Subtle changes, bugs and feedback

Events: clicking the "Yes, I am attending" button does not subscribe you to its thread, so that you do not see any comments on it in the "Following" list.

This now happens.

If you attend an event, you will receive updates to the event.

Additionally we use the communication preference associated with the notification setting for event reminders... so you can set this to email and you'd receive that and comments on the event by email even if you generally did not receive comment updates via email.

Champion :) Tested and working.

How about we side with Sir Tim and "Put" a comment?

Hah, more likely to be the ultra-dull "Add comment" / "Update comment".

You've no idea how much time we've spent trying to find the right words.

It's bad enough trying to think of the right words according to what people are used to, let alone what the etymology and interpretation of the words are, and then whether the words imply or suggest things we're not doing.

And that's before you consider the "lay" rather than "power" user, or whether the words chosen will translate well into other languages.

I hate language, I think Prince had the right idea, I'm going to change my name to an emoji

But how will people @ you?

@the_user_formerly_known_as_velocio

It's better than that, I'll pick something that is unpronounceable and no-one could even phone me.

When browsing the forum without logging in is there a way to change the settings so that when you click on a thread/conversation/whatever they're
called these days, it goes to the last page of a thread and not the 1st...every single time?

I mostly browse without logging in and use the 'today' button (how does this differ from the conversations button on the right hand side by the way?)
and having to click from 1st page to last page, and back then back again
back to the main topic list, is like, errr, really harshing my buzz man, and making me wander away from the forum much quicker than I would in the olden days
#firstworldrproblems
#sorryifthishasbeenaskedalreadyinthemyriadofthreadsaboutthenewplatformwhichicantkeepupwith

When browsing the forum without logging in is there a way to change the settings so that when you click on a thread/conversation/whatever they're
called these days, it goes to the last page of a thread and not the 1st...every single time?

The problem is... most people who are not signed in (overwhelming majority) have arrived from Google after researching something.

They don't know what a conversation is about, the context, etc.

So those users want to be on page 1, able to see what it is about, reading event details, etc.

And without signing in, we have no way to tell the difference between that majority of users who are truly guests and have arrived with only minimal context and who do not come here often... and you.

Certainly a fair number of people who do have accounts browse without them... but we can't tell you apart from those who don't have accounts.

Hmm... maybe we could consider placing cookies on stuff. If you browse a lot without signing in, then we wouldn't remember everything. And we also wouldn't remember what you're read up to if you access on different devices. If the cookie space got full we'd have to purge older things... so we could try and hack something in but it would be wildly inconsistent, single device only, and would only remember a few items.

Or... you could sign in.

And Today differs from just clicking Conversations as it includes Events, new profiles, any messages you've received, etc.

I forget who was mentioning it a few pages back, but the follow function...

Just because I comment on a thread it doesn't mean I want to follow it.

is it more or less likely that you'll want to? (and everyone else)
also, that's how it worked before isn't it? posting automatically subscribed you?

I don't always want to follow a "conversation" I've "commented" on, but more than likely I will.

We have that as a bug, and it will be offered as an option. We agree with you.

An account-level option? I guess it makes sense.
But still can't imagine wanting to post-and-run very often, I don't get it...

Having to sign in when I have nothing to say sounds a bit pointless. And logging in does'nt make it seemless either. As I just logged in I've just done a few visits to regularly visited threads and though it did'nt take me to the first page, it took me pages that I'd since read well past whilst browsing without being logged in, so thats not really been a solution either. So for members it seems you are best off browsing while being logged in or not at all, which seems a bit meh.

I may be old school but I don't like being kept signed into things for long periods, why should I be? Is there a reason other than to show us as visiting traffic?

I'd say a large numbers of threads like 'in the news', 'football' and many others would be pointless going to page 1, in fact most threads with lots of pages. Any new visitors to the site can get the context as it relates to here and now, not context 7-8 years ago when Man Utd were good and Scoble ran 12 inches of spacers on every bike. If they want to go
further to see how deep the rabbit warren really goes (yes the matrix was on the tellybox again yesterday) they can click to the 1st page and trawl away. Even if we had the 1st page/last page option to go to on the list of threads,like we did on the old forum, that would improve the user experience, no?

