A person does not search for something, have the search crash, then pull an infomercial and throw their monitor out the window. But what does happen is that people are encouraged to host forum activities elsewhere or just never start them because they can't get useful searches, among other inadequacies in SMF.
People don't stick around to run forum games and create stuff, then other people stop sticking around to partake of those things. Overall attendance drops rapidly as a result. It's the kind of thing that could threaten DF's livelihood if it gets bad enough.
IMO, that's extremely hyperbolic. I think most users don't even use the search function that much.
It is, but (speaking solely for myself), the main reason I don't use the search function much is because it's often easier to try to remember who started a thread, find the thread through their profile, and then manually search for the post (if seeking a specific post) than it is to find it through the search interface.
* Criptfeind had to look up what threadmarks are.
Looks pretty interesting, their function seems to be served by simply linking to the post in question in most cases. But it couldn't hurt I guess.
The broken search function is the worst though. Come on SMF. Whatcha playing at?
Threadmarks came about pretty much because compiling indices of important posts is a complete pain in the ass, and not having any way to find specific posts by GMs, authors, &c. is incredibly archaic in the worst way.
Threadmarks are good because they do the same thing as an index in the OP with a fraction of the effort and are faster to navigate, while retaining the benefit of being able to scan through a complete index. Users can even subdivide them so that you have separate indices and ordering for different groups of posts, such as if you wanted to have story posts separate from supplementary posts.
There's some stuff that feels good in older formats, but the janky nonfunctional functions and annoying user-driven solutions to information needs can GTFO. It's the difference between taste and bad design. The format, lack of upframpt buttons, &c. is taste. The terrible search function, lack of alerts/threadmarks, &c. is just bad (or in some cases old) design. SMF is a dated, spottily maintained platform and it really shows. Sometimes that's nice, sometimes it sucks.
Like, shit, I don't think many people wish we'd go back to Usenet-styled newsgroups in place of forums. Older isn't always better, even if the reddit model can die in a fire as well.
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Topic: The future of the Bay12 forums (Read 19491 times)