How I Read The Forum

iaresee

Administrator
Moderator
Subtitle: Ian's method to never missing the important stuff on http://forum.fractalaudio.com/

This post is a long time coming. Xenforo isn't VBulletin and it never will be. It's designed to scale up to very, very busy forums with minimal hardware investment and as such some of the things it does to scale may seem less user friendly to the average user.

Example: if you have email notifications on for a thread you only get an email for the first new post made to the thread after your last visit. You won't get any more emails about that thread until you visit the thread on the forum and read it.

I don't use email notifications much, if at all. I don't need more email in my life. But I do keep pretty on top of the forum and I've got a system for doing that. It has two key components: the New Posts toolbar link and Mark Forums Read link.

When I land on the forum the first thing I do is check my alerts. I'll scan new alerts and I'll click through to any threads that have new content posted to them. With this done, I'll click the New Posts link in the toolbar:

Screen_Shot_2016-07-19_at_6_59_38_PM.png

This shows me threads that have new content since the last time I was on the forum. If I've been away for a day or three it might be 4-5 pages of threads. If I've been here recently it might be only one or two threads. I can click in to the thread and pick up reading where I left off by clicking the thread title. This will take me to the oldest new post in the thread.

Screen_Shot_2016-07-19_at_6_59_57_PM.png

I'll use the back button in the browser liberally here to get back to my new posts view. Every new post search gets an ID assigned to it and you can see the ID in the address bar of your browser, as long as you keep returning to the new posts view with the same ID you'll see a deterministic list of new posts -- the same list every time (at least for a window of time that's sufficiently long).

Once I've skimmed all the pages of new posts I'll mark the forum read by click here:

Screen_Shot_2016-07-19_at_6_59_57_PM.png

This inserts a timestamp in to my profile that tells Xenforo that only stuff posted from this point on is "new" to me. Everything else I've seen and can be considered old.

Here's the neat thing: the timestamp used is actually the timestamp of the time the new posts search was generated. Remember that unique ID? Yea, that's reference by the mark forums read feature to figure out what the time to use to clear the board should be. That means if new content showed up while I was reading my current new posts search list, I'd see it if I searched for new posts again because it occurred after I did my initial new posts search.

That's it.

I have the system setup to auto-subscribe me to any threads I post in so they start triggering alerts when new content shows up. That way I'm prioritizing participating in threads I've already participated in. And occasionally I'll watch a thread with email notifications if I want more rapid notification of a change to thread's content.

I've used this method with Xenforo-based forums for a few years now and it's never steered me wrong. Even forums I might only read once in a blue moon (like the Xenforo developer forum) are easy to catch up on using this method.

The more you know...
 
Thanks, Ian. I'll give this a go. I just assumed that New Posts would give me new posts in all threads, whether I'd subscribed to them or not.
 
Thanks, Ian. I'll give this a go. I just assumed that New Posts would give me new posts in all threads, whether I'd subscribed to them or not.
It does give you all new posts, subscribed or not. But only new posts since the last time you marked the forum read.
 
It does give you all new posts, subscribed or not. But only new posts since the last time you marked the forum read.
Ah, but that's something I want to avoid. My personal priority on the forum is threads that I'm following. Then, if there's time, I scan Recent Posts for new stuff.
 
Ah, but that's something I want to avoid. My personal priority on the forum is threads that I'm following. Then, if there's time, I scan Recent Posts for new stuff.
That's why I prioritize alerts over the new post link. Read the stuff I contribute to first, then move on to all the new stuff. Though, given the frequency you and I visit the forum there aren't many new posts each round.
 
I'll have a go at the alerts. The bugaboo there is that, if memory serves, the alert list has a different endpoint for each device. Example: my desktop PC shows me all the alerts that happened since I visited the forum on my PC. My iPad shows me all the alerts that happened since I visited the forum with my iPad. Different device, different count.
 
I do exactly the same thing. I'm a big fan of the new Xenforo software; it makes vBulletin setups look a bit tired when I've had to visit them. To be fair, I had the exact same workflow on the old forum, but everything seems slicker with the new setup.

Loving it!
 
Same routine for me also.

Except: "auto-subscribe me to any threads I post in"
Which I have set to yes now :) Good suggestion!

Btw I really like the new forum. Its clear to read, fast and let you scan very good what you're searching for.
 
+1 for that's the same way I read the forum, new posts, and mark as read.

I really like hitting new posts after I finish reading a thread too. The one I just read is culled from the list.
 
Back
Top Bottom