(Reasonable) Features you'd like to see implemented on RailUK Forums

[Class172]

I agree with this; I've been given too much false hope by what I'd hope to be a reply to one of my messages.

You can tune the alerts to an extent so that you don’t receive them for everything. Click on the bell then click preferences.

You’ll see from my options I have set it to only alert me when I’m quoted or mentioned, but not when there’s just a new post in a thread I follow, which I can check on the watched threads page separately.

 

[peterblue]

It might be a good idea to add a mouseover tooltip for certain frequently used acronyms/terms

 

[J-2739]

You can tune the alerts to an extent so that you don’t receive them for everything. Click on the bell then click preferences.

You’ll see from my options I have set it to only alert me when I’m quoted or mentioned, but not when there’s just a new post in a thread I follow, which I can check on the watched threads page separately.

Oh thanks, that's useful!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Unfortunately that's far from trivial to implement, the forum software we use has no facility of 'caching' a forum's state for a particular user, which would be needed for such a feature.

Drat, and double drat!

 

[Egg Centric]

Drat, and double drat!

One would imagine though (@Mike395 would have to confirm) it would be relatively straightforward to implement an "are you sure" type feature for double clicking on it instead. It's almost always possible to hook into these sorts of plugins *somehow* even if in a very hack-alicious way.

Indeed I am in principle prepared to do that sort of thing for an unlimited personal drinks budget at a forum pub meet...

 

[DelW]

I think you've clicked the "toggle BB code" button (the one on the display that shows as [ ]) and not noticed, that greys out the icons since in that mode you write them manually

View attachment 152897
Description: An image of the BB code button circled.


This one here.

Thanks for that (and to @Egg Centric for asking the question) - I've been wondering for months why I couldn't format posts in Chrome when I could in other browsers! I must have accidentally touched that symbol ages ago

 

[778]

A way of deleting your own posts would be good, if possible. Theres a few of mine that I would like to delete.

Is it frowned upon to ask questions on this forum, if you can find the answer just by doing an internet search? Some of the questions I have asked on this forum I probably could have found out by using google or wikipedia.

 

[Egg Centric]

Is it frowned upon to ask questions on this forum, if you can find the answer just by doing an internet search? Some of the questions I have asked on this forum I probably could have found out by using google or wikipedia.

I don't know what the "official" answer is but I hope it's no. Asking questions on this forum doesn't just give you the answer - it gives you colour around the answer, interesting/fun anecdotes (plus occasional bitchiness), and other topics to explore. Far better than googling it (or asking AI)

 

[ainsworth74]

A way of deleting your own posts would be good, if possible. Theres a few of mine that I would like to delete.

In order to avoid threads becoming potentially nonsensical if someone deleted all or a decent chunk of their posts we won't be introducing that function. If there's a few specific posts that you would like deleting then we will consider it on a case by case basis.

Is it frowned upon to ask questions on this forum, if you can find the answer just by doing an internet search? Some of the questions I have asked on this forum I probably could have found out by using google or wikipedia.

Of course not! That's what we're here for

 

[Trackman]

A way of deleting your own posts would be good, if possible. Theres a few of mine that I would like to delete.

Just edit it and put deleted, a mod will pick it up, or even report your own post.

Is it frowned upon to ask questions on this forum, if you can find the answer just by doing an internet search? Some of the questions I have asked on this forum I probably could have found out by using google or wikipedia.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. On here, it's a specialized forum in many aspects of travel - so ask a daft question (there is no such thing as a daft question) and digest from the answers.

 

[Energy]

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. On here, it's a specialized forum in many aspects of travel - so ask a daft question (there is no such thing as a daft question) and digest from the answers.

Wikipedia for a while disagreed with how many 150s GWR had, GWR's page said 19 and the class 150 page said 20. Its now correct but it was wrong for a long time.

Services on Wikipedia are often wrong as the services have changed.

No question is a stupid question, some answers are easy to find if you know where they are (e.g which ROSCO owns what can be found in National Rail Contracts) but if you don't you'd struggle to find them. Though open-ended questions like 'what is happening with rolling stock across the entire of the UK' are discouraged.

 

[DelW]

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. On here, it's a specialized forum in many aspects of travel - so ask a daft question (there is no such thing as a daft question) and digest from the answers.

Some of the expertise and inside knowledge on these forums is invaluable. Without naming names (since it would be unfair to those I omitted), some of the advisors on fares matters have an amazing level of expertise, and the viewpoints of those whose day jobs are e.g. driving / guarding / signalling / maintaining trains are fascinating to me as an outsider. Such depth of knowledge is hard to find elsewhere.

