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

Indicate if there are any *unviewed* replies to postings. Like make the little "online" eyes pink (bloodshot, 'cause you might have to stay up all night reading! ) if you haven't viewed all the replies to *your* postings yet.

This would be useful:
1. So you don't have to dig through your conversations lists to see if there are any replies. (Like a "new messages" flag for email.)
1b. So you know if someone replied to a different conversation than the one you are currently viewing, without having multiple windows open.
2. So you can see if someone you reply-posted to has viewed all of their (not necessarily just your) replies. (Like a "read receipt" for email.)

Only problem I can't get past is how to do this without tracking "lurking" behavior, it doesn't make sense if you have to reply again and again, that would be a Catch 22.

If it involves tracking lurking, it would be nice feature to add at the same time as a lurking "button", with some details like when you last "lurked" at the postings to a conversation. (This was an Opt-in style button-thingy suggested elsewhere [can't find it! ] along these lines: 'It might be good to be able to "freeze" a conversation and wait for an indicator when it has changed from the last time you looked at it.')

I'm thinking of something simple for the user, not necessarily for the programmer (sorry Mr Lynn, I'm sure you've already enough to do). I hope this doesn't seem too "Orwellian" Anybody got a way to clean-up the logic of this? Can someone find that other suggestion and provide a link? Should I just go get drunk instead?

It sounds to me a bit like the 'bookmark' feature on the Feature Suggestions list, which allows you to bookmark a thread without replying to it...

Or the idea of 'I've read up to here', which would then alert you when extra postings appeared beyond that point - of course posting a reply would be the same kind of thing.

From what I remember it's definitely a nontrivial addition to the software. Would be very cool to have though.

I'll second that. Although I do try my best to respond to threads if I find them interesting...

~

Yeah, that's what I meant by the bookmark feature (not the best name).

It could possibly be done with the thread-subscriptions database - adding a field for 'post-read-up-to'.

Would be a mess when first introduced! That's why they take the site down for major updates of course, I wouldn't fancy running the table-modification queries required for something like that on a live database

SELECT nickname FROM h2g2researchers
WHERE understands_complications = 'true';

+----------+
| nickname |
+----------+
| MaW |
+----------+
1 row in set

Actually I think there are more than that... but thanks for the confidence

I think that the easiest thing would be that a researcher with more postings than they are able to keep track of arranges to have less postings, rather than h2g2 adding yet another snazzy new terribly complicated feature.

We have this suggestion on the <./>development-features</.> page -

"Bookmarks - Enable Members to mark a Conversation as 'read' and to bookmark the last Posting. This would then be linked to from the 'Posted:' link on Personal Spaces, renamed as 'Bookmark:'."

Does this cover what you are suggesting?

I was looking more for a quick way to know when there had been ANY new posting to conversations, rather than a better way to track individual conversations (which I know is covered elsewhere in the suggestions, and which I also support). Especially a way to know without going to a user's homepage.

Similar to the way the eyes let you know someone is online (or not).


I prattled-on a bit on my posting, sorry. Seems to have lead to a bit of dillution of the idea.

As for the question of having fewer conversations, it shouldn't be a factor. You still don't know if there are replies, even if you only made one posting on a single conversation, without going to your homepage or to the conversation.

Perhaps I am being incredibly old and stupid here, but isn't the site designed for going to homepages to look at stuff?

Have you tried using the 'My Conversations' popup - which shows an asterisk in the task bar when there are new conversations...

I've heard mention of it, but I haven't ever found it. Can it be so easy? Your guidance is appreciated...

Third item down from the top on the menu on the left hand side (that's if you're using brunel) - called 'my conversations'. You get a little pop-up box which allows you to see which thread you haven't replied to yet. You can then 'teach' it which ones you have/haven't read by clicking the >> and << arrows... Have an experiment.

Maybe someone else can explain better than that, I'm in a hurry...

"I was looking more for a quick way to know when there had been ANY new posting to conversations, rather than a better way to track individual conversations"

I think that the star on the My Conversations pop-up does exactly what you are looking for in that case.

I find the My Conversations thing way too complicated to figure out.

For example, (in Brunel) I click "mark all read" and then all the conversations are red apart from one in black when they should all either be black or red because they are all read and I know there aren't any new ones.

So I just write down on a piece of paper where I am up to.

But it wasn't me who wanted anything like it in the first place so I'll shut up now.

Indeed, this is especially close to what I want. Now if only it were on the Classic Goo interface, I might have found it and avoided all this trouble .

Actually, the suggestion was *also* to allow you to see if another user had been reading-up. And *also* to avoid having an extra page open that you need to switch to. Like the eyes let you know someone is online, and you see your own with every posting--if the star were beside the eyes and for ANY posting, then you'd know to open your 'user page' or 'my conversations' page and see what was up.

It is available in classic goo, as I use it. Put a somewhere on your personal space (see mine on <./>testuserpage208060</.> for an example) and then click it.

~

I thank ye for that tip!

(I needed to put a proper close tag and link name, as you did on your page, but it works wonderfully.)