Dod101 wrote:Presumably these come with the software but I must say I cannot see much point in some of them. ...
Agreed! I actually actively dislike the 'scrolling text' icon rather than merely seeing little point to it. It isn't a
strong dislike, but its plus point is miniscule - the range of 'page selection' icons tells me a fair amount about the size of the thread (which of 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, etc, posts it contains), making being told whether it contains 50+ posts of very little additional value. And it has the minus point of movement, which makes it a significant visual distraction from anything else on the screen (at least as far as I'm concerned), and for me that minus point outweighs its plus point.
It's also useless as an indicator of a 'hot' topic. Especially for 'persistent' threads, such as those on the Company News board, it can indicate a thread that was 'hot' at some point in the past but long ago ceased to be so, or even one that has never been 'hot' but has been accumulating a trickle of posts for a long time...
If the criterion for a thread being 'hot' were something that could reasonably be regarded as actually indicating that - e.g. a "more than N posts added in the last 24 hours" - I would still not really like it, but I would see the point in it for those who are interested in identifying active areas of discussion. Putting up with features one dislikes but others might plausibly want is part of the give & take of sites like this, but I find it hard to imagine anyone really wanting the 'scrolling text' icon as it currently exists, at least once they understand what it actually indicates!
Gengulphus