Two problems with this forum, and possible solutions

[richard_wein]

Hi there.

Problem 1. The posts within topics are sometimes listed in chronological order and sometines in "threaded" order. Which way they are listed seems to be determined pseudo-randomly. Quite often I will even see posts in chronological order initially, and then when I click on one of the page numbers to see a different page, the posts will be re-ordered into threaded order, and I'll see some of the same posts again on the new page, because the re-ordering has moved them to a different page!

Personally, I never want to see topics in threaded order. I want to be able to go the end of a topic to find all the latest posts. There's a preference setting that offers me the choice of seeing topics in chronological order...

... but it doesn't work!

Please fix this. In my view the easiest fix would be to always show posts in chronological order.

Problem 2. New users of the forum often respond to old topics, where the last post was a year or more ago. I expect they find these old topics through a forum search or Google search. It's clear that in many cases they don't realize that this is an old topic, and they respond to a previous post as if it was a fresh one. This moves the topic to the top of the forum's topic list, where other people (including me) start reading it, and may not realize for a while that they too are reading an old topic. Much time wasted!

How about closing topics which have had no new posts for 6 months, so they can still be read but can't be added to. Alternatively, display a message to anyone attempting to make a new post to such a thread, letting them know how old it is.

[vladag]

Thanks for sharing your experience and suggestions here Richard.

As for your first point, could you please share or pm the threads on which comments are not sorted in a chronological order, and screenshot of the comments you're looking at? I'd like to take a look and make sure we address any inconsistencies in our forums, since I haven't come across this problem to date.

Thanks for sharing the suggestion from the second bullet-point, we are actively closing threads as per our internal policy but will take into consideration closing some which haven't had any responses in a certain time-frame.

Thanks again for sharing your feedback. 

[richard_wein]

---

@Vladimir G wrote:

Thanks for sharing your experience and suggestions here Richard.

As for your first point, could you please share or pm the threads on which comments are not sorted in a chronological order, and screenshot of the comments you're looking at? I'd like to take a look and make sure we address any inconsistencies in our forums, since I haven't come across this problem to date.. 

---

 Hi Vladimir. I'll do that next time I notice it.

[rverang]

We've set the same settings.

Fortunately for me, it works.

[mtngigi]

I think when someone hits reply to a specific poster, their reply goes under that poster's post, rather than at the end. When you see a photo of the last person who responded, you would expect to see their response at the end of the thread, but you don't. Instead it's buried somewhere else. It's annoying, as are those old threads.

Yours are good suggestions, that I'm sure will be sent "to the team", and then summarily forgotten.

Have you seen the "Community Homepage Redesign" in that column to the right? They say they want our feedback (we shall see). Perhaps use that to submit your suggestions.

[richard_wein]

---

@Virginia F wrote:

I think when someone hits reply to a specific poster, their reply goes under that poster's post, rather than at the end.

---

Hi Virginia. That's "threaded"order. But in my experience the same post will move to the end of the topic when the website decides to display the topic in chronological order.

---

Have you seen the "Community Homepage Redesign" in that column to the right? They say they want our feedback (we shall see). Perhaps use that to submit your suggestions.

---

Thanks for drawing my attention to it. I've now responded to the survey, and pasted my post from above into the comments!

[richard_wein]

Vladimir, here's an example from this topic...

Renante's post appears above Virginia's, even though it is chronologically the last post. But in the following case Renante's post is shown as the last...

It's probably significant that the first view doesn't have any "Accept as Solution" buttons, but the second view has them. Probably, when showing me the first view, the site didn't recognise me as myself. So it didn't offer me the opportunity to accept a solution, and it didn't take into account my preferences.

I'm currently using an up-to-date Chrome browser in Windows 10. I got both views above through clicking the topic name in the Freelancers sub-forum topic list. I got the first view the first time I loaded the page this morning, but since then I've only been able to get the second view.

I see this phenomenon on my iPad too (iOS 9, Safari).

[vladag]

Thanks for the screenshots Richard. Could you please send me a screenshot of the whole screen, blurring any information which you'd like to keep private of course, so I can confirm you're logged in in the case when the Accept as Solution button is missing? This is one of the reasons why this button wouldn't be displayed as an option and I'd like to check that first before investigating further.

[versailles]

When users browse the forums while not connected, the posts are threaded (I think). When users are connected, the posts are displayed according to their personal settings. This explains the difference that Richard sees.

Concerning the date of individual posts, they could do something so they stand out more. People would notice them.

Also, few people know how to quote messages, this is due to the fact that the purpose of the button used for quoting, located on the top right corner, is not that obvious. At all.

[richard_wein]

It probably is something to do with me not being "connected" or "logged in" in some sense. But I can definitely state that I did not knowingly log in or out between getting the two different views, or notice any sign of a change in my logged-in status. I will look more carefully next time I get the threaded view.

[richard_wein]

Aha! I realise now that I'm usually not logged into the forum automatically, and I need to click on the "Log in" (arrow) button in the top-right corner of the page. What I still don't understand is why my logged in status sometimes seems to change spontaneously. But in future I'll make a point of making sure I'm logged in, and that should solve the problem.

[researchediting]

Richard,

Apart from occasional log-in/log-out glitches, two actions can trigger logging you into the forum:

• as you have noted, an explicit log in
• granting kudos or responding to a post

So if you haven't logged in and are just reading and not engaging, you'll see one threading format until you engage—then the other.

Best,

Michael

[richard_wein · Accepted solution]

---

@Douglas Michael M wrote:

Richard,

Apart from occasional log-in/log-out glitches, two actions can trigger logging you into the forum:

• as you have noted, an explicit log in
• granting kudos or responding to a post

So if you haven't logged in and are just reading and not engaging, you'll see one threading format until you engage—then the other.

Best,

Michael

---

Thanks Michael. Giving you kudos did indeed get me logged in, and so did opening this Reply page, even  before I've posted the reply.

ETA. It looks like I accidentally accepted my own post as the solution, instead of yours, Michael. Sorry!