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XOIIO's avatar

Should we have an "observing members"icon in the topic sections?

Asked by XOIIO (18328points) February 19th, 2011

We have all seen the little pencils that show how many people are composing answers for a question.I think it would be nice to have a little pair of binoculars to go along with them to show the number of observing members as wel, maybe something like this. What do you think?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

8 Answers

augustlan's avatar

Well, on the actual question there is an eye symbol for observing members. Or are you talking about on the page that lists all the questions?

XOIIO's avatar

Hmm, never noticed the eye.

Yes, on the page that lists all the questions. I just think it would be a nice thing to have. It kindof would hint to the possibility of a discussion forming, and how popular the question currently is.

JilltheTooth's avatar

At first your binocular icon looked to me like two Japanese women in kimonos bowing to each other.

XOIIO's avatar

@jill
Lol it does XD

JilltheTooth's avatar

Maybe it could be used as a “Hey, Guys, please be polite” icon? ;-)

PhiNotPi's avatar

The downside to being able to see the number of people looking at a question, before you actually go to the question, is that it might promote recentism. The problem with recentism is that older, unanswered questions would tend to stay that way. If a person is able to see where people are gathering, they might tend to go join that group, and not other, less recent questions that they could contribute to. I can just imagine there being a few very popular threads, at any particular time, that draw attention away from everything that happened the day before.

lillycoyote's avatar

@JilltheTooth I would just love to see the results of your latest, or any, Rorschach test. I bet they’re absolutely fascinating. :-)

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