unread posts.

Angelo

OK, let's see if I can be clear with this inquiry.

You all know how each forum header will indicate "unread" posts with a yellow button in the left margin; and when entering a forum, unread posts will be indicated by BOLD TITLES?

Well recently, while I try feverishly to keep up with all the great posts, I notice that if I'm not logged in for a while and return to see what's going on here I'll find numerous posts that are NOT BOLD, yet I haven't read them yet.

Is there some sort of "time-out" on new posts and their markers?

ps: anyone notice we topped 3000 members??? WOO HOO :clap

Tim Kirkwood

Angelo,

I use the New Post button at the top of our site everytime I come to Dgrin. I too have noticed that I miss alot of new post. Alot of times I miss replys to threads I started because of this. So now I make sure to go back and check my threads one by one.


Glad to see I am not crazy and someone else sees this happening.



Tim

wxwax

Tim Kirkwood wrote:

Angelo,

I use the New Post button at the top of our site everytime I come to Dgrin. I too have noticed that I miss alot of new post. Alot of times I miss replys to threads I started because of this. So now I make sure to go back and check my threads one by one.


Glad to see I am not crazy and someone else sees this happening.



Tim

Tim, this happens to me all the time.

All the time.

I've whined to Patch29 about this, he throws up his hands helplessly, apparently he can't do anything about it.

But it sucks to miss posts made within the last few hours. You'd think New Posts would catch it all, but for some reason it doesn't. Very annoying.

4labs

wxwax wrote:

Tim, this happens to me all the time.

All the time.

I've whined to Patch29 about this, he throws up his hands helplessly, apparently he can't do anything about it.

But it sucks to miss posts made within the last few hours. You'd think New Posts would catch it all, but for some reason it doesn't. Very annoying.

It's all Andy's fault..

Khaos

4labs wrote:

It's all Andy's fault..

Cool, what do we win?

Tim Kirkwood

4labs wrote:

It's all Andy's fault..

Thats why I sent that plane to crash and that brief case in front of his building. Just kiddin.


So who do we need to talk to about this issue?


Tim

wxwax

Tim Kirkwood wrote:

Thats why I sent that plane to crash and that brief case in front of his building. Just kiddin.


So who do we need to talk to about this issue?


Tim

Andy. And Patch29. :uhoh

Cameron

Here's an interesting thread about the issue on the vBulletin support forums. It looks like the cookie-timeout is what determines whether messages are "new".

Apparently vBulletin 3.5 will have the option to track message read status much more precisely (from this thread):

Database-Based Thread and Forum Read Marking

Yes, it's finally here! Now, instead of using cookies and inactivity timeouts to determine what should be considered unread versus read, you can now opt to track this via the database.

Individual threads are considered read only if you have actually read them. Also, as soon as you have read all threads in a forum, it's light bulb will go out; no need to visit the forum list!

Of course, it's also an option. Should you wish to stick with the original system, you'll be able to do so.

Also - the latest version of vBulletin is 3.0.7 - the forums here are 3.0.3 so perhaps there have been some changes but I doubt it as the 3.0.x changes are usually small.

behr655

I believe you need to be logged in for the new posts to be highlighted.

Bear

Kirwin

Hi Angelo,

3000 is a nice number, but if you look at actual "active" members, I believe you will find the number quite low in comparison. Digital Grin seems to be steadily recruiting new members, but retention of these members is not that good.

Angelo wrote:

ps: anyone notice we topped 3000 members??? WOO HOO

Andy

Kirwin wrote:

Hi Angelo,

3000 is a nice number, but if you look at actual "active" members, I believe you will find the number quite low in comparison. Digital Grin seems to be steadily recruiting new members, but retention of these members is not that good.

i've been here since december 2003


actually, active posters to lurkers is fairly standard all around the 'net... we've got a good core of active posters but as always, we want more that's why we give out the quarterly "de-lurking" award of a free smugmug account for one year

patch29

I still do not know why wxwax has the trouble that he does. I suppose one of these days I will need to surf on his computer for a while and see what causes the problem.

When you go to new posts do you typically see a single or multiple pages of new posts?

If you go to new posts I believe it resets after 30 minutes. I use tabbed browsing, when I go to new posts I open that page in a tab first, then any multiple new post pages in tabs, then on the front page hit mark forums read, this starts new posts accumulating in the new posts page when I reopen it, the original open new post page(s) are still in their own tabs, now I can go to those pages and open the threads I want in new tabs. It sounds complex, but it is very easy to do, tabbed browsing also allows threads full of photos to load in the background if your connection is slow.

