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This is my favourite topic
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Posted April 17, 2014
I'd love a "go to first unread post" feature. Either the colored icon next to each thread title could serve that purpose, or when you hover in line with a thread title on the forum a button appears between the thread title and post count.

Regarding splitting the forums, at most I think creating an "off-topic" forum might be helpful, but I think splitting things too much could be more of a hindrance.

This is a post I made some months ago about doing something like "topic tags", in case people didn't want to split the main forum up.
I have an idea but am not sure how much work it would require. If GOG or forum members didn't want to separate the general discussion into subforums, what about creating topic tags?

General Discussion would remain the primary forum. When you create a topic, you would check a box marking the topic with one of the following tags: gaming, giveaway, or off-topic. You also wouldn't be able to press the "post my message" button when creating a new thread unless you mark a tag. This way every topic is appropriately marked under its respective sub-category.

On the forum page threads could have a different color for each tag (right now we have blue for announcements, yellow for questions, orange for sticky/FAQ). They could add a few more colors for the suggested tags (green for gaming, purple for giveaway, white for off-topic, for example).

In addition to this, the real suggestion I have is that on top of the forum page where you browse threads, people can check which topics they want to view. For example, if you don't want to read off-topic posts, you deselect that box and your general discussion page just shows gaming and giveaway topics. Or, you could save the URLs to each different list of threads if you want to browse them separately (instead of switching around between tags constantly). Something like:

http://www.gog.com/forum/general ........(shows all threads OR the combination you've selected per your settings at the top of the page)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#gaming .........(shows gaming threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#giveaways ..........(shows giveaway threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#offtopic ..........(shows off-topic threads only)

If the current forum infrastructure allows such a configuration, this could be a compromise between giving people an option to filter topics without actually splitting the forum up. I don't know how feasible or possible this is, though. It's just an idea so please don't hold my feet to the fire.
Posted April 17, 2014
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mondo84: I'd love a "go to first unread post" feature. Either the colored icon next to each thread title could serve that purpose, or when you hover in line with a thread title on the forum a button appears between the thread title and post count.

Regarding splitting the forums, at most I think creating an "off-topic" forum might be helpful, but I think splitting things too much could be more of a hindrance.

This is a post I made some months ago about doing something like "topic tags", in case people didn't want to split the main forum up.

I have an idea but am not sure how much work it would require. If GOG or forum members didn't want to separate the general discussion into subforums, what about creating topic tags?

General Discussion would remain the primary forum. When you create a topic, you would check a box marking the topic with one of the following tags: gaming, giveaway, or off-topic. You also wouldn't be able to press the "post my message" button when creating a new thread unless you mark a tag. This way every topic is appropriately marked under its respective sub-category.

On the forum page threads could have a different color for each tag (right now we have blue for announcements, yellow for questions, orange for sticky/FAQ). They could add a few more colors for the suggested tags (green for gaming, purple for giveaway, white for off-topic, for example).

In addition to this, the real suggestion I have is that on top of the forum page where you browse threads, people can check which topics they want to view. For example, if you don't want to read off-topic posts, you deselect that box and your general discussion page just shows gaming and giveaway topics. Or, you could save the URLs to each different list of threads if you want to browse them separately (instead of switching around between tags constantly). Something like:

http://www.gog.com/forum/general ........(shows all threads OR the combination you've selected per your settings at the top of the page)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#gaming .........(shows gaming threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#giveaways ..........(shows giveaway threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#offtopic ..........(shows off-topic threads only)

If the current forum infrastructure allows such a configuration, this could be a compromise between giving people an option to filter topics without actually splitting the forum up. I don't know how feasible or possible this is, though. It's just an idea so please don't hold my feet to the fire.
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mondo84:
I fully support this idea. Tags are awesome! Easier for developers and for users. No need to code up specific pages, make a template and use tags to search. If the search functionality works, that is.
Post edited April 17, 2014 by HGiles
Posted April 17, 2014
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mondo84: I'd love a "go to first unread post" feature. Either the colored icon next to each thread title could serve that purpose, or when you hover in line with a thread title on the forum a button appears between the thread title and post count.
I was just about to suggest that. I'm so tired of having to look for the first unread post in a thread. It's the one thing that annoys me most about this forum.

All your other suggestions do sound like great user-friendly solutions (+1 rated). Perhaps a small selection of practical tags applicable to posts (such as 'helpful', 'important' etc.) could replace the current + & - system thus enabling a simple tag search within the threads as well (sort of like the staff=yes function).
Posted April 17, 2014
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mondo84: I'd love a "go to first unread post" feature. Either the colored icon next to each thread title could serve that purpose, or when you hover in line with a thread title on the forum a button appears between the thread title and post count.
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Lemon_Curry: I was just about to suggest that. I'm so tired of having to look for the first unread post in a thread. It's the one thing that annoys me most about this forum.

All your other suggestions do sound like great user-friendly solutions (+1 rated). Perhaps a small selection of practical tags applicable to posts (such as 'helpful', 'important' etc.) could replace the current + & - system thus enabling a simple tag search within the threads as well (sort of like the staff=yes function).
Going to last read rather than most current post would be wonderful!
Post edited April 17, 2014 by donsanderson
Posted April 17, 2014
Mr. Judas ^^

1) That go to first unread post thing would be epic.

2) I believe the problem with rep is that people should not have any say in your status. The +-rep should just be there for show and not reflective of the quality of the post/poster. No rep boosts when you make a giveaway, no rep losses when you make a comment someone disagrees with. Your post can show the ratings numerically instead of with High/Low Rated, or you could use neutral smileys representing the scale so people don't get offended.

