Changing the filter settings

[stevieb49829]

I thought I had found a fix for all the complaints about wading through new post on old threads. I went into filters (upper right corner) and changed my "sort by" to "first message" and then the subject posts were in descending chronological order. That's a lot more like what Classic looked like. The problem is that when I bee bop around to other forums, the filter setting goes right back to "last message". Can it be defaulted to "first message"? steve

 

[cpratt]

Unfortunately the most important, maybe only thing that people liked about classic (aside from lack of boxes around most stuff and no functionality, not sarcasm, no functionality means no learning and helps people) was to see who replied to who, and the non-chronological view was the only way I could come up with to do that. You may be right and I'll try it in the morning, but I think the chronological view would be considered "a mess" by most of them. The big complain about normal forums was they had to look at a quote to know that post applies to the other post. Been a lot of venom tossed my way on that issue.

The big departure from classic they had to look at a screen with all the replies but showed none of the posts, then would go back and forth into little subthreads. Things don't do that now though I keep wondering if it isn't something I could do. It's nonsensical to forum developers to have a giant page showing all the threads and all the replies but not providing any information. That's how the old wwwboard worked which was the basis for classic view and the threaded concept. It was a copy of internet mail lists of the 90s.

As far as it defaulting back, if your solution can work, we can probably figure a way to make it stick. I'll have to look at it but tomorrow. I have to get dinner and go to bed tonight.

 

[Jim.ME]

Unfortunately the most important, maybe only thing that people liked about classic (aside from lack of boxes around most stuff and no functionality, not sarcasm, no functionality means no learning and helps people) was to see who replied to who, and the non-chronological view was the only way I could come up with to do that. You may be right and I'll try it in the morning, but I think the chronological view would be considered "a mess" by most of them. The big complain about normal forums was they had to look at a quote to know that post applies to the other post. Been a lot of venom tossed my way on that issue.

The big departure from classic they had to look at a screen with all the replies but showed none of the posts, then would go back and forth into little subthreads. Things don't do that now though I keep wondering if it isn't something I could do. It's nonsensical to forum developers to have a giant page showing all the threads and all the replies but not providing any information. That's how the old wwwboard worked which was the basis for classic view and the threaded concept. It was a copy of internet mail lists of the 90s.

As far as it defaulting back, if your solution can work, we can probably figure a way to make it stick. I'll have to look at it but tomorrow. I have to get dinner and go to bed tonight.

Butting in with my two cents. I would agree on the missing part of the threaded view to some is that they don't have what I call the index page of a forum that just "outlined" the threads. Before when they opened a forum, they could see that index of the thread subjects and replies in "outline form", without going to the thread and reading through it. From reading a number of posts about not being able to see who is talking to who, and replying to some of those members, I believe this is why those members keep saying they can't tell who is talking to who; they don't want to actually go to a thread to see what has changed, just use the "TV Guide to pick a program". I say this as I think more were acknowledging, as they use the new view more, they can follow the thread for the most part when reading it if the indents and quotes are properly used .

Another complaint seems to be that the threads don't "lock in time" where they were posted like the old Classic did. Personally, I never liked having to go back a number of pages to find and read a new post when I looked at Classic, but I was used to using Modern type views that bump old threads to the top when a new post to them is made (which eliminates the orphan replies that used to be common).
Thanks
Jim

 

[stevieb49829]

As long as I can change my filters, and know how to do that, I can use that to my advantage. My original post in Tractor Talk about using the filters is getting a bunch of positive responses. If its too much of a hassle for me to keep changing all the time, I might petition you guys to figure out a way to lock my filters into my personal preferences/profile.

This is going much better than I expected. Kudos to all of you. steve

 

[cpratt]

Butting in with my two cents. I would agree on the missing part of the threaded view to some is that they don't have what I call the index page of a forum that just "outlined" the threads. Before when they opened a forum, they could see that index of the thread subjects and replies in "outline form", without going to the thread and reading through it. From reading a number of posts about not being able to see who is talking to who, and replying to some of those members, I believe this is why those members keep saying they can't tell who is talking to who; they don't want to actually go to a thread to see what has changed, just use the "TV Guide to pick a program". I say this as I think more were acknowledging, as they use the new view more, they can follow the thread for the most part when reading it if the indents and quotes are properly used .

Another complaint seems to be that the threads don't "lock in time" where they were posted like the old Classic did. Personally, I never liked having to go back a number of pages to find and read a new post when I looked at Classic, but I was used to using Modern type views that bump old threads to the top when a new post to them is made (which eliminates the orphan replies that used to be common).
Thanks
Jim

Yes, the first comment is what I can fix by making the thread list have a little + that expands the list to what they want to see (the list of all posts/users for the thread without any useful post information other than whether it's new or not). Getting lots of ideas about how to do that. Kim likes the idea too. We'd really have the classic view look then.

