The server’s way overloaded. In a (possibly vain) attempt to reduce overhead, I eliminated threaded replies in the comments, and switched to paged rep
[See the full post at: I just turned off threading in the replies]
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Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
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I just turned off threading in the replies
- This topic has 74 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by
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AuthorViewing 52 reply threadsAuthor-
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Illegitimi non carborundum!
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Hey Woody
NigthOwl posting anonymously:
I don’t know if you recall, but when we were testing the forum software before going live–we tested switching from the nested to the non-nested format–but that switch made everything look wrong! And switching back did not make it better–we just simply stuck with the nested format. We did not *trouble shoot* this issue, but I’m pretty sure this forum software did not handle well the switching from the nested format to the non-nested format and back again.
Be prepared for potential problem(s) ….!
NightOwl
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I believe the issues seen in beta testing mainly related to the changeover of the old forum to the new Lounge format, and that was on older software. There have been changes made in more recent versions.
That said, I have not seen a noticeable improvement in load speed as a result of this change…
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Threading off is the preferable display. Much easier to read missed posts since last visit to the thread/topic.
No scrolling up & down to find indented comments & posts hoping not to miss something critical to make updating better.
Same on anonymous viewing too.
One man’s adjustment is anothers lucky day, woo hoo. Maybe there is a theme or skin for this that people can use if they so desire. Oh h**l yeah, “that” would be awesome.
Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler
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>Threading off is the preferable display. Much easier to read missed posts since last visit to the thread/topic.
I’m REALLY glad to hear you say that!
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Much easier to find my way around, thank you for the change
Group B HP Pavilion-dv6 Win7x64 Home Premium-Intel Core i5-3210M CPU
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I, on the other hand, really, really dislike it (notwithstanding the reason behind the switch to unthreaded replies):
– Any reference to a link to a topic + post # now redirects to page 1 of that topic, and not to the particular post within that topic
– Because of the now linear list of all replies to posts, some are “out in left field” — they sometimes appear pages after the related post and are no longer in context
And I was just getting good at searching for “new” posts every day
Seriously, I certainly hope that the server soon settles down and that overhead gets reduced.
Win 7 SP1 Home Premium 64-bit; Office 2010; Group B (SaS); Former 'Tech Weenie' -
>Threading off is the preferable display. Much easier to read missed posts since last visit to the thread/topic.
I’m REALLY glad to hear you say that!
It would be a big help if the system could somehow indicate where a reply related to an earlier post…
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I’m with @Kirsty on this question of threading on vs. threading off. Less clicking around on long threads, which now can run to 3, 4, 5, or 10 pages.
Under “threading on,” finding new posts in the middle of long threads is as easy as doing Control-F for “new” and hitting the Next button. Most importantly, I don’t have to expend any mental effort trying to remember or reconstruct the full context of the particular sub-discussion that a new post applies to, as all of it is right there in front of me. Or alternatively, I can visually scan for the black “New” label as I scroll down the page.
Another thing: I just went back to the long thread https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/ms-defcon-3-lots-of-caveats-but-its-time-to-get-patched/. It’s eighteen pages. What if it had been 9 pages the last time I visited? There seems to be no way to get to page 9 directly, I have to keep clicking to reveal each new page in turn. (I could type in “page 9/” at the end of the URL at the top of the browser. But I would have to know that, or to figure it out; user-friendly design makes this the sort of control that belongs on the webpage UI.)
Hoping that nested threads make a speedy comeback!
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@Kirsty: I agree with the problem in trying to locate the message which the “reply” is referring to, as well as not knowing how to get the “other pages” which are not showing.
I go to a page that only has TWO messages on it, and don’t know how to get to the others which are not showing. How does a person get from (example: pages 230-232 showing) to the other pages which are not showing? I cannot find a way, and it’s very difficult. If there were more detailed instructions “somewhere” I did not see them.
Hope to see some more detailed information on how to navigate this new system. If you could provide some guidance, please, it would be wonderful. Thank you for all of your contributions to this website. You do an outstanding job of helping us all
P.S. Now I cannot even locate the message that I was trying to reply to…. my apologies for the confusion, I don’t know what happened.
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If threading stays off, could the “reply” option be removed from posts so that when a person does reply they have to “quote” the message?
@amraybt I’ve just been checking the settings, to see if that was possible (hey, you weren’t looking over my shoulder, were you?! lol)
Thanks for voicing your opinion! -
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…tested, and known not to cause a similar problem any longer.
I don’t recall giving that assurance…!
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@ Kirsty
I don’t recall giving that assurance…!
Thanks for the clarification.
What you did say was:
I believe the issues seen in beta testing mainly related to the changeover of the old forum to the new Lounge format, and that was on older software. There have been changes made in more recent versions.
