New Forums Format

July 18, 2017

Well, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I do like the look of the new forums. I miss being able to go directly to new content, though, by clicking a button in the upper right corner. It will take some getting used to. When I choose a topic now, it's taking me to the first post, and not to where I left off. Is there a preference I have to change to go back to the way it was?

4.4k · July 18, 2017

Click the blue dot (or star) on the left.

I'll get used to that soon too.

1.7k · July 18, 2017

I've found that I can read through the new content by first navigating to a Forum topic, scroll down to the last bolded post topic (whichindicates unread content), click the blue dot to go to the first unread post in that topic.

Once I get to the bottom of the new posts, there's a link in the bottom right corner that says "Next unread topic" with the name of the topic - clicking that takes me automatically to the first unread post in the thread. Read through those, then click again "next unread post" - it's faster to read through each Forum topic's unread threads than it was in the old format. Which I was just getting used to, as I am new to these forums. I think I am liking the new format better, though.

July 18, 2017

Thanks, both of you, that helps a lot.

July 18, 2017

I'm happy with the update -- with one exception.

I really miss having the "Joined: 25-Nov-11" on my avatar block (and more importantly, the same information for every one else).

6.1k · July 18, 2017

I like it. Had a play with the Activity tab, and very quickly created a default view which just shows new content in the forums I'm subscribed to, so overall a positive experience.

1.9k · July 18, 2017

2 hours ago, qtbluemoon said:

Well, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I do like the look of the new forums. I miss being able to go directly to new content, though, by clicking a button in the upper right corner. It will take some getting used to. When I choose a topic now, it's taking me to the first post, and not to where I left off. Is there a preference I have to change to go back to the way it was?

There is the Unread Content link on the upper right which I think is the one you are looking for.

15.3k · July 18, 2017

1 hour ago, mvhayes1982 said:

I'm happy with the update -- with one exception.

I really miss having the "Joined: 25-Nov-11" on my avatar block (and more importantly, the same information for every one else).

The information is still available if you hover over the username/avatar. (And someone had to point this out to me too.)

7.4k · July 18, 2017

It's fine visually, but I was hoping to see more useful features added. The notifications are a nuisance and I have no interest in the reputation system.

3.5k · July 19, 2017

6 hours ago, qtbluemoon said:

Well, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I do like the look of the new forums. I miss being able to go directly to new content, though, by clicking a button in the upper right corner. It will take some getting used to. When I choose a topic now, it's taking me to the first post, and not to where I left off. Is there a preference I have to change to go back to the way it was?

3 hours ago, fuzziebear3 said:

There is the Unread Content link on the upper right which I think is the one you are looking for.

The New Content option was my primary method for viewing the Forums in the past, so it was sorely missed in this new format. However, here is what I've done to replicate the functionality:

Click on the 'Unread Content' link that fuzziebear3 mentioned.
Go to the "Read Status" drop-down menu and select "Unread item links take me to the first unread comment". THIS replicates the old forum format where clicking on the topic title would jump to the most recent unread post, rather than having to scroll through the entire thread to get to the new stuff. To me, this is critical and is why I created a custom view. The blue dot is just too small of a target.
To the right, click the green "Save as New Stream" button.
In the pop-up window, give this a name (ie, "New Stuff") and click "Create Stream".
You'll see "New Stuff" (or whatever name you chose) with some circles to the right. Click the right-most 'check-mark' item.
Now, "New Stuff" is at the upper right, where the Unread Content button used to be.

Now, creating a custom stream isn't necessary. You could use the built-in 'Unread Content' link, but if jumping to the most recent unread post is important to you, then I'd suggest creating a custom stream using the steps above. Otherwise, you'd have to set the "Read Status" option each time (See step 2 above) or you'd need to be careful about clicking on the blue dot instead of the topic name. After a few times of clicking on the topic name when I meant to click on the blue dot, I decided that a custom stream was the way for me. You can further customize the stream with the other menu options too.

Edited July 19, 2017 by noncentric

July 19, 2017

4 hours ago, niraD said:

The information is still available if you hover over the username/avatar. (And someone had to point this out to me too.)

Thank you!

July 20, 2017

On 7/18/2017 at 2:57 PM, narcissa said:

I have no interest in the reputation system.

Same.

11.6k · July 20, 2017

On ‎7‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 5:57 PM, narcissa said:

I have no interest in the reputation system.

I have two "Warning Points". So I'm developing a reputation!

4.4k · July 20, 2017

On 2017-07-18 at 6:15 PM, noncentric said:

custom stream

Ha. I can see your custom stream by diddling the URL. Mine is numbered 3 higher than yours.

