Bad habits from CS



  • In Community Server, I would normally scroll to the top of the page after reading the last page in a topic and click the forum name to go back to the list of unread topics.

    In Discourse, we have the suggested topics list (which is right there) and the logo (a way back to the topic list) is always at the top of the screen regardless of where I am scrolled to. But for some reason I still find myself trying to scroll to the top of a long topic to get out of it.



  • @ben_lubar said:

    I would normally scroll to the top of the page after reading the last page in a topic and click the forum name to go back to the list of unread topics.

    I would normally smash Backspace on my keyboard.



  • @ben_lubar said:

    ut for some reason I still find myself trying to scroll to the top of a long topic to get out of it.

    You must unlearn what you have learned.

    It's no different from playing a game for a really long time, and then trying a new game in the same genre.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dhromed said:

    I would normally smash Backspace on my keyboard.

    That sounds violent. Do you have much pent up rage?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Not having this problem. I tend to either click on the stuff at the bottom or type g,u.

    But then, I tended to get to CS posts either via email or RSS.



  • @dhromed said:

    I would normally smash Backspace on my keyboard.

    but smashing the key mean, you need a new keyboard shortly.



  • @DoctorJones said:

    Do you have much pent up rage?

    NO.


  • Banned

    @ben_lubar said:

    In Discourse, we have the suggested topics list (which is right there)

    Definitely try to use this, that is what it is for -- the pot of gold at the end of the reading rainbow.

    It also prioritizes "your stuff" in a fairly complex algorithm. We try to put things you created or participated in at the top of Suggested Topics.

    @ben_lubar said:

    the logo (a way back to the topic list) is always at the top of the screen regardless of where I am scrolled to

    Don't forget the hamburger drop down at the upper right which can take you to any category in two clicks:

    (hint: clicking the word "categories" will take you to the categories page, too)

    @ben_lubar said:

    I still find myself trying to scroll to the top of a long topic to get out of it.

    If you must go to top, you can click / tap the title of the topic at any time to go to the top. Or use the home key.



  • @codinghorror said:

    If you must go to top, you can click / tap the title of the topic at any time to go to the top. Or use the home key.

    The only reason I'm going to the top is that Community Server only had links to things other than the pages of the topic when you were at the very top of the page. Unless you wanted to click that broken link to communityserver.website, that is.



  • I zig-zag everywhere I walk... Oh, wait, CS isn't for Counter-Strike?


    Then how about adding in my own <br /> tags


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @DrakeSmith said:

    Then how about adding in my own <br /> tags

    Bah. Should've been using <p></p> tags.


  • Considered Harmful

    In CS, I developed the bad habit of assuming that when a thread showed up as unread, when I opened it I would find posts I had not yet read. Now, on the new Discourse platform, I find myself clicking on topics marked as unread, only to find that I have in fact already read them!



  • @error said:

    Now, on the new Discourse platform, I find myself clicking on topics marked as unread, only to find that I have in fact already read them!

    Except when threadstopics you know you haven't read (because it's first thing in the morning for you, and Discourse just told you people had posted dozens of posts while you were asleep) suddenly don't have unread post counts any more. Type I and type II errors, we got 'em both!


  • Banned

    What's the repro for this? Every time I enter, I see only new and unread things.

    (and by "unread" I am assuming you correctly mean the white number in the blue circle next to a topic?)


  • Considered Harmful

    I think I am not scrolling the viewport to the bottom of the page, and it thinks I have not read the last one or two entries.

    Loading the post and scrolling to the very bottom seems to make the problem go away.

    I've been seeing a gray circle occasionally, and I don't know what it means but it's stubborn to go away.



  • @error said:

    I've been seeing a gray circle occasionally, and I don't know what it means

    I'm not exactly sure either, but AFACT it means something like, "You clicked a link to go to post 17/19. While you were reading 17, 18 and 19, 20 and 21 were posted, and AJAX shoved them to your browser. You read them, so we won't give you a number in a blue circle, but you haven't actually clicked to read them, so we're going to give you a gray circle. And set the topic link to 20, so you have to read them again." Which is fucking useless.


  • Banned

    @error said:

    I've been seeing a gray circle occasionally, and I don't know what it means but it's stubborn to go away.

    That means Discourse thinks you didn't read all the posts. Grey circle is unread but not new. Blue circle is unread and new.


  • Considered Harmful

    @codinghorror said:

    That means Discourse thinks you didn't read all the posts.

