From hot to lukewarm topics and subsequent reactions

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It seems that most reactions are placed in topics that have been most recently started by Woody & crew. That’s all very logical, but I found that if I react (or ask something) a (few) day(s) later, I often don’t get any reaction. Not from the crew, nor from fellow loungers.
Apparently even the sidebar’s helpful shortcuts in ‘Recent Replies’, ‘Recent Topics’ nor ‘Recent blog posts’ prevent these few days-old topics to disappear into oblivion.

Is it only me, or are more people experiencing this?
And is there a way to avoid this happening?

Thanks, TJ

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TJ,

Try using the Forums link at the top left of the page and selecting Views then New posts since last visit.

HTH 😎

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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woody, TJ

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[TJ]

Thanks, RG. I know my way around the blog, but that may not be the case for everyone.
The problem is, if nobody answered there is no new post to be found!

Edit: I don’t recognize the ‘BB’-interface of Askwoody you’re using.  What’s that?
See my attachment for what I get to see.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by TJ. Reason: a question
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by TJ.

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TJ wrote:

Edit: I don’t recognize the ‘BB’-interface of Askwoody you’re using. What’s that? See my attachment for what I get to see.

@TJ,

Your screen shot doesn’t include the uppermost portion of the page.

It should look like this. Mouse over Forums (arrow) and click on what to view.

hth

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TJ

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Aha! Now I understand why: you guys login via WordPress.

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Bluetrix

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@TJ,

I log in via:

https://www.askwoody.com

WordPress is the platform AskWoody runs on.

 

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[TJ]

I also log in via https://www.askwoody.com and yes, I know WordPress is the platform but I don’t get the WordPress interface after logging in. Just the ‘plain’ website. But I don’t mind. Maybe that’s because of the restrictions I enforce on Firefox.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by TJ. Reason: oops
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Bluetrix.

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[TJ]

TJ wrote:

I also log in via https://www.askwoody.com and yes, I know WordPress is the platform but I don’t get the WordPress interface after logging in. Just the ‘plain’ website. But I don’t mind. Maybe that’s because of the restrictions I enforce on Firefox.

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by TJ. Reason: oops
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Bluetrix.

Fixed the nesting problem for ya 🙂

I can’t answer why different browsers, or even the same browser used by different members don’t render the same.

I can tell you this, it isn’t regulated to just Plus members, Loungers or even anon posters. I could venture a guess that it’s the way a browser is configured, by the user, or by some default mechanism, or settings by AskWoody. That is just a guess. As far as I know, all AskWoody readers are offered the same standard overview. I haven’t a clue what this site looks like on a phone. Not that you are viewing this on a phone, just saying.

Just this morning I had a discussion with another moderator, they see one thing, I saw something different. It was about something they could see that I couldn’t see. Nothing to do with this issue, but still, two people seeing different items on a page.

Perhaps someone in the know will shine some light on this subject.

Sorry I don’t have more information for you right now.

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jburk07, TJ

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woody wrote:

Suggestions?

Woody
Well the Widows Secrets site using the VB (??) software 🥰 was able to send on to new posts in topics of choice, it was a beautiful thing 😥. I spent about half the time I use for reading posts here and never miss any posts I want to view w/o looking through a bunch of stuff I had read yesterday.
Now I know you are not likely gonna change platforms and that kind of sophisticated option may not be available in WordPress. What might help is to make the threads temporally linear. What I mean is that replies do not get inserted in the middle of a conversation but at the end. Offering a quote of someones post in a reply would more than suffice to indicate context. A bit more policing to start to prompt folk to quote only the relevant part of a post that one is replying to may be needed but after a while people would get the idea. Maybe less drain on the server farm as well 😄

Best
David

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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woody

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Yes, it’s a question we’ve debated many, many times. Some people like it, some hate it. Both have good arguments.

WordPress/bbPress does have the ability to show linear replies. The feature has to be turned on for the whole site. I don’t know of any way for a user to switch from linear to nested.

The old Windows Secrets site was a kludged-together variant of vBulletin. That’s why it went down for weeks – sometimes months – at a time. Some sites use vBulletin as a base, and they work fine. But there are also lots and lots of vBulletin sites that have migrated to bbPress.

The main advantage to bbPress is that it lets me maintain the original WordPress blog format. The main advantage to vBulletin is the way it presents topics.

Web sites that primarily deal with user comments (e.g., Tenforums, MDL) do better with vBulletin variants – although it must be noted that both Tenforums and MDL have spent tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars on custom software.

Web sites that primarily deal with bloggers do better with WordPress. It’s also much less expensive to bring up a site, and keep it working reliably.

There’s a reason why Windows Secrets went out of business, eh?

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jburk07, Purg2, wavy, Kirsty

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Yes, it’s a question we’ve debated many, many times. Some people like it, some hate it. Both have good arguments.

Ok but being the curmudgeon that I am I would like to see those ‘arguments’ if you would direct me towards a thread that hashes it out I would be appreciative.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Most of the arguments were done privately. Some were in restricted MVP-only forums. To see the publicly visible arguments, try using the search box on the right to search for “nested.” I see 1,673 matches (not all of which deal with nested Replies, of course).

Ideally, I would like to have a Forums list (click the Forums tab at the top) that more closely resembles the old Windows Secrets vBulletin format. I still haven’t found a plugin that’ll do it, but one may exist. If you can find something, I’m all ears.

It all boils down to money and stability. I don’t have a whole heckuvalot of the former, and I’m a stickler for the latter.

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I have to side with wavy on this. I find the nested display extremely hard to follow.

I’ve tried all the links in Kirsty’s post #1981236 (which is earlier than mine, but probably appears somewhere below mine), but I’ve never been able to see all new posts in a recent time period.

Take the topic “Any Advice on How to Safely Update a New Win 7 Home Premium Install“, for example. That’s a currently hot topic with, at this writing, 17 new posts within the last 14 hours. Yet no matter which link I try in Kirsty’s screenshot, the search never shows me more than the single, very last post. None of the other 16 posts are shown. (See my pdf, for illustration)

Now, that one’s a pretty active topic right now, so yeah, people will probably be scrolling back up and down to catch up on all the activity.

