I feel that there are more and more threads with topics like "I bought a Touch HD 2", "The resistive touchscreen is a total deal breaker" etc. on this forum, I'm sure guys know what I mean.

It would be nice to have a feature to hide such threads, which would significantly increase the signal-to-noise ratio of this forum. An option in the control panel to hide threads which have a rating below a certain value would probably do the job.

Any comments on this idea?

Great idea..

Or they all get moved to off topic?

Completely agree would defiantly improve the site to get rid of these threads or at least move them! Also could we get rid of "Off topic" threads on the active topics bar?

One would think that when topics like "I have a boner do you??" show up, that Off Topic could be moved out of the Active Topics sidebar completely. I suggested this a week or so ago but it didn't go anywhere. Now as more obnoxious people show up, maybe it will get some traction.

Frank

Good idea. Personally I would prefer a manual "ignore" function over automatic filtering based on rating. A certain thread with low rating may still be of interest to me personally.

How about we just tag them "annoying thread" and have a option to hide all threads with the tag "annoying thread"?

then the rights to remove tags given to every member should be yanked too. coz i can go and remove a tag on any thread.
that would also involve of personal matter too. if i do not like you i can find your threads and start putting tag annoying thread and which actually would be important to everybody but they would not be able to see that because of that particular tag.
so I give my vote to the ignore thread button.

I'm with nymajoak. I think a *private* manual ignore would totally solve the problem. At most you'd see the thread that annoys you once, and then never again. It also doesn't force us to agree on what annoys us, and doesn't hurt other people's feelings.

I also like davedickson's suggestion of getting the off-topic threads out of the 'active topics' sidebar. Given that there's a limited number of slots in that sidebar and that divisive off-topic threads can draw a huge post count from a small number of people, I think it makes sense to not have it on the "front page" of the forum.

Of course I have no idea how either of these things could be implemented, but they seem like good ideas.

-John

You guys don't have an 'ignore' reature in your heads? You can't look at a thread and think "Nope, not interested in that one"?

I've worked in various places, and never understood the need for the 'ignore' feature for posts, let alone threads. If you don't like it, don't read it. No-one is compelling you to click on a thread titled "I bought an HD2".

As for the sidebar, I'd request that people keep thread titles clean (informative about content would help, too ... 'n900 question' doesn't tell me much). Beyond that, if it's what the community are talking about, I want to know. Besides "I bought an HD2" belongs in 'competitors', not 'Off Topic', so cutting 'Off Topic' won't solve your problem.

There are loads and loads of channels on my TV I never watch, websites I never visit, and threads - even whole forums - I never click on. Why do you want to restrict my choice because it isn't your choice?

Having to filter by brain is annoying. I'm all for having an ignore thread option just like there's a subscripbe thread option.