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

[Peterthegreat]

Likes

I come here for purely rail related so to be able to illuminate non rail threads from New Posts would be great.

Eliminate????

 

[Narrowgauge725]

Eliminate????

Lol

 

[Farigiraf]

I understand everyone's problems with introducing likes but what I've seen is this is more of a relaxed forum (outside Disputes/Prosecutions and various sport threads) and I really don't think this would kill the forum's activity, There's often posts in other threads which I agree with but I don't really have anything myself to bring to the table and just posting something short and supportive will probably get the post removed for not adding anything to the discussion, for example the previous poster would probably have rather just reacted with a under the post instead.

At the end of the day its not my decision though

Perhaps you could lock reactions to people who have already posted something on that thread?

 

[Huntergreed]

I understand everyone's problems with introducing likes but what I've seen is this is more of a relaxed forum (outside Disputes/Prosecutions and various sport threads) and I really don't think this would kill the forum's activity, There's often posts in other threads which I agree with but I don't really have anything myself to bring to the table and just posting something short and supportive will probably get the post removed for not adding anything to the discussion, for example the previous poster would probably have rather just reacted with a under the post instead.

At the end of the day its not my decision though

Perhaps you could lock reactions to people who have already posted something on that thread?

I just think that the existence of reactions, by nature, detracts from the forum’s purpose (discussion, engagement and debate) - plus there are far too many, far too popular social media sites if you want to use somewhere which has “likes”!

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I got fed up with being overwhelmed with Quiz Forum notifications in New Posts years ago, and solved this by asking a mod to ban me from that subforum! Problem solved!

I came here to request an ability to "hide" threads (which I'd use on the whole quizzes and games area, in addition to a few others if they're very active but not interesting to me (e.g. some of the strike threads that just end up going in circles).

Is there a reason why you'd not want a post to be auto-merged? People who are subscribed to the thread get notified either way.

It is annoying to get double or triple (or quintuple!) notified when a post gets automerged.

E.g. this image, which shows 5 notifications from the same user for the same post being automerged on the same thread.

 

[35B]

I'm not sure what you mean by getting lost; do you have an example?

I'd need to dig. But when a thread has got a couple of parallel strands running, I would prefer to address comments on each strand separately rather than have them combined. This isn't about being alerted to whether someone's responded - that's not a particular concern of mine - but being able to keep discussion clear.

This is the only forum I've come across that has an automerge feature, and it's one that I don't miss on other forums.

Edit. This automerged post is an example of what I mean - these are distinct points, that I would not choose to present as a single post, although they fit within the single topic of this thread.

I just think that the existence of reactions, by nature, detracts from the forum’s purpose (discussion, engagement and debate) - plus there are far too many, far too popular social media sites if you want to use somewhere which has “likes”!

It's not something that bothers me either way, but likes do allow acknowledgement of points without requiring an active post. I don't find chasing likes to be a particular problem on forums and, where popularity chasing is an issue, I find it is usually more evident in what people post than in their likes (or, in one forum I occasionally dip into), dislikes.

 

[yorkie]

I'd need to dig. But when a thread has got a couple of parallel strands running, I would prefer to address comments on each strand separately rather than have them combined. This isn't about being alerted to whether someone's responded - that's not a particular concern of mine - but being able to keep discussion clear.

This is the only forum I've come across that has an automerge feature, and it's one that I don't miss on other forums.

Edit. This automerged post is an example of what I mean - these are distinct points, that I would not choose to present as a single post, although they fit within the single topic of this thread.

I think this post is a good example of automerge working well.

Addressing each point separately is absolutely fine within a single post; you simply quote the relevant part of text, reply below it, and you can then quote more text and so on. It doesn't need one post per quoted text.

It's not something that bothers me either way, but likes do allow acknowledgement of points without requiring an active post. I don't find chasing likes to be a particular problem on forums and, where popularity chasing is an issue, I find it is usually more evident in what people post than in their likes (or, in one forum I occasionally dip into), dislikes.

