The double post feature is not helpful!
 

Sorry to say but there are times in a conversation where one would like
to updates a thread and not add to an existing post...

I have a thread going where no one can tell if there are any changes
in it when I was to report back about my progress on a modification.

very frustrating!

there should be a way to force a new thread or something so that we
can control weather or not its an update to an already existing post
or an update or new development in an ongoing thread.

It does not affect threads started in the Modifications (Full Releases) forum.

You might want to specify which forums it would be good to be turned off in. To blanket say 'It is not helpful' is unlikely to get you the desired outcome.

in Modification Requests

It's not helpful and has caused the search function to break here on vb.org.

There's a blanket statement. :D

Doesn't this auto-merged thing actually inhibit the normal sense of information acquisition? When 'conversing' with someone, this hack requires RE-READING material to make sure you haven't missed something. Who benefits from that?

Cheers,

~Regs.

There is only a 24 hour limit on the bumping and it was a bad issue before we implimented it

I think the hack in question under its current state is causing more problems for
otherwise better members than the troublesome ones you speak of.

I hope this does not turn into another example of functionality loss as a result
of other peoples abuses. As I see it the forum functionality has gone from good to
sub standard since this hack was activated.

Additionally I have no doubt in the fact that there is room for further development
on this hack and that it could be used without these side effects.

In your opinion. ;) Most people have no problem with it.

Neither is your complaining.
Reading about how people invent new ways of complaining about this is hilarious reading.

No it doesn't. If your reply was within 24 hours of a previous review, the amount of people having read it and found it too worthless to comment on is small enough for it to be justified not being able to write a new post just adding minor pieces of information.
If your new reply is so major that it would actually justify a new post, then it deserves its own thread.
If your thread is so popular and your topic is so damn cool that you just HAVE to keep people up to date with what you are doing now in relation to 5 minutes ago, there is BOUND to be someone replying. If not, read point #1.

If you are bored enough to not be able to wait 24 hours to check for updates, just constantly keep refreshing the thread page and look at the edit line.
Oh, and BTW: You are saying that the Edit Post function should be removed, because its feature FORCES people to re-read the entire post. Some important wording may have been rephrased, and to be 100% sure, you HAVE to re-read it. See how much sense that's making?

Prove it.

Everyone who can't be assed to scroll 15 lines extra just to see ONE single more line that SHOULD have been edited into the previous post, but the poster is too much of a goddamn n00b to use the Edit function.

Give examples, reasons, valid points. Because all I see now is a guy who's sad about losing the ability to annoy people with multiple posting in a row.


My NOK 0.02. If this sounded harsh or something, then it's because it's SOO annoying to see people make groundless accusations, whine and whine over something that gives more benefits than it does damage.

Revan

Your post has given me my laugh for the day.

Given your approach we should rethink the entire concept of the feedback forum.
Perhaps you could moderate all the complaints out of it and keep only the form
fitting threads.

This comment raises questions on your ability to provide helpful participation.

With all the efforts it has taken to dissect and comment on each one of those
posts or threads, you may have doubled the efforts needed to produce positive suggestions to help make things better.

This is the point of this forum is it not?

If I did, I would at least merge the two threads. I would also have made a post where I would request some form of reason as to why the hack needs to be removed, instead of opinions which would actually work AGAINST the purpose they are advocating.
Surely you found it easier to read my replies when I quoted the sections of previous posts I was referring to? Hm?

Just because Im sick of reading these kind of threads, and because Im sick of people who are too ignorant to even realise there's a whole opposite side to the story?

Instead, I chose to spend my efforts on bringing down a post which, should its message be heard, would put the forum back into the doublepost hell. I also got the satisfaction of reading a reply that handily ignored all of my points, and resumed stating the same points over, only this time dissing my ability to provide support and/or help the community as a whole.

Yes it is, therefore I don't understand why you refuse to realise that doubleposting is not the way to provide better support or aid, but an annoyance to those reading the thread.

Ok guys, lets calm down for the meantime. The situation as it stands is that we understand entirely some peoples concerns about this double posting prevention feature. However, the situation from my point of view as a moderator is that it's eased a lot of the problem of bumping of impatient users :) That's what we aimed to do and it's achieved that.

Well Dean C
Let me start off by saying that calmness, is always within me :)

I have read your post and I completely understand your take on the situation.
I am somewhat disappointed that vb.org was not able to find a more harmonious
solution to this problem, perhaps where we could avoid taking away from the
none abusive members in response to the less respectful.

Despite this discomfort, I still consider this forum a very valuable resource for vbulletin
addons and support, but also feel this feature has taken the shine off having open
conversations in certain areas.

I still see room to further customize for this hack where you might achieve
the same results without compromising on the useful discussion features for
those who do not abuse the system.

Pray tell, what would be the point of 'being able to disable the feature if you need to'?

That would totally defeat the purpose of it. If that would work, there would be no need for the Feature.

Your problem with it is really quite invalid anyway. If you post to a thread where you are the last poster, what need do you have of that creating a new post?

I can't think of any situations.

Your problem is that the thread itself is not bumped. It will get bumped once someone ELSE posts to it.

This is how a discussion works. One person posts something and awaits a response. Any changes to the idea of that post can be made using the Edit function. A new post is needless and pointless.