    So maybe when I click on that topic it should take me to the posts it thinks I skipped?


  • Banned

    It will, and does -- that's your last read position, grey circle means "x more posts under this read position that you did not read, and are not new since the last time you entered the topic."



  • @codinghorror said:

    That means Discourse thinks you didn't read all the posts. Grey circle is unread but not new. Blue circle is unread and new.

    Except that I have read them. In general, Discourse seems to be ... imperfect ... at keeping track of what I have and haven't read. It doesn't bother me too much, since I generally read everything. I've learned to ignore the gray, because I've learned it means "Discourse is mistaken."


  • Considered Harmful

    @HardwareGeek said:

    It doesn't bother me too much, since I generally read everything. I've learned to ignore the gray, because I've learned it means "Discourse is mistaken."

    Discourse, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bugs


  • Banned

    Humor me, and make sure you scroll down to the suggested topics when reading. Which are awesome for taking you to the next unread thing, and things you've created / posted in already.


  • Considered Harmful

    @codinghorror said:

    Humor me, and make sure you scroll down to the suggested topics when reading.

    I'll readily admit I don't do this, as I don't like the "educated guess" algorithm of Suggested Topics and prefer the strict chronological sorting of the homepage.



  • @codinghorror said:

    Humor me, and make sure you scroll down to the suggested topics when reading. Which are awesome for taking you to the next unread thing, and things you've created / posted in already.

    No, thank you. I stop reading when I get to the end of the last post. I'm not interested in the boilerplate, and I'm not interested in the suggested topics. I have the option set to tell me about anything new. If there is anything that suggested topics would tell me, I'll see it as soon as I click the back button when I'm done reading the last post.

    Don't tell me how I have to read in order to work around your software's limitations.



  • @codinghorror said:

    make sure you scroll down to the suggested topics when reading.

    Maybe the moment at which it determines a post has been read is slightly mis-tweaked.
    @error said:
    I don't like the "educated guess" algorithm of Suggested Topics

    It works perfectly, so no problem there.


  • Considered Harmful

    @dhromed said:

    It works perfectly, so no problem there.

    In general, I've come to prefer "dumb" tools to "smart" tools. I get consistent, predictable, and verifiable behavior.



  • @dhromed said:

    Maybe the moment at which it determines a post has been read is slightly mis-tweaked.

    I don't know about the "has been read" determination, but it would not surprise me at all; the "which post you're reading" is definitely a bit off. Just a few minutes ago, I had read a thread (I don't remember which one) to the end, then scrolled back a couple of posts. The next to last was half on my screen, the last was not visible at all. However, the progress bar still said 19 of 19.


  • Banned

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I have the option set to tell me about anything new

    That's exactly what Suggested Topics does -- it tells you what is new, gives you a selection of "what next to read".

    For example, here's what it's telling me at the bottom of this very topic:



  • @error said:

    I get consistent, predictable, and verifiable behavior.

    The suggested topics give me consistent, predictable and verifable results.

    Namely, the new stuff. All of it. I don't care about the rest it shows.



  • @codinghorror said:

    That's exactly what Suggested Topics does -- it tells you what is new, gives you a selection of "what next to read".

    I have two disagreements with that. First, it does it in some apparently random order (or according to some ranking method known only to it, which to me might as well be random). A few minutes ago, before an AJAX update, it's number one suggestion was a topic that hadn't been posted to in 7 hours, and which I read probably 6 hours ago, but which Discourse doesn't think I read. Bzzt! I prefer the chronological order of the main page.

    Second, I don't like a unidirectional march through links. Browsers keep a limited amount of history available for the back button. The main page is my "home base," if you will. I'll follow a few links, then go home. Follow the next link from there. Go home.

    If that doesn't fit your idea of how I should read, too bad; that's how I do read, and I'm not going to change it to fit your authoritarian world view.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    Second, I don't like a unidirectional march through links. Browsers keep a limited amount of history available for the back button. The main page is my "home base," if you will. I'll follow a few links, then go home. Follow the next link from there. Go home.

    There are quite a few ways to get back to the front page, most of which involve less work than clicking the back button.



  • @ben_lubar said:

    There are quite a few ways to get back to the front page, most of which involve less work than clicking the back button.

    Of course I know that. Maybe it's OCD or something, but my personal preference is to treat my wandering through links like a stack. Every so often I unwind it, rather than pushing the front page onto the stack again.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    that's how I do read

    Thankfully, nothing's stopping you from reading like that.



