h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can you blame us for being defensive? Your first post on the subject describes a "fundamental design flaw with teh implementation of H2G2" when what you're actually describing is a potentially useful additional feature.

My point was that we have thought of this, and (as with all these great features) time is the main reason it hasn't yet been implemented.

And to answer my own question, if you had a button which set your global 'read up to' date to the current time, you might miss conversations that had been updated since you last fetched your list of conversations. For most people this would never be a problem, but for heavy forum users, they'd be a little upset at missing replies. I asked the question just to demonstrate that what looks like a simple feature often has hidden problems that need to be overcome. In this case, the button would set the 'last read' date to the date of the last posting shown on your page.

Ideally, it would simply watch which forums you read, and only mark those as read, without you having to do anything, but as MaW pointed out, this will inevitably get it wrong.

So it will probably be an 'I've read this' button when we finally implement it.

Just to interject - it was me in the guise of h2g2 Support who suggested a button to set a date before which no replies would be shown. Yeah, crap idea, but that's what I'm here for. Sorry.

Andy, it's great to have your input, so please don't stop... but if you make sweeping criticisms of us in the style of 'disgruntled of Scunthorpe', we may react in a human manner. We're not customer support drones, and we think that's a virtue.

I've had another thought about that 'ive read this' button. I think that rather than hiding what you have already read, it should just affect the status of the thread as on your home page. The reason for this is that you may often want to look back at what has already been said in the thread, for instance to look back at a post that someone has replied to, or just for reference.

The biggest problem (for me) is that I often read threads that I don't want to contribute to (lurk), and it's difficult to tell from the front page which threads have new messages. What would be best is for the list of threads to be divided into 'threads which have unread messages on them' (calculated from the button) and 'all threads' (what you get now).


Another (unrelated) issue is where the 'your last posting' link goes to. By habit I usually click on the 'latest posting' link, which is alright as long as the thread hasn't gone onto a new page of 20, in which case I have to go back a page, read the thread, and then press forward in the browser to go back to the original page again. The other link would solve this problem, if I could get used to it. However, I think the 'your last posting' link could be improved by linking to the anchor (<A NAME="#"&gt of your post, rather than just the page of 20. The different posts already have anchor links (for the 'expert user' tree navigation) so this shouldn't be too hard to implement??

Frankie

Your last posting *already* links to the actual post. It's only the 'latest' which links to the top of the page.

How about an option to show the messages in reverse order, with the most recent at the top of the first page.
That would save scrolling down, and if it's a message you've already read you can hit the back button while the rest of the unwanted page is still loading.

See how many people prefer it like that, and then if becomes the majority, make it the default layout.

Yeah, that's a good idea to investigate Andy. Shouldn't be too hard to implement either (though it's not my place to comment on that).

Re the 'read' thing, how about a way to bookmark a Conversation, but *without* actually creating a Posting - instead you'd use someone else's Posting as your bookmark, and on your Space it would act as if you'd posted it... ie the Posted: link would become Bookmarked: and would link to a specific Posting you'd bookmarked (unless you posted ater your bookmark, as it would only show the latest post/bookmark). You could then use this to effectively set a 'read up to this point' marker.

Or is that what you're suggesting, Frankie? I'm getting a bit confused here!

Dang, this always happens. All the good ideas I thought of at the start of the thread have been suggested already... I *like* the idea of a 'bookmark' button (or text) on each message; it would make lurking so much easier One point is that it would probably have to automatically subscribe you to the conversation if required.

I have a feeling that this is one of these features that could be either very easy or hideously difficult/boring to implement - over to you, Jim

Mark, your 'bookmark' concept is exactly how it would work. It would set your last read date to the date of the most recent posting in the list as displayed, so that posts after that one will show as new.

As for displaying forums in reverse, this wouldn't do for a default (people don't read in reverse so reading more than one new posting would become tiresome). As an option, maybe (it's an easy switch in the xsl) but presenting the option is then an issue - we already have three links into the forum - would we add a fourth (for reversed)?

To be honest, I'd rather simply implement the bookmarking, so that the link will take you directly to the first new post. Then the need for reversing the posts goes away (because that's only a bodge while you don't have bookmarking).

Tell you what, then, I'll add it to the Feature Ideas List. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

* looks forward to the day it's implemented *

Re: Mark and Jim > Bookmarking

I think I followed your idea Mark and it's the same as I imagined it. Would the 'save place'/'bookmark' button be on each individual post (ie, next to the up/down buttons under the post #) or at the bottom of the page? (ie. above/below the 'subscribe' text link).

I think it would better to have the button on each post, as you might only have got halfway through reading the batch of 20. Also this would be more dynamic if you ever changed the number of posts in each list (or made it user-controllable).

The general idea is a good one, as it compliments the way that the system already works, except that you would be able to save your place *without* posting...

Re: Jim > 'Your last posting' link.

You're right it does jump to the right place. Didn't seem to be working last time I checked...

Re: Jim > Forum Reverse Order

I think the idea is that the 'reverse order' option would be a user-preferance rather than something you could set on each forum, so there wouldn't be a problem with presenting the link, it would just be another drop-down list in the user-preferances...

Oh and make more explicit my idea about splitting the homepage into a list of read and unread forums. One list would display threads with new postings (since last posted or last bookmarked) and one just threads with '(No Replies)' (that fabulous message). (The 'Read' list doesn't neccessarily have to be on 'my space', it could be just linked to from there like the 'older postings' are now.)

Combined with the bookmarking system, this would be effectively creating a read/unread system, and would be great improvement...