Forum Display: What do you find the least useful?

[Princeton]

When reviewing a forum we have :

• status icons
• forum title
  • description
  • sub-forum titles
• last post
  • last poster
  • last postdate
• thread
• post count

All of this takes up a lot of space.

As a user (not admin)..

What is the most useful information to you?
What can you live without?


Personally, I find the Threads and Posts count useless.

If it's a big board, I also find the Last Poster and Last Postdate useless.

[Lynne]

Interesting question. Since I am 'comfortable' at this site, I must say that I really don't pay much attention to any of that anymore. I just go directly to where I want to be.

As a newbie though, I would look at thread/post count to see how active the forum is because I would want to go where everyone else seems to go. I would assume the really active forum is the place I want to start. If a forum has hardly any threads/posts, I would assume there is a reason - like that is the wrong place to post!

As I got more comfortable at a forum, then I would start looking at the Last Poster to see if I recognized a user. After you read several threads (as a newbie), you get a sense of who knows the place, who is helpful, who you want to avoid, etc, so seeing who the Last Poster is would be useful to me.

[Princeton]

interesting..
thank you - for your detailed answer

there's really no wrong answer here .. I'm just curious if anyone else feels the same way I do.

I find many of the options "bloated" code..
and yes, the options really do make a difference on smaller boards.

On big boards - where a lot of it is constantly changing .. I believe it's not necessary.

anyone else?