New Tom’s Forum Announcement & Feedback

[Rogue Leader]

This explanation doesn't hold up particularly well when you consider that it's the site's assistant managing editor who had been adding comment posts for articles, not the "forum people". Obviously those posting the edited articles on the main site should also have staff privileges on the forum, and creating a forum thread to go with an article shouldn't involve anyone else.

Maybe someone just went on vacation or something, but it would seem like opening a handful of forum threads each day shouldn't be that complex a task for a site that describes itself as "the leading destination for tech enthusiasts".

Look believe what you want. A lot of work is going into this. Comments on articles are a VERY important feature. Everyone related to running this site is extremely busy as this thread shows people are running into various issues. It will happen, in time.

I don't know what else to tell you, I've been completely truthful. Believe what you want.

 

[Math Geek]

i'll be glad to create and link article comment threads if anyone wants to give me editing privileges for the articles 😎

won't take long once a day to create comment threads for whatever new articles have been added. of course i know if it's not done within 4 nanoseconds of the article being posted, some will assume some kind of conspiracy between me and whatever company is talked about in the article. but i'll only lose a few minutes sleep over such accusations.

 

[Math Geek]

on a serious note, here is something different i am wondering about.

many times a day we get folks asking about removing a "forgotten" password which is against forum rules to ask about. and of course other forbidden topics. most of the time we advise it's against the rules and link to the rules page. i lost my link and went looking for the rules and it took me quite a bit of time to do it. what i did find was them posted in multiple subforums and each was slightly different though same info was contained.

i know stickies can be made for subforums but can a single global sticky be made for the rules at the top of the "home" forum page so it is easy to find and perhaps easier for members to read before asking forbidden questions? i'm thinking around the area above the first subforum that happens to be hardware:

https://imgur.com/a/2qK9os8

or possibly a small link at the top of the screen like many other forums have. generally one to an FAQ and another to the rules so they are always handy. i know it won't prevent people form posting such questions but at least it might stop a couple if the rules were more accessible.

edit: or maybe even a link and a "yes i read the posting rules" box to check to create a thread. just brainstorming here...

 

[Colif]

i'll be glad to create and link article comment threads if anyone wants to give me editing privileges for the articles 😎

careful what you ask for, they might actually follow a suggestion even if it was a joke at the time.

or possibly a small link at the top of the screen like many other forums have. generally one to an FAQ and another to the rules so they are always handy. i know it won't prevent people form posting such questions but at least it might stop a couple if the rules were more accessible.

this one sounds better as its on every screen then. on the top line of forums where Alerts show. Or somewhere prominent, like in the left sidebar.

 

[Math Geek]

careful what you ask for, they might actually follow a suggestion even if it was a joke at the time.

it's only a half joke really. it's something that would help out the site in the short term and i'm sure i'm not the only one who would be happy to do it

and yah by alerts or on the left sidebar would be good places to put such a link. i'm sure some ask such questions not knowing they are against the rules but never saw them the way they are posted now to know.

 

[Solandri]

"Forum" is disappearing from the top menu of the main site again. It looks like it's due to "Raspberry Pi" being added as one of the menu options (is it really important enough to deserve a space at the top?). That pushes "Forum" further to the right, where a bug in the site's resizing algorithm causes any menu item beyond the 4th one to disappear if your browser window is not wide enough. The addition of "Raspberry Pi" now makes "Deals" the 5th menu item. So now "Deals" disappears as well, not just "Forum".

 

[randomizer]

It doesn't make it any worse for the Forum link, it just means you lose Deals now too. It's also not a bug, it's absolutely intentional, though not currently necessary (there are no login/user account links taking up space anymore).

 

[Jsimenhoff]

"Forum" is disappearing from the top menu of the main site again. It looks like it's due to "Raspberry Pi" being added as one of the menu options (is it really important enough to deserve a space at the top?). That pushes "Forum" further to the right, where a bug in the site's resizing algorithm causes any menu item beyond the 4th one to disappear if your browser window is not wide enough. The addition of "Raspberry Pi" now makes "Deals" the 5th menu item. So now "Deals" disappears as well, not just "Forum".

It hasn't disappeared. It's a scaling issue. If you zoom out to 90% you should see the link.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

Look believe what you want. A lot of work is going into this. Comments on articles are a VERY important feature. Everyone related to running this site is extremely busy as this thread shows people are running into various issues. It will happen, in time.

I don't know what else to tell you, I've been completely truthful. Believe what you want.

@cryoburner
Very much this. Comments system is under construction. The editorial teams begrudgingly gave up the old one with much protest. They love to hear from you and know our readers comments are the lifeblood of the site. Speed, security, and functionality were a few of the major reasons for the upgrade, but there were many others as well. One of the big issues is that we have this huge massive, Jupiter sized forum that links to our comments system. Setting up a new one and linking to the community is not easy, but we are working on it.

 

[Math Geek]

i saw an article or 2 with comments back in. so seems like some testing is going on. looked good the couple i saw.

looking forward to all article comments to be back but i'll take what i can get

 

[htelectrical]

I can't believe that the article comments still have not been fixed! Exactly how hard can it be????

