Channel 9 Forums - Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Christian Liensberger — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:58:46 GMT

Is there a way that you guys could implement a catch-up button. The purpose of this button would be to mark all the threads in a forum read - even though I haven't read them all..

The problem that I face right now is that I never know which one of the threads has new posts since my visit. I know that for the threads that I read but not for the others.

It would be awesome to have this feature because then with each visit I could focus on only the threads that have NEW posts and don't get lost in all the ones that had new threads the last time but I didn't read.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Erik Porter — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:19:22 GMT

blowdart has asked for mark all as read too. So my explaination of why it's not an easy change is over there too. We figured more people would read less than half of the threads that exist so we built the data to be scalable that way. If we hear enough people say they read more than half of the threads that go through the coffeehouse, I'm sure we'd be motivated to make the change. So far there have been 2 of you.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

dcuccia — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:33:42 GMT

HumanCompiler said:
blowdart has asked for mark all as read too. So my explaination of why it's not an easy change is over there too. We figured more people would read less than half of the threads that exist so we built the data to be scalable that way. If we hear enough people say they read more than half of the threads that go through the coffeehouse, I'm sure we'd be motivated to make the change. So far there have been 2 of you.

I do this all the time...a "Mark all as read" feature is built in to Google Reader. Of course, this works only for finding new threads if you're subscribed to 'Channel 9' RSS feeds, but it also works if you're subscribed to comments on a particular thread.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

dcuccia — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:38:00 GMT

dcuccia said:

HumanCompiler said:

*snip*

I do this all the time...a "Mark all as read" feature is built in to Google Reader. Of course, this works only for finding new threads if you're subscribed to 'Channel 9' RSS feeds, but it also works if you're subscribed to comments on a particular thread.

...so I suppose the feature would be helpful if you wanted a way of seeing all comments to all threads w/o having to subscribe to each feed.

Another way to achieve the same thing would be create an RSS/Atom feed for 'All Comments'.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

dcuccia — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:38:15 GMT

dcuccia said:

HumanCompiler said:

*snip*

I do this all the time...a "Mark all as read" feature is built in to Google Reader. Of course, this works only for finding new threads if you're subscribed to 'Channel 9' RSS feeds, but it also works if you're subscribed to comments on a particular thread.

[deleted - duplicate post]

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Erik Porter — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:15:52 GMT

dcuccia said:

HumanCompiler said:

*snip*

I do this all the time...a "Mark all as read" feature is built in to Google Reader. Of course, this works only for finding new threads if you're subscribed to 'Channel 9' RSS feeds, but it also works if you're subscribed to comments on a particular thread.

Google Reader is a bit different in that it's only querying the RSS feeds you've subscribed to which is more than likely a smaller list than all posts on Channel 9. We're querying across the whole site to come up with the list of threads and then applying a list of all posts you've read. As I mentioned above, we're optimized for people reading less than half of all threads. We could flip it the other direction so it's all the threads you haven't read (or make it dynamic based on how much you read for optimal efficiency), but this all work that we don't really have time for. Again though, if enough people ask, I'm sure it could become a priority.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Erik Porter — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:16:43 GMT

dcuccia said:

dcuccia said:

*snip*

...so I suppose the feature would be helpful if you wanted a way of seeing all comments to all threads w/o having to subscribe to each feed.

Another way to achieve the same thing would be create an RSS/Atom feed for 'All Comments'.

A "My Threads" page is definitely something we've talked about adding and would definitely add value. We just need to find the time to build something like this and we're currently swamped with other time sensitive projects.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

dcuccia — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:17:29 GMT

HumanCompiler said:

dcuccia said:

*snip*

A "My Threads" page is definitely something we've talked about adding and would definitely add value. We just need to find the time to build something like this and we're currently swamped with other time sensitive projects.

Hey HumanCompiler

Google Reader is a bit different in that it's only querying the RSS feeds you've subscribed to which is more than likely a smaller list than all posts on Channel 9.

I subscribe to http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/RSS/. Is that not all the threads?

