Too many Stickies?

[jpanhalt]

Here is my full monitor screen when I open ETO:

There are only four "content" posts on the whole page. The rest are stickies. Is there any evidence that stickies are actually read?

One might consider the number of views as evidence for that, but the first two content items have comparable views to many of the sticky items.
Some of the stickies do have a lot of views, for example, "Where To Buy Electronic Components and Parts." It also has a lot of pages to weed through to cull a minuscule amount of non-redundant, current information. Surprising to me, JimB's post for beginners has the smallest number of views. I do not think the number of views or responses to an ordinary thread should be a determinant of making that thread a sticky.

So, what prompted this rant? What great value does anyone see in the latest addition to the stickies, namely a thread about abbreviations that went nowhere and provided no conclusions. I can't imagine anyone who has doubts about an abbreviation reading hopelessly through 50 pages of posts instead of going to Google or another search engine.

Let me propose that the number of stickies for a forum be limited to no more than 6. They primarily should be helpful to posters, particularly new ones, and limited in number of replies. Technical electronic content is of secondary importance, as there are already sections for such content (e.g, Articles). For example, "This is how to add schematics to your post," would meet those criteria, if its content is current. "Basic Op-amp Circuits," while informative is not particularly helpful to someone who is attempting to post a question about mosfet power supplies or flashing LED's. Maybe it should be in another section, such articles.

In other words, instructional stickies about how to post images, schematics, code, multimedia clips, editing, file formats not supported by the forum and other user options would be useful to a poster. Content stickies might better be presented in an archive or articles section.

Regards, John

 

[alec_t]

I second that.

 

[JimB]

Surprising to me, JimB's post for beginners has the smallest number of views.

Well, the beginners post is barely three months old and is a re-write of a thread from 2008.
The basis of the re-write is discussed here:
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/new-to-electronics-faq.145489/

I do agree that being presented with a phalanx of stickies nearly filling the page is a bit offputting and depressing.
I believe that there was a suggestion some months ago that various stickies should be re-evaluated and culled as required, but I don't think that anything came of it.

JimB

 

[atferrari]

That about opamps could be replaced by at least two publications I downloaded lately but I realized I went there many times or referred others to them more than once.

It happens with interesting technical books: you underline or highlight so many things that in the end it would be better to scratch just what is not interesting.

I said this before: threads the type of "where to buy..." should (must) consist of one single post updated whenever fresh data shows up. Otherwise, you have Google with chances of serving anyone better most of the time. Do you think by any chance that common people would search there first? And along the WHOLE thread? Come on....let us be realistic.

That reminds me those hobbyists showing in their sites long lists of ANs from different manufacturers which you simply could find (all in one place) in the manufacturer's site (where else?). True that this type of contents seems to be less and less frequent.

 

[JimB]

In the interests of doing something useful, here are my suggestions for the stickies in "General Electronics Chat".

What do you think?

JimB

 

[Inquisitive]

I just un-stickied "What does it mean" and "Hello World"

 

[JimB]

Earlier I wrote:

I believe that there was a suggestion some months ago that various stickies should be re-evaluated and culled as required

and here it is:
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/sunset-stickies.144963/

I just un-stickied "What does it mean" and "Hello World"

Well done that man!

JimB

 

[jpanhalt]

Hi Jim,

Thanks. I agree with the choices you made, including the how to post schematics, because it is way outdated. I do think a "how to post" non-supported formats, e.g., zip, convert to pdf, or just use snip (for Windows users) would be helpful. So many times, we see a new poster refer to an attachment that is not there (my guess is that his link was to his local pc) , then they go to some offsite image service. I abhor the latter.

DerStrom seems very knowledgeable about such matters, maybe he could lead a small group (if the missus agrees) and get something to replace that sticky in a week or two.

John

 

[JimB]

Well, I have tidied up as I suggested.

JimB

 

[MrAl]

Hello,

The most direct way to deal with this without loosing any information would be to create a sub topic with some appropriate name, then put all the stickies under that heading. So i guess that means each topic could have a sub topic called say "Stickies" and under that we would find the stickies for that main title.
"Stickies" is just one example, but some other general name could be used too, such as "Helpful Stickies", "Permathreads", etc.

 

[large_ghostman]

How about a separate forum or subforum for stickies that is organized into the different sections? I would hate to see some of the stickies get lost amongst the millions of pages.

 

[JoeJester]

How about ensuring stickies that are congruent with the forum title. Those stickies that cross boundaries can be stickies in all the congruent areas.

In general, a sticky does not need to remain OPEN. Lock them up tight. If the content needs revision, then the revision can be agreed upon by whoever the management selects or they can ask for volunteer readers to review and comment in a private group conversation.

The op amp designs and Jim's FAQ works equally well in the homework help area as well as articles. In fact, the sticky only needs to do is redirect to the article. One FAQ sticky can provide links to many articles. The FAQ could also include the associated blogs that is congruent with the forum.

In my opinion, the forum stickies can reviewed on a schedule, like One specific forum at a time with a long respite before the next review of another forum. I wouldn't want the membership burning out reviewing stuff and not having other pertinent activities here. But then again, the owners can do whatever they want.

In general, my initial thoughts on forum stickies are:
- They express the rules of the particular subforum (i.e. general electronics chat).
- They are congruent with the particular subforum. They can be as simple as a list of links to other areas like blogs and articles.
- They are locked.
- They are reviewed, by whatever manner that is suitable with the owners, with a strong preference for membership participation.
- The fewer the better.