But what about older or less active topics? If there are only a couple new posts in a long topic, visitors will never find the earlier of the two unless one is a direct response to the other.

I think that’s the original point wavy was making — that posts can get lost and never seen because of the nesting.

Personally, I find myself participating here much less than I used to on WSL. It’s just too time-consuming to scroll up and down a long topic to see if anyone else has recently said the same thing I’m about to, and their response isn’t obvious to me because it’s nested up-topic somewhere.

IAC, it sounds like this has been hashed out before so we’re beating a dead horse here. It’s not to my liking, but it’s not my place to choose, either.

 

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“New Posts” link gives the list of each new post, not all posts in a specific topic… if you want to see topics with new replies, use the “Recently Active Topics” link, which only lists those topics with new replies. When you click on a particular topic, the new replies are indicated with a New notation.

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jburk07, woody

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Bluetrix: Right now I am using Waterfox in my Mac and I don’t see those items at the top of the screen, just an entirely black bar.

 

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
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OscarCP wrote:

I don’t see those items at the top of the screen, just an entirely black bar.

Glad to hear that! It’s just as it should be. Sadly, @RetiredGeek & @Bluetrix were sharing settings that are only visible to MVPs.

However, the exact same links are provided to all site visitors on the right hand panel – under Search For Topics!:

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jburk07

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I’m guessing the MVPs see a slightly different interface than the rest of us…

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jabeattyauditor wrote:

I’m guessing the MVPs see a slightly different interface than the rest of us…

You are correct. I have just been informed that only MVP’s have that view.

Learn something new everyday!

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jburk07

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[TJ]

Thanks for clearing that up, guys. Now let’s get back on topic please:

Why do I (we?) hardly ever get an answer to my question, if the topic is not so ‘hot’ anymore?
(See my initial question on top)

 

Edit: Sorry, got to run all over sudden. I’l  be back within the hour. Keep them answers coming!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by TJ. Reason: gottorun

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I believe that there may be fewer MVPs than before with more people subscribing to this site. So the moderators may not have the time to see all postings and, or answer everyone in a timely fashion.  However, sometimes one of them, or some lounger or anonymous visitor might answer days, or even weeks after the question was posted. So: it might be just the luck of the draw. One way that might be more likely to get an answer that has gone unanswered for a while is doing what you just did: starting a new thread with the question written, as clearly as possible, in the title. It has worked for me, occasionally.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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TJ

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[TJ]

TJ wrote:

Thanks for clearing that up, guys. Now let’s get back on topic please:

Why do I (we?) hardly ever get an answer to my question, if the topic is not so ‘hot’ anymore?
(See my initial question on top)

 

Edit: Sorry, got to run all over sudden. I’l  be back within the hour. Keep them answers coming!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by TJ. Reason: gottorun

For one, leave the moderation to the moderators. (You’ve said those same words – “let’s get back to the topic” in multiple threads.) Some folks don’t want to be told what to discuss, and sometimes saying something like that “ices” the thread.

I’m not trying to beat you up about it – just trying to be very direct and honest with you.

One more thought: don’t ask the “should I apply THIS patch if I have Machine X with Group Theta patching on Wednesdays when the moon is blue” kind of questions unless you’ve first searched the site to be certain it hasn’t been asked & answered already.

Now, the disclaimer – I’m not an MVP, I’m not an AskWoody founder, and I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. These are just thoughts and suggestions that might help you receive the kind of answers you’re looking for. Take ’em or leave ’em – it won’t bother me one way or the other.  🙂

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The problem is sheer volume.

We’re getting hundreds of posts a day. At first the new topics are hot, then they cool down. I’m guilty, too. I rarely have time to go back to earlier posts.

I don’t know of any way to improve on it. You can subscribe to a topic – “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” -but that doesn’t draw in other people. Suggestions?

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TJ

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One thing that might work is to allow someone to add a second entry after starting a thread about the unanswered question. That should push it into the “Recent Comments” section on the right-side bar and make it more visible. It might be allowed when there is a lull in commenting on some super-hot topic, as it is often the case right after Patch Tuesday, where everything else tends to get buried quickly by a steady shower of answering comments. So waiting for that storm to end and then adding oneself a comment to something one has started and got no answers so far, might help. But I don’ t think that it will be a magical solution. This looks like a tough thing to solve effectively.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Well, if you have something to add to a topic already posted, you could always reply to it, even if it is your own thread, and add whatever new stuff you have, since the timer will have run out on the original message.  That would cause the topic to appear on the right as you mentioned, without being just a disliked (on just about any forum) *bump* message.  Surely you could think of something relevant to add to a topic that you wrote!  My problem when posting is more the opposite, that I think of too many things to add, often before I even get the message in.  If you think my messages are long now, you should see the pre-edited drafts… often what makes it to final post is half the size or less that it would have been.

I often lose track of threads I’ve replied in too… if a new post gets a ton of responses, it can very easily fill up the list of recent posts, driving the reminder off before I even see it.

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I’m glad to hear it’s a matter of (lack of) time, Woody. Very recognizable.
I was afraid that we elderly were also getting infected by the ‘modern’ short span interest bug.

I’ll try out Oscar’s suggestion for now. Although that means that an already raised topic/subject will be thrown into arena again.

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TJ, I believe that adding oneself a second entry after one starts a thread that has not been answered by others first is a no-no right now and bound to get deleted by some MVP on patrol. I was only suggesting a limited change in current policy. It’s still up to Woody whether to accept this idea or not.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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OscarCP wrote:

I believe that adding oneself a second entry after one starts a thread that has not been answered by others first is a no-no right now and bound to get deleted by some MVP on patrol.

Quite likely (and will remain so…)! And dealing with entries like that takes our attention from answering those very queries you are discussing! That is why the rules are clear about posts contributing:

“Please make sure you only post relevant, contributing content. Posting anything that doesn’t contribute, or that has already been posted, is not appreciated by those reading through reams of repetition, nonsense, or irrelevance, so will be removed.”

However, the rules suggest that if you’ve not had a response within 3 days, trying again is appropriate. So adding a reply at that point would be acceptable.
🙂

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I did not refer to your suggestion to add a second entry, Oscar.