On the second comment, we won't be locking them in time. That was not a feature at all, it was a restriction based on not being able to do what modern computers can do. It's kind of like badmouthing the mini-split because there's no reason to chop wood. The restriction existed because the storage was simple text documents just like wordpad/textedit documents on your computer. Too many threads was too slow to go through for the computer. Things have change just a little in a day when our telephone is more powerful than the server was then (in some ways, even our thermostat on the wall has a better processing capability).

Old threads should die off and disappear down the line if no one is talking in them, but if replied to, must come up to the top. It's the only way that people don't have to repeat the entire response to a tractor question that's already been answered 50 times. The problem comes for people if they're main focus is chitchat, which of course dies a deserved death quickly, they are mostly throw-away topics that become irrelevant to those participating. If they are thinking tractor work and tractor topics, it's a whole nother ballgame. So for a forum like tales (or for people who use ttalk rather than tales to chitchat), it's bothersome to have an old topic pop up. While for a forum like JD, it's critical to have an old topic pop up. I think in this case, it's a matter of what a person wants to use a forum for and the two reasons are different. For serious information, losing posts is a problem, for temporal or throw-away information, it's a feature. Don't see how we can support that "feature" and still do the best for the primary function of tractor discussion (unless we go back to pruning tales every few days, might come to that if they really don't want old threads).

 

[Brown David]

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[Brown David]

Yes, the first comment is what I can fix by making the thread list have a little + that expands the list to what they want to see (the list of all posts/users for the thread without any useful post information other than whether it's new or not). Getting lots of ideas about how to do that. Kim likes the idea too. We'd really have the classic view look then.

On the second comment, we won't be locking them in time. That was not a feature at all, it was a restriction based on not being able to do what modern computers can do. It's kind of like badmouthing the mini-split because there's no reason to chop wood. The restriction existed because the storage was simple text documents just like wordpad/textedit documents on your computer. Too many threads was too slow to go through for the computer. Things have change just a little in a day when our telephone is more powerful than the server was then (in some ways, even our thermostat on the wall has a better processing capability).

Old threads should die off and disappear down the line if no one is talking in them, but if replied to, must come up to the top. It's the only way that people don't have to repeat the entire response to a tractor question that's already been answered 50 times. The problem comes for people if they're main focus is chitchat, which of course dies a deserved death quickly, they are mostly throw-away topics that become irrelevant to those participating. If they are thinking tractor work and tractor topics, it's a whole nother ballgame. So for a forum like tales (or for people who use ttalk rather than tales to chitchat), it's bothersome to have an old topic pop up. While for a forum like JD, it's critical to have an old topic pop up. I think in this case, it's a matter of what a person wants to use a forum for and the two reasons are different. For serious information, losing posts is a problem, for temporal or throw-away information, it's a feature. Don't see how we can support that "feature" and still do the best for the primary function of tractor discussion (unless we go back to pruning tales every few days, might come to that if they really don't want old threads).

Tractor Talk should be just that, tractor talk/equipment talk, etc.

Tractor Tales should be for everything else. IMO of course.

Any other sites I participate in are quite strict about keeping topics in their proper stalls, so to speak.

Maybe after things settle down that could be given some thought. Probably be quite a trick to herd the freerangers into the proper stalls now though.

 

[cpratt]

Tractor Talk should be just that, tractor talk/equipment talk, etc.

Tractor Tales should be for everything else. IMO of course.

Any other sites I participate in are quite strict about keeping topics in their proper stalls, so to speak.

Maybe after things settle down that could be given some thought. Probably be quite a trick to herd the freerangers into the proper stalls now though.

I think it is people oriented. Some gravitated to tractor talk so their private OT stuff isn't mingled with ttales private OT stuff. None of that was by intention, it just started to happen. Occasionally the N series board has been like that too and the same has flared up in tool talk but doesn't seem to now as much. Ttalk ceased to be a good place to post tractor topics for new people whose question didn't seem to fit in the Mfr forums. It would scroll off the first page view fairly quickly and wouldn't get a response while the OT threads got lots of traffic. That's all just history and probably reflects posting where friends hang out. There has often seemed to be different friend groups using different forums. You can really see that with people only interested in their tractors but still occasionally wanting to talk about something else.

I would add to your top comment "... for discussions that don't fit into a specific tractor brand". It was really designed to be the catch all when nothing else fits.