Trouble with notification of new posts?

[Andy Wilkinson]

OK, I've discussed this off-line with a couple of fellow "DVinfoers" in the UK and we seem to be in agreement that the 'New Posts' notification is no where near as effective as it used to be.

All I can remember was that it changed about Thanksgiving time in the US (that's late November to the rest of us).

I'm not sure exactly what settings were changed whilst the turkey was being cooked (or any real details) but we now seem to get many, many pages of threads. As we all know, the top page (or so) lists new threads and then, a page or two in (after a heading of "the following threads have not been updated but may have new posts in them") we get dozens of pages - which I don't remember seeing before.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but the bottom line is that it's now (or at least it seems to me) much more easy to miss threads that have new posts in them. In fact, now, only by going into the sections that I'm (typically, but not exclusively) interested in, do I eventually find interesting new posts in threads that I'd like to read / learn from from all you good people / hopefully help out with a reply if I can. Before, it seemed they were easily at my finger tips in seconds.

Chris and Mods, you'll know from my on-line presence on here that this is NOT a rant at all. We all appreciate the hard work that you all do but somehow, to my mind, this feature used to function "a LOT better"

Just some feedback from this side of the pond - just the natives grumbling.

Now I'll shut up and no doubt be snowed under with replies from people that think it's much better - if they ever find this post!

[Chris Barcellos]

Andy- I have to agree. I said I would give it some time, but the ways its working now, I have to manually tell it to mark all threads read, before it is cleared. I don't know exactly what was change, but now I can end up sorting through 300 threads, trying to figure what I read, and what I didn't read, or want to.

[Vito DeFilippo]

I'm getting the same change as you. I figured Chris had changed it on purpose.

But it does seem that if I click on "New Posts" to check things out, then go into specific areas, I see new posts that didn't appear when I clicked on "New Posts."

Or in the "the following threads have not been updated but may have new posts in them" list, I see posts that are new to me. I expect to see those first when I click on "New Posts."

Hope that was clear...cause I'm not sure if I understood my own explanation!

Still the greatest site ever. Thanks a million, Chris.

[Chris Soucy]

It ain't just your pond experiencing a few hiccups.

I'm in full agreement, it don't work as it did and I also think it's a retrograde step.

Part of the problem I'm seeing (and I fully expect that what you/ one experiences depends very much on how you use DVinfo, and possibly even your browser) is the sheer intermittancy of the site.

I always work from the opening page. Scroll down and scan my favourite forums for new post flags, then scan across to see the "Last Post" entry.

Lately, that "Last Post" entry is a figment of the systems imagination. It can be a post I actually checked hours before. Dive into the forum proper and sure enough, there's X threads with "New Post" flags highlighted, but the "Last Post" entry is dulled out, so it knows I've read it.

From memory, when the "New Post" entry had been read, it used to bump it out and replace it with the next open thread last post entry (on what basis that was chosen I have no idea).

Now, it seems it will only replace that "Last Post" entry if a new post comes into that forum subsequent to me having read that "Last Post".

Likewise, before, if I dived into a forum, checked half a dozen threads but left a dozen unread, when I did the next refresh (which I do every time I sit back at the PC) it would mark all those unread threads as read.

Now, it keeps them open for what seems an eternity.

Yesterday I was staggered to find that the Canon XH A1 forum ran to over two whole pages of active threads.

The "Quick Links" - "Mark forums as read" button is getting a real work out.

It's probably the first problem that is causing me to simply lose track of threads I'm stalking, as I've really come to rely on that "Last Post" message alerting me to activity in a forum/thread, which of course, depending on timing, it no longer seems to do.

Then dang me, for about half an hour yesterday it all seemed to be back to "the old way" normal.

Dived into the XHA1 forum and started thread hopping, backed out and hey presto, the "Last Post" entry was, actually, updating.

Then it wasn't.

I think everyone realises that a site such as DVinfo must be a constant "work in progress" and no doubt the changes are all part of Chris's "grand plan", and maybe there is some method to this madness, but I have a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe, just maybe, the system ain't doing what they think it ought.

I'll be really interested see read what others think, or even percieve, given the plethora of browsers out there.


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Thanks for explaining it better than I could Chris!

I'm using Safari (on a Mac) and Chrome and IE7 on Windows PC's and get these "issues" with all 3 browsers - for the record.

[Chris Soucy]

You say the nicest things.

Not sure even I've completely nailed it, but collectively I think we'll get there.


CS

[John Miller]

Got to agree. The number of new posts shown is unmanageable. Instead, I look at two particular forums which means I might miss something of relevance to me. For the first few weeks, I simply marked everything as read and logged off!

[Chris Barcellos]

What I liked about the old setup, assuming it was working like I thought, was that each time I logged on, everything that was posted since my last long on, showed up. If I accidentally shut it down before reading or checking posts, and resigned on again in a short period, I could still depend that it was there. If I came back days later, those would probably be gone, but all new posts would be there.
Now, everything keeps building until I do the global purges marking everything read.

[Ervin Farkas]

Hmmm... it is certainly not a problem for everyone!

I am browsing this site from three different computers depending on where I am at the moment, and all three of them work just fine. All three of them have WinXP and Internet Explorer v7 on two, v8Beta on the third one.

[Chris Soucy]

The mysterious "click on last post in the DVinfo group, returns not the last post but the previous to last page" bug is alive and well I see.

Thought that had been terminated with extreme prejudice some time ago.

Gremlins.


CS

PS:

"Digital Video Industry News" to be specific.