Are you an admin on this site? Do you use the admin bar plugin?

Yes he is an admin and no he doesn’t use the admin bar.

I think that the biggest problem is understanding the mechanism used to report a new post to a user. What is the trigger if say someone has left a page open and returns to it? Will hitting F5 always trigger a reset.

I think the point that Paul is trying to make is that it does not seem to work quite the same as phpBB newposts or one or two other forums.

I think that the problem is not functionality but misconceptions about how it should be used. Most people don’t ever log out and use a combination of bookmarks etc.

I have a feeling that our membership plug-in may be causing some issues as well. We now use WP eMember

we tried explaining how they work here:  http://wiki.simple-press.com/faq-answers/understand-unread-post-lists/

and have had discussions with others on other implementations but never have had a workable design…  still open to ideas, but need input on reasonable scheme that maintains performance aspects…

Sorry, been away for a while (and I thought I had a subscription to this topic, but no notifications , likely my mistake)

Will digest later, thanks

paul4

The reason I asked about being an admin and using the admin bar is because this can cause some confusion – especially if the admin bar is active (i.e.,, the admin’s ‘postbag’ is operational) but not all designated forum admins are using the admin bar tools.

Once the admin bar and admin’s postbag are turned on for use it requires the forum admin(s) to manually deal with the items in the postbag. Posts need to be approved and removed from the postbag. This is a great tool for ensuring all posts are checked, read and replied to if necessary but they do need removing when finished with. Any posts still in the postbag – even if they have physically been read – will continue to be shown as unread for all of the admins on the site.

So – the obvious first question has to be – could this be the mechanism that is causing confusion and what appears to be ‘read’ posts remaining marked as ‘unread’?

The second point I would like to make is that I will not claim this is bullet-proof. It is a fragile area that can easily get upset by other changes and is constantly being monitored. However, claims that it ‘doesn’t work’ are not that helpful simply because of the complexity and inter-connectedness of the code running things. If you feel there is an issue we really do need steps that we can replicate.

And lastly – making comparisons with other forums has no benefit as SP is none of those. Big, stand-alone forums like phpBB and vBulletin etc., will always be able to do things that SP can not do that easily as we are still constrained by our WordPress environment which offers both good and bad possibilities. There is also a need to try and maintain performance. As Steve intimated above, there has been an open challenge in these forums for someone to design and model a better system than we currently employ for unread post handling that does not consume megabytes of database storage. To date – nobody has come forward with anything. But I live in hope.

I think that I know where the main issue lies after reading that page Steve so thanks for posting it.

I believe that the principle difference here is that when a period of inactivity occurs and a user is deemed to have left the forum then any posts that they have not read but that were deemed as unread when they logged in are effectively lost. This is perceived as a functionality issue because it differs from phpBB which is what most of our users will have been exposed to first. In phpBB I believe that unread posts remain unread posts until you read them. There may be a time limit but it appears not. I can see why you couldn’t just leave it accumulating forever, you would end up with a very bloated table.

So maybe the answer is to find what is workable and allow admins to set the expiry time. It would be very dependant on site traffic.

I also believe that a reload of the group view should refresh the list of unread post, or even a refresh unread posts button?

If we had those we would have something that would work as the users expect.

It is an interesting situation that’s for sure.

Every page load refreshes the list.

I had not read your post Andy when I made mine. However I will have to take issue with you on one point. Despite the technical reasons for not being able to implement something like phpBB it does not change users expectations one jot. They simply expect things to be the same and I am constantly fielding ‘it does not work’ type questions.

There are many things that they like about Simple Press of course but they are active on other standalone forums. You do not need to sell the concept to me at all, but we have to address this perception somehow. If it requires me to educate users then I will do that, it is part of my responsibility as an admin, however I really would like to find a way to change peoples perceptions.

Paul’s observations are extremely typical, he is trying to explain what it happening but of course it is complex and very difficult to articulate. Until I read the page Steve just posted I did not understand what was going on either. Now I do.

So we have to figure out a way of ‘fooling’ people by using their habits to help us. I think we can get this working and I do see the issues from your perspective.

I reiterate it is a very interesting problem.

Conrad

Yellow Swordfish said
Every page load refreshes the list.

Ah OK

I have to say – and I am speaking strictly personally now and not as a member of the SP team – I have never really understood this phenomenon of some people expecting something different not to actually be different. If I buy a new car I don’t expect all the controls to be in the same place as the old one. If I change to a new dvd player I expect the remote control to be laid our differently. If I change my email client – which I have done quite recently – then I expect it to behave in a different way. Fundamentally it does the same thing of course. But there are tremendous differences. And yes – I will praise some differences, get exasperated with others and complain about some more but – that is what I expect.

Maybe it is just me!

And don’t say you have a site full of ‘older’ users who are set n their ways! At 60 and just getting used to my first set of hearing aids that is the bracket I am already in!

Yes but Andy you are a man who has refused to be left behind by technology and thank goodness for that! While there are a good few people like you, I think that it is fair to say that you do not represent the majority.

I think that you are misunderstanding me here. They drive me mad some of em! However whatever our view is it doesn’t stop them whining at me on a daily basis. I just want them to stop. Remember it was not the users who chose which forum to use, it was me – hence I get it in the neck.

To reiterate, if we can come up with a way of explaining how to use the new posts flags so that they behave as the users expect then we are on to a winner. In fact if I can explain what the expected behaviour is for a user in simple terms that would do. It is not the same as they are used to but I am prepared to educate people. I like your new car analogy, with your permission I will use that myself.

Conrad

Of course. I am as much a Luddite as the next man over certain issues. Steve will testify to my utter bewilderment over Twitter and why anyone would want to use it for example!

you mean that’s not you doing all those tweets in our sidebar?

Yellow Swordfish said
Steve will testify to my utter bewilderment over Twitter and why anyone would want to use it for example!

Ditto!

I can’t really say what I call it but there is one letter change and it sums up my sentiments rather succinctly.