From that, I was reading that the issues were related to the old forum software, and were no longer of relevance with the more recent versions.
Sorry, I guess I misinterpreted what you were trying to say ….
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@ Kirsty
Kirsty wrote:Sadly, Quote is not available unless you are logged in,
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Yes @nightowl, it is possible to workaround, but the Quote button does not appear. Not all our site visitors are as used to linking as you are!
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@ Purg2
No scrolling up & down to find indented comments & posts hoping not to miss something critical to make updating better.
My personal preference has always been a *linear* posting of comments, and not a *nesting* form of commenting where replies can be placed anywhere in the thread, and completely hidden from other viewers of a topic, and unrelated to the time order in which a post has been made.
Obviously, others disagree–and to each their own–but I have trouble coming up with enough time to constantly search to see if there are other postings that I’m not seeing at the end of a thread.
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@ SueW
– Any reference to a link to a topic + post # now redirects to page 1 of that topic, and not to the particular post within that topic
So, I don’t know what you are referring to. Maybe you are using a quoting technique that has the wrong *syntax*?!
More info would be needed …
Ahhh …. finally figured out what you were referencing!
Prior to the switch from nested, all comments were on a single page–for example here’s a link from a thread that was created prior to the change:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/more-problems-with-this-months-patches/#post-161940
Now that nesting has been disabled, and comments are now limited to 10 comments per page, all comments on the forum have a URL associated with the comments that includes a page #:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/more-problems-with-this-months-patches/page/3/#post-161940
See that page number prior to */#post-161940* in the above?
So, all links created prior to nesting (threading) being disabled are now rendered dead links because they have the wrong *syntax*, i.e. no page number associated with it!
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@ Woody
Be prepared for potential problem(s) ….!
So, I think I have found the problem that is going to occur–actually has occurred!
Question for you–does the nesting function require that all comments be on a single comment page? Or, is having multiple pages with a limited number of comments per page a separate setting? Or, are they both linked–either one or the other?
(I think I understand what you are trying to do–limiting the number of comments that have to be rendered each time a user on the site clicks on a forum comment area should reduce the number of CPU cycles needed to display that limited listing of comments.)
Basically, all links created prior to switching to non-threading, and limited comments per page have been rendered *dead*–the current settings on the forum now require a page number to be in the URL.
If and when you switch back–I don’t know, but maybe those links will come alive again, unless you continue to have a limited number of comments per page, which would maintain the requirement for a page number in the URL.
Any new links to comments created during this time period where the forum requires page numbers in the URL, those links will forever have page numbers in the link–and they will become *dead* if you switch back!
Catch-22! D***** if you do, d***** if you don’t!
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One substantial benefit of the non-nested format is that after submitting a post, it’s easier to see other posts that were submitted in between the start of composition of one’s post and its submission. It’s also possible to do this with the nested format, but one has to remember to check (and I think I occasionally forget to do it).
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Woody: I think you will notice a drop in the server loading. I say this not as one who has server experience, but as one who has noticed a faster loading of pages on other forums when there are multiple pages versus a long thread.
I will go back to one of the loooonger topics and see how it seems when loading the pages.
For folks posting a reply to a specific comment, using the “quote” feature will at least mitigate some of the disconnect caused by a linear format.
If that recommendation will create lag, remove my comment.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Could registering become a posting requirement?
This is the current policy regarding anonymous posters.
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/a-note-on-anonymous-posters/1 user thanked author for this post.
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Just giving my opinion here, I really hate having multiple pages. It is much longer for me to follow what interests me. I had no trouble finding new posts with the previous system.
My experience in the last few weeks with the site was fantastic. Fast and no issues at all. I didn’t notice the difference between before Woody just said a few days ago he put everything back online, except it is slower, and now this pages things. Are you sure Woody your problem is the fact it wasn’t non threaded?
Why not just keeps things like they were not long ago before you put every feature back? It was working fine. I didn’t see complaints. It was fast. Maybe it is slow also because with the latest issues there was a lot of activity and it is just temporary until the dust settle a little?
Just my two cents, but now it is much less quick for me to use the site. I like to see the new posts in context and quickly go only where I wanted to go and skipped part I didn’t have time to look at.
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anonymous in reply # 165750
Anonymous wrote: (In reply # 165750)
“Seems” & doesn’t unfortunately.
This is NightOwl posting anonymously:
I’m hoping the above properly mimics the quote function seen by registered/logged on users.
Here’s the steps:
1. Right click on the reply # you want to quote and select *Open Link in New Tab*
2. In the new tab, copy the URL that’s in the navigation bar–it has the correct address in URL form to the specific reply you wish to quote.
3. Now return to the original Tab, and in the reply box select the *Text* tab on the right side top of the reply box. Then, look for the third button in from the left which says *link* and is underlined.
