I'm still a grumpy cat: a final plea to Alex
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What are your "Automatically track topics you enter" and "Consider topics new when" settings?
"always" and "you haven't viewed them yet"
The problems I have are
- AJAX adds the "X new posts click here to see them" link (where X is usually wrong) but doesn't update the counts for the topics. Broken by design. If you're going to change the page asynchronously, fucking update the whole damn thing; don't just tell me I need to do something myself.
- My usual reading flow is, starting from "Latest," click on a topic, read it to the end, browser "Back" to "Latest." Sometimes the unread counts on the "Latest" page are not updated to reflect what I just read. This failure to update may persist through multiple topics; a reload of the the "Latest" page is necessary to make things work again.
- Unread count shows non-zero when I have read everything shown on "Latest." This is because locking a topic (which is a rant unto itself) adds a new, unread "locked" post to the topic, but this does not change the topic's activity timestamp, so the topic remains buried infiniscroll deep in the the "Latest" list.
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, browser "Back" to "Latest."
And here, I go...WTF‽ Sorry, you totally lost me here. I can't fathom why you'd do this when the list of stuff to read is right there in front of you.
Right or wrong, the browser back button breaks web apps. I guess this stuff would work if you refreshed the page after clicking back, but I'm mystified as to why you'd do that. If you really really REALLY feel the need, I'd recommend GL to get there.
OTOH, I'm sure you can synthesize other ways to make sure you have a crappy experience, and I wouldn't want to get in your way.
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the browser back button breaks web apps
ITYMWeb apps break the browser back button.
What's the difference between a traditional web page and a web "app"?
One of them doesn't work properly.
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[xkcd:1174]
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Oh, fuck, I hadn't even thought of that (xkcd comic "where you can't zoom")
Try zooming. Go on. You get a hilariously fucked result.
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ITYM
No, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. If browsers didn't cache stuff for you to go back to, it might be fine, assuming the app did something like REST. But we'd all hate that, like we did back in FF 1.x (or earlier?) days.
What's the difference between a traditional web page and a web "app"?
I would say state. A web app attempts to impose state over an inherently stateless medium. If you're just jumping around among static stuff, the back button will work very well. But an application has you and others changing things. And your browser's cache of what things looked like a few minutes ago may not work very well, depending on the kinds of changes going on.
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The only modern forum system I've used that actually looks and feels like an awesome product is XenForo.
+10
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/ being my favourite example. Loads of talk about welding and zero discussion about xenforo
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No, I said what I meant and I meant what I said
Technically, it might well be more correct to say that the back button breaks web apps, but the end result is that the web app's brokenness is exposed in ways that, rather than explaining to the user "the back button breaks this, so don't do that", merely appear to be a broken "back" button.When people are going to the kind of extremes Jeff and company have, just in order to try and make the back button sorta kinda work sometimes (see "why is Discourse shitting all over my history?"), you have to accept that "web apps" are a massive WTF. Hell, there's a serious discussion about overriding the browser's built in, OS provided, scrollbar and implementing one in javascript instead. Discourse overrides builtin browser search (but fails to do so on my machine) because the illusion of loading every post breaks that functionality.
Basically, you have an OS, I have an OS, Lorne has an OS, Jeff has an OS, and they might not be the same. Under those OSs run browsers, which also might not be the same. And Discourse is making those browsers, those OSs, behave in ways that are unfamiliar to the users. In ways that clash horribly with the way the users expect everything else on their machine, including every other fucking website ever, to behave.
Discourse might, in a perfect world, be the greatest thing since tits on a dustbin. But this isn't a perfect world, we don't have infinite bandwidth or processing power, HTTP doesn't have state, and we don't expect websites to half and half-assedly implement the functionality already provided by the web browser.
I really can't believe anyone here is still supporting Discourse, except in the "it's less broken than CS" sense.
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I have the impression that even the front side comments still running on CS are suffering in that they don't attract as many posts as before the transition phase to Discourse began
I've just realised that I've not been on the thedailywtf.com front page for a week and a half, when I used to be on a couple of times a day. So I'm an example that proves your point (somewhat, of course).
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Discourse might, in a perfect world, be the greatest thing since
tits on a dustbinPaula Bean.FTFY
Filed under: Had to do it! | What is "tits on a dustbin" even implying?
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If you're just jumping around among static stuff, the back button will work very well. But an application has you and others changing things. And your browser's cache of what things looked like a few minutes ago may not work very well, depending on the kinds of changes going on.
Most of the the time (>90%), using the back button to go back to the Latest list works fine — it shows the list with what I just read no longer shown as unread, and anything new pushed to the top of the list. Occasionally, it fails to do this, and needs a reload to make it right.