 

[Math Geek]

here's the software being used for the forum https://xenforo.com/

feel free to show everyone your expertise and get it implemented for us today

otherwise you're just gonna have to be patient and wait for the tom's people to get it finished and bug free. keep in mind that the forum and article parts of the site are totally separate entities. so this is not just checking a box in a software package but rather building a bridge between 2 separate packages and then making sure they play nice together as intended.

but feel free to prove everyone wrong and implement it for us today if you feel you can handle it. sorry/not sorry for the snark but some of the complaining is just very unjustified and rather childish with the level of impatience being expressed.

 

[Math Geek]

something else i have been missing is the ability to chose how many threads i see on the page when i check for new posts or unanswered posts or whatever. this is something i have on many other forums and wonder if this can be added here as well.

right now i see 25 threads per page and normally i like to set it to at least 50 per page if not 75. is this possible or something others may desire?

 

[Colif]

right now i see 25 threads per page and normally i like to set it to at least 50 per page if not 75. is this possible or something others may desire?

I think that was a design decision made at time of forums construction, Johnny may have a better answer. It has been mentioned before.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I can't believe that the article comments still have not been fixed! Exactly how hard can it be????

Get on a plane and head to TH's headquarters in NY and show them how its done then. Since its so easy you should be able to get it going immediately.

 

[randomizer]

i saw an article or 2 with comments back in. so seems like some testing is going on. looked good the couple i saw.

looking forward to all article comments to be back but i'll take what i can get

I think those are existing comments on articles written before the migration. Some of them get periodically updated and pushed to the top of the news feed again.

I can't believe that the article comments still have not been fixed! Exactly how hard can it be????

Exactly as hard as it is.

 

[rhysiam]

I can't believe that the article comments still have not been fixed! Exactly how hard can it be????

Exactly as hard as it is.

I'm more than willing to be patient and wait for embedded comments. Totally fine. My admiration and best wishes to devs who are exploring this!

My understanding is, however, that in the interim we would have a link on articles to a corresponding forum thread for discussion. This is, by and large, not happening. I came back to the site today looking forward to reading and contributing to some discussions, but had to glance through fifteen news posts and articles before I finally stumbled across one that had a linked thread.

Can I ask again, why are the linked discussion threads not being created? While I 100% agree with the complexity of embedding the comments and happy to wait, surely creating a new thread and adding a link at the end of the article takes less than 60 seconds? There are mods in comments above who have offered to do this if it's somehow too time consuming for either the authors or editors (why/how that would be I don't know, but it's an option!!?).

@Johnny5 above:

readers comments are the lifeblood of the site

I wholeheartedly agree. So why can't we comment on articles when the fix seems so simple? Am I missing something?

FYI -> I'm writing this not to whinge or complain, but because I care about this site and I find myself coming here less and less simply because the opportunities for discussion are all but gone at present.

 

[randomizer]

As my previous post wasn't very helpful I'll add this: the comments are tightly integrated with the forum and the old forum software was an in-house spaghetti bolognese of code that nobody really understood, so it's likely that the integration needs to be rewritten from scratch.

Can I ask again, why are the linked discussion threads not being created?

If I knew I would tell you, but alas, I do not. You are right that this is what is supposed to happen though.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

@Johnny5 above:
I wholeheartedly agree. So why can't we comment on articles when the fix seems so simple? Am I missing something?

FYI -> I'm writing this not to whinge or complain, but because I care about this site and I find myself coming here less and less simply because the opportunities for discussion are all but gone at present.

Unfortunately the fix is not so simple. What I can do is pass your feedback along to our editorial teams. Hopefully you'll start to see more links to comment threads!

 

[rhysiam]

Thank you both for the responses!

Unfortunately the fix is not so simple. What I can do is pass your feedback along to our editorial teams. Hopefully you'll start to see more links to comment threads!

Thanks for the replies! Hopefully the editorial team can do his more systematically to open up community discussion again.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

right now i see 25 threads per page and normally i like to set it to at least 50 per page if not 75. is this possible or something others may desire?

I think that was a design decision made at time of forums construction, Johnny may have a better answer. It has been mentioned before.

Not so much a design decision, but rather one based on a consideration of speed and more specifically server load. The old forum platform was an inefficient beast, with tons of server overhead. We had to limit the number of threads per page out of necessity.

I have spoken with the developers on this issue and I believe some changes are forthcoming. Hang on to your water coolers, and stay tuned!

 

[Math Geek]

cool, i'll be (im)patiently waiting for them

 

[Frag Maniac]

Could not login all day on 4/2/19. Seems resolved,...for now.

 

[Colif]

There was a short period of about 4 hours earlier today where the forums were not available, it is possible you tried to get in at that stage. None of us could either.

 

[digitalgriffin]

You guys REALLY need to put a prominent link to the forums on the front page of Tom's. I spent over 5 minutes looking for it. This is a quick way to lose interest and discourage anyone from joining forums.

If it wasn't for google searches, I wouldn't even know you guys were here.