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woody wrote:

You can subscribe to a topic – “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”

That works when you are replying. If you wish to subscribe but aren’t replying, just click SUBSCRIBE at the top of the topic (Favorite|Subscribe), when Loungers are logged in. (This is one of the benefits of registering as a Lounger.)

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Right, but neither of those alert anyone to a long waiting unanswered question.

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@leaningtowardslinux(TJ) You are quite right – my post was merely additional information as a reply to the post replied to and quoted.
🙂

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dg1261 wrote:

But what about older or less active topics? If there are only a couple new posts in a long topic, visitors will never find the earlier of the two unless one is a direct response to the other.

I think that’s the original point wavy was making — that posts can get lost and never seen because of the nesting.

And with quoting, who needs nesting?

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Quoting easily shows what is being replied to, but I find it makes it much harder to see what replies are made to it…

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This is one of my biggest issues with removing nesting. Instead of having all the replies to a specific post lined up for you to read one after the other, they are instead scattered throughout a sea of disorganized posts which makes it much harder to follow a linear conversation.

It’s like having five people talk to you all at once and trying to keep track of anything. Perhaps that conversation is the only one you care about, but now you have to wade through a bunch of stuff you’re not interested in searching for the replies you want to see which are now scattered in the sea of disorganization. I just don’t think it works for this particular site.

As far as lost posts, if I am interested in any discussions going on, all I have to remember is what topic it’s in. Maybe I’ll give a Thanks to a post or two in that discussion and just do a Ctrl-F for my name. I can easily read back a few posts if I need to be refreshed since they are all in one place. However, I’ll usually just scroll down through everything looking for “New” tags on recent posts. I much prefer discussions to be all in one place on the page which also means quoting isn’t necessary in order to know who the person is talking to.

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jburk07

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This is one of my biggest issues with removing nesting. Instead of having all the replies to a specific post lined up for you to read one after the other, they are instead scattered throughout a sea of disorganized posts which makes it much harder to follow a linear conversation.

just the opposite, they are lined and readily available. You are not getting ALL posts from all threads in a temporally linear presentation just from the thread yo are viewing, or am I getting this totally wrong??

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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This is a Word Press Blog site, with a forum cobbled on to it.  Forum topics disappear in the timeline, and the Forums page format is not really a forum format, it’s more like a step menu.  One must drill down to the forum header being sought.

But then, if one is looking for an answer to a question that might already have been asked, that’s more like looking for a needle in a haystack.  For example, there’s the question “AskWoody support › Windows › Windows 10 › Windows 10 version 1809 – September 2018 Update › Best App for System Image Backup?”

But there’s a forum for that kind of question, because the question is not particular to a single version of Windows 10, but to all versions of Windows.  Such a question might be better served posted in “AskWoody support › PC hardware › Questions – Maintenance and backups”.  The foremost reason for backups is hardware failure.

As for how to call attention to a question left to languish without an answer, I don’t really know how to advise you there.  Double-posting is out.  And as Woody has pointed out, there’s the increased volume of posts.

All I can say is first sort through the forums for the correct venue, then try to be succinct and to the point with your question topic title.  You can get deeper into detail in the topic/question itself.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

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I have no idea of how “linear vs. nested” will ever be resolved to anybody’s satisfaction, because each fulfills one of two legitimate desires, but these two desires are mutually exclusive.

But I now have a totally unrelated question: what does all of this have to do with OP about how to make a thread that has gone cold after a while without getting any replies (maybe not even a “Thanks”) finally get some replies?

So far, people has pooh-poohed the idea of the same one who started the thread adding a reply, just to push the thread to the top of the “Recent Replies” list….  for the few seconds before it gets buried in the sudden and sustained avalanche of comments on the latest whatever bad thing MS has done, and disappears again from sight.

Ascaris ( #1981253  ) has made a suggestion that I think deserves to be considered, but nobody here seems to have paid any attention to: what if the person who started the thread added a second post, with additional relevant information not included in the first one? That looks to me as a pretty legitimate thing to do. Some here might not like it, but “not liking it” is not a real argument, so it cannot be used against anything, including Ascaris idea. At least cannot be used fairly.

So, fair-minded people: how say ye?

 

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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LHiggins

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Not pooh-poohed. In a reply to you earlier, Kristy pointed to the rules that give appropriate direction.

Before posting a link or question, search the site first. Chances are high it may already have been posted. Duplicate posting is not allowed; ask all related questions in one thread. If a question is not answered after 3 days, please start a new topic in the appropriate forum to ask the question, linking it to the original. Folks are busy, and reading or replying to the same thing detracts our readership and our hard-working volunteer MVPs and moderators.

I offer an interpretation and invite correction. If the question was asked in a related thread, start a new topic with link back to original after 72hrs. If the topic itself has been passed over for a similar period, a polite second comment would likely be allowed by an understanding moderator. Repeated ‘bumps’ that appear impatient would not be welcomed. Sometimes we need to hit the sweet spot between too bold and too meek.

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You’re always allowed to post relevant replies that add to the topic being discussed.

Bump messages add nothing to the topic and just clutter things up, which is why they are frowned upon pretty much everywhere, but that’s not what I suggested doing.  I suggested thinking of something relevant that would add to the topic at hand, and posting about that, which is well within the rules.  Of course adding something new and relevant to a thread bumps it… that’s what the new posts section is for (while bump posts are a misuse of this ability, since the new message has no actual content.)

If you can’t think of anything substantive and relevant to add, obviously this would not work (that would be a bump message, which by definition is not substantive and does not move the topic forward, and is not within the rules here).

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My problem with nesting is that it disrupts the timeline of a thread.  The latest post doesn’t necessarily go to the bottom of the thread, it may instead land somewhere in the middle.

dg1261 wrote:

I think that’s the original point wavy was making — that posts can get lost and never seen because of the nesting.

For example, in this thread, this post will appear at the bottom of the thread, but the previous most recent post from Kirsty, before mine, appears way up above the middle of the thread, between older posts, which themselves do not follow a linear timeline.

