New Topic Grids

@Robert Gentel,

Rocky started a thread with an interesting concern/question (IMNSHO).

If you're reading a thread - considering an answer - but not ready to respond - and then go read other stuff while you're considering your possible response - that thread disappears off new and you've got to go trolling for it.

I'd thought of tagging it in some way to mark it as something you want to respond to - a sort of personal "to-do forum" - but then you'd have to remove the tag once you'd taken it off your "to-do" list.

Is there a short-cut to managing that sort of thing?

1 Reply

Hi All,

This is much better, but although I have received many new posts here, my E-Mail address hasn't alerted me to any of this activity.

Any reason for this, please?

Thank you, and be merry.
Mark...

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

If you're reading a thread - considering an answer - but not ready to respond - and then go read other stuff while you're considering your possible response - that thread disappears off new and you've got to go trolling for it.

This might not be good enough, but I'd like to clarify that it no longer disappears (it did for a while last night) but just moves to after the unread topics.

Quote:

Is there a short-cut to managing that sort of thing?

Not now, there was a preference to turn the read tracking and the unread at top sorting off but it's been removed now that the grid shows all the posts anyway (and just orders them differently).

I strongly suspect that the read tracking use pattern is the superior one for most (we had read tracking on phpbb but it didn't sort this way, vBulletin works this way however) here and that it will be adopted after a bit of change but if after a few weeks people find that they miss the old sort I may be able to work a preference back in without it being too confusing.

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@mark noble,

You only receive email updates for replies made while you are not on the site, are you not receiving that kind of update?

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I strongly suspect that the read tracking use pattern is the superior one for most

works well for many types of threads

makes word games a bit trickier, as we proceed from most recent post - not from where we left off - when Dutchy's on a run, that makes a difference - he's likely the poster who'll notice it the most

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

I'm sure you do know that you can still click to get to last post (instead of first unread post) and suspect that you are talking about the grid sorting itself still being problematic but in case you don't there's that.

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@Robert Gentel,

Hi Robert,
I've been off and on today on a few occassions. Each time I've returned I've encountered new posts, that were not alerted to me in my mail.

I haven't received any alerts since the alterations.

Thank you Robert.
Mark...

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

ehBeth wrote:
that thread disappears off new and you've got to go trolling for it.

This might not be good enough, but I'd like to clarify that it no longer disappears (it did for a while last night) but just moves to after the unread topics.

that'd be my "trolling"

if you haven't tagged the thread, you've got to use the "all forums" view, and it could be a couple of pages before you get to "after the unread topics"

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

I agree with Ehbeth - this is a rather jarring change. Everything else is GREAT, like the tracking - but the fact that 'new posts' aren't listed in the order they were actually posted, but instead whether or not I've read them, makes it very difficult for me to follow conversations.

I read a lot of threads that I never post in an likely never will - this makes it difficult to find them.

Just sayin'.

Now, where is that robust search feature, like the old forums had? Laughing

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@mark noble,

Ok, we'll it takes a few minutes for your session to die (we don't know when you are leaving, we just know when you are last active, so we need to leave that window open for a bit otherwise you'd get logged off while reading) so there can be some overlap.

But I'll look into it more, and if it continues or if anyone else notices please let us know.

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Tag search on every page = happy Cyclo

Is there an update log/blog so we know what all the changes are?

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I read a lot of threads that I never post in an likely never will - this makes it difficult to find them.

How? It only moves after you read them, so what scenario are you trying to find them between reading them and them not getting a new post?

The old way, you could read them, but they'd still be there, and unless you plumbed the depths of every new page on /newposts/ you would miss some new posts.

This actually is going to make people miss a whole lot less, but yes there is a specific use case (re-reading a thread you just finished reading and that has no new posts) that is harder, I just think that this usecase is so much more rare that the net of the read tracking sorting is much more topic discovery and more reading.

But if there are usecases I'm not considering please walk me through them.

Quote:

Now, where is that robust search feature, like the old forums had?

It wasn't robust, it was broken and whole months were missing. And to avoid that kind of thing and do it right is very non-trivial for us. So search, as much as I'd like to have it myself, is going to wait for other lower-hanging fruit (features like groups that are much easier and have a greater need right now).

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@mark noble,

Nick says he found a bug here, and uploaded a fix. Let us know if this solves it for you.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

How? It only moves after you read them, so what scenario are you trying to find them between reading them and them not getting a new post?

When you go back and re-read stuff that's already been posted there. Which I did a lot. But, it's a minor complaint, I'm sure I'll get used to the new style.

Quote:

It wasn't robust, it was broken and whole months were missing. And to avoid that kind of thing and do it right is very non-trivial for us. So search, as much as I'd like to have it myself, is going to wait for other lower-hanging fruit (features like groups that are much easier and have a greater need right now).

Hell, I never noticed it was broken - and it certainly WAS robust. You could search to see if an individual poster had posted an individual phrase, and it worked every single time I tried it, quickly. Can't do that now.

I understand that 'groups' - whatever the hell those are supposed to be - may be clamored for by many, but that robust search feature set this forum above from many others I participate in, in that you could really hold people responsible for things they've written months or years ago. There's no reliable way to do that now, and that's too bad, because it's critical for running debates which can last that long.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

If you read, but don't post in a thread but want to keep it at the top, the back button will leave it marked "new", and it won't lose it's position. It's a coarse work-around if you've read several pages, but it works.

Very nice to be able to log in again, by the way.

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By the way, my 'newposts' page is serving up blank at the moment.

Ffox 3.5.10

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

It's back again.

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@Cycloptichorn,

As with me.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Hell, I never noticed it was broken - and it certainly WAS robust. You could search to see if an individual poster had posted an individual phrase, and it worked every single time I tried it, quickly. Can't do that now.

It worked by storing every word ever posted and then anther table storing every word tied to every post.

It would break a lot, and was why editing posts began to take minutes (it had to update the wordmatch table).

Suffice it to say, that it is a completely stupid way of doing things that only works on a small forum, and the index was missing a lot of posts (whole months at a time it'd go broken till we bought more ram).

Quote:

I understand that 'groups' - whatever the hell those are supposed to be - may be clamored for by many, but that robust search feature set this forum above from many others I participate in, in that you could really hold people responsible for things they've written months or years ago. There's no reliable way to do that now, and that's too bad, because it's critical for running debates which can last that long.

You don't need to sell me on search, I know how useful it is. But I'm telling you that it's not trivial (as in it may take us months and months to do and then cost us up to $1k more per month to run), and because of that the other things we can do much more easily will take precedence.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Yeah, that was a temporary one. Should be fixed.

1 Reply

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