topic Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post in Community Site Feedback

Add notification about replying to a very old post

Oldjim — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:39:52 GMT

This used to be a feature but now isn't

I checked because a new poster replied to a thread which was over 3 years old and obviously got there because of the "helpful" tip when typing in the subject field

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:44:17 GMT

What would happen if someone replies to an old thread in the previous system?

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Strat — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:49:32 GMT

We received a popup informing us the topic we were replying to had not received replies for over 2 years and we may consider starting a new one......

Or something along those lines.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:09:37 GMT

So the popup is just a warning that the thread is very old and the user can then carry on with their post or cancel the action?

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Strat — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:10:36 GMT

Correct.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:14:15 GMT

Added to my enhancement list. It might be possible to just provide a warning below the editor to warn users that they are just replying to an old thread rather than have a popup stopping them (there is already a script in place on this page and wouldn't want to over complicate that script).

Adding this to my enhancement list now.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

spraxyt — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 12:29:27 GMT

The old topic warning setting in an SMF forum I administer is 120 days. That is probably the default and is plenty in my opinion.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 12:57:54 GMT

That sounds like a reasonable time. I guess that its measured from the last post rather than when the thread was created? I say this becuase there are a couple of threads here which are old but still get some activity (the one about IP addresses I think?).

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Oldjim — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:04:37 GMT

yes - it was from the last post

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

spraxyt — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:39:41 GMT

The warning one gets in SMF is displayed within the reply panel as shown below.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 13:43:22 GMT

That's awesome cheers for the info everyone. The screenshot is very helpful and I should be able to implement something for this.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

MauriceC — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 14:46:51 GMT

The real question here is whether the functionality should be within the core product (as in SMF) or in a JS bolt on script?

Given the recent response in the 'Add notification about replying to a very old post' thread to not pursue to implementation, I just don't see this topic getting completed anytime soon? I can only hope to be pleasantly surprised sometime in the new year

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:27:56 GMT

Oh @MauriceC, you really should have more faith in me (just did this on staging - @Oldjim and @spraxyt you can have a look if you like - you will need to try to reply to any threads that the last post was on or before 29th of Feb).

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

spraxyt — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:39:25 GMT

Yep, works (on staging) and looks good to me.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:59:51 GMT

Just an FYI, this is not a Javascript enhancement. I am directly interacting with the community API and doing a comparison of todays date with 120 days removed and the date of the last post in the thread.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Anotherone — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 16:53:37 GMT

Have more faith Hmm, I'm afraid there is little of that left.
I will have a look on Staging.

Oh, and I don't think that there are many cases where replying to a a very old thread should be disallowed. In cases where it might not be an appropriate thing, there is the Report to Moderator option, where it can be reviewed and the post (and any replies) moved to their own thread with appropriate mod notes.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

jaread83 — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:33:40 GMT

It won't stop someone replying. All it will do is provide a message warning that the thread hasn't been replied to for 120 days.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Anotherone — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:40:45 GMT

I thought that it was quite clear it was only going to be a warning from messages 13 & 14.

I was just responding and giving my opinion on an earlier suggestion about the possibility of stopping posts to old threads. I would have thought that was obvious from the context of my reply and reference to the 'Report to Moderator' comment.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Lurch — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 10:28:30 GMT

As an aside what is the SP on the image browser lightbox affair? If I click on that image there is nothing that lets me see it at its native resolution so it is shrunk to my screen height, which means I cannot read the text all that well.

I've also noticed that the lightbox breaks the history as well. Pretty major bug there I think.

Also I replied to @jaread83 (the dropdown for this doesn't work either, it's somewhat haphazard at actually finding members, either none found or not the ones you were expecting) and the post shows no reference to that so what is the point in the reply button on each post, there should be some reference to the post that it was in reply to. The actual relevant part of the post I was replying to was this bit but I was trying to avoid quoting it but it seems to be the only way to give this post relevance;

@jaread83 wrote:

In addition an inverse problem to the above is that there is no "general reply to thread" option or the like, so it's a bit neither one nor the other, with none of them really doing what you expect.

Re: Add notification about replying to a very old post

Anotherone — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 10:29:48 GMT

Don't forget it hasn't been implemented here yet, that's an image from the test site.

As far as the drop-down list of @ it should initially prompt you with the names of those who have posted in the thread. To get other names you need to type at least 3 (consecutive) characters of the name, but the major problem is that with the much larger user base here the list does not drop-down enough / is not scrollable.