New Post list is too short

Discussion in 'Forum Announcements and Feedback' started by Margot, May 9, 2019.

  1. Margot

    Margot Renowned Contributor 10 Years

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    I respectfully suggest that the New Posts list should include at least the 1o most recent items - not just 5.

    The oldest submission tonight came in only about an hour and a half ago, which means that many other questions and answers today have already dropped off the list. They can be retrieved of course but it's not easy to find them and continuity is lost.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2019
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  2. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    @Daniel Mosquin , is it because I'm a moderator that I can see all the new posts? Or I think I do. I have 8 showing right now, going back to 1:45PM, and this one would have made it 9. I don't see that as a settings option. So if I can see more, can some indicator be set so that everyone can?

    Margot, once you have seen all the New Posts it will show you (or Marked all Forums Read), the New Posts page shows:
    You have no unread posts. You may view all recent posts instead.​
    The recent posts list goes back 8 pages, 200 posts.

    Daniel, but you'd need to know to do that, that you've missed seeing some. I don't know why it wouldn't show up to a full page of all the new posts, with an indicator for More, or the paging thing, like it does for long threads.

    On the XenForo forum, someone asked two months ago how to change the number, but there has not been a reply. There is another thread about how XenForo should Lose the New Posts feature entirely! Apparently seniors go to New Posts and then complain that they can't find their thread. Funny enough (to me), I never used New Posts on the old system, just went to the forums that interested me. Now that I look at (almost) everything, I can't imagine not having it.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2019
  3. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    Yes: I always have to comb through the mix of posts of varying ages in the main forum column to find much of anything because the number of "new" posts in their own tiny box is always so small - for some time I haven't wanted to bother checking here very often specifically because of this limitation.
     
  4. Junglekeeper

    Junglekeeper Esteemed Contributor 10 Years

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    Also, new post that are held up in then released by moderation do not show up in the 'New Posts' list. Currently I have to request a 'Recent Posts' list then skim through the list to pick out the new ones.
     
  5. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Just to confirm -- we are discussing the New Posts box on the right-hand sidebar, not the listing of New Posts from the horizontal navigation bar at the top of the page?
     
  6. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    They show up in my list after I release them, but as Daniel asks, I thought we were talking about New Posts from the top navigation bar.

    There's a right-hand sidebar? How do you get that? Is it just some confusing thing that keeps you all from finding the useful one? I can't wait to see what it is.
     
  7. Junglekeeper

    Junglekeeper Esteemed Contributor 10 Years

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    Perhaps it's different for moderators since I don't see them.

    There's a New Posts link in the main navigation bar. The same link appears as the section heading in the sidebar on the right side of the screen. I think the OP's complaint is about the number of entries that are displayed in the sidebar.
     
  8. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Oh, I finally figured out you mean on the home screen. Since I often open the forums from a notification, and then click on New Posts on the top Navigation bar from there, I don't see that right sidebar all that often, was not on the home screen when I replied above.

    I wonder, since the sidebar New Posts seems to have led at least two active users to miss the much more useful access to New Posts at the top, if it would be better to not have the one on the side. The trade-off is that you have to click the top one to see anything, whereas you see the first five on the right right away. It's not even a good idea that the term means something different in the two places - on the side, it's the most recent new to the system; on the top, it's all the ones new to you (with access to new to the system, once you have dealt with the new to you).

    I just noticed the "Go to First Unread" at the top of my left sidebar, if you can call that a sidebar, where the posters' info is. That's cool.
     
  9. Junglekeeper

    Junglekeeper Esteemed Contributor 10 Years

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    How do you do that?

    What I do is get a New Posts list using the link in the navigation bar then click on Mark Forums Read once I'm finished with the list. I think the problem comes about from posts that were made prior to the time I mark the forums read; such posts are held up awaiting moderation and upon release they are no longer considered new according to their timestamps.
     
  10. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Did you then go on to answer your own question? Or else, I'm not sure what you're asking.
    Oh, maybe. I don't get into that situation much, because I do the moderations first, and I read almost everything, make sure there's nothing around to be done if I Mark Forums Read. I'm a little afraid of missing stuff when I click that, so I use it rarely, mostly for things like when a whole lot of fungus workshops get posted (sorry Frog, if you're reading this!). So you've pointed out another thing to watch out for when using that function, besides just missing something that comes in just before you do that click.

    No comments on whether you're all going to switch to the New Posts at the top instead of looking at the ones on the side? @Margot ? @Ron B ?
     
