Configurable and Role Dependent Latest Topics

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,940]

A lot of posts that show up in Latest Topics or posts are irrelevant (examples below is a player report and a moderation application, which the typical member probably should not post in), but not every user wants to browse the entire forums to find new threads that may be of interest to them.  This reduces the likelihood of them posting and does not help forum activity.

 

 

Similar to the suggestion below I think each role should be looked at again so that the Topics advertised on the right side is more fitting for each role; this would be pleasant if the Posts shown below that area are within those categories as well.  If they are not a Server Admin, then what's the point of having player reports?  If they aren't a Moderator+, then should they be responding to New Moderation Application?  The other day I even saw a feedback to Staff thread that I do not have permission to when I clicked on it.

 

 

My suggestion has the word "configurable" in it.  This is for bonus points.  I would add a section in settings or possibly have a checkbox available within categories or sub-categories so that a user can toggle it; they can choose which categories they want to appear in their latest posts beyond their default.  We have something that allows toggling its display, and so I would imagine it's not a terrible stretch to save it in a setting related to Latest Topic although including sub-categories would be even better.  Similarly we have followed content, but I'm not interested in having notifications every new thread or post...  just want latest topics to reflect more relevant or interesting topics.

 

Edited July 11, 2020 by Joshy

[Dominic 135 / 2,013]

It'd certainly be great to, at the very least, have some drop-down arrows next to each section on the right-hand side so we can permanently close them up, then simply click the arrow again if we want to see it again. It's a bit hard to articulate the idea, so hopefully that made sense. (pretty much the "Toggle Category" arrow next to sub-forums, but have them for the sidebars) The general thought is that if I don't really care much about "Today's Birthdays", "Latest Donations", "Forum Statistics", etc. then I could instead bump something like "Popular Contributors" more towards the top. Making "Latest Topics" and "Posts" more filtered towards my role would also be super appreciated, as mentioned in the above post. Checking those sections and seeing it flooded with applications I have nothing to do with makes it null and void and turns me away from it. On top of all that, not sure if it's a popular opinion or not but it'd be great to merge latest posts on a singular thread. It seems needless for the "Posts" section to be flooded with posts from the exact same thread because once I've read that thread the sidebar becomes useless very quickly since it's showing that thread so much. I'll put an example of that below:

 

[williampickthall12 25 / 1,602]

Ree I’m in an example, I’m honoured, but yeah it’s pretty annoying to have to search through the whole forums to find this one post I wanted to see. When instead I could’ve put it in another ‘box’ such as the latest topics and latest threads, called favourites or I could save the thread/post. I 100% vouch for having the toggle mode that @Dominic was talking about, it would add an easy way to find threads or posts.

Edited July 16, 2020 by williampickthall12

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,940]

I appreciate the bumps, but it's too detailed and too scattered.  I'm not suggesting it's wrong or that I wouldn't support it, but lets get through the baby steps first before asking for more.

Edited July 17, 2020 by Joshy

[williampickthall12 25 / 1,602]

Baby steps are the key foundation to bigger things. these are merely suggestions, not orders.

[Liloz01 1,256 / 19,835]

Here's what I'm planning to start over the next few days:

 

1. Fix the issue of some topics appearing on the "Topics" and "Posts" sidebar when viewing threads, but not when viewing subforums/forums. Please open the spoilers to see an example of this inconsistency:
Screenshot taken while on https://gflclan.com/forums/:

 

Screenshot from within this thread (way more threads appear):

 

2. Hide Mute/Ban Appeals, Applications and most importantly Player Reports from the "Topics" and "Posts" elements if:

  - The post is not yours (because you probably want some type of confirmation that it's there and an easy way to navigate to it)

  - You are not an Admin+ (because if you're not an Admin+ it doesn't matter to you)

 

Editing the "Topics" and "Posts" elements for "bonus points" will take far longer. I'll keep it on my list, though!

 

Please let me know what you think of these proposed changes before I go ahead and do 'em.

 

Thanks!

[Dominic 135 / 2,013]

In response to Liloz,

 

I actually didn't even notice the first issue, but it'd be good to rectify that for sure, in my opinion. You might as well stay consistent with something like that. The second proposal is something I vouched for in my original post, so yes to that as well. Hiding all of those topics and / or posts if they're not relevant to you immediately makes those sidebars much more useful. Promotion of forum activity with slight changes like that is in everyone's best interest.

 

I do also recognize it may not be good to do so many things at once, but I would also keep in mind (I'm sure they aren't priorities) the couple of suggestions I added into my previous post if they aren't too difficult and are deemed positive, which were:

 

1) Adding a "Toggle Category" arrow on each sidebar similar to what the sub-forums have currently, this way you can disable things you may not be interested in (ex. not wanting to see "Latest Donations") - giving users more control over what they see is always positive in my eyes.

2) Merging latest posts in the same thread, which I showed an instance of in my previous post. This clutters the "Posts" sidebar and doesn't necessarily promote activity because you're not seeing as many posts from unique threads.

 

These ideas could probably use more discussion / input, but surely there's no harm in putting them on the table.

 

Thanks for starting up some changes, great to see.

[williampickthall12 25 / 1,602]

On a side note,

Would it be possible to implement a feature where you can toggle specific "boxes" that is one person's lates post's or topic, such as a "box" of just Roy's latest posts?

 

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,940]

Thanks, Liloz.

 

Just an fyi to others if you want to make more suggestions, then you can make a new thread.

 

edit:

 

If it makes it any easier you could probably just make it so that absolutely no application and appeals go in there because users can utilize the "follow" if they'd like- the problem is already solved

 

 

I did notice that there were differences between the front page and while viewing the topics although it wasn't bothering me much compared to this.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Joshy

[Liloz01 1,256 / 19,835]

What I set out to do in my initial post is now done. Sorry it took so long, took some bashing of my head against IPS blocks to get working without being buggy. Not to mention getting caught up in other crap..

 

Customisability is next on the list, so users can decide to not see, for example, resignation posts, from the goodbyes/resignations forum or hiding the entire "block" like @Dominic pointed out (will try and make this feature universal for all blocks, not just "feed blocks"). For the interim however, no more player reports or posts/topics of that nature should appear for regular users. A different feed will appear for staff, which does contain the information not presented to regular users.

 

Let me know of any bugs or posts/topics you think shouldn't appear in the feeds (preferably by making a creating bug report here).

 

P.S.

On 7/17/2020 at 2:02 PM, Dominic said:

2) Merging latest posts in the same thread, which I showed an instance of in my previous post. This clutters the "Posts" sidebar and doesn't necessarily promote activity because you're not seeing as many posts from unique threads.

This would be incredibly hard to implement and require some weird logic, furthermore, it kind of defeats the purpose of the "posts" feed... it displays posts. A new feed could be introduced to show "hot topics" (topics with "a lot" of recent posts) or "topics with recent posts" (will display topics in order of how recently it has been posted on). I don't feel comfortable implementing those for now however... we're getting a little cluttered with no options for users to reduce clutter, if they don't like it.

 

Thanks!

[Liloz01 1,256 / 19,835]

I would still like to do this but given it's not being worked on at all, moving to abandoned for now. I'll reopen this one at a later point myself once it is being worked on (likely not by me haha).