Minor request: link to shows in first post in forum threads

[Pants Masterson 81]

It's not a massive problem for me, but I'd appreciate it if the thread creators (or magic robots, if it's automated) could link to the page for a show ep when it generates a thread for said episode.

 

Maybe I'm a singular weirdo, but my listening-to-a-show vector often starts with the forum, and not with browsing Earwolf archives, so having to then go find that show is actually a bit of a drag. Especially when you have long-standing shows like CBB, where somebody can bump a two-year-old episode, inspiring me to want to listen to it again, but then having a heck of a time digging it up.

[Pants Masterson 81]

Not to be a nag, but here's a good example: I'm in the CBB forums, because that's my podcast of preference, but I click up a couple of levels to the main forum, scroll down -- holy shit! Jeff Garlin interviewed Vince Gilligan? Cool! I can see that because it's the most recent thread commented on in the Garlin sub-forum. What luck!

 

I click on the forum link to check out the thread and some feedback real quick -- if the general consensus is "that was terrible", I may not bother to listen to the whole thing. So I wind up here.

 

Now I know there's a Vince Gilligan interview, and it looks awesome. I want to listen to it! So from there, I...

 

...well, I don't click the link to the podcast in the thread about the podcast.

 

I scroll up to the top of the page, click on "Shows," wait for the Shows page to load, read through the page until I find the link to the Jeff Garlin podcast, click on the link for the podcast, wait for the podcast page to load, scroll down through the episodes until I find the Vince Gilligan episode (in this case, Jeff Garlin is near the top of the podcast list, and Vince Gilligan is the first listed ep, which is lucky), then click on that, wait for the page to load, and then -- o blessed saviour -- listen to the podcast.

 

This is not, on balance, the worst thing I have ever had to do. But it definitely slows down the discovery/experimentation process, and has a chilling effect on me. I'd love to cruise the forums for other Earwolf shows and try to gauge which shows to check out based on which forums are active and engaging. I got into Improv4Humans because of a mention of something that happened in the I4H forum (crazy sockpuppet activity), which led me to the forum and then the podcast.

 

So it'd be nice to have, I guess.

[Gabe Danon 290]

Totally agree with you, Pants Masterson. We're currently exploring ways to improve our forum and generally encourage this kind of conversation sitewide. It will probably be some time before the kind of improvements you're talking about will start materializing, but I'm working to make improvements to the site all the time.

 

For one thing, our "shows" menu is about to become a lot less unwieldy, so look for that to launch later this week. And thanks for your feedback!