Here it is again, step by step.

open dgrin homepage
open New Posts page(s) in tabs
reset homepage with mark forums read
close homepage tab after the page reloads
open individual threads in new tabs
close New Posts pages once selected threads are loading
read posts and repeat

It works well for me and allows me to cover a lot of content in a short period of time, once you use tabbed browsing it is unlikely you return to single page browsing.

Angelo

Tim Kirkwood wrote:

Angelo,

I use the New Post button at the top of our site everytime I come to Dgrin. I too have noticed that I miss alot of new post. Alot of times I miss replys to threads I started because of this. So now I make sure to go back and check my threads one by one.


Glad to see I am not crazy and someone else sees this happening.



Tim

Ditto!

Angelo

patch29 wrote:

I still do not know why wxwax has the trouble that he does. I suppose one of these days I will need to surf on his computer for a while and see what causes the problem.

When you go to new posts do you typically see a single or multiple pages of new posts?

If you go to new posts I believe it resets after 30 minutes. I use tabbed browsing, when I go to new posts I open that page in a tab first, then any multiple new post pages in tabs, then on the front page hit mark forums read, this starts new posts accumulating in the new posts page when I reopen it, the original open new post page(s) are still in their own tabs, now I can go to those pages and open the threads I want in new tabs. It sounds complex, but it is very easy to do, tabbed browsing also allows threads full of photos to load in the background if your connection is slow.

Here it is again, step by step.

open dgrin homepage
open New Posts page(s) in tabs
reset homepage with mark forums read
close homepage tab after the page reloads
open individual threads in new tabs
close New Posts pages once selected threads are loading
read posts and repeat

It works well for me and allows me to cover a lot of content in a short period of time, once you use tabbed browsing it is unlikely you return to single page browsing.

Yikes! Sounds confusing but I'll give it a try. If y'all don't see me foe a while please send help!

Angelo

patch29 wrote:

I still do not know why wxwax has the trouble that he does. I suppose one of these days I will need to surf on his computer for a while and see what causes the problem.

When you go to new posts do you typically see a single or multiple pages of new posts?

If you go to new posts I believe it resets after 30 minutes. I use tabbed browsing, when I go to new posts I open that page in a tab first, then any multiple new post pages in tabs, then on the front page hit mark forums read, this starts new posts accumulating in the new posts page when I reopen it, the original open new post page(s) are still in their own tabs, now I can go to those pages and open the threads I want in new tabs. It sounds complex, but it is very easy to do, tabbed browsing also allows threads full of photos to load in the background if your connection is slow.

Here it is again, step by step.

open dgrin homepage
open New Posts page(s) in tabs
reset homepage with mark forums read
close homepage tab after the page reloads
open individual threads in new tabs
close New Posts pages once selected threads are loading
read posts and repeat

It works well for me and allows me to cover a lot of content in a short period of time, once you use tabbed browsing it is unlikely you return to single page browsing.

wait a cotton pickin' minute... if I follow step 2, I can't do step 3.

patch29

Angelo wrote:

wait a cotton pickin' minute... if I follow step 2, I can't do step 3.

If you have tabbed browsing you can, open new posts in a new tab, the dgrin homepage will still be open.

Angelo

patch29 wrote:

If you have tabbed browsing you can, open new posts in a new tab, the dgrin homepage will still be open.

then I guess I don't know what tabbed browsing is.

patch29

Angelo wrote:

then I guess I don't know what tabbed browsing is.

It is a feature in certain browsers, Firefox is one. It allows you to have multiple webpages open within the same window.

Angelo

patch29 wrote:

It is a feature in certain browsers, Firefox is one. It allows you to have multiple webpages open within the same window.

I can't do that so I'm back at square one regarding new posts.

wxwax

Angelo wrote:

I can't do that so I'm back at square one regarding new posts.

I think you can still right click and "Open in New Window", right?

So go to the dgrin front page, and right click on "New posts" and open in a new window. Once you've done that, on the still-open front page, click on Mark Forums Read (at the bottom of the front page.) Then you can close your original window, and go to the new window with the New posts in it.

No question it's a pain in the butt, but might be worth it to not lose posts.

Angelo

wxwax wrote:

I think you can still right click and "Open in New Window", right?

So go to the dgrin front page, and right click on "New posts" and open in a new window. Once you've done that, on the still-open front page, click on Mark Forums Read (at the bottom of the front page.) Then you can close your original window, and go to the new window with the New posts in it.

No question it's a pain in the butt, but might be worth it to not lose posts.

