issues vs chat

[Grommit]

Following up from a post where someone mentioned there seem to be less people responding to problems I wondered if this is because there are so many postings they seem to drop off the main page very quickly. I wondered if there is a way to separate 'Chat' from other subjects. For eg you could go into 'Talk' or 'Chat' - 2 separate areas? Justine/Rachel/Carrie - what do you think? Thanks

Good idea Grommit. Finding it very hard to keep up with threads lately as, especially during the day, they drop off of active conversations so quickly - and that's when I've got it set to 50.

I think it would risk losing the essence of mumsnet, as some times i just want some light relief and a bit of company and then i see a serious post which I want to respond to ie I might not have seen it if it was posted elsewhere as i wasn't in the mood for hunting out issues. And vice versa feeling down i might just go into the problems and miss out on sharing someone's frivolous sense of humour.

It's hard - maybe the active conversations could show that last say 5 chat and the last 20 other issues so that the balance was kept on the issues

that's last 5 max - at the moment there's only 1!

Maybe a split screen, would there be room to run them parallel?

Would it be possible to have both a chat and a talk section of the 'active conversations' on the main page ?

Perhaps a split screen, although may not be possible due to long thread titles, or maybe one list and then the other below it, IYSWIM.

ie

TALK
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc

and so on...

CHAT
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc
Category Thread title etc

I do realise that this would make the page verrrrrrry long, so perhaps that would pose a problem.

I'm not sure about this - I virtually never go into chat but I don't think there are so many chat threads that they detract from the other threads.
One of the reasons I like mumsnet is its usability - I find sites with separate boards for different subjects (i.e. where you can't see all the current thread titles at a glance) frustrating and impossible!

I didnt realise about the active conversations bit until it was brought up in the clique chat. I just go into talk and then click on the topics that im interested in, or if there were any with new posts at the time

I don't use active coinversations. I go to find new messages ,and click "check since I last checked".

Thanks for these suggestions. We're actually having a meeting on Wednesdays to discuss, among other things, the expanding talk boards and we'll certainly look at your views then. Will keep you informed on any decisions/changes that will be made.
Cheers, Rachel

I think this would be a good idea too. You would probably end up checking both pages but it would help people to decide on the nature of the post and how urgently it needed responding to.

I like the idea of a split page. It this looks too messy, how about listing active conversations in the last 12 hours (or 10/15/20 hours or whatever) as opposed to the last 24 hours? Or listing active chat conversations in the last 5 hours, while all other conversations get 24 hours on the active thread?