First Posts In Threads

[2wheelsagain]

Hi all I've had a request from a member to attempt to edit Gus's Fuel Pump thread.
Particularly shortening the initial post as now its a multi page thread the initial post comes up first in every page making scrolling through the info more tedious than it needs to be. Most of us are on mobile devices of one sort or another.

This isn't Gus's or anyones fault and I'm going to attempt to edit the initial tomorrow so the photos are on the second page.
I'm not sure if this can be done without starting a whole new thread which isn't what we want.

So the request to you is;
If you think your post. Any post may have a life of its own and go on to be several pages long. Can you be brief in the opening post and include any detail in a second post. They can obviously be posted right after the initial post.

Thoughts?

[jstava]

Excellent Idea.  It can be quite irritating where the first post goes on and on over subsequent pages every time you review a multipage thread.  

The funny stuff that is no joke thread springs to mind.  

One can't be critical of new posters who do not realise that their first post will be on each new page if the thread runs on to be many pages, but I'm sure that once they realise that this can make the whole thread unwieldy to review, surely peoples sense of etiquette might prevail, nor should original posters be concerned that their post be broken apart to make for an easier to use thread, so long as it remains substantially complete.  

This begs the question, what is easiest?  Insert a new post in front of original long post - provide an introduction perhaps, OR make the one post into two, a short one followed by the longer part.  

Whatever is easiest would seem to be the go.

[paul]

As you say , some threads seem to take on a life of their own , & limiting the first post size would seem to make sense .How you get members i.e. new members to know about this is the problem .
Or you could just ask the original poster to edit the first post , if it develops a life of it's own , like I just did with the funny stuff that's no joke thread ..................if that is possible to do and not alter the context of the thread or stuff it up of course as it would in the fuel filter thread .
The other way would be to copy all but the first part of a first post .........delete the copied part , and if it is possible insert it as a second post.........I don't know if that is possible to do though , so we may just have to keep an eye on it from now on before threads become too big.

[Chook]

Hi all I've had a request from a member to attempt to edit Gus's Fuel Pump thread.
Particularly shortening the initial post as now its a multi page thread the initial post comes up first in every page making scrolling through the info more tedious than it needs to be. Most of us are on mobile devices of one sort or another.

This isn't Gus's or anyones fault and I'm going to attempt to edit the initial tomorrow so the photos are on the second page.
I'm not sure if this can be done without starting a whole new thread which isn't what we want.

So the request to you is;
If you think your post. Any post may have a life of its own and go on to be several pages long. Can you be brief in the opening post and include any detail in a second post. They can obviously be posted right after the initial post.

Thoughts?

Great idea

[Kiwisteve]

Can I make a suggestion.
I imagine these posts take quite some time to "construct" for want of a better word. I can confirm is from the Parkes meet thread I started.
If we see a post come up regarding future meetings, fuel pump fixes etc, that may need a long post. It may be an idea for forum members not to jump on to the initial short post for a reasonable amount of time so the author can get his/her head around the main post (2nd post in the thread), & slow typists like me to get the big post typed up.
Does this make any sense
Cheers Steve

[2wheelsagain]

Ok fellow Banditeers,
I searched the admin help section then asked the question and got this reply regarding splitting text from images in a first topic/post;


Not possible.
You will have to edit the post to remove images then create new posts with the images.

The trouble with this is the images will appear on page 10 in the fuel pump fix thread and probably won't make a lot of sense to people searching for a fix unless they have been following it for a long time.

Its still a good idea but can't be done on the current forum software I guess. Its a free forum after all

I think you might be stuck with this one but we can catch others before they get out of control from now on.

[jstava]

So the best solution would be for posters, if they really have something lengthy to say, to pre-empt their "war and peace" with a short initial post about what it is going to be about, "stay tuned…, More to follow" so to speak, then go for it with War & Peace in a following post.  

It doesn't really matter whether a couple of "huh?"s pop up in the interim, so long as the often quite informative body appears intact, very near the front of the thread.  Anyway, it would be for moderators to decide whether they think these detract from the flow of the thing unduly and deal with as moderators do.   

I don't think this forum is so busy that we are going to be hunting through pages to find the main thrust of the thing. 

Simplest solution is probably one of awareness and etiquette.  A "heads up" in the "how to use this forum" is probably enough.  Whether people read it?  That's another thing.

[2wheelsagain]

The thread in question has been edited.
Photos are still on the first page but not in the opening post so that now "the first post reminder" at the top of the subsequent pages only has text.

Thanks all for your feedback and I'll try to monitor similar posts in future.

This thread is now locked.

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