I think I'm just an old bastard who shuns a lot of the new features, I don't really need or want to have notifications of replies to anything I've said, if I want to go back I can. I don't have a desire to be followed or to follow. Even seeing the old 'trending' button gave me have a bit of a funny turn. The new quotes thing its lots easier though so hurrah for that.

And yes I along with lots of others do browse from various devices from various locations so I can't see the cookie thing working consistently either.

Anyway sorry that sounds like me whining away, you're obviously very busy trying tweaking it all, just my 2p worth. Congratulations on the work done so far, and on the wedding news.

Not an old bastard.

I'm keen to hear about how people use things, which ways of working don't work with what we've described.

But you have supplied an impossible situation.

Multiple devices means we cannot use cookies or save information at your end to indicate where the to which you've read up to.

But not being signed in means we cannot save information at our end to indicate where you've read up to (we can't tell you apart from anyone and everyone).

I'd consider changing the default behaviour to be last post rather than first... but the numbers are too heavily against you. Of people who are not signed in, a massive majority are first time visitors. People absolutely brand new to the site do want context and information that is on page 1 of almost every conversation/event.

So I hear you and wish I could help... but I can't pick you out from the mass of new visitors when you're not signed in, and I can't save info about where you've read up to in any way that will be useful to.

The only way to do multi-device "read up to here", is for me to be able to say "This is blue_fleet, the last time he viewed Subtle bugs was 8 minutes ago". But without that context at the beginning, all I'm able to know is "The last time someone viewed Subtle bugs was 8 minutes ago".

vBulletin and other products play tricks and try to do this with cookies. Which worked fairly well when the majority of access was desktop and we used few devices. But it doesn't work well any more, the multi-device world is here... the only reliable way to implement /newest/ without showing you things you've read, or skipping massive chunks of things you've haven't read but would want to... is for you to sign in.

There's no financial benefit or incentive to us for having you signed in, in fact the only difference being signed in makes is that we do 2 things for each page:

1. Who is this person (and where have they read up to)
   
2. On this page (or item), they read up to point x
   
   

On #2, we don't even record when you read old stuff. If what you're reading is older than where you've read to there's nothing for us to do. All we're doing is shuffling a time-based bookmark a little further through an item. We're not logging your every action, we're just making the site work better (by not sending you back to the first page).

I may be old school but I don't like being kept signed into things for long periods, why should I be? Is there a reason other than to show us as visiting traffic?

The software wants to be helpful, and will keep track of what you have and have not read.

Seems like a fair trade to me.

I may be old school but I don't like being kept signed into things for long periods, why should I be?

So that the site knows you've read a thread and want to go to the last page?

So that you can see messages that people have sent to you.

So that you can see threads that are new to you, with a nice "NEW" sign next to them.

So that you can whore for rep.

So that you can whore for rep

Ha, just went to quote myself and realised that you can't reply to yourself.

Not sure if that is a bug or not. Heh ho.

Looking at events - would it be possible in future that they are distinguishable by those that have already occurred and those that are yet to happen? I know this conflicts with the ranking where latest post is what pushes a thread up a page.

Click "events" on the right hand bar on the home page... and then in the top right you'll see a button to quick search for future events.

As for distinguishing the difference... past events cannot have new attendees, so the interface does change for those.

But distinguishing in the UI... i.e. dimming the past event... is contentious. There's nothing to say that events in the past are inherently lower value to a community than new ones.

For example I created a Rider Down using an event... it would allow us to map and search them later.

Those are clearly important to people, and would only ever be past events. So should we dim them?

Without the obvious ability to dim things, it's hard to know how we might distinguish future events. But I think more useful is that you can find future events easily... and you can (now).

Ah, silly me, I didn't see that upcoming events option. Ta.