The first iteration of the Hot Topics page is now live and can be accessed here.
The link is also available under the Hot Topics tab in the sidebar widget – View All to see the current Hot Topics page.
This represents the first step in what hopefully will be an evolution in the way the community use the site from this point on.
As it stands, the first version is a simple index of the current Hot Topics created, offering direct access to all the discussions flagged as a Hot Topic.
However, we have big plans to evolve this further.
The first step will be to add features to the current page, allowing Moderators to pin Topics to the top of the page to keep them current.
Following that, we will likely look at a method of indicating the current most active Hot Topics and those contributing.
The next proposed steps take even bigger strides.
The vision is for the Hot Topic page to link to a mirrored version of the discussion, allowing for interaction without the need to enter the article thread.
In this way users can choose to view and post within a discussion in the traditional way, via the article thread, or use the Hot Topic page to see the discussion full page and post replies via that view. They will not be separate discussions, there will just be two methods to view and interact.
As this process evolves, the community moderation team will change their approach to Hot Topics. We will have more opening each day, more created as soon as we feel that there is a topic to discuss. They won’t exclusively be created from existing threads.
The moderators will also be far more protective of the discussion within these Hot Topic threads. They will be kept on topic and existing Hot Topics will not be used to open new discussions. You will see the moderators steering and perhaps removing comments more often to keep with this policy.
The community will carry on creating threads that get flagged as Hot Topics in the traditional way – by posting and starting a discussion in the article thread.
However, we may even look at the concept of creating a new level of permission to some community members which enable them to create Hot Topics directly from the Hot Topic page.
This will then create a hybrid of a comments system and old style forum, allowing users to interact with the full conversations of the day, or just navigate straight to the key topics currently being discussed.
In this way, users who want to avoid the pre-season Rate My Team chatter, can circumvent this while continuing to contribute to the key discussions.
We hope you can see the same potential in this development and, from this point on, we will look to you to help steer how it progresses.
We’ve started one of those Hot Topic things to kick things off, gathering your feedback and ideas on the above.