Perhaps you may have used different websites to those experienced by others.

 

[edwin_m]

I think this post is a good example of automerge working well.

Addressing each point separately is absolutely fine within a single post; you simply quote the relevant part of text, reply below it, and you can then quote more text and so on. It doesn't need one post per quoted text.

Perhaps you may have used different websites to those experienced by others.

Without seeking to question moderation policies, wouldn't it be easier to split off an off-topic part of a thread into a new one if none of its posts were auto-merged?

 

[yorkie]

Without seeking to question moderation policies, wouldn't it be easier to split off an off-topic part of a thread into a new one if none of its posts were auto-merged?

That can be true however people ought to be trying to post in the right place and even if we do not auto-merge, people often multi-quote in the same post anyway.

 

[py_megapixel]

An annoying thing about auto-merging is that you lose the timestamp from the second post. I think when posts are auto-merged a distinction should be made between them - it could say something like:

Post from DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM
[text of the original post]

Post from DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM
[text of the later post which has been merged in]

Another nice feature would be the option for a dark colour scheme.

 

[yorkie]

An annoying thing about auto-merging is that you lose the timestamp from the second post. I think when posts are auto-merged a distinction should be made between them...

The edit time is displayed but maybe something else can be done, depending on what the software allows; the best thing to do for any suggestions is to send them via the 'Contact Us' form but we are limited by what is possible in the software.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

An option when replying to posts to create a new thread with your reply could be useful (and might save some moderator time splitting posts into new threads if having that option encouraged people to do it themselves).

 

[Huntergreed]

An option when replying to posts to create a new thread with your reply could be useful (and might save some moderator time splitting posts into new threads if having that option encouraged people to do it themselves).

This can be done by by pressing “+quote” and then creating a new thread with that quote.

 

[35B]

I think this post is a good example of automerge working well.

Addressing each point separately is absolutely fine within a single post; you simply quote the relevant part of text, reply below it, and you can then quote more text and so on. It doesn't need one post per quoted text.

Perhaps you may have used different websites to those experienced by others.

I'm sure I have, and each has their own foibles. What you see as a feature, I consider a bug; what you consider clarifying, I find confusing.

Ultimately, this is not a deal breaker and I shall leave it to the forum team to decide what, if any, changes to progress.

 

[EdinRH]

How about a feature whereby if posts are deemed off-topic, but still have some tangential connection to the thread there is an option to decide whether or not you want to see these posts, instead of moderators automatically removing the posts in question.

 

[Huntergreed]

How about a feature whereby if posts are deemed off-topic, but still have some tangential connection to the thread there is an option to decide whether or not you want to see these posts, instead of moderators automatically removing the posts in question.

Off topic posts are rarely “deleted”, more so moved to a different thread for further discussion.

The risk with this is that it could lead to a significant increase in off-topic discussion if those posts are seen and replied to.

 

[Strat-tastic]

What is the benefit of auto-merge? It's clearly unpopular.

 

[Techniquest]

What is the benefit of auto-merge? It's clearly unpopular.

I wonder the same thing, auto-merge annoys me and I'd like to hope there's a good reason for it being there.

 

[oldman]

I would like a 'new threads' tab, similar to the new posts one. I sometimes miss intersting threads because they are in sub-forums that don't normally interest me.

 

[Mojo]

What is the benefit of auto-merge? It's clearly unpopular.

It is bad practice and contrary to common internet etiquette ("netiquette") to double post. It was historically a forum rule, and this still exists as a rule on many other internet forums, that people should not double post but instead should click the "Edit" button if they had something else to add when theirs was the last post in a thread. Prior to implementation of an automated post merging system the forum staff would manually merge them anyway, so this just avoids the need for people to report posts and staff to merge them, as well as having the advantage that people watching the thread see a notification that there is a new posting.

