On mobile, the home page is a single column with the latest posts for each category shown right below the category. As a result, the only posts you see without scrolling are the most recent #welcome posts, even when those posts are really old. This gives the impression that there’s way less activity than there really is. For example, my welcome post from May 29th was the most recent post a visitor on mobile would see without scrolling down.
I propose we put a different category at the top. #clear-the-path and #announcements are probably the best choices. I’m inclined towards #announcements, since I don’t want to push either it or #welcome down to the 3rd slot.
Separately, I think we should swap #clear-the-path and #feedback-support. I think of #clear-the-path as more of an internal-but-public discussion area, where we talk through issues that we’re actually working on and the outcome will directly affect our next actions. I think of #feedback-support as a public feedback form, where we also have the ability to follow up if needed. Topics like Projects that might be overlapping and Adjust the match base to 1¢? straddle the line between the two.
Newcomers to the forum are more likely to post in the higher category. I think I’d rather err on the side of directing them to #feedback-support.
@Salt@wolftune if you have no objections, give this post a thumbs up and I’ll go ahead and do it.
Interesting to note how things look on mobile. Some aspects of that seem weird. The font-size seems too big too (that’s an easy CSS fix if we decide to do it). Overall, this seems partly independent from the issues about order otherwise. I’d like to move toward having mobile default to the Latest view instead of the Categories view…
…and it turns out that so many people think that Category view is the best view for desktop but awful on mobile that this exists:
(that’s after multiple topics on meta about this issue with all sorts of other workdowns people came up with)
I propose we install that as a theme component (like we have with the DuckDuckGo component). It’s a much better solution than rearranging the categories. We just need to be careful to follow the instructions so it works as an accessory component rather than a full theme.
I also thought about making #welcome visible only to logged-in users. I’d like it to be emphasized to new users, but I don’t care for it to be on the top otherwise (though I’m happy with it there on desktop). I suppose there’s some fine things about visitors seeing people being friendly and such or learning about the forum before they log-in, but I have mixed feelings there. I think my ideal would be to have a different order for logged-in or non-logged in users (and perhaps other user classifications).
I don’t see the need for the other changes you’re proposing. I think the whole forum is sorta internal and want to make the core work pretty prominent and encourage everyone to join and read the #clear-the-path areas — feedback and support makes sense lower down.
I think we can wait and see how newcomers actually behave rather than speculate.