 

[Cowley]

Just edit it and put deleted, a mod will pick it up, or even report your own post.

Actually we wouldn’t generally know that a post had been deleted unless someone actually reported it to us.

If you want a post deleted then by all means report the post and we’ll consider deleting it. However if that post has been replied to/quoted etc, then it starts to get pretty complicated very quickly as removing it will often leave a thread looking really odd and people searching for things online will still be looking at some of our older threads.

I guess it comes down to taking a moment to think about the ramifications of what you’ve just written for a few seconds before hitting reply though (and I say this as someone who also cringes when I read some of the early posts I made on the forum)…

 

[Hadders]

One downside of being able to delete posts is in the Disputes & Prosecutions section where we've seen people ask for, and get, good advice and then delete their posts. This isn't how the forum works and if everyone deleted their posts we wouldn't have a Disputes & Prosecutions section that benefits many people.

 

[800Travel]

Hi, please could the moderators consider adding a feature where we can 'like' users posts? Apologies if this is in the wrong subforum - I couldn't see a feedback subforum. Thank you

 

[Purple Train]

Hi, please could the moderators consider adding a feature where we can 'like' users posts? Apologies if this is in the wrong subforum - I couldn't see a feedback subforum. Thank you

This has been done to death before! If I remember correctly, Yorkie has previously stated (post #18) that "like" buttons would polarise the forum and make it less considered and intellectual: for instance, people will often "like" a short, snappy, hyperbolic post rather than a more considered one that actually contributes to the debate or discussion. Hope that helps

In terms of sending feedback, I believe you can use the "contact us" link at the very bottom of the page, though I'm sure someone will be along shortly to correct me if I've got my wires crossed.

 

[Bayum]

Probably exceedingly difficult to implement, but a TLDR/summary of the thread every 5 pages would be useful. If I want to try and skim a glance at what changes are put forward in the timetable thread, I have to spend 20mins trying to find informative posts whilst ignoring those shouting yay or nay.

 

[blueberry11]

Hi, please could the moderators consider adding a feature where we can 'like' users posts? Apologies if this is in the wrong subforum - I couldn't see a feedback subforum. Thank you

Each forum is different in its own ways. For example the Stardew Valley Forum (linked below), which I presume also uses XenForo, actually provides this feature, which you can see by looking at one of their threads. I do think it is more appropriate for video game and general discussion forums.

Game Discussion

Any content regarding the game goes here!

forums.stardewvalley.net

 

[ainsworth74]

Hi, please could the moderators consider adding a feature where we can 'like' users posts? Apologies if this is in the wrong subforum - I couldn't see a feedback subforum. Thank you

Whilst I would never say never, I think it highly unlikely that we're likely going to introduce such a function to this Forum. I know some people are keen but our general feeling is that the negatives outweigh the positives. Sorry!

Probably exceedingly difficult to implement, but a TLDR/summary of the thread every 5 pages would be useful. If I want to try and skim a glance at what changes are put forward in the timetable thread, I have to spend 20mins trying to find informative posts whilst ignoring those shouting yay or nay.

Probably something that ChatGPT (other AIs available) could manage but it's not something that we'd be able to integrate into the Forum on our own initiative.

 

[yorkie]

Each forum is different in its own ways. For example the Stardew Valley Forum (linked below), which I presume also uses XenForo, actually provides this feature, which you can see by looking at one of their threads. I do think it is more appropriate for video game and general discussion forums.

Game Discussion

Any content regarding the game goes here!

forums.stardewvalley.net

That forum seems to have quite strict rules on what topics are allowed, e.g. no politics.

 

[Egg Centric]

Probably something that ChatGPT (other AIs available) could manage but it's not something that we'd be able to integrate into the Forum on our own initiative.

Why is that (other than the cost)? ChatGPT has a very easy to use API and I'm sure @Bayum would be delighted to donate the associated fees

 

[yorkie]

Why is that (other than the cost)? ChatGPT has a very easy to use API and I'm sure @Bayum would be delighted to donate the associated fees

If anyone develops a Xenforo add-on that does this, feel free to contact us via the contact form and we will consider it.

 

[Egg Centric]

If anyone develops a Xenforo add-on that does this, feel free to contact us via the contact form and we will consider it.

Gives me an idea - a forum hackathon?

I don't know a great deal (anything!) about Xenforo but I'm reasonably confident having a very quick skim of their developer documentation that any experienced dev could make such a thing in a day (subject to my caveat about the open AI fee which probably means that particular example is out) - or indeed other things the forum community would like.

I think there's been interest in one before about hacking around fares data, but not sure if it happened?