is there a way to mark posts as unseen yet by the user?

[tonyz]

I have a hard time believing this, but is there no way to have the forum software automatically mark messages as read ... conversely, I get to my embedded forum (nice job on that btw), and I have no clue which items are new or already read....????

[tonyz]

yes I am not liking the experience of visiting my embedded forum... I have no clue what's been unread by me. There really needs to be some sort of 'new' icon in order to make this usable.

[tonyz]

you also desperately need a 'views' field... we can't tell if anyone has read a post or not.

[tonyz]

sorry to keep whining here, but why would you add a rating system before you add view count and unread post indicator.... wow. I don't understand that priority at all.

[Will L <Nabble>]

Thanks for your feedback. Regarding the unread threads, I rely on the browser to tell me which links are visited or not yet visited - the visited links show a different color. Is this not usable?

[Will L <Nabble>]

Yes, we agree. The view count feature will be there, in a few weeks.

[tonyz]

Will L <Nabble> wrote:

Thanks for your feedback. Regarding the unread threads, I rely on the browser to tell me which links are visited or not yet visited - the visited links show a different color. Is this not usable?

really I am not satisfied with that... if I go to a different machine, than all the links are not visited... you have to have an indicator for unread messages. Please. The lack of this feature has sent me scouring the internet for another embedded forum solution...  btw, don't get me wrong, I love nabble's utter simplicity, always have, BUT... you have 2 or 3 essential things you just have to add.
Peace.

[Will L <Nabble>]

OK. So we discussed this internally and the decision is that we will add this feature. But this isn't very high priority for us because there aren't many people asking for it. My guess is that we will get to it after we do the count of views feature first.

UT... you have 2 or 3 essential things you just have to add.

We are very much user-driven in terms of feature dev. If you tell us what you want, we will respond and we add features mostly based on how many people ask for it.

[tonyz]

Will L <Nabble> wrote:

OK. So we discussed this internally and the decision is that we will add this feature. But this isn't very high priority for us because there aren't many people asking for it. My guess is that we will get to it after we do the count of views feature first.

UT... you have 2 or 3 essential things you just have to add.

We are very much user-driven in terms of feature dev. If you tell us what you want, we will respond and we add features mostly based on how many people ask for it.

that's reasonable. However, sometimes you have to assume everyone wants a common sense feature whether they request it or not. And every forum/bbs package I have used always have a go to first unread post or have some other way of marking unread posts. I think this is the most common and important feature of any collaborative posting system. Esp forums in which people would tend to visit often. FOr those we don't visit often, yes, it doesn't matter, but which audience are you trying to serve?

Also, imo, you can remove the rating/star system if you need room in the UI.... I don't think these are relevant to most forums.

[Cordilow]

I'm not a Nabble support person, but I believe the reason the rating system was added was for democratic moderation.  In the beginning, Nabble followed the wiki philosophy, and it seemed that this rating system (which is for moderation only, from what I understand—not for how well you like the post) … ahem … that this rating system was key to the wiki philosophy, in that it allowed things to be driven equally by all users, rather than by a forum owner.  Forum owners seem to be much higher in priority now than they had been.

Anyway, I think that should answer your question.

Also, I've been to tons of forums and I've never seen one that marks which posts you've read and which ones you haven't, although I won't argue that it would be useful—I just wouldn't call it a 'common' feature (at least not so common that most forums have it).  I'd like to hear about which forums you're used to (I'm not doubting your experience, by the way; I'm just telling you how mine has differed thus far, and I might note that I 'probably' do different stuff on the Internet than you do).

Another alternative for marking posts read would be to use a feed reader that does this automatically (just as with email), although you can't reply to the posts directly from the feed, and so this is a problem; when we can use newsgroups here, though, it should solve that problem altogether, methinks.  I think just adding newsgroups would be enough, without the extra marking feature, but that's me.  What do you guys think?  The only reason I would really be against the marking feature is that it would likely require JavaScript, and this seems certain to add an amount of undesirable bloat to Nabble (the sort that would affect loading quality, I mean; I'm sure there are other ways to do it).

I definitely agree that counters for posts is a great idea.  I don't suppose we'll be able to see the number of views before this feature will have come into effect, will we?  That would be cool, but it's hoping.

[R Morris]

Rating were a core part of the system from the beginning and were designed to deal with the issues of uneven moderation that exist in many forums.

We felt that post views are largely a vanity feature; however, they are a good traffic indicator for forum owners and we'll try to get this up on the priority list. Marking posts as read is a bit tricker to do correctly and I do see the value and will push to get this into the development cycle.

