, according to the Bible of Jakob Nielsen. I, for one, though, am not a regimented purist like he is. I believe in context-sensitive usability. Which is to say: If presented with a list of 13 Items -- whether in vB's arguably non-distinctive "black" link color -- or in groups of color -- I would bet money that 99% of users would attempt to click on the item with a predisposed view that they are probably links in this context -- and they would be right.

As more and more types of users flock to the web, they are learning a slightly evolving language from 1994's specifications. Some people can't stand to see underlines for links, and they turn off underlines in their browser preferences. I assure you, if developing engineers had their way, this option would not even exist -- witness Netscape 1x, 2x. The reason that option does exist in 3x and higher browsers is based on users saying "I don't like seeing a page full of underlined text". And the world has to now adapt to the user. MS and AOL are not making money based on telling the user what is appropriate and what isn't. yet, because I choose to turn link preferences to "hover" vs underline, I find all of vBulletin very un-link friendly -- because someone decided that text colors and links colors shall both be black. See it works both ways.

Does that mean flagrantly mix & match at will and just create a rainbow of confusion, for decorative sake? No. But color for both emphasis and classification, as well as for managing groupings into scannable chunks of information that can be absorbed in one view, is a long established principle in multiple media publishing formats.

The real test is, have I helped the user, or disabled or confused them. And we disagree on this one. Fair enough.

I agree a better way of indexing available hacks is needed. I disagree with the method of using sticky threads to do so. There are almost 3,000 threads in this forum. You can't make me believe that listing each one in a thread is going to make it easier to find information.

To clarify, I have never advocated listing each one. What would you guess is the ratio of unique requests (threads) to redundant requests (threads)? I don't know myself but I see a lot of repetiton. If anyone would know better than me, it would be a Hack Forum moderator who's been scanning redundant requests for the past 6 months to year. What I have been suggesting -- and I'm not saying this is a walk in the park -- is that a group of volunteers, me included, take a stab at cherrypicking the best-of-breed threads on any given request... i.e., how many different ways have you seen "when is karma hack going to be ready?" presented here? But if one clearly marked thread titled "Karma Requests" were included in a cherrypicked list, all those redundant ones wouldn't matter, since the answer is the same each time.

Many people write very vague and non-specific subject lines for their requests. But in the sticky thread categorization scheme, the title of the "best of breed" thread for any given specific request could be changed to a more descriptive one. Before you object with "that's even more work, what do you expect from us?", my reply is: It's an option, not a mandate. And if volunteers want to helpt do this, they do. If they don't, the whole idea withers on the vine, and so be it, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Now let's say I am looking for a hack on encrypting passwords in vbulletin 2.0. I could read this massive sticky list... (or) go to use the search engine. ... It took me ten seconds (even on a 56K modem) to do this.

. Absolutely right. And this principle applies to every system of stuff in life. When I know exactly what I want, with great precision, like the letterboxed widescreen Anniversary edition of the original "Planet of the Apes" movie, in DVD, releaesd in Spanish language dub, then hopefully I can access the video store's search engine, and find out in 5 seconds, do you have it, yes or no. Where is it? Thank you.

However, maybe it wasn't entered into the system that way, maybe someone never included the tag "Spanish language dub", so the system doesn't even know. Maybe they have it but it doesn't say whether it's in DVD or VHS, maybe they have Planet of the Apes, part 2, but not part 1, and so on. Maybe even the video store's staff is not so familiar with the more esoteric facets of their 3 different copies of "Planet of the Apes". Point is, in this scenario, I will get out of the store a lot faster by looking up at the store's genre signs, walk over to Sci-Fi, scan the shelves for "Planet of the Apes", and then inspect the 3 copies to see for myself.

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