Forums >News and Announcements>RA Update (Feb 28)
Hi all,
I added several forum specific features in this release.
Topic subscription
Many of you wanted to track forum topics and now you can. Next to the top Reply button in every thread is a "Subscribe" button. Hover your cursor over it and you'll see an alternative "Follow" button. Clicking on either one will add the topic to your subscribe list. You can find your subscribed topics in the "My Topics" menu item under the "Forums" menu (notice the new black down triangle).
The difference between the two subscription options is "Subscribe" sends you an email if there are new posts in the topic while "Follow" just adds it to your list and you will not get email notifications.
"Subscribe" Caveats:
You will be prompted to verify your email address the first time you subscribe a topic. Email validation is required to ensure the notifications get to the right person because I don't want to contribute to the spam problem. If you change your email address after validation, you will need to re-validate.
You will only get ONE email notification for a given topic until you check in with that topic. In other words, if there are new posts after you received a notification, you won't get another one until you visit that topic. Again, I don't want to generate an email for each new post. I may reconsider this in the future.
Groups
The email notifications apply to group forum topics as well. Additionally, there is now a new group option that controls new topic notifications. When set, you will receive an email for every new topic in the group. This option is specific to the group. If you belong to multiple groups, you need to set this for each group. The default action is no emails.
Options
I added a new option in the forum preferences page that when you reply to a topic, it will subscribe to that topic automatically. I also changed the signature editor to be wysiwyg. Avoid having fancy signatures because there's a hard limit to the length of the signature, and it includes html formating.
Facebook
Every post now has a Like button. There are many good posts in RA and you're free to share them with your friends. The button is only visible for publicly accessible topics. Private groups will not have the Like button because no one else can get to them.
You like?
One day at a time
Thanks, Eric!
So this means that posts in the swamp could show up on Facebook?
I liked your post, partly because I do like it and partly to see what happens in facebook when I push the little button.
I see on my fb page something that shows I liked a link. I'm assuming that unless I change something, all my friends see this too (except for the people who have chosen to ignore me, which might be extensive).
If this is how it works, I better read up on fb filtering, because it would not be hard for my page to fill up with "so-and-so likes this link" for individual posts. This seems to be a wholly different concept (or at least behavior and presentation) from liking posts within facebook... those only seem to actively notify the person whose post or comment got liked, and then it is up in the little notifications box and not on the fb page itself.
Hmmm.
Hmmm. Also, now all the posts in this thread show that 1 person likes them. I think it is referring to my "like" activation of the original post. Does liking any post really mean the whole thread is "liked"?
I'm confused.
Yes indeed. Since I liked the post, I've gotten one status comment and one fb email that it did indeed show up on other people's fb pages.
I'm not sure what the expectation/desire for this feature is, but it seems spammy. (plus the "is it per post or per thread?" question)
Like everything but the Facebook like buttons, Eric. Thanks for
the hard work. The Facebook buttons just seem like an infection
that brings a whole new set of probable viral outcomes for every
little post we make. Not necessarily a good thing. Doesn't feel
so cozy anymore.
Not sure why all the like buttons are linked. All of them have different ids and urls. I may have to do more research on this.
I have never been a fan of FB, more so after I created the FB app but that's a different story. I'd be more than happy to remove it if people find it annoying.
jfa
I'm not a big FBer either Eric, but thank you for continuing to try and improve the best running site on this here planet.
I'm in favor of removing the FB "like" feature.
The shirtless wonder
I feel a little strange with the FB like button on forum posts. What I wouldn't mind seeing here is the ability to "like" someones comment and seeing a tally of how many people like a given reply. This could improve signal-to-noise since you wouldn't have to post just to say "I'm with BlahBlahBlah on this one!"
I LOVE that we can subscribe to topics now!
Thanks!
Greg
Greg Rowe likes this
run.therowes.net
Thanks, Eric! So this means that posts in the swamp could show up on Facebook?
I'm thinking no since it only applies to the public groups. Unless someone links to the swamp in the gsp which happens from time to time. Eric, I like everything but the FB linking. Thanks for eveything you do - the rest, as always, is great.
The swamp isn't private, Mr. Train.
(And congrats on breaking 90min!)
What would be great if Like is kept would be the utility to search for post given, among other parameters, the degree of Like-ness. I got tons of hits to my "Achilles" searches; being able to see the most helpful ones first would have been nice. (Of course, it'd also return the most-liked jokes and tangents, too. But still.)
"I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."
-- Dick LeBeau
The swamp IS a public group - there is a "Like" button on each post. It's only the groups protected by a password that don't have this feature.
Prince of Fatness
I do not see a "Like" button. I assume that this is because FB is blocked on my work network. I can check when I get home, but honestly, I doubt that I would use it. I'm not on FB that much as it is.
I am not sure how much I will use the subscribe feature but it is nice to have the option.
Thanks Eric.
Not at it at all.
Thinking of this some more, I am not sure that I like (pardon the pun) the idea of any of my posts being linked to on FB. I know that this is the interwebs, etc., and is a public domain, but still. I don't use FB much and segregate the two.
It might be a good idea to give users the ability to opt in to having their posts "liked",