October 14, 2019 at 9:31 pm by Woody

October 15, 2019 at 3:10 pm by wavy

October 15, 2019 at 7:35 pm by dg1261

October 16, 2019 at 3:32 am by Kirsty

October 14, 2019 at 11:32 am by OscarCP

October 14, 2019 at 1:44 pm by Kirsty

Reading through an entire topic can get confusing.  Because of the nesting, one can post a reply that echoes a previous reply without ever having seen the previous reply, being unaware of the repetition.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

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bbearren wrote:

Reading through an entire topic can get confusing. Because of the nesting, one can post a reply that echoes a previous reply without ever having seen the previous reply, being unaware of the repetition.

Very true, and it’s probably happened to all of us.  Still, I think that threading is still an improvement over a straight temporal listing.  Back in the days when listservs were common, with discussions coming through email lists rather than web forums, precise quotation was a must.  Email clients that automatically quoted the entire message to which the user was replying were helpful, but the user had to do his part.

It was a lot easier to edit quotations using that system than it is here.  Still, there were always people who just wrote a reply without any quotation, or with the entire message quoted, and it led to such messages typically being ignored by the readers of the list (in another context, a moderator may have edited or deleted them, but you can’t edit an email that was already sent to everyone).

Threading was a huge improvement in terms of viewing messages within the correct context.  The negative is that it makes it easier to miss messages if there have been multiple replies at different points within the thread.  There are some sites that handle this relatively well, highlighting each message that is new to a given user until they’ve been read specifically, but I don’t know if the software in use here can do that.  I am guessing that if it was possible, it would have been done already.

In addition,  there are actually two distinct issues being discussed and possibly conflated here.  One is that a topic that has recent post activity can easily be missed if it is pushed off of the “recent” panel on the right by an even busier topic. In this case, the reader of the site may miss that there have been more changes to the thread, or if the thread is new, that the thread even exists at all.  This can lead to questions asked never receiving an answer, to the frustration of the poster of the message.

That’s separate from the problem of trying to read all of the new messages in any one thread.  In that case, it is known that there are new posts within a thread, but the difficulty comes in separating only the new posts from those that have already been read.

For mods who are deliberately trying to read every single message posted, rather than reading only the topics that interest them like a regular visitor, the odds of missing an entire thread having had a new post are reduced, I would think.  For those trying to read every message to check for relatively context insensitive issues like use of inappropriate language, personal insults, ranting about things outside of the designated forum, etc., temporal listing would make it easier to simply go from “here” to “there” linearly and read everything in between.  It would be easier still if it could be done on a forum-by-forum basis (ie every post in the forum is listed by time of post regardless of which thread it is in) rather than a thread-by-thread basis.  Ideally, that would be a selectable option that each user could change on the fly at any time to fit his needs at that moment, but that apparently can’t be done with the software in use here.

For regular discussion purposes, where context is very important, threading is IMO much better and more understandable, particularly to those who search a topic later on and have to read through the thread to get the information.  That’s obviously important to Woody, who went through a lot of effort to make sure that the Windows Secrets messages were all imported here to preserve the information therein for future reference.

Even if the messages within any given topic were organized temporally rather than being threaded, it would not do anything to bring more attention to a topic when it has been pushed off of the recent pane.  It takes a deliberate effort to go into the topic list and look for topics that one may be interested in, which is the normal mode on some forum sites. AskWoody has the blog topics front and center, though, with the recent pane on the right providing a very handy shortcut to topics that may be of interest. So handy, in fact, that it’s really easy to skip the forum list altogether, and along with it, any topics that have new messages that were pushed off of the recent list before any given user noticed it.

 

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jburk07

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There are some sites that handle this relatively well, highlighting each message that is new to a given user until they’ve been read specifically, but I don’t know if the software in use here can do that.

That is exactly what would make the site more pleasant to use, I am sure such indexing would use up server time, and time is $$. But things progress maybe in the future….

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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We are aware of the frustration of many of those that came to us as a result of the Swallowing the Whale merger of Windows Secrets Lounge into AskWoody, who liked the format they had there.

Sadly, this is the new reality, and while we are working our very best, we will never please everybody, and there have been significant trials and errors in forum setups.

At this stage, nesting suits many of us here, and there are pitfalls and benefits to both the old and current ways that have been considered. Continuing to yearn for the ways of the old site may not be particularly productive.

bbearren wrote:

There is a learning curve, but for me, it’s well worth the effort. I’m sure that those of us who want to stay will all pick up on the new format sooner or later, and changes are being made to bring in the things that will translate into this format. Windows Secrets Lounge is going away, period.

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SueW

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Kristy
I understand the problems w/ a new frame. I would like to understand is the rational that lead to the current scenario. If I could be pointed to the ‘arguments’ for one implementation or he other perhaps I could come to a mental accommodation to the existing implementation.

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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While most of the discussion that went on was in beta testing and behind the scenes, no longer available, this may show a little of the issues we struggled with, in part rationale:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/i-just-turned-off-threading-in-the-replies/
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/ive-re-enabled-nested-comments/

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/searching-for-report-new-in-a-given-topic-finds-new-posts-and-nothing-else/#post-167104

Discussions even went on long before the Lounge was created:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/update-on-the-askwoody-site-update-your-thoughts-please/#post-49383

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wavy

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Hello. And what about enlarging the number of “Recent topics”? Maybe even add “recent topics – yesterday”?

I understand, that in”Recent replies” there always will be duplicates – two people commenting the same topic. But “Recent topics” are unique – am I right? So if you just add 18 more (total number of 30 recent topics), hot-topics couldnt drown less popular topics so easily. Maybe some category “Unreplied topics” would be appropriate.

I personally let my discussions open in tabs for few days, so I can get back to them later. I must say that there were always replies to my posts. Also you can click your profile and access your topis directly. I do not expect new contributors to adapt instantly to this forum.

Do not understand this as criticism, just telling my ideas. Posting as “non reply” to show at the very end 🙂

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doriel wrote:

Maybe some category “Unreplied topics” would be appropriate.

There’s already a “Topics with no replies” search, but many of them are not questions.

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b,  Searching in “Topics with no reply” can be quite useful, especially if one knows already that a certain unanswered thread exists about a topic that might be interesting enough to have a look at that unanswered thread. But there may be topics one has not even thought about until learning about the existence of this unanswered thread.