In some parts of the internet that'd be a massive security hole, but I gather here it's either intentional, or considered mostly harmless.

PS, we're tied on warning points. But nobody's read this post yet.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Viajero Perdido
Forgot the PS

11.6k · July 20, 2017

7 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

Ha. I can see your custom stream by diddling the URL. Mine is numbered 3 higher than yours.

In some parts of the internet that'd be a massive security hole, but I gather here it's either intentional, or considered mostly harmless.

PS, we're tied on warning points. But nobody's read this post yet.

Hoo, boy! Yer about to git soooo warned! :tongue:

3.5k · July 20, 2017

3 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

Ha. I can see your custom stream by diddling the URL. Mine is numbered 3 higher than yours.

In some parts of the internet that'd be a massive security hole, but I gather here it's either intentional, or considered mostly harmless.

Wow, I didn't even notice that. "geobabble", huh?

Well, that makes it easy for people to copy another person's custom stream - but I'm surprised there isn't some setting/option to make a custom stream 'private'. Hhmmm.

9k · July 20, 2017

I'd guess there's nothing private in the stream setups, so it may be optimized to make use of previously defined streams. If you make settings that haven't been used, maybe it creates a new one, but if you use settings that have been used, it'll use the existing id. *shrug* wild guessing But is there anything really private about the makeup of a stream? Maybe ignored forums, but that's really not sensitive info...

15.3k · July 20, 2017

29 minutes ago, kunarion said:

I have two "Warning Points". So I'm developing a reputation!

Interesting. I don't have any. When you get warning points, do you get any sort of message explaining why you got the warning points?

(In another forum that I help moderate, warning points are accompanied by a note of explanation. But we don't have much use for warning points. It's mostly spammers who are banned instantly and regular posters who never do anything to earn warning points.)

14k · July 20, 2017

I'm actually getting used to the look for the forums. Personally, I think avatars look *much* better now. There's still a bit of functionality that needs to be worked out but, IMHO, it's certainly no train wreck.

11.6k · July 20, 2017

1 minute ago, niraD said:

When you get warning points, do you get any sort of message explaining why you got the warning points?

I saw the points by hovering the mouse cursor over my avatar. No explanation message. But I shut off a whole bunch of "Notifications" while fiddling with Forum settings. Maybe I turned too many off. I also managed to delete the menu item that allowed me to change my "Location", so yeah, I actually broke that. This is why we can't have nice things.

3.5k · July 20, 2017

1 minute ago, thebruce0 said:

I'd guess there's nothing private in the stream setups, so it may be optimized to make use of previously defined streams. If you make settings that haven't been used, maybe it creates a new one, but if you use settings that have been used, it'll use the existing id. *shrug* wild guessing But is there anything really private about the makeup of a stream? Maybe ignored forums, but that's really not sensitive info...

Nothing private for me, since I've already listed out the steps I used to create mine.

It doesn't seem to re-use settings, as each custom stream shows the name of the cacher that created it and poking around shows that some custom streams are duplicates of others and so not being re-used.

Which forums a user has ignored isn't revealed. That's not part of the custom stream, but of a user's Managed Content, which doesn't seem to be visible with URL hacks. The custom streams are just the menu option settings. I won't necessarily see the same thing that other users see, even with the same custom stream. It's like PQ's. I could use the same PQ as another user, but if the PQ is set to show unfound caches and we've found different caches, then we'll get different PQ results.

7.4k · July 20, 2017

2 hours ago, kunarion said:

I have two "Warning Points". So I'm developing a reputation!

Oh, I didn't even look at anything closely enough to see what I have. I shut down all the notifications and intend to thoroughly ignore it. I can tell if someone's comment is valuable by reading it myself.

7.5k · July 20, 2017

1 hour ago, kunarion said:

I saw the points by hovering the mouse cursor over my avatar. No explanation message.

Scary. I hope this is something brought over from the old system since I've been a good boy all week, but I've got 3 warning points myself already. What good's warning someone if you don't tell them what they shouldn't do?

14k · July 20, 2017

24 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Scary. I hope this is something brought over from the old system since I've been a good boy all week, but I've got 3 warning points myself already. What good's warning someone if you don't tell them what they shouldn't do?

I saw that I have 4 warning points. I have no idea who gave them to me or what I wrote which cause the warning points to be given.

Will we be getting a PHS (poster health score) next?

I also see that I have a +7 for reputation, whatever that means. I saw one poster with +34 and a lot with 0.

