Open Zoo threads

C

CGSwans

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Simon Hampel said:
FWIW, I actually prefer separate threads per topic - it's much easier for people to find information when searching for it when it is not stuck in the middle of some long thread about a bunch of different items which happen to be related only because they are from the same facility. It also helps with SEO (which is related to the previous point - the whole point of SEO is to make it easier for people to find information when they are searching for it!)

I also recognise that many people also prefer to have a single thread to read and group all news together - but I can assure you that this is by no means universal. I'm happy to accommodate both approaches here - neither should be considered "wrong".

More importantly - as per the dozens of posts I have deleted from this thread attest - dragging a thread off topic is far worse than any perceived transgression from not posting in the correct place. Indeed, from my point of view - the people who posted off topic stuff in this thread have done far worse than the original poster ever could be accused of here.

So, as the last off topic post on this matter - I request that all members stick to the topic presented and if you have a problem with the thread, you should report it and let the moderators deal with it if they agree that action is required. (In this case, the answer to that would be "no" - this thread is fine).

You don't have to read threads you aren't interested in, and if you find any user particularly problematic, you can always put them on ignore.
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One thing that might contribute to the frustration, at least mechanically, is the quite unusual nested forum structure we have on Zoochat. A large number of Monkeyworld threads (or Berlin threads or London threads or whatever) is fine when it's the Monkeyworld forum, but those threads also appear in the UK forum. It does make the latter format a bit unwieldy for people to use when there's a large number of threads about a specific zoo, and particularly when many of those threads might be of 'niche' interest. The same is true, though to a much lesser extent, in the format I use which is the 'recent posts' function.

I do apologise for contributing to the derailing of the thread. My love of puns does tend to get me into trouble at times.
 
You do realise that you can filter the list of threads to focus on a specific zoo by using the drop-down list at the top of the page?

upload_2018-7-24_14-31-37.png



... you can also filter by clicking on any of the thread prefixes for a zoo to show only threads for that zoo:

upload_2018-7-24_14-32-33.png



... and then you get something like the following:

upload_2018-7-24_14-33-8.png


The alternative would be to have literally 2,400+ different forum topics for each zoo - many of which will see very little traffic - plus general forum topics for each country, so something approaching 2,600 forum topics.

That would make the forum very cumbersome to navigate to find threads you are interested in.
 
I’m sorry, Simon, if I’ve misinterpreted your tone but I don’t really understand what I’ve said to irritate you.

You seem to have misinterpreted me - I understand quite well how to filter through the nested structure (which is quite clever - just unusual, as I said). I was only guessing at why many users express frustration with the ‘many small threads’ model of structuring discussion, and it was intended as an observation, not a complaint. I was certainly not suggesting 2600 separate forums.

Edit: I wouldn’t have made my initial post if I knew you were going to spin it out into a separate thread. It doesn’t warrant standalone treatment.
 
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Hi Sim - just as an aside - I've noticed I can only access the threads-by-zoo by clicking on an actual prefix in the list (which is fine if there's a recent post but otherwise a bit awkward!). Clicking on a zoo in the drop-down just gives a 'Page not found' error.

I've noticed the prefix link goes straight to (e.g.)

Chester Zoo Forums

...whereas the drop-down link seems to want to go to

https://www.zoochat.com/community/forums/united-kingdom.38/forums/united-kingdom.38/?prefix_id=1096

...with what looks like a duplication in the URL?

Checked a couple of different countries and the same in each. Will have a play when I'm back on my home machine later to check different browsers.
 
Maguari said:
Hi Sim - just as an aside - I've noticed I can only access the threads-by-zoo by clicking on an actual prefix in the list (which is fine if there's a recent post but otherwise a bit awkward!). Clicking on a zoo in the drop-down just gives a 'Page not found' error.

I've noticed the prefix link goes straight to (e.g.)

Chester Zoo Forums

...whereas the drop-down link seems to want to go to

https://www.zoochat.com/community/forums/united-kingdom.38/forums/united-kingdom.38/?prefix_id=1096

...with what looks like a duplication in the URL?

Checked a couple of different countries and the same in each. Will have a play when I'm back on my home machine later to check different browsers.
Click to expand...

I've also had this problem for a while but had just chalked it up to being in China.
 
CGSwans said:
I’m sorry, Simon, if I’ve misinterpreted your tone but I don’t really understand what I’ve said to irritate you.
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The only thing that irritated me was the posts made by (multiple) people in the thread your post was split from - followed by how I explicitly said that the thread was not to be dragged off topic any further and then you did exactly that.

However, any questions or comments about the structure of the site and if/how it might be improved are always worth exploring - which is why I split your post into a new thread rather than just deleting it as off topic.

If there is an improvement that can be made - now is the time to be suggesting that since I'm about to start work on the site upgrade shortly.

CGSwans said:
You seem to have misinterpreted me - I understand quite well how to filter through the nested structure (which is quite clever - just unusual, as I said). I was only guessing at why many users express frustration with the ‘many small threads’ model of structuring discussion, and it was intended as an observation, not a complaint. I was certainly not suggesting 2600 separate forums.
Click to expand...

Having thought about it some more - the only real issue I can identify is that there is currently no option for filtering out threads which are about specific zoos to show only those threads which are country-level discussions rather than zoo-specific. We need a "none" option in the zoo prefix list.

There is an outstanding suggestion with the software developers to add this functionality. If they haven't added it by the time I've started work on the rebuild I will look at adding something manually myself as a short term workaround.

Otherwise, any suggestions on improvements to the structure are always appreciated.

CGSwans said:
Edit: I wouldn’t have made my initial post if I knew you were going to spin it out into a separate thread. It doesn’t warrant standalone treatment.
Click to expand...

Of course it does - if there is a problem or even just the perception of a problem, we either need to educate people about things they may have missed - or identify whether we can improve things to remedy that issue or improve the usability.
 
Maguari said:
Hi Sim - just as an aside - I've noticed I can only access the threads-by-zoo by clicking on an actual prefix in the list (which is fine if there's a recent post but otherwise a bit awkward!). Clicking on a zoo in the drop-down just gives a 'Page not found' error.
Click to expand...

Which browser and OS are you using? I do recall an issue a while back on IE which caused problems, but I thought I had fixed that.
 
Simon Hampel said:
Oops - just tried it on MS Edge and found the problem being described - will look at a fix.
Click to expand...

Thanks Sim - can confirm either way works fine in Chrome (both with Windows 10).
 
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