I think that some flexibility in “resurrecting” a thread that is getting pretty cold with no replies, as suggested by Ascaris, is both a proper and possible remedy. Because (fortunately) nothing can be done to get a forceful hold on people and make them reply. Not all human enterprises are bound to succeed, however meritorious, and not all topics at Woody’s, however interesting,  will be answered by avid commentators, and that’s is just a fact of life.

But, perhaps, things could be improved. Because, with a modicum of good will and understanding, sometimes they can be made better.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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wavy

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I just bumped the Recent Topics list up to 30 entries.

Some changes are easy to make. Some… not so much…

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That may mitigate the situation for some . Thanks Woody
I am still at a loss to understand why any one would find a nested display of posts easier to navigate in what is (according to forum rules If I understand correctly) supposed to be a single topic(thread). If there is a cogent thread on this topic please point it out, I would really like to understand and NOT be growling under my breath when I am reading the forums here. TIA
😯

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Nested replies have been visually easier to notice. Also do other people have trouble seeing the reply text link and post number?

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jburk07

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[b]

Grey-on-grey is the new brown-on-brown. 😉 (Yes.)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by b.

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Nested replies have been visually easier to notice. Also do other people have trouble seeing the reply text link and post number?

Not for my poor brain 🤯
And yes not overly noticeable , gray on gray on my browser. as is the thanks and quote on bottom, but we know they are there 🧐

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Observation. Logical thinkers who build conclusions by rational progression are frequently criticised for being ‘too linear’ and therefore rigid. I know I personally have been told that more than once.

When I hear that I do not proclaim the speaker is WRONG. I am reminded that there are more viewpoints in the world than my own. And many successful people became that way using thought processes that do not match mine. They are not required to alter their method to adapt to me, We find a way to communicate or move on to communicate with others.

To be bold enough to summarise so far, TJ’s OP

Is it only me, or are more people experiencing this?
And is there a way to avoid this happening?

was answered by no less than Woody himself

The problem is sheer volume.
…
I don’t know of any way to improve on it.

(where TJ added a thanks)

And the sideloaded discussion of ethics of bumping were addressed by Kristy’s suggestion, supported by the lounge rules, nearly an hour in advance of Ascaris take on avoiding the bump prohibition.

However, the rules suggest that if you’ve not had a response within 3 days, trying again is appropriate. So adding a reply at that point would be acceptable.

(where Oscar added a thanks)

And the unrelated discussion of reply display format will continue to be debated without resolution indefinitely. I do recall the experiment approximately two years ago. The havoc it created resulted in the format you see today. A decision made by the corporation that presents this blog for our consumption. And thanks for that.

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woody

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anonymous wrote:

A decision made by the corporation that presents this blog for our consumption.

Aw shucks. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens. 🙂

We did try to make the replies linear, back in February. General consensus was that it just didn’t work.

bbPress (which is tacked onto WordPress), with nested replies is the best option I’ve seen. Although I certainly understand why others have different opinions.

Converting to vBulletin just isn’t an option – there’s no way I’ve seen to meld a blog onto a vBulletin forum. Even if we could, the effort would certainly cost tens of thousands of dollars, and it’d be a nightmare to maintain. Sorry, but my pockets aren’t that deep.

If I suddenly win the lottery, hey, all bets are off!

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jburk07, Kirsty, Ascaris

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Some how I missed that whole conversation 🙁
I am sure this is all much more complicated than it seems to the usual user of the forum. Thanks for the info .

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Nesting is not the problem for me, the lack of a linear timeline is. This is not the only forum in which I participate, but it is hands down the most difficult to navigate.  If one has been absent a day or so, “New posts since last visit” will give results that can jump up and down the thread, as in the example I posted above.

For example, in late September I was trying to help @rfinney with a problem he was having with Windows update.  On September 20, he posted that he and his wife were going on a trip, and

rfinney wrote:

I expect to start back up on Tues, Oct. 11.

He got back on Oct 2, but I missed it, for the most part because it was too early to start looking for him.  As a result, he’s assumed I’ve abandoned the topic.  I’ve posted in the thread and we’re just now getting started back with his problem.

The “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” doesn’t work for me, but in spite of that, on any other forum I wouldn’t have missed his early return.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

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wavy, satrow

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bbearren wrote:

The “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” doesn’t work for me,

That must be a misconfiguration with your email, as it seems to work for everyone else.

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b wrote:

bbearren wrote: The “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” doesn’t work for me, That must be a misconfiguration with your email, as it seems to work for everyone else.

I get the newsletter, I get AskWoody Alerts, I get reported posts, and nothing from wordpress or askwoody is in my spam folder.

I always put a tick in the box Notify me of follow-up replies via email, but I don’t get any notifications of new replies.  I don’t suspect my email, since I do get everything else.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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If the poster doesn’t click on the “Reply” button when answering, and simply drops his post at the bottom of the thread, you won’t get a “Reply” notice because the person did not “Reply” to your post, he simply commented.

If you instead click on the “Subscribe” button at the top right of the thresd, you will get notifications when someone posts on the thread. And, yes, you will get notices when everyone/anyone posts on the thread, but you can delete the notices not from the poster you are interested in/working with.

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wavy

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PKCano wrote:

you won’t get a “Reply” notice because the person did not “Reply” to your post

Your experience appears to differ from mine. I can click on a topic linked in the Recent Topics widget, and still see the Notify Me button to click below the editor box. When clicking on it, it works. It should not be related to whether they have clicked reply to an existing post when they posted.

If you are not logged in, you are not permitted the option of notification emails (naturally). Otherwise, if you are logged in, the button should be there, and effective.

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[PKCano]

Are you saying that if:
You check the “Notify me of follow-up replies via emai” at the bottom when you submit a post.

Then you will get an email when anyone posts anywhere in the thread not related to the post you submitted?

If that is so, what is the difference between that and “Subscribe”?
Do they both do the same thing?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by PKCano.

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PKCano wrote:

If that is so, what is the difference between that and “Subscribe”?
Do they both do the same thing?

I only ever use the Subscribe link at top right when I haven’t got an answer but I want to see if anyone else will have one. It’s only useful if you’re not going to post (yet).

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[wavy]

Oh my have a head ache 🥺😵
😀
And can one get carpal tunnel from scrolling ?? 😀

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by wavy.