  • @dhromed said:

    Thankfully, nothing's stopping you from reading like that.

    True, nothing stops me from reading like that, but apparently stopping at the last post instead of scrolling down to the suggested topics (which my style of reading makes irrelevant to me) confuses Discourse.


  • Banned

    Depends how much of the post is on the screen. You'll have to play with it and see. If you are reading fractional posts that aren't scrolled all the way on screen..


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dhromed said:

    Namely, the new stuff. All of it. I don't care about the rest it shows.

    Ditto. Very handy stuff.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I'm not going to change it to fit your authoritarian world view.

    Now you're just making fun of @Lorne_Kates.


  • BINNED

    @codinghorror said:

    Humor me, and make sure you scroll down to the suggested topics when reading. Which are awesome for taking you to the next unread thing, and things you've created / posted in already.

    Nope, just had it screw up the unread count, and I DID scroll all the way down. Even if I didn't, it was at 6, I don't think I could've fitted 6 posts in the bottom of my screen.

    I was thinking that it might be struggling with posts that got posted while I was reading the topic but I somehow doubt it, no way there was enough activity on the forum for that at this time.


  • Banned

    What browser / OS / versions / etc? Any unusual plugins? If you're definitely scrolling all the posts into view, read state should be reliable.


  • BINNED

    @codinghorror said:

    What browser / OS / versions / etc? Any unusual plugins? If you're definitely scrolling all the posts into view, read state should be reliable.

    Chrome 35 on Linux. No plugins that would mess with anything like that (Awesome Screenshot, ADP(deactivated for most sites, including here), TooManyTabs, KeePass integration plugin).

    If I get it again I'll try refreshing the front page first. It might be that the read state is fine but something gets cached for the front page. Are you caching rendered templates somewhere perhaps?



  • @codinghorror said:

    You'll have to play with it and see.

    It is my opinion that it it's your job to play with it and see.



  • @codinghorror said:

    If you're definitely scrolling all the posts into view, read state should be reliable.

    True, but what is DC's definition of "into view"?
    Some posts are longer than my monitor is high. What happens if I can see the top X% of the last post?


  • Banned

    We don't have many users reporting persistent issues with read tracking, across the ~12 Discourse instances I personally monitor, with thousands of active users. If there were widespread issues with basic fundamental stuff like tracking your read position in a topic, users would be screaming bloody murder.

    Again.. I'm just sayin'



  • @codinghorror said:

    We don't have many users reporting persistent issues with read tracking

    In my experience, the problems with unread post count are neither persistent nor consistent. Reloading the document seems to fix them most, if not all, the time, so they're just kinda annoying and indicative of not-ready-for-prime-time quality.



  • @codinghorror said:

    users would be screaming bloody murder.

    No they wouldn't. Because it's just a bit off, not a massive crash or a retarded design decision like the Start Screen. But it does look like a bug, and it does look like it needs a bit of attention.


  • BINNED

    Cross posting because I couldn't remember where I posted about this (I know, profile page, I was lazy and wanted to reply right away):

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/since-this-is-a-beta-i-guess-lets-do-some-genuinely-useful-bug-reports/296/382


  • Banned

    Entering at the top of every topic, or at a place totally unrelated to
    where you last stopped reading, would basically make the site unusable. So
    yes, they would be screaming bloody murder.



  • Community Server had two ways to get into a topic you hadn't fully read:

    • Click on the topic title, go directly to the first post, topic is marked as read.
    • Click on the tiny button next to the topic title, go directly to the last post, topic is marked as read.


  • @codinghorror said:

    Entering at the top of every topic, or at a place totally unrelated to
    where you last stopped reading

    That's not what I mean. I'm not talking about entering at the top of a topic (that would indeed be useless and break that wonderful auto-bookmark feature that I've come to love in Vanilla and miss in other forums), I'm saying tweak the position within a post where DC triggers hasRead.

    We do agree that topic = thread = the entire string of posts from top to bottom, right? You can't use the word topic for both thread and post.

    In addition to that, users mostly accept how software works, even if it's suboptimal, even if there's an option to change it, even if they can speak up on a forum, and they will not scream or call out or whisper a hint of a grievance.

    That honour falls to us: the programming pedants and the demanding dickweeds.



  • In other words, they "lie" by not saying anything.


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