 

[jfollows]

The problem arises for those of us who didn't ever "double post" but would sometimes make two totally unrelated posts - unrelated, that is, save for their both coming under the common heading of the thread. It was irritating to find that some automaton merged these posts. The work-around, to which I have now become accustomed, is to put a signifier like a line across in front of the second post so that the difference is clear. It's the way in which automation interferes with something well thought out that is annoying. But it's trivial and not something I'm campaigning to change, there are far more important things. If I had a vote, I'd vote to get rid of it. That's all.

EDIT It reminds me of the last time I played chess on a computer, which was on OS/2 so clearly a long time ago. I'm not a good player but I think I know most of the rules. I thought about my next move carefully and made it, thinking that the "obvious" response from the computer was not possible, but the computer went and illegally made it (it involved castling across check if I remember correctly) so I gave up in disgust. It felt like the computer was penalising me for doing the right thing. I think "automerge" in the same way - the computer makes decisions which over-ride something I've thought about properly, so it's about penalising those who do the right thing. But I'm now going on about it as if it's of major importance to me, and it really isn't, it's of minor annoyance to me and the vast majority of things done to run this forum well are positive and very much appreciated.

 

[yorkie]

Also auto-merge is the sort of thing that most people don't notice; a small proportion of people do not like it, but that does not mean that it is "unpopular".

I think a dividing line is possible.

 

[Haywain]

Also auto-merge is the sort of thing that most people don't notice; a small proportion of people do not like it, but that does not mean that it is "unpopular".

I think a dividing line is possible.

I find that auto-merging is a bit of a pain when an update is posted some time later than the last post (days, weeks, months later) and a separate post would be much clearer. Auto-merging on the same day or within a number of hours is much less of an issue for me. It doesnt help that when posts have been merged there is nothing to indicate where the new one starts and the original finishes.

 

[Farigiraf]

I find that auto-merging is a bit of a pain when an update is posted some time later than the last post (days, weeks, months later) and a separate post would be much clearer. Auto-merging on the same day or within a number of hours is much less of an issue for me. It doesnt help that when posts have been merged there is nothing to indicate where the new one starts and the original finishes.

I can't find an example for this but sometimes it says 'Old post above, New post below' with a line to indicate it

Edit: found it

 

[Haywain]

I can't find an example for this but sometimes it says 'Old post above, New post below' with a line to indicate it

Edit: found itView attachment 144412

The example being from well over 12 years ago is not evidence that it works in the same way now, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't. And that could have been edited in that way by the poster.

 

[Farigiraf]

The example being from well over 12 years ago is not evidence that it works in the same way now, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't. And that could have been edited in that way by the poster.

I have seen this happen on other posts from different people but all reasonably old posts so I do think something's been changed (and why? seems a reasonable fix)

 

[Haywain]

I have seen this happen on other posts from different people but all reasonably old posts so I do think something's been changed (and why? seems a reasonable fix)

You can see what happens now from one of my posts last week (the dashed line was my addition):

25% 12.5% of the fares I now have to pay isn't to be sneezed at!


Thanks. Mine were eTickets but I've put them in a single pdf and submitted the claim that way.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Updated to say that I submitted the claim as suggested by @JBuchananGB and have received confirmation that it has been approved.

 

[ainsworth74]

I have seen this happen on other posts from different people but all reasonably old posts so I do think something's been changed (and why? seems a reasonable fix)

During a change in the type of software used to power the Forum I believe the function was lost.

 

[Mojo]

I find that auto-merging is a bit of a pain when an update is posted some time later than the last post (days, weeks, months later) and a separate post would be much clearer. Auto-merging on the same day or within a number of hours is much less of an issue for me. It doesnt help that when posts have been merged there is nothing to indicate where the new one starts and the original finishes.

A post made weeks or months later would not be subject to merging automatically.

 

[Haywain]

A post made weeks or months later would not be subject to merging automatically.

Can you show any examples?