As designed Open thread last unread - random point

I understand what you're reporting, but I need specific examples of it happening -- like David gave me above. With a change Kier made on the back end (to increase the data storage to 28 days), I suspect you won't see the issue, but I could be wrong. If that's the case, then the behavior would be expected; other forum software would be doing an identical thing (when you tell it to go to the first unread post).
 
This could be partially a misunderstanding on my part of what the software does, as no other forum software assumes you have read a thread based on age alone, if you haven't actually read it, certainly I have never seen anything like this behaviour in over 10 years of forum exposure. But I would like to check if I have it right...

I just clicked on a thread I have not read before, and it took me to the middle of the second page on a two page total. As it happens this thread turns out to be from the 30th July ... now that I realise that your software does this odd 10 day thing "mark as read" regardless, I can see that might be the reason I have been taken to the middle of the last page.. as presumably the other posts before that are 10days or more old.

If I have this correct, I think there is going to be a huge amount of resistance to this in the market place, I know you are going to confuse and annoy the heck out of people with this.

Actually I just checked the thread out, and I was wrong, the post it took me too is from Saturday, and there were dozens of posts prior to that, in fact most of the posts in this thread are less than 10 days old.



xen_pageissue1.png


Here is where I landed...

xen_pageissue2.png


Sorry if I am being obtuse here, I have just never come across this kind of behaviour when clicking a thread title.
 
...With a change Kier made on the back end (to increase the data storage to 28 days)...
Mike, I have gone from 10 to 30 days on my own vb forum, it caused massive confusion and it took 30days to propagate through.

After yesterday on xf.com when the change was made, threads I have already read are now marked as unread - even after I marked the entire xf.com site as read. Please don't worry about me particular situation. (edit: you probably changed it more than once, again don't worry about that, not important)

However, I strongly recommend to pick a number of days, switch it now, and stick with that. Personally I would pick something like 90 days, or possibly longer. Then this issue will not be a problem for the casual visitors for xf, or any other xf powered site (assuming default settings are used). The people that have problems after 90 days, or the causal visitors reading threads over 90 days old which should be much more rare, can be helped on an individual basis.


If it is a server load issue, or speed issue, then admins could be told to change the default to something less.


From a technical point of view, could you say a few words about the timeout, and reason for it? I realize this is one of the very few softwares (2?) that takes people to the last unread post, but only considers posts displayed on the users screen as read. Other software seems to mark the entire thread as read even if only 1 page has been read, regardless of how long the thread is.
 
Developement is ongoing my dear.
I know, but this would be one less thing to worry about, though they probably aren't worrying about it anyway, judging from the replies.

I just want an option in my UserCP to change this God-forsaken "feature", before I go insane.
 
The database thread marking system is an incredible feature. I am not sure what the correct thing to do is, but there are people on xf.com that come from other backgrounds which are not used to it. Or they may have gotten used to the default which was set in vb when they first purchased vb which was not the database thread marking feature.

It may be possible that a 'Have you seen' video showing how incredibly powerful that is could help many. Sign up a test user account which has not read a really long thread, have that account read just the first page of a long thread, then navigate away, then come back, and show page 2 of that long thread.

It takes time to realize how *incredibly* powerful that feature is. It might be best to showcase that as a feature.
 
The database thread marking system is an incredible feature. I am not sure what the correct thing to do is, but there are people on xf.com that come from other backgrounds which are not used to it. Or they may have gotten used to the default which was set in vb when they first purchased vb which was not the database thread marking feature.

It may be possible that a 'Have you seen' video showing how incredibly powerful that is could help many. Sign up a test user account which has not read a really long thread, have that account read just the first page of a long thread, then navigate away, then come back, and show page 2 of that long thread.

It takes time to realize how *incredibly* powerful that feature is.
I agree, some people just didn't give it a chance. I find it very nice and a wonderful time saver :)
 
The last unread feature is hardly new, IPB have had it forever, click the little icon that shows new posts in a thread, and boom you are exactly where you left off. Click the topic title, and you go to the start of the topic, as is logical.

It takes time to realize how *incredibly* powerful that feature is. It might be best to showcase that as a feature.
 
The last unread feature is hardly new, IPB have had it forever, click the little icon that shows new posts in a thread, and boom you are exactly where you left off. Click the topic title, and you go to the start of the topic, as is logical.
IPB users do not seem to understand, once a thread in ipb is clicked on, regardless of length or how many posts have been read, the entire thread is marked as read. Re-read this part:

It may be possible that a 'Have you seen' video showing how incredibly powerful that is could help many. Sign up a test user account which has not read a really long thread, have that account read just the first page of a long thread, then navigate away, then come back, and show page 2 of that long thread.
 
If I read 30 of 50 posts in a thread and then there was one new one, IPB would still take me to where I had left off.. I don't think you are correct there. Bit hard to test but I will make an effort to do so at IPS forums.

*edit.. just tested this on IPB forums in a large topic I had not read all of and sure enough it took me to the first unread, not the last post... so I am pretty sure you are incorrect abomination :)

Not to sidetrack the bug report of course :p... back to what we were talking about.
 
I can't do a video of what happens - am on a publishing deadline for a book and no time to learn new software.
But here's an example happened a few mins ago.

In the category Have you Seen …
http://xenforo.com/community/forums/have-you-seen/
I clicked on Alert Preferences
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/alert-preferences.1685/page-5#post-38105I haven’t read that thread before

I arrived on page 4 out of 5 pages about halfway down the page.

First post I see is saying
“Good feature to implement. I can see how alerts can get overwhelming.”
But as I haven’t read the earlier posts I don’t know wha this is about.

Scroll up.
Click page 1.
Start reading.
Sigh.
 
Since each post that you haven't read has a little New icon in the top right, it might be worth the next time seeing whether the database has marked you as having read the previous posts, at which point it will narrow it down from just jumping to any random post to it putting you at the the point it percieves you of having read up to.

If the previous posts above where you have jumped to have no new icon, then the jumping is working as designed because it is simply jumping to the first post marked as new.
 
It may be possible that a 'Have you seen' video showing how incredibly powerful that is could help many. Sign up a test user account which has not read a really long thread, have that account read just the first page of a long thread, then navigate away, then come back, and show page 2 of that long thread.

It takes time to realize how *incredibly* powerful that feature is. It might be best to showcase that as a feature.

I vote for this. I never quite 'got it' with vBulletin to begin with (and I never ever use thread markings), so an instructional video or how-to text explanation how it all works in XenForo would be welcome for me and my users indeed.
 
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