  11. Margot

    Margot Renowned Contributor 10 Years

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    Once again I ask why the New Posts list cannot be more than a mere 5 entries long. There is certainly lots of space in the column for at least 1o. I realize there may be other ways to view recent posts but they're not as convenient.

    My question today, posted under 'Maples' at 5:18pm was gone within 2 hours. It's very frustrating when you're counting on expert advice to help solve a problem.
     
  12. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I have moved the posting just above, posted as a new thread, into this existing thread so that there would not be replies in two different threads.

    @Margot, how is it not as convenient to click New Posts at the top of the page? It's one click. And you see everything new to you.

    I understand that you are also concerned about postings not getting noticed by other people because the postings have dropped off the top five.
    Lately the forums have been getting more active - I've been grimacing at how much there is to read that's new. If you were to get 10 new ones on the right, but we were to get active like we used to be, 10 wouldn't be nearly enough. There were 13 new-to-me posts when I looked just now. Would you ask for 15? That feature is never going to work for finding all the new postings.

    I suggested above that there not be the list on the right of the five of what amounts to sample posts if there are a lot of new ones. That way, you would not have to fear that people would not see your posting because it was no longer at the top and people were only looking at the most recent five. There were not any responses to that. I was thinking that you can't control how other people choose what they look at, but maybe that feature is most likely to lead to people's postings getting missed, since users of that feature think they have seen all the new stuff.

    I don't know if that sidebar thing is a widget that is not programmable. Maybe it would be useful to have a perpetual "More ..." that delivered five new posts at a time. And it would not be new-to-you posts, just posts in the order in which they came in.
     
  13. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    The sidebar is pretty much intended to be used by search engine robots, not people. Here's how that works:

    The main page of the site is weighted heavily as a "home page". The frequency of new posts in that sidebar is a way of regulating how often robots will visit the site and look (and index) that new content. If it churns within a few hours, robots visit more frequently -- if it churns over the span of a few days, then the robots are deployed less often. It is a matter of resources on both sides: where and when does the search engine allocate its robots to crawl the web, and what is the server load required for those robots visiting.

    Consider how many posts there used to be, and imagine what it was like way back when...
     

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  14. Margot

    Margot Renowned Contributor 10 Years

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    Thank you for your replies, Wendy and Daniel - I didn't understand the complexities and I won't say another word.

    You both do a terrific job . . . I've learned so much from the UBC Forums. Thank you.
     
  15. Junglekeeper

    Junglekeeper Esteemed Contributor 10 Years

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    Perhaps the sidebar title should be changed to Latest Posts or Most Recent Posts in order to avoid confusion. (Whatever changes are done should also be applied to the New Resources sidebar below.)

    With regard to the chart I wonder if the decline of posts can be explained by the rise of social media.
     
  16. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Looks like it is the same templated phrase that is used both in the top navigation bar as well as the sidebar. So, both would change.

    I did notice if you clicked on the "New Posts" title in the sidebar, it takes you to the listing of New Posts page (same as the link in the nav bar).

    Yes, most definitely the declines since 2010. There are plenty of places for people to form common groups. And, while we could have done something like Facebook integration (so you could log in using your Facebook account instead of a separate forums account), there were data retention issues with that.
     
  17. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Wasn't the sudden drop when we were down for almost a year? And previous to that, we were more open to people chatting about their lives and cats, so there was more of that kind of ongoing back and forth.
     
  18. Junglekeeper

    Junglekeeper Esteemed Contributor 10 Years

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    Funny, I don't remember that happening. What was that about?
    Well there was that too. Still, the continuing trend in fewer postings is evident.
     
  19. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Sorry, I must be imagining that. Maybe it was just Botany Photo of the Day? It doesn't look like it was nearly that long for the move to the current software, though I can't find how long that took. Here's a welcome back thread:
    Feedback on new Forum Software
    I can find several postings from the months before that. Was that the same time that everything had to be restored? Or that was a different incident? There was some thing that happened that caused us to lose the chatty regulars. Maybe that was the re-org where we dropped their favourite conversation forums. My mind seems to have jumbled a few things.

    I thought the last month had a lot more postings.
     
  20. vitog

    vitog Contributor 10 Years

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    Wasn't the decline in number of posts due to the "Forums Restructuring" announced by Daniel on Feb 1, 2010? And, wasn't that the intent of the restructuring? It appears that it had the desired effect.
     
  21. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    There was a pretty sudden drop after that, yes. It is post-2010 I was commenting about in terms of trends, you can still see a decline over the past near-decade.
     

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