Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition
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I wonder how the threads I'm watching are doing. Let's take a look.
/unread
Fuck, there's a couple dozen threads I haven't even read yet. And they're polluting /unread. There's no way of filtering them out. So the page isn't very helpful. Further:
- information density is about 2-3 topics per screen. I can't see much at a glance
- the information that's there isn't presented by columns. It's all lumped together in one column. So what's there I can't scan
- The column that is there is only 1/3 or less of the div, with the rest of it being a giant blob of whitespace with a couple useless numbers. Replies, OK-- but in 200 point font? And who cares about views?
- The information that IS there is only half useful. The blurb shows the last reply. Not the first unread reply. So I can't even gauge what the conversation is by reading the information that's there. Example if my last reply is "A is great", then I can understand a blurb that says "Yeah, A is great", or "No I prefer B". There's enough mental association there to understand what the conversation was. But if 20 posts go by, and now people are talking about "Video Game ZZZ", and that's the blurb-- nope, useless to me.
Okay, so /unread isn't useful. Maybe I can use Notifications
- There's notifications to say I've been liked. Clicking on that clears the unread status of the thread, and there's no way to know where the next unread message is. No good. And of course I HAVE to click on the notification, since there's no blurb to tell me WHAT was upvoted
- Notifications tell me I've been mentioned. Again, that's great. I click on it, it takes me PAST the first unread message to the mention (which may or may not be a reply). That borks up my unread status for that topic, so I have to manually scroll backwards to see what my first unread was. So, useless
- There are no other notifications of note
Okay, so Notifications don't work. Maybe Recent? Nope, I don't see a difference between it and Unread. Except that it includes the Mafia categories, so it isn't obeying my "ignore this category" settings. Useless.
Popular? Nope, again:
- Just a bunch of random topics
- Includes categories I ignored, so polluted
- Is mostly the Likes thread, some flamewar threads, and SDSS discussion. Nothing of value.
Fine, maybe I'll just follow the links at the end of each screen that's a random mix of threads I follow, are related to what I'm reading, are popular on the site, or random. Nope, that was a Discourse feature. One of the only useful ones RED BOOB HERE WHILE I TYPE so another case of Discourse Did It Better =(
So there you go, folks. If you're wondering why I'm not keeping up on conversations, that's why. I literally have no way of knowing which conversations are actually occuring.
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I just open whatever looks interesting on the default view, I don't even try to read all the things.
Next post will be just be for confusing people that look at the "last post" on the topic list
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that's not how climate change works
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@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
There's notifications to say I've been liked. Clicking on that clears the unread status of the thread, and there's no way to know where the next unread message is.
Yes there is. Go to page 1 and the "click here to return to the last read post" toaster will appear. Also, even though the topic list will show it grey, that link will still go to the last read post.
@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Notifications tell me I've been mentioned. Again, that's great. I click on it, it takes me PAST the first unread message to the mention (which may or may not be a reply). That borks up my unread status for that topic, so I have to manually scroll backwards to see what my first unread was. So, useless
That, yes... if I care about my last read position in the thread, I generally just find it in the recent list and that way it sends me to my last read post there. Then as I read it, the notification clears when I get to the post where I was mentioned.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
There's no way of filtering them out
We really need the ability to ignore individual topics, not just categories. That might be the thing I miss most from Discourse.
The second-most missed would be the list of unread/random topics at the bottom of the screen.
@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Notifications tell me I've been mentioned. Again, that's great. I click on it, it takes me PAST the first unread message to the mention (which may or may not be a reply). That borks up my unread status for that topic, so I have to manually scroll backwards to see what my first unread was. So, useless
Yes, this annoys me too, but wasn't it the same way with Discourse? How would you solve this?
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Add /unread/new, which is the same as /unread but does not show topics that were already partially read by the user. by BenLubar · Pull Request #4504 · NodeBB/NodeBB
The filter argument is optional, so this will only break compatibility if a plugin is replacing core functionality directly (module.func = function() { ... }) See: #4474 (GitHub isn't allowing ...
It'd be pretty simple to add another filter for topics-that-have-bookmarks-but-also-are-marked-unread.
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@Lorne-Kates That's ok, I'm sure someone'll just make a userscript to fix this on your local browser and post a super-condescending topic about it.
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@anotherusername said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Yes there is. Go to page 1 and the "click here to return to the last read post" toaster will appear
That is literally the stupidest UX I've ever heard of.
"Want to go to the first unread message? Well, just click all the way back to the first page, wait for a temporary UI clue to appear, and try to click on it in time! lololol"
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@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Notifications tell me I've been mentioned. Again, that's great. I click on it, it takes me PAST the first unread message to the mention (which may or may not be a reply). That borks up my unread status for that topic, so I have to manually scroll backwards to see what my first unread was. So, useless
Yes, this annoys me too, but wasn't it the same way with Discourse? How would you solve this?
By showing the "you are mentioned in" post in a list, so I don't have to click through.
Also, on Discourse mentions were mentions, not replies. Here, because it says "@Lorne-Kates said in....", that counts as a mention. So when someone replies, I get a Mention notification. And that's the only way I know one of my posts has been replied to, since there's no "X replies (link)" indicator on posts.
