Site Update: Forum Changes
Hello, everyone! Our dev team is hard at work restructuring our forums to improve functionality, efficiency, and overall make them easy and enjoyable to use. You may have noticed some changes were pushed yesterday. Here's a summary of the changes (just for browser at the moment and not app):
Cleaning up the layout of the lead post when viewing a thread, and ‘pinning’ it to the top of the page when you load up pages 2, 3, 4 etc of comments.
Adding in an extra set of page navigation buttons below the lead post
Reducing the amount of reply to a reply you can do to max 5. This is because too many threads of replies to replies were crashing big threads. Not ideal but necessary.
Reducing the top and bottom padding of white space for lead posts and comments
The next change to be pushed out today is the ability to heart a post directly from the member homepage (feed). You can also click on the comment icon and be taken to the page to write a comment.
You can also click on the comment icon and be taken to the page to write a comment.
Going forward, we will be doing our best to inform the community of all site changes prior to rolling them out. Thank you for your patience and support as we progress.
Note: We understand there are still bugs to be worked out. If you encounter any persistent bugs, please feel free to leave your comments here.
Thanks for announcement, still some bugs the Devs need to clean up here and there, such as the heart helpful post pop-up not fading and even overlaying the reply box, but apart from that I'm sure it will be great!
@Heather225
Good ideas so far, glad the forums are getting some love finally and for the better! :)
Thank you for all your hard work on the forums! As someone who uses this space as more of a rant or diary sometimes, I don’t typically welcome replies to my own threads. But apparently there’s a prompt for folks to reply to threads with no comments. I wonder if you’d consider making an option for us to disable comments or replies, just so that there’s no confusion? Thank you!!
@TheJenInBlack Great idea!
Charlie
@TheJenInBlack I love the idea of being able to lock your own threads and for forum mods to be able to lock threads too
@TheJenInBlack hi I understand you want to express yourself in this way but not interact with people. There are a couple ways to do this
Click on Noni in your PMs and tell them you want to journal. You can vent as much as you like. no one but you can see it.
You can also email yourself and write anything you want in total privacy.
7cups is a peer to peer site. If you post anything you wil probably will get a reply. Hope you find an alternative that meets your need. There is no way to stop getting replies except to stop posting in the forums. Thanks for your post.
@TheJenInBlack If you state no replies in the title it's usually respected by most people. They just read and up vote it. It does state in the first page of the diary thread "
This is your space. Please note that if you would only like certain people commenting or just yourself, let us know and it will be respected. "
I know this already
@TheJenInBlack I agree, it's a great idea as even admin sometimes have a post Do not reply to this thread.
In the meantime, if you do want to make threads like that it's best to make 1 reply to your own thread, as the forum team is very intentional about clearing the needs reply queue every so often.
@Heather225 I have noticed already on some of the long lived threads in fifty plus that it is no longer possible to reply because the Reply button has disappeared.
What is the best thing to do with threads like that, start them again as a new thread if they are still relevant to the subcom?
@soulsings It's the replies to the replies. They go to 5 max only. So original post, post 2 replies to original, 3 to 2, etc. up to #5 (or is it #6? so 1 post & the 5 repliess) no one can reply to that last one. 20 people can still reply to the original post, 4 more people can reply to post #2, etc.
To get the thread to continue, get people to reply to the original post.
The bigger problem is with the old threads is that the orders are messed it. If it's necessary to see the most recent post ie. games, doing a new thread is probably ideal, and in the rules tell people to use the original post as their replies, not the last post in the thread.
@AffyAvo thanks for the insights!
@AffyAvo the other problem is that the button Post to Forum is no longer present. That means to post to the forums it is necessary to reply to the post which means the threads are dead if people keep using reply button.
Couldn't the Post to Forums buttons be restored and that way there will be less threads coming up against the 5 reply limit?
@soulsings Do you mean the "Post to Thread" button? You can still post to the thread by using the Reply button in the pinned post at the top. That button is wrongly labelled Reply. When you use it to post to the thread, you can see that your new post is placed at the bottom of the thread, and it does not have any "reply to" link at the bottom left. It is not a reply. It is a separate post in the thread.
