One question from @smileypants707 I wanted to answer in public because I thought a public discussion would benefit more people:
Not that it bothers me so much that I don’t want to be on the Forum, but I was wondering if there’s any way that you could separate the BST from the other categories in the feed.
Like, have all of the BST stuff in a separate part of the form so that it’s not part of the main feed. That’s like all I see most days when I check in, is BST stuff. I don’t really buy sell or trade very often and I feel like it just kind of dominates the forum most days.
I hear you. One thing you can do is mark that category as muted in your user preferences under Notifications, Categories. Once you mute the category it won’t show up on the default latest feed, but bear in mind a mute is pretty nuclear… even if you are mentioned in a buy/sell/trade topic, you won’t get notified about it.
You can still visit the Buy / Sell / Trade category manually of course if you want to see those topics. Not quite sure if this meets your goals but it’s one way…
Second question kind of unrelated but I’ll answer it here for the same reasons.
Also, is there any way that the OP can be visible on the posts in the feed? Or am I missing that somewhere? Usually, all I see is the profile picture of the last person that commented on a certain thread. Sometimes it’s kind of confusing.
On mobile, that is indeed the way it is, because if you only ever saw the avatar of the topic creator it gets super onerous and repetitive after the 150th reply since you would only ever see one avatar: the topic creator avatar.
This is a non-issue on desktop and laptop and tablet because there’s room to display more than one avatar. That is sadly not the case on mobile, just no screen room to do anything else. On top of that, I’d argue pretty strongly that the topic creator isn’t that important in the big scheme of things… the topic matters, and replies matter, but “oh that’s the topic Sally started” just doesn’t matter that much as far as actual conversations go.
Sorry to revive this thread, but I too feel like this would be a major improvement to the forum. Overall, I’ve loved Discourse, but with the BST likely being the biggest single category, it would be nice to not have it always in my feed.
The issues I have with the existing options are as follows:
A). Muting - it keeps me from getting notifications even if I’m mentioned (not sure if it blocks related PMs, though). After I complete my next listing the BST, perhaps I could utilize this feature.
B). Sort by Category - this is an option, but a rather annoying one since I’m only trying to filter one category (two, including Feedback). Even if I just wanted to see the General category, I’d have to scroll past the 20 pins to get to the new content I’d see immediately if sorted by Latest.
For solutions, I see three options.
Make BST a separate forum: this is perhaps the most obvious but least practical of the three. They could be linked in a tab at the top of the feed or in one of the drop down menus (like the one with a link to the store on the left or, more sensibly, the one right of the search icon).
Make a higher level of clasification: this is essentially the same as the last, but would just integrate a new level of organization above Categories within the site’s “taxonomy” (e.g. Site > Forum [Forums, in this case] > Categories > Topics/Threads > Comments & Replies).
Partial-Mute: make a variant of the Muted option in notification preferences that allows notifications but does not appear in the feed. This is perhaps the easiest option to integrate.
Again, I really like this forum, and I think it works as is. This is one of only a few areas I think it could eventually improve in if @codinghorror is looking to make adjustments. Thanks for all you’ve done already to make it great!
You’ll still get notifications if you get mentioned or if you make a bst listing and someone replies, if you typically get those notifications. I have bst muted and it’s nice. You will also see your bst listing if you have the category muted.
Ig so all I know is when I made my bst post I would see it and get notifs from it even though I have all bst muted. Maybe that single topic was turned on? I’m not sure. Idk maybe I wouldn’t get a notif is someone mentioned me in a random bst post but idk why that would happen lol.
It’s just like Henry said. If somebody replies to your own BST post, or somebody mentions you within a BST post, you’ll still get a notifications. It just prevents the category from showing up by default on your forum topic feed.
I know people hate a necro, but having all info on a specific topic in one thread is just so much less cluttered and more convenient in most situations, imo.
It also means not having to scour every scattered post across the forum that’s tangent to the subject before posting in the current thread in fear of someone saying “you should’ve searched the forum before posting.” If I’m damned if I do & damned if I don’t, I’m gonna go with the more logical option and not open a new thread for the same thing.
I think its fair if its a relevant topic. The only necro’s that are annoying are responses to someone with a specific question, like advice on a yoyo to buy from 5 years ago or something lol.
I muted the bst a year ago and it has made my forum experience so much better. I love the bst, but i only wanna look at it when i wanna look at it, you know? Muting it and checking it manually makes it feel like a separate forum but i can confirm also with henry you still get notified.
I changed my settings when they suggested it, and man it’s refreshing. It’s kind of shocking how significantly less active the forum seems now. Thanks, Henry!
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