I really noticed this about the same time @PaulaBean went on her rampage; it's much better now, but still seems to happen more often than before the rampage. I've no idea whether there's any causal relationship, it's due to some other change that was made about the same time, or just coincidence.
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I really can't believe anyone here is still supporting Discourse, except in the "it's less broken than CS" sense.
Yes, as a place to talk about stuff, it definitely works better than CS for me. There are things I miss, but overall I think it's an improvement.
In ways that clash horribly with the way the users expect everything else on their machine, including every other fucking website ever, to behave.
Eh, mostly I think this is like a massive performance art project of people trying to go for the record of longest blakeyrant ever. I would say that people with accessibility issues like @ender, have real gripes. The rest of you, insofar as you whine about how awful Discourse is (especially now that they've fixed a lot of the bugs and rough edges we started with) just need to stop whining.
I was initially somewhat negative about Discourse (largely because of the change and missing some of the fun things about CS' WTFs), but I'm relatively positive on it at this point. I was a bit turned off at how people kept treating @sam and @codinghorror after they'd really started engaging us and fixing things. I'm turning downright hostile to the whiny luddites.
I mean, an occasional poke at Discourse is one thing (like my post about the Smithsonian maybe buying bugs from Discourse), but you fuckers are now more annoying than injury faking soccer players.
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using the back button
Still, I'd be interested to hear why you use that instead of just using the list at the bottom of each thread. What do you get from the Latest list that isn't there? Maybe I'm missing something useful.
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Maybe I'm missing something useful.
Generally, what people are looking for in a back button is the ability to "go back to where I was before". Not "go forward to somewhere else".
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Still, I'd be interested to hear why you use that instead of just using the list at the bottom of each thread. What do you get from the Latest list that isn't there? Maybe I'm missing something useful.
Not really, just many years of ingrained habit. Follow a link (or 2 or 3); go back where I started. Follow another; go back where I started. I have learned from experience (whether or not that experience is applicable on this particular site) that if I keep following links too far, I can't get back where I started, because I've exceeded the browser's "back" stack.
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Latest from all the categories, for one. In this topic, I see only stuff from Meta or Meta > Bug. I don't see anything from Sidebar WTF even though there's a recent one there. But yes, back means 'go back to where I was, please'
It's a very different workflow to what I'm used to and what HardwareGeek seems to be used to. But that doesn't make it wrong, merely different. That's one of the great things about all the other forum software, for the most part it doesn't mandate how you should do things and lets you navigate it your way... not so much with Discourse.
I'd open things in more tabs and then just refresh the front page if that didn't consume a surprising amount of resources.
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Generally, what people are looking for in a back button is the ability to "go back to where I was before". Not "go forward to somewhere else".
Fucking useless.
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Latest from all the categories, for one.
I can't say with any certainty how it works otherwise (since I'm effectively tracking the categories that make up most of the commentary here), but any topics you are tracking or watching are prioritized over other topics of the same category you are in.But yes, if you aren't watching/tracking them, eh, I kinda see the reasoning for the current "suggested", but it probably has room for improvement.
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I'd open things in more tabs
I would, too, if I weren't using Chrome. For all its faults, FF has the option to automatically switch to the new tab, which is very convenient. Chrome requires that I click on the tab to read it (or if it has the option, I've never managed to find it in all the times I've set preferences).@Arantor said:
refresh the front page
I just do that anyway, because I don't trust what it tells me.
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Latest from all the categories, for one. In this topic, I see only stuff from Meta or Meta > Bug. I don't see anything from Sidebar WTF even though there's a recent one there.
I get them down there. I mostly see Meta stuff, of course, since that's where most of the action is right now, but the first entry in my Suggested Topics right now is the Qantas one from the Sidebar.
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I would, too, if I weren't using Chrome. For all its faults, FF has the option to automatically switch to the new tab, which is very convenient. Chrome requires that I click on the tab to read it (or if it has the option, I've never managed to find it in all the times I've set preferences).
There's a app for that.
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No, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. If browsers didn't cache stuff for you to go back to, it might be fine, assuming the app did something like REST. But we'd all hate that, like we did back in FF 1.x (or earlier?) days.
That's a fine assumption to start with, but you can also tell the browser "Hey, when you come back here, make sure to get the latest information". You can do this quick and dirty by specifying "Cache-Control: no-cache" in your page header. If you didn't do something like this, you'd get the same damn data every time you visited the page, making web apps useless.
The rest of you, insofar as you whine about how awful Discourse is (especially now that they've fixed a lot of the bugs and rough edges we started with) just need to stop whining.
