Lack of interest [Suggestion!] - Members Online Sorting Options

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Did I? It is indeed better to sort the list on the forum home page by activity, but we're still likely only talking about a few hundred results. I have to admit that I'm surprised by the focus of the "who's online" page. I've very rarely used it and given the nature of it, it doesn't really reflect any sort of picture. (If I open up 5 threads, it's going to list me as being in the last of those. And of course it will list it until I load another page.)
 
I don't know if you guys misunderstood what I was saying, so I'll try and clarify on the chance that you did.

When you want to see *whos online*, you look at the list on the right of the index page. It shows members. What I am saying is that this list should be sorted alphabetically.
 

I thought so?

I really am trying to keep up, without typing too much, which is actually the core issue. On many forums I visit, many try to read as much as possible, as opposed to posting as much as possible, so those people do not show up in the latest posts.

Often I personally know them, and may need to contact them, via other means. If Joe last clicked 3 minutes ago I know the what the best method to contact them is (post, PM/PC, or even phone), if they last clicked 20 minutes ago and it is a certain time of day, then I know it would be best to simply make a post.

edit: I am simply trying to explain why who is online is important to me, I am not suggesting any changes.
 
There are 2 things being discussed. The forums home page where people online show up, and the whos online page.
  • The main forums page, last time clicked sounds perfect to me (for most forums).
  • The whos online, in theory, could be sorted by all sorts of things such as name, last click, rep/trophies, etc. I am not sure how important that would be.
 
I propose and suggest that the 'Members Online' list be sorted alphabetically. It currently isn't.

*Apologies if this suggestion has ever been made before. I looked around and couldn't find it.

I like it in such a weird order, stops -----~~~~2323213 spam accounts from always being shown
 
Mike mentioned that sorting the 'whos online' list would consume significant resources. Not sure where the thread is.

Then do what vBulletin and IPB do... Allow the sorting order to be set in the Admin CP. Don't sort alphabetically by default, but for small boards or for those who have resources to spare, then there is an option to sort alphabetically.
 
The benefit of Memberlists nowadays > make them more useful

Yeah, we actually debated about the members list. It kinda just appeared early in dev as we needed a way to get to profiles. I think having "most x" pages are probably useful, but I'm not sure how much additional filtering is necessary.

On a massive board, the whole members list, even with A-Z links, is a) useless and b) a big performance hit.

Yeah, I always wondered (in vBulletin and other boards) what the actual benefit was of providing a memberlist like that, consisting of sometimes a HUGE amount of pages. The only thing I used this overview for was:

  • Searching for a member,
  • Sort the list so I could get an insight in who posted the most or got the most reputation
So, where do I need a list, consisting of thousands and thousands of members, for? What purpose does it serve?

That is why I already love the sidebar of XenForo: it is implemented in a very useful way on the memberlist over here, showing us the Highest postings members and Newest members, together with a Search fields. Great!

But, to make XenForo unique and build further on the obvious social focus of XenForo, I believe this 'most x'-pages idea is wonderful.

Why not dish the list completely and present the enduser with an summery of the 'most x' members there? Just like XenForo already does on the right in the sidebar... but then moved over to the left/center of the screen. So when you go to http://xenforo.com/community/members/ you are immediately presented with this summary, without seeing a pretty useless list. Like this:

Newest Members
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Highest-Posting Members
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Most likes received
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Most trophies earned
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

I mean, something really useful and interesting, presented immediately to the community member the moment one enters this screen. No need anymore for any list.

Edit: See the attachment:

Advanced member search.webp

In vBulletin we had this Advanced Search for members. That was another way to get some overviews out of it. And then we had the Statistics or something like that in the Admin Control Panel, which was the only way we could get some TOP-statistics easily. But... those ACP data was not available/visible to the community!

I mean, top/most x-data like that is interesting for the community aswell... makes a member'list' more interesting and usefull when data like that is presented in a nice elegant way to the endusers.
 
What happened? Didn't we have a member list that was sortable? I *believe* that was extremely usable and friendly. Sometimes it is really good to be able to sort by various attributes.

?​
 
What happened? Didn't we have a member list that was sortable? I *believe* that was extremely usable and friendly. Sometimes it is really good to be able to sort by various attributes.?

Sure, but how often do you do that? I mean, on vBulletin you are presented with a huge list directly and you can sort it. Why just not present the users of our platform with an interesting overview of TOP stats/avatars there and provide the full (much more uninteresting) list as a link somewhere? Then you have the best of both worlds, for people who can not miss the full list (for whatever reason I can not think about?). Or provide an advanced search, so that the list is never ever presented directly on the screen anywhere, except when people want the results of Advanced Search...
 
Sure, but how often do you do that?
All the time actually. Especially as a casual visitor on other people forums when I want find people with the most posts, who are the oldest members, who has the highest rep (trophies) so I can take a quick look at their posts on a subject.

While I agree with the concept of hiding most information in the post bit as this forum has set up now, when I really don't know something, that information is incredibly helpful. For instance if I saw a list of people sorted by the highest rep, I could take a quick peek what they had posted recently, and have at least a slight amount of confidence that the information was somewhat accurate. I do that often on forums. I might even drill down 2 pages on the sorted rep list and do that, or even by oldest date, or most posts.

Top statistics really does not do the same thing because that is inherently limited, if it was unlimited then you would be basically have the sorted member list like it was before the change.
 
I see it is important for you. Thanks for taking the time to explain it. That is why I suggested the link to the full list and/or Advanced search to be there as well. I understand that a compact overview of TOP statistics is limited, that's why it's called 'Advanced' Search I assume....;).
 
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