Edited July 20, 2017 by NYPaddleCacher

5.7k · July 20, 2017

35 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Scary. I hope this is something brought over from the old system since I've been a good boy all week, but I've got 3 warning points myself already. What good's warning someone if you don't tell them what they shouldn't do?

I have 8, and not a clue.

21.9k · July 20, 2017

To clarify:

Reputation Points are brand new in this version of the forum software. A community member's reputation points are a positive indicator of their contributions to the Geocaching Forums, so the point total is displayed below the user's avatar. Because it's a new feature, most posters will have zero or a small number of Reputation Points.

Warning Points represent the number of formal warnings issued to a user over the years by the Forum Moderators. Those prior warnings *did* carry over from the prior forum software. So, if you have five warning points, that's not because of misbehavior this past week. It could be due to forum guideline violations that occurred many years ago, and which you've long since forgotten. The moderators do take that history into account when deciding upon appropriate discipline under the Forum Guidelines. If a user has received several formal warnings in the past few months, the odds of a suspension of posting rights being imposed for a new violation today are higher than if there's been no formal warning issued since 2012. (Moderators can see the details of any user's previous formal warnings.) Nobody except you and the moderators knows how many warning points you've accrued over time.

EDIT: After I posted this explanation, Geocaching HQ removed the warning count from view by the user. See Moun10Bike's post below in this thread. No more worrying about what your warning score is, and who can see it!

Edited July 20, 2017 by Keystone
Change in Warning Point settings

4.9k · July 20, 2017

I would like to see a Views column besides the number of post in the thread.

Hans

21.9k · July 20, 2017

9 minutes ago, HHL said:

I would like to see a Views column besides the number of post in the thread.

Hans

The number of views for a thread is displayed right below the number of posts in the thread, but only when viewing the forum section's index screen. Here's an example from the Geocaching Topics forum, with the view counts highlighted in yellow:

13.7k · July 20, 2017

11 minutes ago, Keystone said:

To clarify:

Thanks for that. Gave you a rep.

Been looking for someone to explain this stuff since this new forums started. Good to see I'm not the only one.

- And what's that heart for?

7.4k · July 20, 2017

Warning points should not be visible to the general public and have now been turned off.

21.9k · July 20, 2017

Just now, cerberus1 said:

Thanks for that. Gave you a rep.

Been looking for someone to explain this stuff since this new forums started. Good to see I'm not the only one.

- And what's that heart for?

Thanks for the point. :wub:

The heart indicator at the bottom right corner of each post captures how many reputation points have been awarded for that particular post. I just gave you one back, by clicking on the "up" arrow to the left of the heart indicator, so your post just now will say "1" next to the heart (unless and until someone else gives it a point). Your TOTAL number of Reputation Points from ALL posts is the number displayed below your avatar.

13.7k · July 20, 2017

9 minutes ago, Keystone said:

The heart indicator at the bottom right corner of each post captures how many reputation points have been awarded for that particular post. I just gave you one back, by clicking on the "up" arrow to the left of the heart indicator, so your post just now will say "1" next to the heart (unless and until someone else gives it a point). Your TOTAL number of Reputation Points from ALL posts is the number displayed below your avatar.

Thanks.

It'd be nice to have that announced somewhere (Getting Started?), so new cachers entering could "thank" the helpful folks who steer them on the correct path.

Curious, know if there's a limit?

- Someone like Pup Patrol could break the counter otherwise. :lol:

Edited July 20, 2017 by cerberus1
addification...

4.9k · July 20, 2017

57 minutes ago, Keystone said:

The number of views for a thread is displayed right below the number of posts in the thread, but only when viewing the forum section's index screen.

Thanks.

Frohes Jagen
Hans

15.3k · July 20, 2017

I noticed that the new forum tries to identify the thread I am currently viewing. It is usually wrong, but that's because I'm one of those people who loads up several threads at once, each in its own tab, and then cycles through the tabs. The server has no idea which one I'm currently viewing, only the one that I most recently loaded into a tab.

14k · July 21, 2017

15 hours ago, Keystone said:

To clarify:

Reputation Points are brand new in this version of the forum software. A community member's reputation points are a positive indicator of their contributions to the Geocaching Forums, so the point total is displayed below the user's avatar. Because it's a new feature, most posters will have zero or a small number of Reputation Points.