So, you're now a convert to @codinghorror's way of things: Discourse is the way to do it! If you don't like it, the You're Doing It Wrong! Here's the thing @boomzilla, users have a way of doing things, and telling that they've been doing it wrong for years is a major WTF. That's what Discourse is. Discourse is literally saying "You've been doing forums wrong since the first forum. This is how forum's should be." Discourse may work for lots of people out there, but it can't expect to be a fit for every forum. That's just unrealistic, and unattainable. As a result, people are going to have preferences that contradict the way Discourse works, and calling them whiners is just going to make you look like an ass.
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As a result, people are going to have preferences that contradict the way Discourse works, and calling them whiners is just going to make you look like an ass.
Fucking whiner.
So, you're now a convert to @codinghorror's way of things
Am I? Maybe. I've learned how to use his software, and am pleased to find out that it's easier than what we had before. I suppose I could have kept fighting it and be as grumpy as the rest of you cats, but I fucking hate cats.
Here's the thing @boomzilla, users have a way of doing things, and telling that they've been doing it wrong for years is a major WTF.
You must rage every time something is released that claims to be better. Sorry, but you guys have taken the joke too far. It's just not funny any more.
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Cue the infighting of the community.
From how I read it, Boomzilla accepts the workflow of Discourse (and that is his good right to do). He also dislikes the way some people voice their complaints about Discourse (still his good right) and as far as I know he didn't really say, that there was only one way of doing things.
Just please don't add more Drama here than I would expect from stupid youtube-comments! This community might be the worst of the worst but that would be even worse!
I think it's fine for everybody to express their concern with Discourse. Politely would be preferred but heck, sometimes people get the feeling that doesn't work and resort to more drastic measures.
TL;DR: @boomzilla likes Discourse and thats fine and @abarker doesn't like Discourse and that is also fine. If you really want to voice that, create your own topics, guys! This one belongs to @Lorne_Kates !
Filed Under: Sometimes you guys behave like 12y olds... are you guys really developers / other professionals? :D
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The worst conversations on this forum are still orders of magnitude more intelligent than the average YT comment ;)
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I wonder if the admins can set up the main page to filter out Meta->Bug threads, and only show the other 3.
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I take it you've never seen Nobody shares knowledge better than this, then. They had to invent negative numbers just to represent the average IQ in that topic.
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I wonder if the admins can set up the main page to filter out Meta->Bug threads, and only show the other 3.
http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/poll-remove-bugs-from-front-page/851?u=ben_lubar
Filed under: potato salad, now I filed it. happy?
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They are discussing it here
http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/poll-remove-bugs-from-front-page/851
Filed Under: Yay, crosslinking! | @ben_lubar is cheating by not posting a "Filed Under:" | Now I am happy!
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Loads of talk about welding and zero discussion about xenforo
That is a bit unfair, look at http://talk.folksy.com/ or http://discourse.mcneel.com/ or http://bbs.boingboing.net/ discussion is predominately on topic, Discourse discussion is at most long forgotten background noise.
Take 10 truck drivers and give them a VW Beatle, what are they going to talk about?
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Take 10 truck drivers and give them a VW Beatle, what are they going to talk about?
Football? (Or maybe Soccer if outsite of the US (it is world-cup after all!) )
Filed Under: Gotta talk about something afterall | Maybe they also talk about women!!! | OR FOOD
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I didn't stretch my metaphore enough ... forgot to mention, you take away their truck.
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They will probably talk about how to get the truck back from you, tbh
Filed Under: This should have been obvious! And it even fits some of the mindset of some of the people here!! | We should stop this metaphor-talk, though, because it derails the thread even more :D
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I'm counting DC and CS as separate things. I specifically meant this site, as in the TDWTF DC forum. You may have noticed I don't have an account on TDWTF CS forum ;) So my point stands... there is nothing on this site that is that level of fail.
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You must rage every time something is released that claims to be better.
No, I don't. And notice how I never stated my personal position regarding Discourse in that entire post, so here you go:
I don't mind if something claims to be better, I'll give it an honest shot. But when it is one or more of:
- Not better.
- Bug ridden.
- Pushed by "true believers" who see it as the only possible way.
That's when I get mad. And I happen to Agree with @Lorne_Kates on this (though I'm not quite as vehement as he is):
- Discourse is better than CS in many ways. But there are some ways that CS is better.
- Discourse is buggy as hell. That's improved a ton in the past three weeks, but still, it was nowhere near ready for TDWTF, and I'm surprised that it is in use on "dozens" of other forums as Atwood claims.
- There is most definitely at least one true believer who sees Discourse as the only way for forums.
