New Forum Design

[HankLloydRight]

How does one now contact the specific mods for a forum for thread maintenance? (like we could under vB)

I could only find the generic "contact us" at the bottom of the page.

 

[omarsultan]

Two random thoughts:

• Usability on mobile is great--first time I really spent time on the site on my phone and did not miss TapTalk at all
• Personal nit: can we get rid of the "well known member" tag -- I see folks with under 100 posts with it and it seems silly

 

[doug]

How does one now contact the specific mods for a forum for thread maintenance? (like we could under vB)

I could only find the generic "contact us" at the bottom of the page.

In theory if you use the report feature, the right mod(s) should get it. People do like their weekends, though. I should probably make a reference list.

 

[JRP3]

• Personal nit: can we get rid of the "well known member" tag -- I see folks with under 100 posts with it and it seems silly

You can edit yours. Click on your avatar near the upper right corner of the page, (not next to your post), under Personal Details look for the Custom Title section and edit away.

 

[HankLloydRight]

In theory if you use the report feature, the right mod(s) should get it. People do like their weekends, though. I should probably make a reference list.

Ok, I'll keep the weekends in mind. But I don't want to "report" a post, but rather suggest duplicate threads, etc. Still use the "report" link?

 

[doug]

Ok, I'll keep the weekends in mind. But I don't want to "report" a post, but rather suggest duplicate threads, etc. Still use the "report" link?

Report the first post in one of those threads and give links to the others.

 

[GoTslaGo]

Just now or some time this morning? That ad should already be explicitly blocked.

Sorry, got called away. This morning approximately 730 am. Nothing since.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

The ads are definitely last to load, even when returning to a page. For example if I'm quick I can click on Watched Threads, then click on a thread and be taken to it before the ad even loads.

Another problem I have on mobile is that the Search Forums link isn't initially displayed. When I load a page, the links at the top of the page are initially:

MARK FORUMS READ SEARCH FORUMS WATCHED FORUMS WATCHED THREADS NEW POSTS

I then tap on a link for WATCHED FORUMS or WATCHED THREADS and then milliseconds later, the page finishes loading/rendering and the links are scooted over so that they are now:
SEARCH FORUMS WATCHED FORUMS WATCHED THREADS NEW POSTS WIKIPOSTS

So about 75% of the time, if I don't click at just the right millisecond, the page finishes rendering and WATCHED THREADS ends up being changed to NEW POSTS or WATCHED FORUMS ends up changing to WATCHED THREADS and then wrong page loads. Then I have to click Back and wait another 15+ seconds for the page and then try clicking on the links again.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Just a thought. Anyone who dislikes a post should have to include some sort of comment about why they disliked it, even if it's just a 2 or 3 word explanation. The like, informative, and helpful ratings are a statement about a persons comment. The dislike rating could mean anything. An explanation about why a person disliked a post would help produce a meaningful conversation and would reduce the number and of trolls. It would also increase the value of the rating system. The dislike button is a great idea, however a dislike without context is in some ways similar to the report button.

With the prior rating system, a person could be given a reputation point if someone felt a persons post was helpful or insightful. When you have a person a reputation point, there was the option to provide a few word explanation about why you have the person a +1. I usually left some sort of comment, even if I only said ; Very helpful post, Great link, Great idea, Great post, I didn't know that, or Couldn't agree more.

Maybe there should be an option to include a brief comment with any of the ratings with a requirement that a comment be left if a person dislikes a post? This would probably increase the value of the ratings.

 

[f-stop]

A suggestion/request:

is it possible to make at least some of the links in the top dark grey TMC banner in the new forum user-configurable?
i.e. where it now normally shows the links: "Forum Model 3 New Posts Groups Members Connect" - can we edit to put 1 or 2 of our favourite forums there for quick one-click access?

for example, there's that quick link there to the Model 3 forum. perhaps I'm in the minority, but I'd prefer a quick link to the Model S forum. Or one or two of the other forums I most frequently browse.

On an iPhone with it's smaller screen, you don't even get those links in the TMC banner, they instead appear in the drop down menu (an additional click). But same choices are there - I think it'd make it much faster to navigate between a few favourite forums if you could configure a couple choices in the top banner area or iPhone drop-down menu.

 

[David29]

Although I have been here a few times since the new design came out, I have not yet "figured it out." So I think I could use a quick guide. Is there one? In particular, I do not understand the distinctions among posts with and without a red bar at the side, posts in gray versus black, and the meaning of the binoculars in some posts. So I suppose this makes me look dumb to say so. But a handy place to find out would be helpful (assuming I could find it, of course!). Thanks!

 

[Andyw2100]

Although I have been here a few times since the new design came out, I have not yet "figured it out." So I think I could use a quick guide. Is there one? In particular, I do not understand the distinctions among posts with and without a red bar at the side, posts in gray versus black, and the meaning of the binoculars in some posts. So I suppose this makes me look dumb to say so. But a handy place to find out would be helpful (assuming I could find it, of course!). Thanks!

I don't know of a guide.

The binoculars indicate that you are watching a thread.

I believe the gray vs. black thread title indicates no new posts and new posts, respectively.

I believe the red bars indicates unread posts in threads that you are watching, so you would never see a red bar in a thread that did not also have binoculars.

 

[ohmman]

Viewing Threads

• Grey thread title means no new posts.
• Black thread title + red dot means there are new posts.
• When viewing lists of threads outside of the "Watched Threads" list, a red bar on the left indicates a watched thread with unread posts. The red bar is omitted in "Watched Threads" because obviously you're watching all of them.
• Binoculars indicate a watched thread or watched forum.
• Thumbtack in that view is a sticky.

