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Started by Norv, September 20, 2011, 04:49:08 PM

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Angelina Belle

Sounds lovely.

And now -- can you replace "unread replies" with "watched topics"?
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. -- Hanlon's Razor

Antechinus

Why? Unread replies is exactly what they are.

Angelina Belle

Because sometimes I'd like to be notified about new replies to topics I've never replied to.
Other times, I'd like to STOP being notified about replies to long-lived topics I no longer care about (like mod support threads I offered support on once, a long time ago).

A general "new replies on watched topics" along with a "set watch when I reply" setting (default) would satisfiy "unread replies to topics I've posted in", allow me to stop watching topics, and a "watch this topic" would allow me to set a watch on topics I've never replied to.

It's just more general. Wikis do watches (there's a setting to automatically watch topics/documents when you hit the "submit" button).

I'd be curious as to which of the two approaches would be more resource-intensive.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. -- Hanlon's Razor

Antechinus

Oh that. I thought it was another minor grumble about language strings. We get a lot of those. :D

If you want new functionality, something like what you just posted makes things a lot clearer.

Angelina Belle

Do you think that sort of rather dramatic change is feasible? Any idea if it would be good or bad for performance?
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. -- Hanlon's Razor

Antechinus

Possible. I can see why people would want it as a feature. I'm mainly font end coding, but it doesn't really sound like too drastic a change as far as coding goes (someone else may have a different opinion). It would require more settings and checks though so yes, it certainly would not increase performance. How bad it would be is going to depend on the amount of traffic the site gets and how much grunt their servers have in reserve.

Another thing that I've had grumbles about is the ignore user function. At the moment it hides posts only in actual thread pages. It doesn't hide them in the recent posts, unread replies or unread posts listings. It was done this way for performance reasons. Again, running this sort of thing requires settings and checks and these do result in some penalty. You don't get something for nothing. Every bit of code you run will take time and resources to process.

On the other hand, I can see why people would want an ignore user function to do what it says on the box. A site that doesn't get a lot of traffic, and has reasonable servers, could probably stand the added overhead. A really big site that is pushing its servers hard during peak usage times might not want the added overhead. OTOH, such a site should have tech staff who are good enough to know when load needs to be reduced and how to reduce it. So there is an argument for including that functionality for people who want it.

Angelina Belle

The "show new unread posts in watched topics" feature would be a one-for-one replacement for "show new unread posts in topics I've posted to" feature. So it might not make performance any worse. And it wouldn't remove any functionality, either. It wouldn't even confuse the users, if the language strings were written appropriately.

"ignore users even in recent posts" would be a possible default feature, something to be turned off in large/active forums, for the sake of caching.  Some of the "23 ways to improve performance" could even be implemented in a single "button" that would throw several such switches to the "optimum for large sites" setting. The "big forum button", of course, could just as well be a mod.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. -- Hanlon's Razor

redone

What has been posted makes a great deal of sense. SMF should continue to engage the community at every point and involving them.

As the community becomes more involved I am sure extra help will come with that too. One of the next great ideas for future generations of SMF is a hook based system for mods.

Either way - a great post and good news for everyone.

~RedOne

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