It is now impossible to reply to the pinned post at the top, because its Reply button posts to the thread instead. You now have to post to the thread and tag the original poster. I would like another Post to Thread button at the bottom, and I think I might add one 😉
I don't understand "the threads are dead". At present there is a bug preventing some Reply buttons from appearing. I am hopeful that this will be fixed soon. There is no technical reason for removing any Reply buttons.
There is (allegedly) a separate bug that results in a limit of 5 replies-to-replies. And yet another separate bug that messes up the order of posts in long threads. I suspect that these two might in fact be the same bug, but I am not able to verify this theory.
If it's necessary to see the most recent post, in general that can't be done unless you have a notification that takes you to it. That situation has not changed, though. It has never been possible to find the most recent post, in general. (This has always been a problem for my taglist updater, and it still is.)
It would be helpful if the person who creates a thread could specify no replies to replies. This would make a flat thread in chronological order, and no replies would ever be lost in the tangle no matter how long the thread becomes. It might not be good for discussions (although that is a matter of opinion), but it would be good for other purposes.
And, as already noted above, it would be helpful if the person who creates a thread could specify no replies at all, except from themselves.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie I also want the Post to Thread returned
What the new system does is stop adding a Reply To button to a post that is 5 or more layers deep. That means threads are dead in the sense that the last post cannot be replied to or the work around is to go to the first post in the thread and reply to that. This upsets the normal flow of posting and discourages participation by putting a road block in front of people posting.
Having Post to Thread would keep the thread going and hopefully be able to work within this new 5 deep parameter.
@soulsings Ie I reset the reply chain in this game thread - https://www.7cups.com/forum/50OverCommunity_193/QuizzesFunandIcebreakers_560/YourFirstletterislastletteroflastpost_167963/?post=2908036
Feel free to PM me if you can understand what I did.
@AffyAvo okay sounds good. Good idea.
@Heather225
Love these changes!! Thank you to the dev team for working to get these out <3
@usefulSummer3139
all my posts say published 6 hours ago :o is this a bug?
@usefulSummer3139 it is the same for me too, looks like a bug surely
Hope it is resolved soon
@Optimisticempath
yes, same! the heart counter is also broken :o
@usefulSummer3139 it is 😧
@Heather225 I think it's good, at first fear of change, new forum interface looked so different doesn't match the 7cups site look. Accepting the change, it's not that bad actually. Apart from that it still looks quite messed up and not looking so clean. I like the pinned idea but that would mean if a forum is of 3 page before it would be 5 now after the update. People are facing problems in their member dashboard & unable to select a topic while requesting a live chat. It's just my idea maybe those problems should be focused for now. Forum was alright I guess not many complains
@CallMeNaman2002
I agree with you, they could have prioritised things that actually needed some improvement instead of changing the entire layout of forums that was really okay and didn't need these changes in the first place 😔
They changes are reasonable.
Correction: The changes.😄
@Heather225
Very happy to see the forums getting some love. I used to be a Forum Mentor and it seems the activity has dwindled some.
On a side note, is there any reason in particular we are unable to edit our own posts - or maybe I am just missing something.
Thanks!
-Blithe
@blitheSun94
Only forum supporters and mentors can edit their own posts I think 😅
@Optimisticempath
It is locked to certain roles such as Teen Community Star and Community Mentor. Community focused mentors can only edit, delete and pin anyone's post in their specific Subcommunity such as Anxiety support whereas Global TCS like myself can edit, delete and pin posts across the entire community
Hope that helps 🙂
@Heather225
So far i see mostly positive or mixed feedback but i still would like to voice my opinion too on this change
I do not mean to undermine anyone's hardwork but tbh i don't like this new layout in forums
I don't know how to explain it exactly but the look is very 'fancy' and seems quite unnecessary and the forums simply don't feel comfortable anymore
The notifications seem to be messed up and broken too
I m finding it even more hard to navigate in the forums now and challenging to find and reply to posts
Somehow managed to get a little used to forums and now it is changed again 😕
From now replies will be limited too? I get it might crash sometimes but there are times when replies are necessary and for better context it helps to reply in a reply. Would it be possible to increase this limit? 5 seems very less in a community this big
I really hope you people don't end up deleting old threads and replies, makes me sad to even imagine some people coming back later and not finding their posts
I would really prefer forums to go back to how they were, these changes seem very unnecessary and uncomfortable 😕
