Does /recent need timestamps?

[psychobunny]

I'm considering some alternate styling for these feed-like views on Persona that are a bit different from the traditional layout. One thing that struck me when I was doing some wireframing was that timestamps don't really seem that important on this page.

Two questions then. When browsing recent:

• Does it matter if the last post was 20 minutes ago or 2 hours ago? Keep in mind you have an indication of if the post is read or not.
• Do you care when the OP was posted?

All this information would be present in the topic view, should you care enough about the topic to go in and read more.

[baris]

Does it matter if the last post was 20 minutes ago or 2 hours ago?

yes

Do you care when the OP was posted?

yes

[xen]

Sorry, but I find it hard to understand what the issue.

Hmm, I think the topics must look similar at each other on all pages to avoid confusion.
And if the topics on the page category have the timestamps, then and the page 'recent' they should be.

[psychobunny]

There's no issue, I'm just thinking of a new design for a new theme / Persona. If I don't do this every now and then NodeBB would look like this still:

(Which isn't that bad but what's wrong with innovation?)

[xen]

In any case, it would be interesting to see what you come up before making any conclusions.

[henrywright]

Keep in mind on some forums (such as mine) "recent" posts can be ~2 weeks old.

[Kowlin]

I do care when the last post occurred, but I cannot be bothered to find out when the thread was first started.

[Danny McWilliams]

On my forum, I like to look and get an idea of when the last activity was - and how much. We're not particularly busy so it's a quick way to scan my eyes over and get a general idea of what's going on. It's useful for me, but not a deal breaker.

[HolyPhoenix]

I would keep the timestamps there.

[henrywright]

I'm more interested in seeing your wireframe(s) or mockup(s) than whether the timestamp is displayed

[Bri]

+1 I like knowing when the last post was made on the recent items view. Is your wireframe idea trying to be as minimal as possible?