New Tom’s Forum Announcement & Feedback

[Rogue Leader]

I am not getting notifications for the threads I answer unless someone quotes me or likes me.

I just realized, are they threads that you have responded to on the new forums? If you haven't responded on the new forums then you won't get notification. You have to either reply to a thread now or watch the thread for it to come up.

 

[King Dranzer]

I just realized, are they threads that you have responded to on the new forums? If you haven't responded on the new forums then you won't get notification. You have to either reply to a thread now or watch the thread for it to come up.

Yes I have been active on new forum. I can assure you that the problem is with notification problem is with the posts I replied on new forum.

 

[Math Geek]

i've noticed similar with the alerts. i did not get any for old forum threads i had not posted in since the change. once i posted in the thread, i started getting alerts for it. however, i do not seem to get alerts for every thread i'm currently in. i do have to go to "threads with my posts" to make sure i stay up on all i am involved in. the alerts are not that useful if i can't count on them to keep me 100% updated.

 

[Aeacus]

Easiest way to fix the alert system issue is when forum code is changed a bit to automatically add topic to the Watched list once you've replied into it. Just like it was within the old forums. And if you don't like to get alerts with that topic anymore, you can manually unfollow just like it was in old forums.

In Settings -> Preferences -> Content options, there's a box: "Automatically watch content you create…". I've checked it but i still don't get alerts in the topics (including new forum topics) where i've replied, unless there's a quote or like. I think the latter applies to only your own topics you create.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Interesting, I don't really pay attention to the alerts.

I just use the forum the way I've always used it, by going to my list of tracked threads and checking out each thread that has new posts in it.

Doesn't feel any different from before, and takes the same amount of time.

 

[Math Geek]

yah overall it only took me a day to figure out how to do what i normally did before. but i can get a bit OCD and fixate on a feature i may not even use if it does not work as intended/expected. but can't deny this is a MASSIVE improvement over what we had before. that old forum was held together with the tortured hopes and dreams of many a coder and kept going with what i am sure is a couple souls sold to satan.

really the only thing truly bothering me is that tom's banner at the top that links right back to the forum. i hate having to go to my bookmarks to load tomshardware.com when clicking that banner should take me there instead of looping me back to where i already am. i'm ready to change the html myself locally and make sure my browser follows the new link. pretty sure i know how to do that with my very limited html knowledge.

 

[laviniuc]

hey,

seems i've lost all cpu, motehrboard, graphcis card badges... were they not copied into the new trophies system? (i only have the storage one now...)

 

[King_V]

Not sure if I missed it in the thread, but on forums.tomshardware.com, the Toms Hardware logo at the upper left links to forums.tomshardware.com rather than www.tomshardware.com

 

[superninja12]

Is it possible to get a dark mode/night mode??

would be really welcoming.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Is it possible to get a dark mode/night mode??

would be really welcoming.

Reading a little bit would've told you that it's already going to happen and has been in the works since before they migrated the site over.

But in the meantime you can use Dark Reader.

https://darkreader.org

 

[Frag Maniac]

It's known issue/feature and i don't like that one either.

Unless you specifically click "Watch" button on every single topic you reply into, you won't get those alerts. Current workaround is to look from "Threads with your posts" for new replies within topic,
link: https://forums.tomshardware.com/find-threads/contributed

And to tell a difference, the topic name with new replies is in hard to spot bold text rather than in regular text.

Actually Alerts are very broken. I have tried with Watch enabled and disabled. With Watch I get mostly alerts for threads I've not participated in. On average about 20% of them are related to threads I've actually participated in. I now have zero threads on Watch, and the main forum I hang out on I have to scour through several pages to see if anyone's posted a new answer on threads I've participated in.

Alerts is one of the features most broken, and quite honestly it's one of the things that makes surfing Tom's a real pain anymore. If you choose to use it it's a mess surfing through mostly irrelevant threads. If things stay this way much longer, I can see myself saying goodbye to Tom's. I will give it until at least the end of the month, but anything after that is uncertain. So far this new forum is far from being way better as promised.

I used to hang out here for an hour or more a day on average. Now if I spend more then a few minutes I'm sick of it.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Actually Alerts are very broken. I have tried with Watch enabled and disabled. With Watch I get mostly alerts for threads I've not participated in. On average about 20% of them are related to threads I've actually participated in. I now have zero threads on Watch, and the main forum I hang out on I have to scour through several pages to see if anyone's posted a new answer on threads I've participated in.

Alerts is one of the features most broken, and quite honestly it's one of the things that makes surfing Tom's a real pain anymore. If you choose to use it it's a mess surfing through mostly irrelevant threads. If things stay this way much longer, I can see myself saying goodbye to Tom's. I will give it until at least the end of the month, but anything after that is uncertain. So far this new forum is far from being way better as promised.

I used to hang out here for an hour or more a day on average. Now if I spend more then a few minutes I'm sick of it.

I don't have a problem getting to threads I've posted in and being able to see if there's been new posts.
I go the "threads with your posts" section underneath the watched threads in the side bar and it shows threads with new posts in bold.

No different than when going to "tracked threads" in the old forum

 

[randomizer]

No different than when going to "tracked threads" in the old forum

That page is slightly different, as you could stop tracking threads in the old forum. To get the equivalent behaviour, you should use "Watched threads" after enabling the "Automatically watch content you create…" and "Automatically watch content you interact with…" preferences.

