The Scratch Build/Case Mod filters date back about 10 years - they practically no longer matter. The fact you've just added a(n inevitably sooner or later abandoned?) Thermaltake one means you can add more... So, I'd like to propose more specific filters to help differentiate mod types and themes - SFF - 'Big case' - 3D printed - Fanless - Non-PC - ARM/Pi And perhaps the staff could award a limited number of master builders - the guys doing it professionally; have won mod of the year; are known to the community to constantly deliver innovations - a special 'Master Build' (or whatever - that sounds like Cooler Master) filter to differentiate the A+ gurus from the casual folks. This will allow us to spot their threads easier and filter them all for easy viewing and give a unique reward for their patronage to BT community. I don't think this diminishes the value of casual modders - the forum is popular and has a diverse readership; and I suspect people often gravitate to the 5* threads anyway. I have specific interest in SFF or unique cooling (oil etc), but I don't want to dig through a million threads when the titles are typically just labelled with a project name. I'd ask for galleries and image uploading like overclock.net, but that would mean a forum upgrade and I suspect I'll sooner be holding my own grandchildren than login to find this.
I agree with everything you say, along with the return of a working author posts filter, but you'd have to keep the original filters as well and it'll just get too complicated - you'd end up with 11 possible filters with your suggestions and the existing options. It might be better in the long run, but it'll be messy in the short term. As for the forum, I'm guessing there'll never be an update. Jamie made too many changes and updates to integrate it into the site, and now that he's gone there's nobody around who'd be able to upgrade and keep the integration.
Sorry for the late reply on this! Things have moved on quite a bit recently and we are working on some big things - we definitely do have people working on this so hopefully sooner than your grand kids Rich The issue we have is that, as Flibblebot mentioned, the numerous layers or tweaks etc mean that we'd need a complete overhaul so in the short term, not a lot will happen. The long term is a little more exciting. I'd argue the Mod and Scratchbuild filters are still relevant, but the main issue is we can only have one filter at the moment without very complicated dev work afiak, so this drastically limits the scope of what we can do and how useful it would be. For example - yes you can have a SFF filter, but you couldn't then have 3D printed, or fanless as well. So you'd be limited to a single group, say form factor, or material/build type, but not both, and some may feel that 3D printing or SFF is more important for their 3D printed SFF project. You'd end up with a filter system that only finds half the relevant projects depending on which the maker decided to use. In my mind, mod and scratchbuild are much stronger, wide-sweeping filters that work better with the system we currently have. They are the two original modding camps afterall and people do usually lean towards one or the other when browsing the forum, at least I've heard that mentioned a few times anyway. The alternative is to simply use the filters as a headline - ie if the maker feels the best thing about a project is the fact it's SFF or 3D printed, then they simply use it as an advertising tool. Again, though, different modders will select different options - not all SFF builds will be listed at SFF etc. Personally, I'd love to be able to use more filters and I'd probably have mind permantently set to SFF too I guess at the very least we could have a forum vote/discussion the log forum to see what other people's opions are and if there's anything we could integrate into future stuff.