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PKCano wrote:

If the poster doesn’t click on the “Reply” button when answering, and simply drops his post at the bottom of the thread, you won’t get a “Reply” notice because the person did not “Reply” to your post, he simply commented.

If you instead click on the “Subscribe” button at the top right of the thresd, you will get notifications when someone posts on the thread. And, yes, you will get notices when everyone/anyone posts on the thread, but you can delete the notices not from the poster you are interested in/working with.

That makes those three things sound independent, but they aren’t.

It doesn’t matter whether you reply to a post or the thread, if you leave the default “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” checked then you become subscribed to the thread (as indicated by the link at top right changing from Subscribe to Unsubscribe as soon as you’ve replied to a post or the thread).

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OK, learn something new every day.
Checking the box Subscribes you to the whole shabang. Unchecking the box Unsubscribes you.

I concede – both of you are right (of course).

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b

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What is “gray on gray”? If this is about the right-side bar, it still looks to me like it has since the info on who replied to what went blue, but the note below, on how long since the reply was made, remained black.

Now, and going rigorously off topic (sorry): the one problem I have with nested replies is when someone answers to a comment posted much earlier than the last time someone commented elsewhere (not “replying”, but unrelated) in that thread, usually with the very last entry there. Sometimes, clicking on the name of the one who made the latest reply in “New posts Last x days” takes me to the OP at the very beginning, not to that reply. One can find it by looking at the dates of the replies, searching for the most recent entry, but this does not work very well if the thread already is a fairly long one and the entry one is looking for now is actually a reply to an old comment. This might be caused by a bug somewhere, in the  browser or the site software. But I have three different browsers (not counting IE 11 in the Win 7 machine or Safari in the Mac, that I never use), and have seen this happen when visiting here with any of them.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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OscarCP wrote:

What is “gray on gray”?

REPLY|REPORT #1983821

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Thanks, but also sorry b: I searched, with the search tool of this site, for “#1983821” and that brought me right back to your comment. Maybe you could insert that quotation as a hypertext link, not as text? Or someone else could explain this “gary on gray” business? Or is it simply some new jargon I am not familiar with?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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These:

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satrow

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PKCano: Thanks! You know, I had not noticed this before at all. Now that you have pointed it out, I am noticing and has started to bother me, which is really interesting. Unless this “gray on gray” is a completely new development?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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[wavy]

PKCano wrote:

If the poster doesn’t click on the “Reply” button when answering, and simply drops his post at the bottom of the thread, you won’t get a “Reply” notice because the person did not “Reply” to your post, he simply commented.

Well thanks for that clarification of very non intuitive aspect of vB. Kinda blows my mind that it works that way 😜
Well while I am Kvetching; one more (for me) troublesome aspect of the view “New posts since last visit” option is that if there is more than 1 page of results is the second page does not get any results (possibly does if loaded immediately but I never seem to remember to do that)

On the plus side the search for “New” in browser idea is bearing results, thanks t ‘someone’ last year’s posts for that. 😀

please folks do not take my comments in the wrong way, I am still trying to adjust to this forum.
EDIT ok one mo Kvetch When replying the ‘New” option (understandably) disappears.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by wavy.

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OscarCP wrote:

What is “gray on gray”? If this is about the right-side bar, it still looks to me like it has since the info on who replied to what went blue, but the note below, on how long since the reply was made, remained black.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Regards the reply notification function. I believe this works closely with the username database, and will fail for any anonymous reply or comment because we are excluded from that database linking function. (for obvious and good reasons)

This does not affect the recent examples discussed, which all included registered usernames. But I wanted to add this information. Both for better understanding overall and to inform the other three or four Anonymous voices that it may affect. Not that we receive notifications at all, but that our replies do not generate notices.

If this comment does generate a notice to all who have subscribed, I have been wrong.

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OscarCP

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It does:

From: AskWoody <noreply@askwoody.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2019 3:30 PM
To: noreply@askwoody.com
Subject: [AskWoody] From hot to lukewarm topics and subsequent reactions

anonymous wrote:

Regards the reply notification function. I believe this works closely with the username database, and will fail for any anonymous reply or comment because we are excluded from that database linking function. (for obvious and good reasons)

This does not affect the recent examples discussed, which all included registered usernames. But I wanted to add this information. Both for better understanding overall and to inform the other three or four Anonymous voices that it may affect. Not that we receive notifications at all, but that our replies do not generate notices.

If this comment does generate a notice to all who have subscribed, I have been wrong.

Post Link: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/from-hot-to-lukewarm-topics-and-subsequent-reactions/#post-1983836

———–

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a forum topic.

Login and visit the topic to unsubscribe from these emails

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OscarCP

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I am glad to see this, and know that I was wrong. Thank you for showing the notification. It had bothered me to believe this was ‘just one of those things’ that did not make a lot of sense. It is good this is answered.

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b

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anonymous wrote:

I believe this works closely with the username database, and will fail for any anonymous reply or comment because we are excluded from that database linking function. (for obvious and good reasons)

As earlier stated, notifications are only available to logged-in registered Loungers:

Kirsty wrote:

If you are not logged in, you are not permitted the option of notification emails (naturally).

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As earlier stated, notifications are only available to logged-in registered Loungers:

You misread the intent of my post, which continued eventually with

Not that we receive notifications at all, but that our replies do not generate notices.

No to worry, @b understood and set me straight a couple of hours ago by showing that even anonymous posts will generate a notification.

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The simple fact remains for me that I get no notifications from any thread.  None.  They don’t go to my SPAM box, either.  I just don’t get any.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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The two sources of email differ – the newsletters are despatched by MailChimp, whereas the WordPress/BBPress setup despatches the notifications.

We have been aware that some servers/providers have more issues than others with receiving notification emails, and it’s possible some over-zealous spam filter is trashing the notifications before they are been received on your server.

As a test, you could try using a different email for a short while, rather than the mailserver you aren’t currently receiving notifications through (i.e. if using hotmail, try gmail etc.)

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[bbearren]

Kirsty wrote:

We have been aware that some servers/providers have more issues than others with receiving notification emails, and it’s possible some over-zealous spam filter is trashing the notifications before they are receiving your server.