Warning Points represent the number of formal warnings issued to a user over the years by the Forum Moderators. Those prior warnings *did* carry over from the prior forum software. So, if you have five warning points, that's not because of misbehavior this past week. It could be due to forum guideline violations that occurred many years ago, and which you've long since forgotten. The moderators do take that history into account when deciding upon appropriate discipline under the Forum Guidelines. If a user has received several formal warnings in the past few months, the odds of a suspension of posting rights being imposed for a new violation today are higher than if there's been no formal warning issued since 2012. (Moderators can see the details of any user's previous formal warnings.) Nobody except you and the moderators knows how many warning points you've accrued over time.

EDIT: After I posted this explanation, Geocaching HQ removed the warning count from view by the user. See Moun10Bike's post below in this thread. No more worrying about what your warning score is, and who can see it!

Thanks for the clarification. When I checked yesterday, I had more reputation points than the Groundspeak HQ account (woo hoo!). Is anyone retroactively upvoting old posts? There are a few posters here who have been real helpful, especially in the getting started forum and *should* have a good reputation.

4.4k · July 21, 2017

I like it all, with one exception. Can someone please revert paragraph spacing to normal?

For months I'll be hitting Enter twice to start a new paragraph, going [mild profanity], and backspacing the second Enter because I've just created a huge gulf.

Just did it again, argh.

This gripe applies to signatures too. (And why should the HTML scrubber have to change the angle-BRs in my signature into angle-Ps with all the extra headroom that implies? And how does niraD above get away with angle-BRs in his signature when I can't? Probably because I'm using HTML just to get some italics. I'm futzing with it now, but there seems to be a delay between editing and seeing results; yes I've logged out/in; so I'm ready to throw up my hands and find something productive to do.)

This is no place for web design. This is a place for text. Please revert paragraph spacing to normal.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Viajero Perdido

15.3k · July 21, 2017

2 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

And how does niraD above get away with angle-BRs in his signature when I can't?

Honestly, I'm not sure. When I first logged into the new forum, my signature was missing. So I logged out and logged in a few times, hoping to get the new software to pull my signature from my main profile, and that didn't work. So I gave up and copy-pasted my signature from my main profile into the account settings here on the forum. It just worked.

But my signature doesn't use HTML. It uses BBCode and regular newlines. Maybe that's the difference. When you use HTML, the forum processes it one way; when you use BBCode, the forum processes it another way; and when you use neither, or when you use Markdown, the forum might process it yet another way.

Anyway, here is what my signature looks like when I copy-paste it:

niraD | Darin McGrew
Member of [url=http://www.thegba.net/]Geocachers of the Bay Area[/url]
Like puzzle caches? Try a [url=http://www.therallyeclub.org/what.htm]gimmick car rallye[/url]!
 
Messages criticizing spelling, grammar, or proofreading will themselves contain errors in spelling, grammar, or proofreding. - Muphry's Law

HTH

9k · July 21, 2017

2 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

And how does niraD above get away with angle-BRs in his signature when I can't?

In some cases, a standard Enter will begin a new paragraph.

Shift-enter should set a single line-break. I'm used to hitting shift or ctrl enter in a lot of places that deal with paragraphs. I usually experiment until one works

Edited July 21, 2017 by thebruce0
Fixed shift-enter

4.4k · July 21, 2017

Okay, MAGOR BUG.

Why are there two places to edit your forum signature?

One has no effect - or at least no positive effect.
The other works.

2.8k · July 21, 2017

2 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

Okay, MAGOR BUG.

Why are there two places to edit your forum signature?

One has no effect - or at least no positive effect.
The other works.

We're supposed to guess where those 2 places are? What page(s) are you on - what links do you click - what pages do you land on?

4.4k · July 21, 2017

Ah sorry, I should really help people find and slay the minotaur, shouldn't I?

The Forum Settings place works.
The Account Settings place is a placebo.

July 22, 2017

On 7/20/2017 at 3:54 PM, Keystone said:

The heart indicator at the bottom right corner of each post captures how many reputation points have been awarded for that particular post. .... Your TOTAL number of Reputation Points from ALL posts is the number displayed below your avatar.

Ahhh....

July 22, 2017

On 7/21/2017 at 11:29 AM, Viajero Perdido said:

And how does niraD above get away with angle-BRs in his signature when I can't?

I was wondering how some folks have [space]s in their handles (?) :huh:

(Sorry, couldn't get multi-quote to work right.)

13.7k · July 22, 2017

13 minutes ago, RufusClupea said:

I was wondering how some folks have [space]s in their handles (?)

(Sorry, couldn't get multi-quote to work right.)

IIRC, a Lackey said in June that they were "no longer allowed". J-u-s-t missed it.

I believe the usernames entered earlier are (so far) grandfathered in.

1.8k · July 23, 2017

Cleaner look but certainly seems to use up more "real estate"

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