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Can you "ignore" a topic?

Formerly "Lemon Fool - Improve the Recipe" repurposed as Room 102 (see above).
CryptoPlankton
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Can you "ignore" a topic?

#18235

Postby CryptoPlankton » December 27th, 2016, 2:39 pm

I "subscribe" to a forum here that has a long-running topic which gets new posts every now and then (and seems likely to continue to do so). When this happens, it turns the forum red and so I am drawn to open it to have a look. Unfortunately, I have no interest in this particular topic and it's getting a bit tedious opening the forum to find it is the only topic to have been added to! I have no issue with the topic, but it would be handy to ignore it so that I am only alerted by new posts on the forum that may be of interest to me. It would actually be a useful tool in general - does it exist?

Thanks

PinkDalek
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Re: Can you "ignore" a topic?

#18236

Postby PinkDalek » December 27th, 2016, 3:01 pm

CryptoPlankton wrote:I "subscribe" to a forum here that has a long-running topic which gets new posts every now and then (and seems likely to continue to do so). When this happens, it turns the forum red and so I am drawn to open it to have a look. Unfortunately, I have no interest in this particular topic and it's getting a bit tedious opening the forum to find it is the only topic to have been added to! I have no issue with the topic, but it would be handy to ignore it so that I am only alerted by new posts on the forum that may be of interest to me. It would actually be a useful tool in general - does it exist?

Thanks


No, I don't believe it is possible (guessing a cricketing term is involved). Unless you are in luck and the Topic is moved to a Forum to which you don't subscribe (such as "Games ...").

CryptoPlankton
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Re: Can you "ignore" a topic?

#18246

Postby CryptoPlankton » December 27th, 2016, 3:52 pm

PinkDalek wrote:No, I don't believe it is possible (guessing a cricketing term is involved). Unless you are in luck and the Topic is moved to a Forum to which you don't subscribe (such as "Games ...").


Oh well, thanks PD (you guessed correctly - though, of course, it has also been adopted by many other games...). Shame, as it would be a very handy feature.

Gengulphus
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Re: Can you "ignore" a topic?

#19016

Postby Gengulphus » December 31st, 2016, 2:39 pm

CryptoPlankton wrote:I "subscribe" to a forum here that has a long-running topic which gets new posts every now and then (and seems likely to continue to do so). When this happens, it turns the forum red and so I am drawn to open it to have a look. Unfortunately, I have no interest in this particular topic and it's getting a bit tedious opening the forum to find it is the only topic to have been added to! I have no issue with the topic, but it would be handy to ignore it so that I am only alerted by new posts on the forum that may be of interest to me. It would actually be a useful tool in general - does it exist?


It is mostly possible, but there is a cost: you have to 'bookmark' each topic you are interested in. Whether it's worth that cost is something I'm still undecided about!

The key to it is using the 'Manage bookmarks' part of the User Control Panel (http://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_main&mode=bookmarks) as your list of new posts to read, rather than the more usual 'Manage subscriptions' part (http://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_main&mode=subscribed) or actual forum listings. And to make it work, you need to set up the notification options in http://www.lemonfool.co.uk/ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options correctly:

* Turn being notified about "Someone creates a topic in a forum to which you are subscribed" on;
* Turn being notified about "Someone replies to a topic to which you are subscribed" off;
* Set the other options according to taste - my taste is only to be notified about moderator (dis)approvals, but yours may vary!

In addition, you need to subscribe to each forum that might contain topics that you're interested in, and to bookmark each existing topic within those forums that you actually are interested in.

Once you've done all that, the 'Manage bookmarks' part of the User Control Panel provides you with the list of new posts in only the topics you've actually 'bookmarked', and you get notified each time a new topic is created that you might be interested. Respond to such notifications by 'bookmarking' the new topic if you actually are interested in it, and doing nothing if you're not. In addition, remove a topic from your 'bookmarks' if you lose interest in it.

The whole system does work fairly smoothly once set up, though there is the drawback that you have to do something positive about each and every topic you are interested in: it works better for forums where the topic that you are interested in is the exception, rather than forums where the topic that you're not interested in is the exception. And for the same reason, it's tedious setting it up for a newly subscribed forum, especially if that forum contains a lot of existing topics that you are interested in.

It could work more smoothly with a couple of extra management options: one to 'bookmark' all existing topics in a forum (which one could then prune a bit by removing the topics from the 'bookmarks'), the other to automatically 'bookmark' new topics in subscribed forums. But if those options exist, I haven't yet located them!

Gengulphus

CryptoPlankton
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Re: Can you "ignore" a topic?

#20317

Postby CryptoPlankton » January 5th, 2017, 12:51 pm

Gengulphus wrote:The whole system does work fairly smoothly once set up, though there is the drawback that you have to do something positive about each and every topic you are interested in: it works better for forums where the topic that you are interested in is the exception, rather than forums where the topic that you're not interested in is the exception. And for the same reason, it's tedious setting it up for a newly subscribed forum, especially if that forum contains a lot of existing topics that you are interested in.

It could work more smoothly with a couple of extra management options: one to 'bookmark' all existing topics in a forum (which one could then prune a bit by removing the topics from the 'bookmarks'), the other to automatically 'bookmark' new topics in subscribed forums. But if those options exist, I haven't yet located them!

Gengulphus


It's certainly an ingenious solution. I'm very much in the middle ground with regard to the proportion of topics I'm interested in on average per forum, so I'm in two minds whether or not to give it a go. It does look like it would take a little time to set up so I think I'll muddle on as I am for now - with the knowledge that this alternative approach is available if I get totally fed up!

Many thanks


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