Welcome to AF 2.0

[ekket]

Actually, because it seems that absolutely no one is using <Shift>-<Enter> to add a line break, I've set it back to the old method of a line break for every press of the enter key. Regarding that, the blog posts are also affected by this change, but I'll get that sorted out in a bit.

[ekket]

Actually, the blog posts are fixed. That took a bit less time than I anticipated.

[Veyrdite]

Over the past few days of using this forum I've had a really hard time following activity in topics I want to participate in.  Things have felt very inconsistent and strange.

 

I've now worked out what's actually going on:

• If someone directly quotes me with the forum quote feature, I get told.
• Otherwise I have to manually opt-in to getting told about replies.

This might seem OK from a intentionalist persepective, but in practice it has a massive hole:

 

This forum currently assumes that, by default, I don't care about people's replies to a topic I posted in or even started myself.

 

What?  This seems so alien and strange.  I'm having to manually navigate to topics to check up on them, and then manually enable notifications on each.  I didn't have a clue anyone had replies to my Civilisation Problems topic until I decided to manually visit there today.

 

I'll compare this to the system used on a forum I spend a lot of time on, the EEVBlog forums.  Here's the frontpage of the forum:

 

I've mentioned the two links at the top ("Show unread..." and "Show new...") in my previous posts.

 

My main focus is on the "Show new replies to your posts" feature.  It's like the notifications feature on this forum, but it's not something I have to opt-in to.  Instead I can visit it any time I want and it will list replies people have made to topics I have participated in (or started):

 

 

EDIT: To be clear, I've found the settings I can change (as an individual user) to fix this:

 

 

The disabled-by-default "notify me" per-topic  feature on this forum feels really amiss.  Has this default been chosen for a reason?  Can this default be changed?

Edited November 2, 2018 by Veyrdite (see edit history)

[BTGBullseye]

16 hours ago, ekket said:

Actually, because it seems that absolutely no one is using <Shift>-<Enter> to add a line break, I've set it back to the old method of a line break for every press of the enter key. Regarding that, the blog posts are also affected by this change, but I'll get that sorted out in a bit.

Gracias. The Shift+Enter thing is an unusual concept to me because of its total lack of default use in any other site or program I've ever seen or heard of.

8 hours ago, Veyrdite said:

The disabled-by-default "notify me" per-topic  feature on this forum feels really amiss.  Has this default been chosen for a reason?  Can this default be changed?

I like this default. I don't want to be assaulted by notifications for every thread I ever post in.

Edited November 3, 2018 by BTGBullseye (see edit history)

[Veyrdite]

@BTGBullseye: How do you find out if people have replied to your topics? 

 

Indeed the notif setup here is a bit assaulty by default, with virtual popups appearing when you're on the site. 

 

The EEVBlog forum system shown above stays out of your way unless you click it.  This can be emulated by telling the notifs on the forum to not pop up, so you have to click on the icon  on the top-right of the page to get to them.

Edited November 3, 2018 by Veyrdite (see edit history)

[ekket]

@Veyrdite: To answer your complaints on following content, I've added back the follow button, along with the activity stream (which you can find next to the breadcrumbs, under "Unread Content"). That should solve the "latest posts" problem, as well, since you can customize the feeds to fit that purpose too.

It also allows RSS feeds for content, @Woah_G!. Along with that, the sidebar now has a functional RSS feed.

[ekket]

The follow button also has quite a lot of functionality.

 

[TB]

7 hours ago, ekket said:

The follow button also has quite a lot of functionality.

 

The notification options are rhobust.

 

Yeah I get some of these changes, but there does come a point where things get a hair too nitpicky. Notifications off by default seem like the better option to avoid our emails getting flagged as spam.

[Veyrdite]

On 11/3/2018 at 6:11 PM, The Britain said:

Notifications off by default seem like the better option to avoid our emails getting flagged as spam. 

I have not received any emails from the forum yet.  Are you guys getting them by default?   That would indeed be horrible.  (EDIT: my email is valid/correct)

 

On 11/3/2018 at 6:11 PM, The Britain said:

Yeah I get some of these changes, but there does come a point where things get a hair too nitpicky

There still stands the problem of there being no way for forum members to find what topics are active, without having to click into each subforum.

 

This sort of page/feature is important if you spend your time across multiple forums, not just the one.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Veyrdite (see edit history)

[ekket]

1 hour ago, Veyrdite said:

There still stands the problem of there being no way for forum members to find what topics are active, without having to click into each subforum.

 

This sort of page/feature is important if you spend your time across multiple forums, not just the one.

The Unread Content and All activity pages should solve that problem pretty well, that's what I meant by the "activity streams".

[Blightmare]

Finally able to change my name back to the one I'm most comfortable with (formerly Rarity, a name changed to as a joke and never got it changed back after it got old)

 

I can be me again! :'D

 

The changes are going to take some personal getting used to but everything seems fine so far. (Tho I'm not sure if it's just the fact I'm post from my laptop 1 bad sneeze from death but every so often arrow key navigation in posts stops working and it just kinda randomly starts working again)

[Veyrdite]

On 11/5/2018 at 3:09 PM, ekket said:

The Unread Content and All activity pages should solve that problem pretty well, that's what I meant by the "activity streams".

Thankyou Ekket.

 

My apologies.

[ekket]

5 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

Could you please make this Opt In, instead of Opt Out? It was enabled by default for me.

Sure. We don't intend to use that mailing list anyhow, it's just a default option that snuck in.

[GordonFreeman]

How does the new rep system work?

[ekket]

27 minutes ago, GordonFreeman said:

How does the new rep system work?

It doesn't. It's tied to the reaction system, which currently works only for administrators' posts. I've been too busy to implement anything yet, but I would actually like to hear other people's feedback on how it (and the reactions) should work.

[ekket]

Small change in the forum index: the links for recent posts have been changed, such that the thread title link will now just link to the thread, not the unread posts, and the link showing the date will now link to the first unread post instead.

 

@RaTcHeT302: I certainly agree with a reputation system not being good for discussion. I think I'll leave the reactions neutral (not affecting reputation), although I would want something other than just a heart there.

[BTGBullseye]

I want to have the biggest negative reputation possible, I don't care if the system works or not, just give me an impossibly negative rep.

 

Also, I don't really care about the rep system, just make it either work, or not appear at all.

[Im_CIA]

Quote

We don't need no Repu-tation

 

We don't need no thought control

 

I'm in favor of rebranding the heart button with  a "Give Dopamine Hit" syringe icon. That's effectively what it is, might as well be straightforward about it.

 

Edited January 12, 2019 by Im_CIA (see edit history)

[Woah_G!]

How customizable is AF 2.0?

 

Layout changes & HTML editing would be A+

 

 

????? ??? [????]

Edited March 17, 2019 by Woah_G!
also security! don't underestimate backups (see edit history)

[Heisemberg]

How do I make my profile picture big and not small?