Forum/Thread Actions

• Clicking the thread title in threads with unread (new) posts will take you to the first unread post.
• Clicking the thread title in threads without unread posts will take you to the first post in the thread. To skip that behavior and go directly to the last post, you can click the avatar icon on the far right, or the timestamp of the latest post (also on the far right).
• To watch a thread, click on the "Watch Thread" text at the top of the thread on the right.
• To stop watching, click the same location - text will now read "Unwatch Thread".
• To watch a forum, do the same thing, but at the forum view level.
• There is not currently a way to have watched forums provide a list of new posts only for those forums (though you can set up alerts or email for them).

Alerts

• The bell in the upper right corner is for alerts.
• Hovering over the bell and selecting "Alert Preferences" will permit configuration of alerts.

Conversations

• Conversations are the new version of PMs.
• Conversations are found in the inbox with an arrow in the upper right next to Alerts.
• Multiple members can participate in conversations, and additional members can be invited at any time if the conversation starter permits.
• To delete conversations, go to "Show All...", check the boxes for the conversations you no longer want to keep, and select "Leave Conversation".

Feedback

• The icons in the lower right of each post represent the ability to give feedback to the member for that post. They include Helpful, Informative, Like, Dislike, Funny, Love.
• You can only give one feedback per post.
• To see your tally of received and given feedback, hover over your icon in the upper right and click on the link "Your Profile Page". You will see your total on the left of this page.
• You can also view other members' totals if their profiles are public.

Search

• The magnifying glass at the top right of the page brings a search dialog.
• To search titles only, tick the checkbox.
• To search within a thread only, start your search from within that thread, and select the checkbox.
• You may also limit your search to a list of members or a recent timeframe.

That's about all I've got for now. Anyone can tell me if I'm off base on any of these.

 

[Andyw2100]

Excellent, informative post, ohmman!

One issue, though...

Viewing Threads

• When viewing lists of threads outside of the "Watched Threads" list, a red bar on the left indicates a watched thread. The red bar is omitted in "Watched Threads" because obviously you're watching all of them.

That's about all I've got for now. Anyone can tell me if I'm off base on any of these.

The red bar on the left definitely indicates unread posts in a watched thread. I tested this by using multiple windows, checking a thread, and then refreshing the window that had had the red bar. The red bar went away, as I no longer had unread posts in that thread.

 

[ohmman]

The red bar on the left definitely indicates unread posts in a watched thread. I tested this by using multiple windows, checking a thread, and then refreshing the window that had had the red bar. The red bar went away, as I no longer had unread posts in that thread.

Fixed.

 

[danny]

That's about all I've got for now. Anyone can tell me if I'm off base on any of these.

Thanks @ohmman
I have been wanting to generate some resources pages that provide guides to the important functions available to users of TMC. I've started a new thread here, where users can contribute to this if they want: Help Generating User Guides to TMC

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Andyw2100]

I've mentioned this before, but not in this much detail, and now I'm including a screenshot.

I had suggested that polls somehow be designated as polls, so that one could tell by looking at the thread subject that the thread included a poll. This was not an issue before the redesign.

I now have a more concrete suggestion on that topic. The same graphic used to designate a WIKI could be used to designate a poll, though of course it would say "POLL" instead of "WIKI." In the included screenshot, you can see what the "WIKI" box looks like. The thread "What type of car Is Model 3 replacing for you?" is a poll, but currently one would have no way of telling that by looking at the list of threads. I would hope this wouldn't be a difficult change to implement (but then again, what do I know!)

 

[HankLloydRight]

A couple of questions about "Conversations".. It looks like you can no longer "delete" a conversation, just "leave" it. I like to keep my "inbox" uncluttered with dead conversations.

So in effect, it seems such that is no longer a limit on how many PMs one can have?

If I "leave" a conversation to remove it from my active conversation list, and then later someone replies to it or to me, will I get re-notified? Or is "leaving" a conversation a one-way street, no way to get back to it?

Also, Doug - I sent in a contribution with Paypal about a week ago, but I'm still getting ads. Is there something else I need to do? I did indicate in the notes my TMC Handle/name. Thanks.

 

[Cyclone]

So I've noticed something and wonder if it is a bug, or maybe I'm just misunderstanding things. Early in the new site, I used "Mark All Threads as Read" to clean up the Watched Thread list and create a baseline (after reading the few threads that had since been updated). Now as the site as aged, some older conversations have updates. They are popping up in my Watched Thread list as expected, but when I click the title, I go to the first post of that thread. I can then scroll to the bottom and click "First Unread Post" or whatever it is and it takes me to the correct post. After this initial viewing of a thread since it has converted (and after I marked all), it goes back to the behavior of clicking the title takes me to the first unread post.

Is this a bug?

 

[GoTslaGo]

I'm newer to the forums so I never got used to the watched threads, etc.

Instead, I've been using the alerts more frequently now to follow threads and posts. But lately I've noticed that it seems to deliver newer thread alerts, but older ones seem not to alert anymore. Is there a limit in terms of notifications (temporal or amount?). I have everything activated on my alert preferences.

Thanks in advance.

Just an example. I've been following the space X forums, but haven't received any alerts for new posts today. Instead been getting alerts for threads I've been reading and posting in the last day (one older, but others much more recent).