How about a system that gathers a users habits and applies the hack accordingly.

or...

What if moderators could flag a user as abusive and he would inherit the double
post restriction.

Additionally, although you raise an interesting point your missing another rather large
one.

Ex: Amie posts a thread asking for help. (she subscribes)
Joe answers Amie with some ideas.
Amie thanks Joe and says she will try it and post her results in the thread.

Everyone waits for new activity on that thread.... using the new posts or
subscription feature....

Do you see a problem with this?

Yes. Amie should have applied the change *before* posting to thank Joe. That way, she could report the results and they would get sent out.

Or, anyone interested in the thread can just go check it out. At any time.

No, I don't. In fact, I think you pretty much owned yourself with that one.
If you had said that JOE subscribed, THEN the point would be half valid. Then again, Joe wouldn't need to subscribe, because he has said his piece and will check back at a later time (which may very well be the next day) if he is interested in knowing if his fix worked.
Amie doesn't need to post a new reply, thus sending herself an email saying there has been a new reply, when it is infact her own.
I said it was half valid, because even if Amie edits her own post with the result and a small fix to the code (thus making it work), the other people monitoring the thread would sooner or later post a reply of their own, thus enabling the Email and New Post for all the rest of the users monitoring the thread.

[tangent] Is anybody else seeing strange line breaks in JohnBee's postings when viewed with the Dark Blue style or is just me? It's almost like the posts are being entered line by line instead of allowing the word-wrap to kick in. Strange.[/tangent]

Back on topic... it's extremely annoying having people reply to their own posts over & over again without either quoting the text that they are responding to or editing their last post. Not only is the double-post hack needed but should be nominated to be a stock option.

Revan

Even though I think its great that some people like this hack, which I'm sure it was
written to fill a need but as I mentioned my the alternate thread no matter how you
look at it despite what you feel it does result in lost functionality for some people.

Not you... but others, not the people you refer to as stupid or pretense with censored
words but the ones who do not abuse the forum uses. I'm not telling you or anyone
one else here that you have to agree with me that was not my objective.

My point was to let the site administrators know that for me the hack removes some of
the forum functionality for some people. (again not in your case) but for others.

I hope the Administrators of this forum will consider adjusting the hack so that it can
be adapted to individual members posting habits either by moderator flag or a
calculated system.

That would be a great move towards a better system for everyone imho.

It may be because I am using an ie intergrated spell checker, perhaps it adjusts
the line breaks when it returns after processing. I can look at the settings
but the Speller is a life real saver for a frenchman like myself. ;)

Oh and this is my first legitimate use of the double post feature :)
You missed the entire point.

I am to tired to break it down into small pieces with more details I have to put in
some time on a large project this evening. Perhaps this weekend I will entertain you
with a clearer explaination on how functionality is lost when two people use
the forums for troublshooting. But at this time I am overworked and behind
schedule.

Reading some of your other post I have to say that you seem like a smart guy.
I just don't see why you discredit yourself by calling people names and lashing out
with language that prompts the word censors.

I can't see how all those posts you speak are the result of intentionally bad people.

Please understand that the hack was put in place mainly for the sake of the mods. It does not matter how many times we post 'Please do not bump your thread until someone replies or 24 hours has passed'. People still do it, and when you consider that we have newbies coming in all the time not reading or following the rules you can understand why such a hack was finnaly developed. In short, we spent way to much of our (limited) time dealing with this issue.

Going back and forth about this issue solves nothing, so lets try to work on improvements. Tracking user habbits is not going to solve anything imho, it is a waste of mySQL and resources, not to mention we are going to have to work out the bugs if we added code to do this.

My solution (asuming things about vB 3.whatever they call it here). If this makes it into the next major version we might be able to use it with the double post hack.

Heres your basic situation:

-xuser, yuser, and quser are subscribed to threadid 123

-puser makes a reply to threadid 123

-xuser, yuser, and quser recive an email telling them that a new post was made in threadid 123, xuser checks the thread but does not reply, yuser and quser are AFK and do not read the thread durring this time.

-puser makes a double post (which is auto merged with his last post), while merging the post a query checks if any users are subscribed and viewed the thread in the time peroid between puser's first post and puser's double post, query returns xuser.

- new email is sent to xuser telling him that puser *edited* his last post. All other subscribed users do not get emailed because they already have a link in the last email and have no viewed the post yet.

That works in theory, except for those that don't subscribe to the thread :p

However another addition could be to update the "new posts" feature, so that it shows up as an edited post in the new post searches and also when you view the forum that contains the thread in question ;)

Satan

Hmm wouldn't that be like bumping again, now only in 1 post instead of seperate posts?

You misunderstand...

It doesn't bump the topic, simply resets the topic's status for those who have read it previously, from "read" to "not read due to post being edited" - It would only show up as edited for those who had previously viewed the thread, otherwise it would show up as a new post or not at all depending on your last visit ;)

Satan

I like it that would put things back where they belong :)

I haven't really had a problem with this perosnally, however I first noticed it when I replied to a post and then quoted another post just to realize it was in place. After checking a bit I figured out what was, no biggie but maybe it would be a good idea to inform that user at the time of the bumping. Something in a bold font that says "your topic will not be bumped within a 24 hr period, only appended" just a thought. :)