Regards,
Rod Morris
Nabble.com

[tonyz]

The forums at avsforum.com (maybe it's avsforums.com) shows you all threads in bold that have unread posts with respect to you as the user, and then a button on that line takes you to your first unread post in the thread. Perfect, required, expected.

Other forums I attend to have exactly the same feature, they seem to use the same bbs/forum software, whatever it is. I can't imagine regularly visiting a forum and having no clue what is read and unread and having to browse through it all and try to remember?? Forget about it. I just would not go back due to the volume of implied work.

[tonyz]

R Morris wrote:

Rating were a core part of the system from the beginning and were designed to deal with the issues of uneven moderation that exist in many forums.

We felt that post views are largely a vanity feature; however, they are a good traffic indicator for forum owners and we'll try to get this up on the priority list. Marking posts as read is a bit tricker to do correctly and I do see the value and will push to get this into the development cycle.

Regards,
Rod Morris
Nabble.com

I don't see much value in ratings, but I wouldn't take them out now that they are there.
I am surprised that no one else sees going to first unread post of a thread or marking unread posts as not just useful, but required esp for busy forums. I just don't understand how you know what you've looked at and what you haven't???? Pls don't tell me looking at what the browser changing color of previously visited links. That just doesn't work for me... does not impress as reliable either.

Otherwise I love the stark simplicity and text nature of the nabble... always have since the start.

[R Morris]

Our intent is to try to keep things as simple, yet powerful, as possible, so we've avoided putting in features for the sake of features. However, I completely agree that relying on the browser to track read messages doesn't work if you're using multiple computers and our policy has been to add features that are requested multiple times by users.

I noticed you mentions avsforum.com which I do visit once in a while, but I don't see a link to go to the first new post except in the thread. Is that the one you're talking about? I want to figure out how they're doing it and how well it works because actually tracking every user's read posts is quite a task.

Regards,
Rod Morris
Nabble.com

[tonyz]

Hi Rod, yes, what I am interested is going to the first unread post and then everything from that point on down is unread as well. Just to the left of the thread title.. mouse over it, it will say 'go to first new post'.
Set a cookie? Note that this forum has also total replies and total views... nice. You know immediately which thread is broadly interesting or niche.

[R Morris]

Thanks, now I recall and see what they are doing. Unfortunately, it's not tracking read posts at all as I got a number of threads that were marked as new because they had new posts. Clicking on the last new post should have shown me the whole thread as I'd never read it. Instead, it brought me to the first new post since my last visit.

That's ok and it's surely easier. You right, we could just set a cookie to do a similar thing. Would that be sufficient for you even though it's not truly correct?

Regards,
Rod Morris
Nabble.com

[tonyz]

R Morris wrote:

Thanks, now I recall and see what they are doing. Unfortunately, it's not tracking read posts at all as I got a number of threads that were marked as new because they had new posts. Clicking on the last new post should have shown me the whole thread as I'd never read it. Instead, it brought me to the first new post since my last visit.

That's ok and it's surely easier. You right, we could just set a cookie to do a similar thing. Would that be sufficient for you even though it's not truly correct?

Rod, thanks for your attention. Well, the AVS forum does not work perfectly if you don't visit it in a long while (definition of long while is like greater than a few weeks), but if I visit it daily, I am assured that the bold threads contain unread posts, and that the little icon to the left of the bold thread title takes me to the first unread post. 'First unread post' works out to be the first new post since my last visit FOR threads that I have previously opened AND (I'm not 100% sure of this next part) ALSO gotten to the last page of that thread. But if I have not opened a thread, log out, log back in next week, then that thread's 'Go to first unread post' will take me to the correct unread post for me. I think they might be using anchors not sure, as I seem to recall getting taken to the correct page of the thread, with the new post near the top of the window. So perhaps there is a cookie that they read showing which threads I have read in the last week and calculating the right anchor to take me on the right page.

I probably have rambled on with some errors above. If you were able to bold threads with unread new posts, and then somehow mark the unread posts with some icon, that would be the optimal solution. Any reply later in time than your cookie indicates would bold up the parent thread title, and add an icon to that reply + all replies later in time. Does that sound correct-ish?

[R Morris]

Yes, thank you very much. I spoke to our engineering head today about this and we will move it up on the development list. I think you are right in that vBulletin seems to use the date and time as a key which works alright for forums that you visit often, but obviously isn't a perfectly accurate solution. To do it correctly requires keeping a stash of actual read messages by user and he thinks that when we add the feature, we should do it properly. Since we're in the middle of a major performance/architecture upgrade, it may take a little while, but you should see it before too long.

Thanks for the input.

Regards,
Rod Morris
Nabble.com