4. Press that button and you will be asked for a URL of where you want the link to take you to. Now right click and select Paste in the URL box.
5. Below the URL box, you can add text that you want to show up as the link title: In this case, to match the *Quate* button function, you want to type “*User name* wrote:”
6. Now press *Add Link* and it shows up in the reply box.
7. Now, highlight whatever text is in the reply you wanted to quote, and then paste it into the reply box below the URL link you created above.
8. Now, highlight the URL link, and the quoted text you copied and pasted into the reply box, and now press the *b-quote* button that’s the forth one in from the left side. This puts everything into a shaded background similar to what the quote function does.
And, that should do it. You can add any text below the above making whatever comments you had planned on.
Now, I’m going to see if this has worked … pressing Submit …
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Illegitimi non carborundum!
We shall bring out forks and torches?
Or my latin just isn’t very good?
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When replying to a post, the reply is now being shown at end of thread and no longer just below the post replied to?
Nesting has been turned off. Replies are listed sequentially.
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Seriously, how can this make sense? You reply to page 1 and it ends up on page 18, completely out of context. You can quote part of the conversation or refer to post numbers but I really can’t see how that would be better than quickly seeing a reply next to the post replied.
And the site doesn’t seem faster with threading off…
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I’m very painfully aware of the problem.
We’re just overwhelmed.
We’re getting twice as much traffic as two months ago. I’d love to just buy all the hardware necessary to get the site working well, but our ad revenue has actually gone down.
5 users thanked author for this post.
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Which I have now fully realized after reading the thread!
Just up, so my brain is working in a slow, linear way. Give me a couple of hours and I may eventually cath up again.
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Under the new system, when I go back into a topic that I had visited before, it seems to be hit-or-miss whether new posts get labeled as such. Examples: I just went back to the “MS-DEFCON 3: Lots of Caveats” topic and there were posts dated this morning (I was last there late last night), but none of them were marked as new. OTOH, I had also visited the “Skipping the Meltdown Patches” topic yesterday morning, and by today there is one new post and it’s marked with the black “new” label.
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I go to a page that only has TWO messages on it, and don’t know how to get to the others which are not showing. How does a person get from (example: pages 230-232 showing) to the other pages which are not showing?
At the very top of the page just below the blue bar on the right side there are some numbers with an arrow.
At the bottom of the page above the two yellow bars on the right side there are some numbers with an arrow.
These are the numbers for the pages – you can click on them increasing or decreasing to scroll through the topic.
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These are the numbers for the pages – you can click on them increasing or decreasing to scroll through the topic.
I use the one of the link boxes, then to see other pages, alter the URL in the browser, i.e. once it shows Page 2, I change the 2 to another number, to get through the pages a little quicker. You will note that only a few pages get shown at a time (something I mentioned in beta testing, but isn’t in our power to alter).
And I completely understand your frustration on not finding the reply
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@ Walker
P.S. Now I cannot even locate the message that I was trying to reply to…. my apologies for the confusion, I don’t know what happened.
A tip that might be helpful, when I’m making a Reply (I will call that the *New Reply*) to someone else’s reply (I will call it the *Previous Reply*), I will right click the Reply Number of the Previous Reply, and select *Open Link in New Tab*.
Now the Previous Reply is safely located in it’s own tab, at the top of the page, and you can find it immediately by switching tabs.
Now you can easily highlight text in the Previous Reply in that new tab, copy it, switch tabs, and paste it into your New Reply box.
Also, in the tab with the Previous Reply, the address bar at the top will have the web address (URL) to that specific Reply–so you can copy and paste that, if needed, into other Replies to create a reference link to that specific Previous Reply.
And, you can use this technique to add references in your New Reply from replies in other threads and other topics. Once you have the Previous Reply in its own tab, it’s easy to switch back and forth between your New Reply and the reference Previous Reply without loosing that Previous Reply to scrolling and other distractions.
Try it and see what you think …
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@ Kirsty
I use the one of the link boxes, then to see other pages, alter the URL in the browser, i.e. once it shows Page 2, I change the 2 to another number, to get through the pages a little quicker.
Ah, … good tip–I had not thought to do that one!
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@ Cybertooth
One feature that IMHO would help greatly under the new system, would be to have a button next to the title of each new blog post by Woody that would take the user to the first new (“unread”) comment since their last visit to that topic. I know that’s done in many forums around the Web.
Yes, I agree with you–that would be very helpful.
This has come up in the past. Yes, other forums use different software that have that capability, but if I remember correctly, the software in use here does not.
Maybe in the future it can be added …
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@ Cybertooth
One feature that IMHO would help greatly under the new system, would be to have a button next to the title of each new blog post by Woody that would take the user to the first new (“unread”) comment since their last visit to that topic. I know that’s done in many forums around the Web.
