Marcus Sternberg

Programming our ERP system we also use a reverse sort order for our logfiles. You get the latest replies / entries first - then you follow the history. Most of the time for the current posts the long log is not necessary, it doesnt matter what a customer has written 3 months ago. Therefore the latest 2-3 posts are sufficient. You read the answer first, if you need more details you scroll down and read the post before and the one before. As said, most of the times you do not need to go more back in history than 2-3 posts - the rest is irrelevant and can be accessed by scrolling in case you need it. Reversal allows you to scan the posts before for the relevant things as you have already open questions or details read in the current new post and know what to look for. Having a chronical order you might need to jump backwards as you got to know later what the current post refers to and might have skipped that already or forgotten. So you need to go back again. Reversal order way is faster in dealing with the posts as you have the current questions/details in mind (short memory) - same as in the forum. But I guess this is maybe more a "believer" thing.

Hmm... all I say is that it would be better to allow the admins a free decision themselves which will be more useful depending on their target group instead of being rigid and impose on them the opinion the foum here has ("and as it has always been since the begin of time".... you know that argument). Imagine e.g. a forum like we have where we have only a few readers in a knowledge community. Most of us knows the thread and it would be neat not always have to go down to the bottom in order to see new answers but have them already at the first top assuming that these kind of users can handle this very well. This would save some time - and in our cases we are not talking of lost conversations as the posts stay within a resonable number. And for other foums it might be better to keep the old order - being flexibles would be the key.

Hi all, I am not sure if these theoretical discussions leads any further. I would love such a feature too especialy when you use the forum for longer threads. Why not having this as an option in the admin area so every forum admin can decide himself. As a noob I would say its just a question how to query the database, not? I would vote for this as a toggle in the admin panel so that your product is even more flexible and can provide both ways - that would be a better sales argument than what I read from Charles (if the user has no choice this doesnt sound for me like an USP). Best; Marcus