Ignoring individual threads

[exodo]

@boomzilla said in Ignoring individual threads:

I've been working on a solution to this:
https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/issues/3128

It's probably our biggest user complaint right now. We've been bikeshedding back home, and I think it's ready to run it by the larger NodeBB community for some feedback.

It changes the current design of two states to three, adding a new state called "Ignoring." And so, instead of toggling with buttons, I've turned it into a dropdown, which has the added benefit of displaying the current state, not the opposite state of the thread:

In addition to not showing up in the unread feed, ignoring a thread keeps the unread styling from applying to the thread in other lists (e.g., recent, categories).

Do you plan to ignore each new thread?
I dont get it

[pichalite]

@exodo yes its per thread.

@boomzilla what would be the default state for a new thread?

[boomzilla]

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

Do you plan to ignore each new thread?

I don't plan to ignore any threads. I'm just tired of hearing people complain that they can't ignore them.

@pichalite said in Ignoring individual threads:

what would be the default state for a new thread?

Same as it is now: Reading. Basically, I added an additional flag to the current following: ignoring. The default is for neither to be true. Only one is ever true for a particular thread.

[exodo]

@boomzilla said in Ignoring individual threads:

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

Do you plan to ignore each new thread?

I don't plan to ignore any threads. I'm just tired of hearing people complain that they can't ignore them.

@pichalite said in Ignoring individual threads:

what would be the default state for a new thread?

Same as it is now: Reading. Basically, I added an additional flag to the current following: ignoring. The default is for neither to be true. Only one is ever true for a particular thread.

You mixing two things.
Actually unread shows topics from categories you follow. not topics. Following a topic is only used for notifications i think.
I think unread section is useless, no one uses it the way it works now but i dont have good ideas to solve it.

[boomzilla]

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

Actually unread shows topics from categories you follow. not topics.

Umm....topics, yeah. Following or ignoring a whole category is useful, but also does not give the user enough fine control over what he wants to not see.

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

Following a topic is only used for notifications i think.

That's correct and I haven't changed it.

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

I think unread section is useless,

I know a lot of people who disagree. I use it pretty much exclusively.

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

no one uses it the way it works now but i dont have good ideas to solve it.

We have other issues with it (mainly that you can't tell a new topic from one that you've already seen but has new activity), but I can assure you a lot of people use it.

[loopback0]

@boomzilla said in Ignoring individual threads:

I use it pretty much exclusively.

Likewise. I have it set to the homepage.

[psychobunny]

This post is deleted!

[baris]

Ok so this PR is merged I also added another filter for watched topics. So now the /unread page has this

Pretty sure there will be some bugs and confusion with the unread number in the top bar since that shows the number for all topics. Also if you go to /unread/watched it will show topics from categories that you ignore. So for example you can ignore the testing ground category but watch a single topic from there and see it in /unread/watched

[boomzilla]

@baris Does "watched" still result in notifications? That's a good enhancement to topic filtering, but I'm not convinced yet (will have to use it a bit) that it solves the case of wanting to ignore just a few topics.

[baris]

Nope this only adds 3 different filters to the unread page, doesn't change notification settings. So a watched topic will still generate notifications when someone replies to it. If you don't watch a topic you don't get notifications and it won't show up in /unread/watched but it will show up in /unread and if it's a new topic ie you haven't seen it before it will also show up in /unread/new

[exodo]

@baris said in Ignoring individual threads:

Nope this only adds 3 different filters to the unread page, doesn't change notification settings. So a watched topic will still generate notifications when someone replies to it. If you don't watch a topic you don't get notifications and it won't show up in /unread/watched but it will show up in /unread and if it's a new topic ie you haven't seen it before it will also show up in /unread/new

thank you for doing the enhancement!
Is it posible to show unread - all - followed as different link tabs instead of the dropdown? That way id easy for use to navigate and use new functions and layout is more similar to popular and users page.

[boomzilla]

Based on testing and feedback from users back home, I added filtering of notification updates so that users don't get notifications (e.g., mentions, upvotes) from ignored topics or topics in ignored categories.

If anyone is interested in taking a look, it's in this branch on github:

https://github.com/boomzillawtf/NodeBB/tree/ignore-topic

You'd also need the persona or vanilla theme if you're using those (ugh...yes, I messed up creating a feature branch for these):
https://github.com/boomzillawtf/nodebb-theme-vanilla/tree/master
https://github.com/boomzillawtf/nodebb-theme-persona/tree/master

[boomzilla]

Word on the street is that there is concern that new users may not understand what's going on here. Let's start with what they'd see when they went into a new topic:

This is the current default state. The thread shows up in unread, looks unread if you see it in a topic list, you get notifications from here if someone mentions you. Click on "Reading" and you get this:

It's true, it combines reading and notifications. I've had one person request that they be able to separate the notification aspect but still be able to suppress the topic from showing up as unread. I thought that was over complicating things, but maybe it isn't?

How can we make this more intuitive?

[exodo]

@boomzilla said in Ignoring individual threads:

Based on testing and feedback from users back home, I added filtering of notification updates so that users don't get notifications (e.g., mentions, upvotes) from ignored topics or topics in ignored categories.

If anyone is interested in taking a look, it's in this branch on github:

https://github.com/boomzillawtf/NodeBB/tree/ignore-topic

You'd also need the persona or vanilla theme if you're using those (ugh...yes, I messed up creating a feature branch for these):
https://github.com/boomzillawtf/nodebb-theme-vanilla/tree/master
https://github.com/boomzillawtf/nodebb-theme-persona/tree/master

This would be interesting as a plugin

[boomzilla]

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

This would be interesting as a plugin

I don't think there are the necessary hooks to make that happen.

[exodo]

@boomzilla said in Ignoring individual threads:

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

This would be interesting as a plugin

I don't think there are the necessary hooks to make that happen.

there a new hook before notification happens, what else do you need? maybe we can ask for new hooks to devsbut patching nodebb core it a big headache for updates and so

[pichalite]

probably good option for large setups but may be overkill for all others... just my 2 cents.

[boomzilla]

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

there a new hook before notification happens, what else do you need?

What's the new hook in notifications?

Additionally, at least a way to filter the list of unread topics.

[exodo]

@boomzilla said in Ignoring individual threads:

@exodo said in Ignoring individual threads:

there a new hook before notification happens, what else do you need?

What's the new hook in notifications?

Additionally, at least a way to filter the list of unread topics.

i think this one
https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/issues/4540

[baris]

Alright so I took the changes from @boomzilla 's PR and made some changes, but the idea is the same. You can now ignore individual topics from the dropdown in the topic view.

There are couple of changes in the wording mainly because we use Watched topics in unread and watched in the user profile.

The default state when a new topic is created is Not Watching unless you change your user settings Watch topics on reply or Watch topics you create. If you enable Watch topics on reply the topic will be watched when you make a reply to it and if you enable Watch topics you create the topic will be automatically watched when you post it.

Ignoring a topic will remove it from the /unread list and you won't get the There is a new post notification on the /unread and /recent pages. You will also not get reply notifications.

I also made some changes to core so you can ignore a category but watch a topic inside. In this case the topic will show up in /unread and you will get reply notifications for that topic. But the other topics in that category won't show up in /unread. Previously if a category was ignored all topics disappeared from unread even if you watched some of them.

These settings only effect the new reply notifications so you will still get notifications if someone mentions you in a ignored topic or if one of your posts is upvoted.

https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/pull/4560
https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/pull/4662