Yes, I agree with you–that would be very helpful. This has come up in the past. Yes, other forums use different software that have that capability, but if I remember correctly, the software in use here does not. Maybe in the future it can be added …
If I understand you two correctly, there might already be something in place for registered members. It’s called first new reply. From the new topics/freshness link as seen in the url.
Notice the red line I drew on the bottom thread listed. By hovering over the greater than symbol, or right pointing arrow you might see the words first new reply. Hope this helps.
Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler
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Thanks @purg2, that may do the trick.
It’s a roundabout approach for me, considering how I use Woody’s site: first I go to the home page to read the blog posts, and then depending on that I decide which ones to view the comments for. Whereas going to the “freshness” page is working backwards, in the sense that at that point I don’t yet know which topics are of interest since I haven’t read the blog posts.
Still, it suggests that the capability is there in the forum software to take the user to the first unread comment, and maybe that could be added to the home (blog) page for each new blog post. Or it could be placed on page 1 of the comments for the topic.
If nothing else, I suppose I could open TWO pages every time I visit Woody’s — the home page and the freshness page.
A quick question: how did you know about that freshness page (URL)? I couldn’t find it clicking around the site UI when starting out from https://www.askwoody.com/ .
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A quick question: how did you know about that freshness page (URL)? I couldn’t find it clicking around the site UI when starting out from https://www.askwoody.com/ .
Currently it’s at link “Recently active topics” on the right side. I use that link as my AskWoody browser bookmark.
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We have a big cleanup session scheduled for midnight US time on Sunday night. After that’s settled down, we’ll run some tests and see if bringing back nested replies will drive the server nuts again.
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I hope that you won’t disable threading as that will make it extremely difficult (if it’s possible at all) to have a coherent discussion with anyone since replies will be scattered all over the comment section and would, IMO, significantly lower the quality of the commenting system which is a big part of this site. I second the notion that we know you’re doing your best Woody, but this doesn’t seem to be a good idea.
So, yeah, not that this is up for a vote or anything, but I vote to keep the hierarchical threading just the way it is so that we can have coherent discussion with each other and be able to follow it easily while reading them.
TBH, I’m not much of a fan of the “pages” of comments as opposed to one long page either, but that’s just me.
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@Woody: I hope and pray that this goes well, and that we can return to the previous method. I have had a terrible time trying to get anything done using the “new” system. I feel almost helpless at this point.
It would be a “life-saver” for me to go back to the way it was previously. Thank you for everything you do, and continue to do for us all. It is sincerely appreciated.
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Hello Axel,Walker and Sessh. Agree. The new method is very hard to do. I have stopped looking and reading because I hate the new; page 1, page2, page3, etc. system. I want to DRAG (scroll) from the start to finish reading the posts in that particular lounge issue. My friends and I follow Woody and cherish his advice, but this new forum method that came about a week or 2 ago is not fun. I don’t want to struggle reading what people say, “flipping back and forth” through pages. Thank you.
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Thank you, Woody. I don’t want to sound like I complain too much, because you are obviously doing your best. I just think that any lounge system that requires explanation to work properly doesn’t work, because you will always have new users that will struggle with it and that is not good business. I sincerely hope you can bring back threading. Maybe you could remove some other less important feature if it is not enough? Honestly, I didn’t see the difference in feature before a few weeks ago and when you said last week or so that you brought every feature back. To me, the site was working just fine for a long time before that, after the horrible time you had to go through before switching to the new server and fixing the caching issues a while back.
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Just giving my opinion here, I really hate having multiple pages. It is much longer for me to follow what interests me. I had no trouble finding new posts with the previous system. My experience in the last few weeks with the site was fantastic. Fast and no issues at all.
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Are you sure Woody your problem is the fact it wasn’t non threaded? Why not just keeps things like they were not long ago before you put every feature back?
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but now it is much less quick for me to use the site. I like to see the new posts in context and quickly go only where I wanted to go and skipped part I didn’t have time to look at.
I agree 100% with this. Adding all these pages (short pages mind you) just means more clicking and less user friendly. I never had problems finding new posts as I’d just hit [Page Down] looking for the NEW tag near posts, but most of them were near the bottom anyway. There were never any complaints, so this kind of feels like making change for the sake of making change. Nothing was wrong before and now we have a commenting system that is harder to use. I don’t particularly like this much either TBH. JMO. It was fine before.
To add to it all, we’re going to quote more too which means these short pages are going to have fewer posts on them which means more “page turning” and therefore more time spent and more unnecessary steps added to what was a very easy and quick process. Having to work through pages is far more cumbersome than having one large page. I’ll take slightly slower loading times if this is the alternative and that’s a very easy decision.
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Viewing 52 reply threads - This topic has 74 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by
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