Diana Cox
Member
Preface: I have started a thankless project of providing (at my expense) a modern community message board for a large 55+ community which has been using a Yahoo message board since the Earth was cooling. A subset of the community comprises the most entitled, whiny, change-averse, group of old farts you would never want to meet. I expect that due to a combination of moderator burnout and Yahoo's deliberate neglect of the egroup, as a result of which the functionality of the egroup is declining and nobody is fixing it, the egroup is on it's last arthritic legs. I am not sad about this, as it
Due to the fact that there are nearly 7000 people on the Yahoo egroup, and EVERY.SINGLE.EMAIL goes to EVERYONE, the moderators do not allow discussions or political posts. That is one of the reasons I wanted a proper message board for the community - to be able to control the volume of emails, while encouraging the use of the board to meet/chat with people (well, SOME of them), as well as to have a more functional community resource, e.g., for organizing and saving the dozens of daily requests for recommendations for TKR surgeons, cataract surgeons, yard maintenance, car repairs, and house cleaners who speak English (UGH!). These repetitive requests make up easily 50% of the daily emails.
I have therefore included a Discussion board category (separate from Announcements, Recommendations, Classifieds categories), and many forums and subforums under each category. Being as were in deep red AZ, and lots of these old farts are from flyover country, I have the Politics board divided into Left-Leaning, Right-Leaning, and Free-for-All. In addition, I have a section for HOA issues (tense relationship with the builder who is still expanding the community, which will transition to self-governance in a few years when the place is finished). So far, the discussions have been cautiously lively, and comprise about half of the posts.
The board has been up and running for a couple of weeks, and now comes a whiner who doesn't want to ever SEE or WADE THOUGH political posts at all. She wants to be able to BLOCK or IGNORE the politics forum, so she can read the new posts without seeing them at all.
My suggestion was to tell her to go through the entire site and "watch" all of the forums except the Politics forum, and then use the Watched Thread or Forum buttons, but she's not liking that solution, in case new forums are added (and they will be as we expand topics). Besides telling her to pound sand, or to consider making the most high volume and "controversial" forums (e.g., Politics and HOA Issues) viewable by subscription only, is there a forum block/ignore function available so she won't have to see them? I'm not inclined to do that, because people won't bother joining them if they can't see the posts.
TIA for any help.
Diana (only 65 and not yet an old fart)
Due to the fact that there are nearly 7000 people on the Yahoo egroup, and EVERY.SINGLE.EMAIL goes to EVERYONE, the moderators do not allow discussions or political posts. That is one of the reasons I wanted a proper message board for the community - to be able to control the volume of emails, while encouraging the use of the board to meet/chat with people (well, SOME of them), as well as to have a more functional community resource, e.g., for organizing and saving the dozens of daily requests for recommendations for TKR surgeons, cataract surgeons, yard maintenance, car repairs, and house cleaners who speak English (UGH!). These repetitive requests make up easily 50% of the daily emails.
I have therefore included a Discussion board category (separate from Announcements, Recommendations, Classifieds categories), and many forums and subforums under each category. Being as were in deep red AZ, and lots of these old farts are from flyover country, I have the Politics board divided into Left-Leaning, Right-Leaning, and Free-for-All. In addition, I have a section for HOA issues (tense relationship with the builder who is still expanding the community, which will transition to self-governance in a few years when the place is finished). So far, the discussions have been cautiously lively, and comprise about half of the posts.
The board has been up and running for a couple of weeks, and now comes a whiner who doesn't want to ever SEE or WADE THOUGH political posts at all. She wants to be able to BLOCK or IGNORE the politics forum, so she can read the new posts without seeing them at all.
My suggestion was to tell her to go through the entire site and "watch" all of the forums except the Politics forum, and then use the Watched Thread or Forum buttons, but she's not liking that solution, in case new forums are added (and they will be as we expand topics). Besides telling her to pound sand, or to consider making the most high volume and "controversial" forums (e.g., Politics and HOA Issues) viewable by subscription only, is there a forum block/ignore function available so she won't have to see them? I'm not inclined to do that, because people won't bother joining them if they can't see the posts.
TIA for any help.
Diana (only 65 and not yet an old fart)