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@blakeyrat said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
@Lorne-Kates That's ok, I'm sure someone'll just make a userscript to fix this on your local browser and post a super-condescending topic about it.
These aren't fixable by userscripts, since the data isn't there on the client-side to show or filter.
And if you think "Hey, I just went out of my way to hack together an out-of-the-box fix to address your problem" is condescending, then you have some very skewed definitions of what words mean.
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@Lorne-Kates or, like I said, just going back to the topics list and clicking the link will take you to it.
Now that they fixed the topics list so it links to the last unread post, instead of page 1...
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@NedFodder said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
We really need the ability to ignore individual topics, not just categories. That might be the thing I miss most from Discourse.
The second-most missed would be the list of unread/random topics at the bottom of the screen.+42
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@anotherusername said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
@Lorne-Kates or, like I said, just going back to the topics list and clicking the link will take you to it.
Now that they fixed the topics list so it links to the last unread post, instead of page 1...
Except, as noted, all the different topic lists are nigh unusuable. So instead of doing one stupid UX thing, I have to:
- Leave whatever thread I'm reading
- Hunt one by one through the topic list to find the topic I want-- and as noted, the information density of the topic page is ~2-3 topics per screen, so it's a long haul
- Click on it
- Hope it works
That's literally tied for the stupidest UX.
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@Lorne-Kates Also, paging @ben_lubar You need to beat your sanitizer into submission again:
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@Lorne-Kates I fixed your post for you, but what htmlcleaner was doing followed the HTML5 spec.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
you have some very skewed definitions of what words mean.
YMBNH.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Leave whatever thread I'm reading
Aren't you one of those 100-tab people? Just open a new tab. Now you've got 99 problems but that isn't one of them.
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@asdf said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
@NedFodder said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
We really need the ability to ignore individual topics, not just categories. That might be the thing I miss most from Discourse.
The second-most missed would be the list of unread/random topics at the bottom of the screen.+42
+43
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That's how I felt about nodebb from the start - it's uninspired.
Technically they have all the features you might want. If you were putting it all on a piece of paper, it'd look great.
But in reality, it just lacks that level of polish you would get when someone is really REALLY into a product. All their features are pushed to the level of "it works", but not a step further. It doesn't seem like they have anyone who is freed from the feature churn, and can just get into polishing the product as a whole.
Kind of like what Atwood is doing for Discourse. Agree or disagree with his decisions or "bike shedding", you can't tell me there aren't a hundred dusty little corners of NodeBB he wouldn't have gotten annoyed by and ordered them fixed.
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@cartman82 said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Agree or disagree with his decisions or "bike shedding", you can't tell me there aren't a hundred dusty little corners of NodeBB he wouldn't have gotten annoyed by and ordered them fixed.
True, but there would be an equal number for which he would declare
and never going to happen. And the performance would always be crap. And the barrier to entry on rolling up your sleeves and fixing stuff would still be way too high.
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@Lorne-Kates I feel the same way, I'm missing out on lots of threads. I really miss the "New Topics" section. I don't usually revisit threads after I've initially read them, but I would like to see all the new ones that I haven't seen yet. I hope we can reinstate it.
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I've mostly gotten used to the number of threads; I just keep spam-looking at them scrolling past most of it.
But the biggest thing for me is the random denial of access.
"Oh, you wanted to view Unread? Denied! You don't have access!"
"Are... you sure?"
"Oh! Here it is. I IZ SRY!"
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@cartman82 said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Kind of like what Atwood is doing for Discourse.
I'd rather have the
@cartman82 said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Technical feature you might want
Of not giving me server errors every other time I load a post.
Than the
@cartman82 said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
inspired
Feature of notifications not disturbing my last read position.
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@FrostCat said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
@Lorne-Kates said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Leave whatever thread I'm reading
Aren't you one of those 100-tab people? Just open a new tab. Now you've got 99 problems but that isn't one of them.
Discourse broke me of that habit for reading wtdwtf. I literally caused global warming.
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The unread threads is completely useless. There are lots of topics in the world I have not read, but it is crazy to add a red counter and count them to the infinity.
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@dse I also hate how clicking a link on the Unread page will immediately make it disappear from Unread, though NodeBB does the same for the "This thread has unread posts"-highlight in the other views.
I can understand that they don't want to full counters like Discourse but even stuff like phpbb keeps your topics listed as unread when you didn't read the last page of the topic.
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@JBert said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
last page
I think that might be the key difference ;)
Yes, I know NodeBB does paging. Which is optional.
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@RaceProUK said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
Yes, I know NodeBB does paging. Which is optional.
I think you pissmelt "almost functional"
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@RaceProUK said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
@JBert said in Why I barely post in threads: NodeBB Edition:
last page
I think that might be the key difference ;)
Yes, I know NodeBB does paging. Which is optional.
Even in infiniscroll, it seems to keep track of last read post separate from the unread counter. If you read part of the topic, it disappears from unread, but if it gains a new post, the link in unread points you to more or less where you left off, not to the new post after you last had the topic open.