 

[Frag Maniac]

What part of NOT NEEDING to even go to an extra section and clicking on it do you guys not get? The old forum just had an Alert system that worked. It was quick and easy to see any responses from threads you'd participated in.

In the old forum the only time I ever used the thread tracking feature is to untrack threads I no longer participated in.

The only thing fancier about this forum is it has more features, but that also comes with poor design, lack of automation, and being way more clicky and scrolly to surf. It's actually way too tedious compared to the old one.

I foresee the membership dwindling to perhaps as much as 80% of what it was. A costly changeover that wasn't well thought out if you ask me. The only thing that should be time consuming on such a forum is answering certain help requests that involve a bit of digging. When your time spent also becomes dealing with the many forum inadequacies, a lot of people lose interest and just go on to another forum.

And BTW, I'm still getting Alerts from responses to my posts in this forum after taking it off Watch, yet in the main sub forum I surf that I took off Watch, I get NONE. So you're implying Alerts work Qwerky? HOGWASH!

Even if I WERE interested in going on a wild goose chase just to find new responses in threads I follow, I don't see a "threads with your posts" option under watched threads. It's watched forums below that. Then in What's new, there's new posts, new profile posts, etc. Nothing about "threads with your posts".

 

[randomizer]

Even if you stop watching a forum (category) you might still be watching individual threads. Honestly I don't know why you'd want to watch a whole forum. You'd be flooded with alerts. I haven't run into any issues with alerts myself. I get alerts for all threads I've replied to and only threads I've replied to.

 

[Aeacus]

Even if I WERE interested in going on a wild goose chase just to find new responses in threads I follow, I don't see a "threads with your posts" option under watched threads. It's watched forums below that. Then in What's new, there's new posts, new profile posts, etc. Nothing about "threads with your posts".

Made a screen of forum home page. At the left side, under "Find threads", there's that illusive "Threads with your posts" link.
image:

If you still can't locate it, bookmark this universal link;
https://forums.tomshardware.com/find-threads/contributed

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

^^ pretty much what he shows you above. Can see it from nearly anywhere in the forum.

If you don't have a section titled "Threads with your posts" then you should definitely bring that to attention, and provide a screenshot.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

also, bringing to attention what some have been complaining about, in the old forum you had this little box on the right side that showed a quick view with links of threads you are watching/tracking that had new posts in them.

I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to implement a widget into the current right hand side bar for watched threads after you fix the auto watching after having posted in a thread.

And once you add it to the right hand side bar, need to fix it so that the right hand side bar is capable of being viewed on any page in the forum, and not just on the home page and within threads, because I can't see it once I go to certain sections that list threads. And having the quick access like before to get a quick view of new posts in a watched thread would be nice for some people and give them a sort of feeling like using the old forum that they apparently adored so much.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

also, would like to point out that the font size option in settings doesn't change anything.

 

[Frag Maniac]

OK, see it now, but that is far from being the same as automatically getting Alerts for new responses only in threads you've participated in. With that link I literally have to scroll through and check every thread showing to see if someone other than myself has the last response, and you also have to remember whether you've even checked the persons comment or not if someone else has responded since you. It's far from being as advanced and precise as the auto alerts we got before.

That said, today I got 4 Alerts showing 4 of my responses as best answer in threads I responded to. That is about the only sense in which Alerts works well, although I'm not sure if it's even supposed to Alert you when you have nothing on Watch.

 

[Rogue Leader]

OK, see it now, but that is far from being the same as automatically getting Alerts for new responses only in threads you've participated in. With that link I literally have to scroll through and check every thread showing to see if someone other than myself has the last response, and you also have to remember whether you've even checked the persons comment or not if someone else has responded since you. It's far from being as advanced and precise as the auto alerts we got before.

That said, today I got 4 Alerts showing 4 of my responses as best answer in threads I responded to. That is about the only sense in which Alerts works well, although I'm not sure if it's even supposed to Alert you when you have nothing on Watch.

When you go to "Threads you have posted in" anything with the thread title in bold has a new response. I realize the difference is subtle, but it is there nonetheless.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I realize the difference is subtle, but it is there nonetheless.

Not sure what you mean by difference, but this new system is far from subtle in it's differences from the old forum. The old one was actually WAY easier to use.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Tom's Hardware definition of subtle:

-Wolf sends

 

[Rogue Leader]

Not sure what you mean by difference, but this new system is far from subtle in it's differences from the old forum. The old one was actually WAY easier to use.

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear enough. You do not need to scroll through "Threads with your posts" and check every thread. The ones with new replies are in bold and at the top. The boldness of that font however is somewhat subtle as Wolfshadw has illustrated above.

 

[Colif]

That said, today I got 4 Alerts showing 4 of my responses as best answer in threads I responded to. That is about the only sense in which Alerts works well, although I'm not sure if it's even supposed to Alert you when you have nothing on Watch.

Its possible the forum classifies a Best Answer as a trophy and if you look in settings/Preferences, and scroll down, you will get an alert when you are given a trophy. I can't see it anywhere else and it beats getting an email for everyone. of them like I used to. By default you get alerts for a lot more things than just watched forums.