Change to front page

This topic was created by Roger Greenwood .

[Roger Greenwood]

Change to front page

I noticed that the link to these forums at the top of the front page has disappeared. Why? Just curious. Not even sure anyone will even see this as the list of forums also appears changed.

[Marco Fontani]

Hi,

We've gotten rid of all the top links, as they weren't deemed worth the "above the fold" real estate they were taking up.

The forums indexes ("Article topics", "User topics") are still available, and one can still directly go to them - but we're not linking to the forum homepage, or to other links we used to have in the top nav bar, with the same prominence.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the list of forums also appears changed" - we've done no change recently to the forums layout, list of sections, or anything like that.

Hope this helps!

[I ain't Spartacus]

I think the change he's on about was done longer ago, but hardly noticed. When you're on a forum and logged in, you get a menu at the top right of the page (under the banner) that allows you to find your own posts or create a topic, but no longer has the links to the general and article forums in it. That's now on a larger bar at the top.

I've got to be honest I don't bother with anything but the article forums anymore, because nobody else was. But I do still want to see my own posts, as although there's still no way to see if anyone has replied - I can at least look and see if loads of people have voted on them, which is a clue to an active thread to look into. Or, if I've not posted much, I can just I can just manually click on the links to my last couple of days of posts.

I'm sad not to have a link to be able to get to my own posts. Short of selecting an article, then going to the comments and then finding the menu on the top right to click the My Posts link?

Could we not have a link just to this on the front page? Perhaps along with a thing to say "you are logged in as name click here to log out/go to your account.

Admittedly the lack of ability to do this for the last few days has left me meaning to come to the bugs reporting forum to complain, but then the link went so I couldn't. Well the honest answer was I didn't get round to it...

[Marco Fontani]

but no longer has the links to the general and article forums in it. That's now on a larger bar at the top

"User topics" gets you to the user forums; "Article topics" gets you to the article forums.

Re "a way to get to the forums", I personally just type "forums" on the URL bar, and I pick the first result - but I might be biased.. we'll find a way to "help" navigating to the forums, in a manner that isn't front-and-centre like the link in the top bar used to be.

Re complaining, you can always direct your ire at webmaster@ if you feel so inclined. Not all emails sent there are sent to /dev/null.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Not all emails sent there are sent to /dev/null.

Just most of them?

Good point about the address bar though. Thanks. I'd not even looked and noticed that you have a forums.theregister... address - so that's an easy solution.

[Marco Fontani]

Just most of them?

The vast majority is just spam or SEO shit which might as well be spam.

When a genuine person writes, I usually take the time to reply when I have an answer, which might not be immediately.

[Roger Greenwood]

Thanks for the explanation Marco,

I guess I got used to the direct link but also wondered if it was just temporary. Keep up the good work.

[JDX]

How can I directly go to the forums indexes if there isn't a link? I often come here to see my comments and check for replies/discussion.

Are you saying you expect users to bookmark the page? Why not put it at the footer if you want a cleaner top-bar?

[Marco Fontani]

Why not put it at the footer if you want a cleaner top-bar?

That's exactly what we've gone with. Second-last item in the "More content' list.

Hope this helps!

[Dave559]

Forum links

Make that a "me too" for "where on earth did the forum links go" confusion, please!

I'm not joking when I say that half the value of The Reg is in the articles, and the other half of the value genuinely is in the (usually) intelligent comments on them.

If there's nothing that catches my eye on the home page (yes, I know), what I usually do is follow the link to the forums straight away, so that I can see if anyone has replied to any of my comments, or if there are interesting new comments in comment threads that I was reading.

So, please can we have the forum links back? Having to read an article, and then go to the comment page, and then go to posts (or topics), is a real faff, unfortunately.

[diodesign]

Re: Forum links

FYI, for now at least, the forums link is back - at the bottom of every page under 'More content'. Or bookmark forums.theregister.co.uk. Or click through article comments.

C.

[Dwarf]

+1 for putting it on the top of the front page

A small icon or button takes up virtually no space. There's plenty of extra stuff that we don't need but never the things that we do. Don't forget who your customers are !!

Like others, I want to come and see whats going on in the forums. Currently it just takes too long to go back to them, so I'm not bothering any more.

If you want reader support then make it easy to find and fast to access. Typically I've only got a couple of minutes between real day job tasks, so if it not easy to get to, then I'll simply do something else instead.

Second question - why is it necessary to keep fiddling with the page layout and add unnecessary graphics all over the place. Why do we need a bouncing bird ? There are specialist websites for people who like that sort of thing.