Almost missed this Sid because it didn't show as "unread". I'll try your suggestion. Thanks.

Baldy

I've gotten the sense that sometimes unread posts don't show in the new post query for me too, but I haven't focused on it enough to figure out under what circumstances it happens. Maybe upgrading the site will fix it, which I've meant to do for awhile.

Sid, this doesn't happen on ADVrider, does it?

I don't often use the new posts link there anymore because the traffic is so bloody high I get overwhelmed with posts that way. I just dive directly into forums.

ginger_55

Baldy wrote:

I've gotten the sense that sometimes unread posts don't show in the new post query for me too, but I haven't focused on it enough to figure out under what circumstances it happens. Maybe upgrading the site will fix it, which I've meant to do for awhile.

Sid, this doesn't happen on ADVrider, does it?

I don't often use the new posts link there anymore because the traffic is so bloody high I get overwhelmed with posts that way. I just dive directly into forums.

New Post Link????

g

I would suggest a place where we could advertise a post we really want read. I post a lot. People get bored, another darned egret, skip that.

But sometimes, I really want my post looked at. I hi-jacked two people's posts one day a week ago, commented on their work, then asked people to go to my work. It not only did not work for me, it embarrassed me to death when I came to my senses.

Yesterday I was going nuts trying to get a post read. Finally Greaper commented, YEAH, I responded, then Andy commented. That did it, for which I will be eternally grateful (I will PM my thanks when I get to it and remember).

I have been tempted to bump my own posts until someone reads them. And counting people who have looked at them does not work that well. One, I look at them all the time, trying to figure out what is wrong, etc. Two, yesterday, that post that Andy commented on, it finally took off to my satisfaction, but before that there were lookers and no comments, but not that many, and I don't know how many were me looking at mine.

I would pay 5.00 sometimes to get my post looked at and commented on. One word could suffice. Like Sucks, Yikes or Fantastic. OOF is also at least letting me know why no one is looking.

ginger

David_S85

I have also noticed this situation of the cookies not recognizing the newer posts that I have not yet read. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. If I'm not attentive for a couple hours or so, the 3-5 pages of new posts might shrink down to barely a page. Don't know why exactly, but it is more of a problem around midnight, local time.

Its also not only just confined to the new posts page(s). Seems to happen also when I look at Quick Links > Subscribed Threads.

The way I work around this issue is noting the time I read the last newest post. Let's say that's 11:01pm. If I go off and do something and come back a couple hours later, I hit New Posts again. If the cookie doesn't catch the newer posts (not bold type like they're supposed to be), I'll just look at the posts that are time stamped past 11:01, and read those, since they have been appended or new threads added since the last time I was looking.

Yes, it would be nice if the scripting caught them all, and all of the time, but it has not as yet hit the annoyance level threshold for me.

David_S85

It just happened again
For the wizzards of tech only, I am adding to my above post.

A screen shot is included this time. A few minutes ago, I had 3+ pages of New Posts to look through. Hit New Posts again, and this 30-minutes worth only listing showed up. 30 minute span? Why?

ginger_55

You all read all the posts posted here?

I was on the wildlife thread, the whole page was new to me. I just look to see what I have read, who has written, etc.

I would go nuts reading them all. I can't, and I don't work, except at this.

ginger

Angelo

well clearly I've opened a can of worms and damn happy to realize I'm not crazy.

for now I'll simply say to anyone and everyone whose posts I have missed, I am sorry. There are a LOT of postings on this site and all are valuable as are all the comments but it's becoming impossible to keep up, especially when one has to go "searching" for the new posts.

I will read as many as I possibly can as they turn up.

David_S85

ginger_55 wrote:

You all read all the posts posted here?

Yes. Gotta do it. In our contract. Every single one. Every day.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.

Andy

David_S85 wrote:

Yes. Gotta do it. In our contract. Every single one. Every day.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.

not to mention that it's why we get the "big baldy bux!"

wxwax

Baldy wrote:

I've gotten the sense that sometimes unread posts don't show in the new post query for me too, but I haven't focused on it enough to figure out under what circumstances it happens. Maybe upgrading the site will fix it, which I've meant to do for awhile.

Sid, this doesn't happen on ADVrider, does it?

I don't often use the new posts link there anymore because the traffic is so bloody high I get overwhelmed with posts that way. I just dive directly into forums.

I don't use "New Posts" as aggressively on ADVRider as I do here, so I'm afraid i can't say.

wxwax

andy wrote:

not to mention that it's why we get the "big baldy bux!"

Yeah, I had to go see a doctor about getting that removed.