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Bas — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:34:54 GMT

Sorry about the off-topic-ness, but since we can't create new topics:

Hey guys, we can't create new topics. Maybe you hadn't noticed, but that's why the forum isn't doing all that much these past couple of hours. If you had noticed, some sort of "such and such is wrong, we're working on it" message would have been nice.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Minh — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:49:53 GMT

Bas said:

Sorry about the off-topic-ness, but since we can't create new topics:

Hey guys, we can't create new topics. Maybe you hadn't noticed, but that's why the forum isn't doing all that much these past couple of hours. If you had noticed, some sort of "such and such is wrong, we're working on it" message would have been nice.

I think they're trying out ways to avoid moderating the forums. No more new threads to the forums.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Christian Liensberger — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:59:53 GMT

HumanCompiler said:
blowdart has asked for mark all as read too. So my explaination of why it's not an easy change is over there too. We figured more people would read less than half of the threads that exist so we built the data to be scalable that way. If we hear enough people say they read more than half of the threads that go through the coffeehouse, I'm sure we'd be motivated to make the change. So far there have been 2 of you.

I imagined that you didn't build it that way... that's why the button is not there. Seems like all the "old" newsreaders (even Windows Mail) does have that functionality and I find it really handy because otherwise I never know what is new since my last visit. There is no such way.

Following threads on Channel 9 is really hard!

1) no way to get notifications

2) hard to understand what is really new since the last visit

3) no way to understand to which thread I replied

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Yggdrasil — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:30:41 GMT

Bas said:

Sorry about the off-topic-ness, but since we can't create new topics:

Hey guys, we can't create new topics. Maybe you hadn't noticed, but that's why the forum isn't doing all that much these past couple of hours. If you had noticed, some sort of "such and such is wrong, we're working on it" message would have been nice.

Of course there's no 'we're working on it' message - you can't post new messages, after all!

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

evildictaitor — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:17:50 GMT

HumanCompiler said:

dcuccia said:

*snip*

Google Reader is a bit different in that it's only querying the RSS feeds you've subscribed to which is more than likely a smaller list than all posts on Channel 9. We're querying across the whole site to come up with the list of threads and then applying a list of all posts you've read. As I mentioned above, we're optimized for people reading less than half of all threads. We could flip it the other direction so it's all the threads you haven't read (or make it dynamic based on how much you read for optimal efficiency), but this all work that we don't really have time for. Again though, if enough people ask, I'm sure it could become a priority.

Why don't the C9 team just expose a data layer so people can write their own websites/programs to hook into it. There are lots of programmers on C9 who often have good ideas as to how various things could/should be done/look, and there's a common excuse of "that would be too hard" / "the backend wouldn't allow it" / "there isn't enough time", and so the C9 team plough ahead with whatever ideas they think are best. If you exposed a common data layer and interface layer then people could make C9 into what they wanted, and trial out new ideas without the C9 team nessisarilly having to take all of the programming on themselves.

Just a thought.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Bas — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:07:30 GMT

evildictaitor said:

HumanCompiler said:

*snip*

Why don't the C9 team just expose a data layer so people can write their own websites/programs to hook into it. There are lots of programmers on C9 who often have good ideas as to how various things could/should be done/look, and there's a common excuse of "that would be too hard" / "the backend wouldn't allow it" / "there isn't enough time", and so the C9 team plough ahead with whatever ideas they think are best. If you exposed a common data layer and interface layer then people could make C9 into what they wanted, and trial out new ideas without the C9 team nessisarilly having to take all of the programming on themselves.

Just a thought.

I'd love to see that happen.

Site Feedback - Catch-up button

Erik Porter — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:38:02 GMT

Bas said:

evildictaitor said:

*snip*

I'd love to see that happen.

We would too, but "there isn't enough time".

But seriously, yah, that's always been the dream. We really want to do it at the MicrosoftCommunities.com level though, not Channel 9 so you can query any ms community we aggregate.

Would you like some source code instead?