My email server at my site hosting service puts everything that it doesn’t forward to me into a SPAM box for me to look through from time to time.  It does not refuse any email.

If it has my email address, it gets to me or goes into the SPAM box and stays there until I empty the SPAM box deliberately.  There is no limit on my SPAM box.  The last time I went through it I got rid of 984 spam emails, dating back to 2018.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by bbearren.

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It’s possibly still worth testing a different email address… 🙂

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I’m posting from a phone — a horrible experience — but i think i just figured out why you aren’t getting notifications.

DM me or send me email and when I’m at a real keyboard, I’ll explain it.

Basically your AskWoody email address is screwed up.

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woody wrote:

i think i just figured out why you aren’t getting notifications.

Unlikely cause of problem… sorry 🙂

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At this point, perhaps someone could have a look here #1983821  , second paragraph (the first one already taken care of, and appropriately thanked for already), and see if this is something that can be taken care of as well? One worthwhile result of looking there might be a possible “suggestion” of something that could be dome “to improve the lounge.”

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I’ve read it four times and still can’t understand it. Where and when do you ever click on a name to find a post (directly).

Reply | Quote

OscarCP wrote:

Sometimes, clicking on the name of the one who made the latest reply in “New posts Last x days” takes me to the OP at the very beginning, not to that reply.

Clicking on the poster’s name will always take you to their profile, no matter where from. In the New Posts link, for instance (as it also applies to any fora listing page), you have the option to 1) click on the topic, 2) the name of the person who last posted, or 3) by clicking on the time of the post, the last post in that topic (apart from the other option of clicking the arrow to the right of the topic’s title, which takes you to the first new reply in a topic).

1 user thanked author for this post.

woody

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Sorry, Kristy, but what you describe is is how it should work, how it is supposed to work. Not what I have observed to actually happen, in a random “now it happens, now it does it not happen” way. And not frequently, but definitely (and inconveniently) now and then. I’m just trying to be helpful; denying this is not helpful. If there is some practical way I could help, you can let me know.

Vale.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Hi Oscar, I’ll try a guess that may be yet another miss. In your second paragraph from further up, I think this is the main point

Sometimes, clicking on the name of the one who made the latest reply in “New posts Last x days” takes me to the OP at the very beginning, not to that reply.

(stress lost in quote) b knows that you seek a comment, not the profile, and so is confused. Kristy enumerates the clickable options and defines the resulting actions. I also believe that clicking on any username will always take you to their profile from any page on this site. But let’s set aside the name as a hang up. I’ll approach from a different direction.

Starting instead from your undesired result and working back. I have an experience that might match. I frequently read from the recent replies list, clicking on the topic title next to a username; this is a hyperlink direct to a numbered comment, wherever it may be in the nested stream. BUT sometimes as the tab I am viewing refreshes, the display remains at the top of the page rather than locating to the requested comment. Because I never take a moment to note the #post-nnnnnn ahead of time this causes me confusion. Please note that my description is slightly different from yours. Where you say you land on the original post, the result I am relating is distinctly top of page. So I apologize with taking liberty.

What I eventually interpret from context clues is that the comment I was seeking is now unavailable. I can think of several reasons this might occur, but will not speculate here so as to avoid introducing even more extraneous details.

I arrive at my conclusion because the #post-nnnnn is now easily found in my browser’s address bar. But CTRL+F shows that nnnnn string does not exist on the page. So when the specific location cannot be found, the browser defaults to top of page.

Thank you for reading my experience. If this still doesn’t help explain what you sometimes see, I regret the distraction.

2 users thanked author for this post.

woody, OscarCP

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[OscarCP]

Oh dear! Apologies all around: I should have written “clicking on the  time of the last reply to a topic  (“so many hours and so many minutes ago”) in “New post Last x days” resulted in the problem that I have described. And then I just kept repeating that mistake mechanically. So: sorry about causing a confusion by mistake, but with that corrected, the problem as otherwise described is one I have encountered several times in recent times.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by OscarCP.

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Please log the specific Topic/latest post URLs.

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I get the same issue with occasional posts, where I’m dumped at the OP instead of the latest. It’s a minor nuisance given the difficulty of finding new nested posts, so I use a regular expression search for new$. This always finds those hidden replies.

cheers, Paul

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Paul
Can you explain the new$ search?

Paul T wrote:

I get the same issue with occasional posts, where I’m dumped at the OP instead of the latest. It’s a minor nuisance given the difficulty of finding new nested posts, so I use a regular expression search for new$. This always finds those hidden replies.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

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In regular expression $ is the end of line place holder, so we are looking for the word “new” at the end of a line.

To run a regex search in Chrome I installed the “Chrome Regex Search” extension, then press Ctrl Shift F to bring up the regex search.

cheers, Paul

3 users thanked author for this post.

wavy, woody, OscarCP

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By Jove, that’s the trick I’ve been waiting for.

Thanks!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Paul T

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Regex search does not seem to be available in Mozilla or PaleMoon extensions. 😕
Would be useful if available, thanks

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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In Firefox (and in IE as well), hit ‘Ctrl F’ (for ‘Find’) and you’ll see a search box in the lower left of your screen.  Type “rt n” – without the quotes — into that box and you’ll see all of the new tags to the left of all of the new comments that were posted since the last time you viewed that thread.  Once you refresh the page, those new tags are gone.

Plus: looking to the right of the search box, you can see how many matches there are, highlight all the occurrences, and can also use the up or down arrows to navigate from one new comment to another.

Win 7 SP1 Home Premium 64-bit; Office 2010; Group B (SaS); Former 'Tech Weenie'

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wavy, woody, Kirsty

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SueW wrote:

Type “rt n”

How does this work?

cheers, Paul

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woody

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When you try it yourself, you will find your browser helpfully highlights the next or all instances of “rt n”. You will immediately notice an odd arrangement where the “rt from one word appears disjointed from the “n” of another. You can use your browser’s edit tools to see why that happens.

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SueW

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I did try it and it finds “rt n” but not “new”.

cheers, Paul

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Your result surprises me. Your browser is resolving page layout differently than many others have reported. Sorry this “shortcut” does not work from your chair.

