I would think this has been suggested before, but having a way for me to mark an entire thread as "Not Interested" would be a big help in separating the wheat from the chaff.
In the FT fora that I participate in regularly, like the Delta or Premium Deals sections, fully 2/3s of the topics are of no interest to me whatsoever. Some of these threads continually resurface to the top and become a nuisance, causing me to have to mentally exclude the thread each and every time I scan the forum, since I can't visually exclude them.
Now I know that the devil is in the details, and since this functionality would necessitate changes to how threads are presented in a forum, a lot of thought will have to be put into this.
But there are a couple of ways that this could work:
- Keep the forum pagination the same, but have my Not Interested threads immediately sort to the bottom. They would also be placed beneath a marker that would read "Threads you aren't interested in:"
- Keep most everything the same, pagination included, but have my Not Interested threads appear in a different font-face or with a different background. For example, Not Interested threads could be in a light gray background with plain black or dark gray text. My eye would then be drawn to the normal threads and I could more easily ignore the Not Interested threads with this obvious visual cue. But...the Not Interested threads would still be there if I so choose to take a peek at them anyway
- Have a toggle button to show or hide Not Interested threads. This would change the pagination so I'm not sure that this is the best approach, though would be the most efficient at keeping Not Interested thread out of sight - and also out of mind.
I would lean towards options 1 or 2 because I don't think that threads should ever by hidden entirely. There is always the chance that I will want to read a Not Interested thread in a fit of boredom. Plus there always needs to be a way to toggle a thread back to Interested status and I can't do that if I can't find them easily.
The good thing about any of these options would be that if someone doesn't use the Not Interested features, then everything would be exactly as it is today.
Interested in hearing others' opinions...