So, I'm sorry (not really) if you think that we're being whiny about Discourse. I have a solution for you: stay the hell out of topics like "I'm a grumpy cat" and "I'm still a grumpy cat".
Like @Lorne_Kates, I fell like @apapadimoulis is largely ignoring the dissatisfaction with Discourse here. That's why I started Poll: How do you feel about Discourse on TDWTF? At this point, the results are pretty split, so it's a tough call for Alex, but I'd say that there's a chance he risks losing about 1/4 to 1/3 of current members if he chooses to stick with Discourse.
create your own topics, guys! This one belongs to @Lorne_Kates !
Ummm, you do know what site this is, right? Topic derailing is par for the course.
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Pushed by "true believers" who see it as the only possible way.
I can't accept this, I understand why people object to Discourse and do not think it is one-size-fits-all, I work to accommodate but there is only so much that can be done, if you desire a native HTML interface you can't just add JavaScript hacks.
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Hmmm... I know where you're going with this, Sam, but bear in mind that on the old platform 98% of the conversation were the WTFs that other people brought to the party, and 2% was CS.
We can't just keep on discussing Discourse. That's like having a Discourse forum all about... Discourse...
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You don't see it as a one-size-fits-all. Unfortunately there are people that do and belittle the opinion of those who differ.
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I don't think he was referring to you, @sam
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I wonder if the admins can set up the main page to filter out Meta->Bug threads, and only show the other 3.
Been discussed and it can't be done. Yet.
Can't set it for everyone because (1) lack of configuration options for what I did want to do (default categories to muted for everyone, and they can unmute it if they wish) and (2) bugs for how I ended up doing it (hiding bugs for level -1, 0, and 1 users.)
So I reverted my hack.
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Weird, Discourse has been really, really good at hiding things so far.
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So, I'm sorry (not really) if you think that we're being whiny about Discourse. I have a solution for you: stay the hell out of topics like "I'm a grumpy cat" and "I'm still a grumpy cat".
I think threads like this shouldn't be viewed in a vacuum. I'm choosing to use my time to call out the drama queens around here.
Like @Lorne_Kates, I fell like @apapadimoulis is largely ignoring the dissatisfaction with Discourse here.
He's not ignoring it, but he hasn't made the decision to shit can it, which is of course what you guys want. You're making your opinion heard. I'm doing the same, but not acting like I got sand in my vagina while I do it. While this is more serious, this reminds me of watching blakey go apeshit over a non-standard button decoration or filesystem (non)constraints that are big theoretical problems but never seem to cause any real issues.
I think it's important that both sides get heard, and several vocal and vehement posters have a way of creating group think, or at least the impression of it. I'm happy to voice unpopular opinions, and doing so often draws out more people who were previously timid about doing so.
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Very, very, few people want to read everything.
I don't want to watch all of the 100+ TV channels that cable serves up but I wouldn't expect any to be hidden from me by default.
Filed under: Sadly, not a car analogy
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We can't just keep on discussing Discourse. That's like having a Discourse forum all about... Discourse...
I wouldn't be so sure...CS managed to be a popular topic of discussion for at least 7 years.
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I haven't read all the posts here, 108 posts is a significant barrier to reading (insert snarky Discourse feature request here)
Already exists; go to top (home key, click title at top of page, click progress bar then top) and press the Summarize This Topic button.
And the discussion on Discourse is almost entirely about Discourse and not TDWTF
This is always, always the case for big community transitions for the first few months. I don't know if you noticed, but people generally hate change. And the people who hate it the most can be quite vocal about their dislike of change.And FYI, @mott555 XenForo is not open source.
My usual reading flow is, starting from "Latest," click on a topic, read it to the end, browser "Back" to "Latest."
I suggest using Suggested Topics at the bottom, this will always be faster than back button. Suggested tries to prioritize topics you are tracking / created, and new stuff. It is by far the fastest way to quickly read stuff, rather than the "pogo stick" of forward, back, forward, back etc.And someone must like Suggested since it is set to show 10 topics here instead of the 5 it defaults to..
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http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/ being my favourite example. Loads of talk about welding and zero discussion about xenforo
TRYING to quote that kept sending me to the link LOL.My reason for replying: That forum looks very suspiciously like a working version of CS! Anyone else see the same thing? ^^
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What's the difference between a traditional web page and a web "app"?
One of them doesn't work properly.
Quoted for fucking truth.
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Still, I'd be interested to hear why you use that instead of just using the list at the bottom of each thread.
I'd use it if it was sorted in a sane way.
Filed under: Fuck fuck fuck, go away toaster pop-ups. I don't want to merge my replies.