As I do not log in, my solution is to simply search by the full timestamp string at the beginning of all comments. I =left mouse button hold and swipe to select = then CTRL+F to launch and autofill the string in the FIND box.= With that done I can easily BKSP to the resolution of timeframe I require.

I offer that as another method. I believe you may have your own method that works even better for you.

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Hi Paul_T, I took some time to do some legwork. I wanted to give proper credit, to MrBrian it turns out, for this “rt n” method. Along the way I found this has been covered by you and in response to you on 2 March 2018.

I offer again to you MrBrian’s link where it was first proposed a few months earlier.

These links should cover the subject well for you or any other reader interested in the technique.

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Still reference to the same experience in #post-1983936. I now better understand you are viewing one of the pages titled “New posts since …” and selecting hyperlink text that displays time interval rather than title.

But if you inspect the target linked address I believe you will find a similarity to what I described. And if that specific #post-nnnnn has been deleted by author, is being edited by author or moderator, or has been moderated away then it no longer exists and the browser will default to top of page. Because it cannot satisfy the final requested portion of the address.

This is reproducible. Copy the address of the page you are currently viewing. I will presume for this effort that it already ends with #post-nnnnn, where nnnnn is actually a seven digit decimal. (I was too lazy to count the digits earlier) Open a new tab and paste the address. Then change the value of nnnnnnn by just a small increment rather than some crazy value. If you happened to pick a value that exists, it will locate that post to the first line of the viewing space. When you have a value that does not exist, you will see as I have described.

I may still be describing something different. Since you do not have an example at hand to screenshot, could you recall if landing at the OP means that the AskWoody banner and MSDEFCON are displayed at top of window, or if the top line is aligned with the Original Post just like you had expected the intended post to appear? This would differentiate between not finding the #post-nnnnn string and defaulting to top, or yielding a crossed reference to the first post instead of the intended post.

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OscarCP

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Anonymous: Thanks for your explanation. When I get in one of those occasional glitches (maybe caused by the reasons you explain, but why is a deleted post still included in the “New Posts: Last x days”  list is, I think, a good question) is as Paul T has explained: I see the top of the window, with the DEFCON, etc. and the title of the thread near the bottom, as well as, maybe, a line or two of the beginning of the OP.

But, as I already mentioned, this happens only now and then, and may be it is a rare event that I catch because I use the “New posts: Last x days” links quite often, to see if some older threads I am interested and that received comments maybe a day of two before, have anything new in them. Now that the number of  links in “Recent Topics” has been greatly increased, this problem will be even less like to happen to me, because I will need to use the “New Posts, etc.” less than before.

As already explained, I have been seeing this happen for a while, but did not mentioned it until now, because: (a) being rare, it was not such a big deal; and (b) only now that this thread is available and somewhat related to the topic of finding older postings, I thought it might be a good idea to finally mention it here. Also it is not easy to show others when this happens. Since few others here might have experienced this problem recently, because it is rare and probably only happens to those of use that use the “New Posts: Last  x days” quite often, it might be (as it has proven to be the case) hard to convince people that this really happens.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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It’s the topic view starting at the top, not a specific post.

cheers, Paul

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wavy wrote:

just the opposite, they are lined and readily available. You are not getting ALL posts from all threads in a temporally linear presentation just from the thread yo are viewing, or am I getting this totally wrong??

They are lined up out-of-order and perhaps on another page. It’s not all posts from all threads, just this thread. I would rather your reply to my post be right underneath my post in the conversation they are a part of as opposed to being somewhere else. That is linear, having them all out of order isn’t. I do use other forums without nesting and it works for those sites while others do have nesting.

A site like Youtube, for example, without nested replies would be impossible to follow a conversation. I think Disqus uses nesting as well as many other sites I view or participate in. I find nesting to be easier to follow separate conversations in a sea of conversations. Never does anyone have to ask “who are you replying to?” or is anyone required to quote because the posts appear right below the one that is being replied to. It’s just easier.

So, I can’t really relate to people who say it’s so hard. If scrolling is uncomfortable, just use the arrow keys or the page down/up keys. Nesting just works better overall for this site IMO just like it does for many others. More traditional message boards (not blogs) work better without nesting while sites like this (and YT) are much better with it. I don’t think I would like nesting on a traditional message board such as a support board for a piece of software or a sports-related message forum.

I’m not sure why that is exactly. Maybe it’s because topics discussed here tends to spawn diverse conversations that branch off into multiple different conversations unrelated to each other within the same discussion whereas on a message board, that doesn’t seem to happen as often making nesting unnecessary. The conversations there flow better naturally and tend to be shorter lived with a focus that is more narrow and specific whereas here, you’ve got discussions going in all sorts of different directions and keeping them grouped together makes them much easier to follow.

Getting the whole conversation right there to read one after the other without having to wade through messages from unrelated conversations you’re not interested in is a much easier experience on a site like this one. It can’t really be helped since many topics discussed here have tendrils in other topics which usually get brought up and go off in a different direction. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, though. To me, that’s when things tend to get interesting. 🙂

*edit: except for this post which appears at the bottom of the page for some reason. Is it because I clicked quote instead of reply? I think quoting someone’s post should have the same effect as hitting reply in that it still appears nested.

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Sessh wrote:

Maybe it’s because topics discussed here tends to spawn diverse conversations that branch off into multiple different conversations unrelated to each other within the same discussion whereas on a message board, that doesn’t seem to happen as often making nesting unnecessary.

Exactly.

Sessh wrote:

Is it because I clicked quote instead of reply?

Yes. If you want to nest a reply, but quote something inside it, hit Reply first, then select the text and click Quote. It’s clumsy, but it works.

BTW, if you want to see how sequential comments can get really, really hairy on AskWoody, send me an email and I’ll send you the automatically generated Replies list from “Subscribing” to this precise Topic. It’s a mess!

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jburk07, Kirsty

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woody wrote:

the automatically generated Replies list from “Subscribing” to this precise Topic. It’s a mess!

Not to mention, the old AskWoody (to January 2017) threaded comments that were imported into the Lounge without threading, just in timeline!

It’s probably worth remembering that some fora software automatically include the details of the post being replied to – BBPress doesn’t, which is why nesting/threading is what works best for finding what has been replied to. It can be fragmenting, but in many topics, it’s appropriate. 🙂

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