3) With that in mind, make the "report spam" button there all of the time. Could be +rep for reporting actual spam posts, -rep for abusively marking a post that was not spam. Basically all rep should be influenced by the site itself. Posting or whatnot once a day, answering a question...and other ways that won't make it seem like people either love you, hate you, are bribing you or bullying you.

But I don't know how well this would work.
Posted April 18, 2014
They've already been mentioned in some form or another, but the only things that really affect me are:

a) Go to first unread post.

2) Search options. Specifically I'd like a way to order by date posted/edited while searching within a thread.

III) Keep the visual style of the forums minimalistic like they are now.
Posted April 18, 2014
What I'd like to see:

1. Better Search function (AND operator, sort by date.
2. More activity in the game specific forums, at the moment it seems easier to get answers in the General forum. Ideas for this:
a) Sort game specific forums by last post date
b) create a merge view of games specific forums so it's easy to read and help in topics about games I have played.
c) Icons if the new topics have been created in game specific sub-forums
3. Sub-forums:
a) Offtopic
b) Giveaways
c) Can't remember a game: As sub-forum, chances a higher people will read this after more than one day and reply
4. notifications by mail: Especially helpful if you ask a specific questions like 'Can't remember a game' or in a game specific sub-forum.
5. 'Go to first unread post' function.
6. Ability to edit thread title.
7. On rep: Haven't been hit by downvoting, so I suggest to keep up- and downvoting, restrict downvoting to posts made in the last 2 days, decouple forum privileges like posting links from rep.
EDIT: Also remove the rep increase for just posting something.
Post edited April 18, 2014 by The-Business
Posted April 18, 2014
1) A post preview function. And/or a two- to five-minute courtesy window in which a post can be edited without being tagged as such. It's embarrassing and a bit frustrating to see my post marked "edited" when all I did was fix a typo or a broken link or somesuch.

2) I'd also love to see a "jump to first unread post in thread" button, or other such option.

Especially since by default, I have my settings on opening threads to the first page rather than the last, so that I can read the OP and browse thru the replies; but long-standing threads (like "What Just Updated?", "Corrupt a Wish" and "Blood Bowl") are in the dozens of pages, and all I care about what's been added since the last time I checked.
Post edited April 18, 2014 by TwoHandedSword
Posted April 19, 2014
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DeMignon: I'm pretty sure, the workload is easy to handle and there aren't many abusers. Stop them and the rep system will do it's job again.
This ^. The rep system isn't the problem, but the person/persons/group/groups need to be dealt similiar to how spammers are. I also liked Sachys' suggestion for giveaways.

Additionally:

-View your own post history by date.
Particularly useful when you are trying to find a post in the sub-forums you made in the past week, but have no idea which forum it was posted in.

-First unread post
-Post preview
-Better search
-Mark forums read
-Spoiler tags
Post edited April 19, 2014 by Gydion
Posted April 19, 2014
I think showing how many new posts have been made since last viewing a thread, with the option to jump to the newest unread message would be nice.

Maybe it's just me but I'd also prefer a more specific "Posted on" indication on posts. "Posted Yesterday" and "Posted 7 hours ago" are kind of vague, and I think if it showed an actual time adjusted for a user's timezone it would be nicer.

As for uprepping and downrepping, I think when you click on either of them, a comment box where you must write the reason for which you rep'd them could be nice. The user would then get a little message saying why they got whatever rep and from who. It would cut down on lame anonymous negative-rep spamming and would hopefully put an end to the "who downrepped me" topics and posts. Or rep could just be removed entirely. Either one would fix the problem.
Posted May 01, 2014
Not sure if it has been mentioned, but how about when I search the results are in some sort of order...newest on top, oldest to the bottom. I always see a thread that I think might be the right one and after I click the link I notice it was from 2009.

Being able to see my whole history of posts would be nice.

A nice, not must have feature, would be when I click on a thread it remembers where I left off and highlight the next unread post
Post edited May 01, 2014 by VABlitz
Posted May 05, 2014
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mondo84: I'd love a "go to first unread post" feature. Either the colored icon next to each thread title could serve that purpose, or when you hover in line with a thread title on the forum a button appears between the thread title and post count.
Somehow missed this thread (the sticky cloaking field?), so have been reading through it to see the ideas. This is the number one suggestion I wanted to make as well. Many forums have memory for the user as to the last time they viewed a thread, and will take them to the first post created after that time, so that they can pick up where they left off. I think this is very useful functionality that is sorely missing here, and leads to one missing relevant postings a lot of the time.

I'm also in favour of being able to ignore threads, adding polls, and a smart revision of the rep system. I think exposing who gave the rep could work, as it adds transparency to the process. Even if someone creates shell accounts in order to downrep, those accounts would quickly become obvious as such and could be banned in turn, with their assigned downreps removed from the system (since those are then being tracked).
Posted May 17, 2014
an option to automatically navigate to last unread post in a thread would be a huge improvement in the usability of the forum
Posted June 22, 2014
On the community page don't show already read blue posts as unread. Currently the little ! icons light up even when they shouldn't.
Posted June 30, 2014
I totally agree with Nirth. First, having a better personal post history. Being able to see your own posts (instead of the thread) -- makes it much easier to jump back into a thread instead of seeing the first or last message posted. Vanilla and phpBB have this "go to first unread post" feature so users can jump back in where they left off.

Then adding a minimalist profile feature. This allows the user to link to their important topics, and other users to "search by poster" alongside "search by thread" and "search within posts within this thread".

(What are GOGbears?)
Post edited June 30, 2014 by pakopakojr
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General discussionLet's discuss your experiences with the forum. (15 posts)(15 posts)
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