The "icon column" on posts

britechguy

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Jul 2, 2019
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What follows is probably one of those things that falls into the "stupid questions" category, but I'm going to embarrass myself anyway.

As we go down the column from the top, and hover over the various icons, all but one show at least some "blurb," e.g., "Joined," "Messages," "Likes," "Points," then what I think is "Solved Count" for the last one, but it has no blurb.

So, question one: Is that last one a count of the number of your own (or that member's) messages that have been marked "best answer/solved"? [The icon looks like an exclamation point/bang in a speech blob].

Question Two: How on earth do points work? [And this is strictly for my own edification, I'm not hung up on points.] On my own posts I'm shown as having 640 points. I have seen other members with very, very low post counts, but who joined years before I did, with what seem to be astronomical (above 10,000) point counts. I have absolutely no conception about how those are acquired as they have no direct connection to anything I typically notice. Someone must know.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
1. Yes, that is best answer count (and you not only one to notice it has no bubble description)

2. points are the cumulative total of all badges you have earned so far
so on this page - https://forums.tomshardware.com/members/britechguy.2753243/#trophies
you would need to look at each badge you have so far and add up each lvl
each badge is worth a certain number of points

there is a trophy for Seniority that gives large payouts simply for being a member so some people have 10k with 1 post. Its just how it goes. I wouldn't click on it as with 2 million members it might take a while to think about loading.

I asked this question before, I am sure i made a sticky somewhere...

I have asked for a page that makes this all more clear, all I can do is make requests though

its funny you keep bringing up problems I have already.
 
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britechguy

Commendable
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its funny you keep bringing up problems I have already

I apologize if I appear to be being demanding or this is coming across as my being "a problem child." I do not mean to be, or wish to be considered, either.

In sites this size, even if one does searches, there are times you just don't have "the magic search terms" to pull up previous discussions (or you pull up too many, with no good way to guess at what to add to limit them further).
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
no, its okay, we moved over onto new forum software in Feb and many of the features we had to work out for ourselves, so its perfectly natural to ask how these things work, some questions I have expected have not yet arose.

you might find bookmarks feature useful to save links you want to keep

Bookmarks - what they are is obvious, how to set one less so

on top line of post you will see 3 buttons, 1st is share, 2nd is bookmark and 3rd is the post number
4upxXCM.jpg


clicking it sets bookmark but you can also add extra info if you like
thu7Imd.jpg


they are all stored in Your Account/bookmarks

t1ePQZx.jpg


I thoiught I made a sticky about them too but perhaps not.
 

britechguy

Commendable
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I tend to be "old school" and actually compile a file, with BBCODE formatting included, of any topics I anticipate making reference to on a regular basis. I'm still glad to know about the Bookmark facility, though.

Now for another complaint, and it may be easily fixable, why in heaven's name do topic links that appear in search results "click through" on their own after about 2 seconds if I highlight them for a copy and paste?

I've been copying and pasting links for decades now, and TH is the only place where if I don't get that copy done very quickly it actually opens the topic whose link I'm trying to copy. It's making me want to drink!
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
i have 2 word documents full of fixes, so I get the bbcode thing :)

i think i have seen similar behaviour to what you mean on other forum functions. I don't actually have an answer for that one.... I can help with how features work but not why some do what they do :)
 

britechguy

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If there is some official "bug reporting" mechanism I am willing and able to use it independently.

There really is no justification for the selection of a link to trigger automatic activation. It defies decades of convention across millions of sites. Something's wrong here, period.

I can't find any way that the old programmer's trope, "It's a feature, not a bug," could be applied in this specific situation.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
what I will do is pass it up the line.

we don't have a bug report at this level but if you keep finding them, we might need one :)

I don't mind you doing this, others above me say otherwise :)
 

britechguy

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Well, I'll add to my growing reputation as "the problem child" based on something I just found that, while not exactly a bug, is very bad practice.

On the Laptop Tech Support Forum (and I'll bet it's pinned elsewhere, too) is a topic:

READ Regarding passwords, lock codes, pin numbers, etc

When you click through on that it takes you to the Tom's Guide site, which is in fact a completely different site. It threw me completely and I knew I'd clicked through on it, but I would never expect something like this to take me out of the site I'm on, even if it's a sister site.

A new user to internet forums in particular would be completely flummoxed by this behavior (I was only nearly completely flummoxed).

Pinned topics like this should never lead someone outside the forums site they're currently browsing.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Those stickies are also a known problem. replacing stickies is easy part, removing them proves to be difficult part so far.

Tom's Guide & Tom's Hardware are sister sites, up until the time we got new software, many forums here were mirrored on Tom's Guide. The mirrors ended in Feb but some stickies still remain as mirrors only. It is mainly in the laptop forums.

you not a problem at all :)
 
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britechguy

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I will correct a slight misstatement in the above, this is not happening in true search results, but happens consistently if I select any topic in any forum (by swiping over in anticipation of a copy/paste operation).

I have just replicated this, both when I'm logged in and when I'm not, under the latest versions of Brave, Edge Dev (the new Chromium based Edge), and Chrome.

In testing it is NOT happening under Firefox, so this does appear to be something related to Chromium.

It is specific to TH, at least so far. I cannot get this behavior to occur on other websites.

[See, I try to provide details as needed, really I do.]
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
Maybe has something to do with your settings still. If I mouse over a topic the way you describe after a couple of seconds I get a preview of the first post in the thread. I never automatically click through. This is in Chrome

Are you using a popup or ad blocker that may be doing that?
 

britechguy

Commendable
Jul 2, 2019
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I do not think so. I have no ad blocker in Brave as that's a part of its built-in functionality.

I use Ublock Origin on Firefox, Chrome, and Edge Dev.

I'm getting what I describe. If I swipe over the title of a topic in a TH forum, and don't hit CTRL+C very quickly (or if I wait just a second or two after doing so when I've "beat the clock") I am consistently "clicked-through" without doing anything else to the topic in question.

I cannot replicate this on other websites.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
I do not think so. I have no ad blocker in Brave as that's a part of its built-in functionality.

I use Ublock Origin on Firefox, Chrome, and Edge Dev.

I'm getting what I describe. If I swipe over the title of a topic in a TH forum, and don't hit CTRL+C very quickly (or if I wait just a second or two after doing so when I've "beat the clock") I am consistently "clicked-through" without doing anything else to the topic in question.

I cannot replicate this on other websites.

very strange, I have tried it now in Chrome and Firefox, AND I run Ublock Origin. I have tried both with it on and off, and I get a popup preview of the post, and never the click through. @Colif can you try the same?
 

britechguy

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I can almost certainly generate a video log of me doing what I'm describing and supply that if needed.

All I'm doing is a swipe-over link select, plain and simple. But the result I'm getting is anything but.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
I can almost certainly generate a video log of me doing what I'm describing and supply that if needed.

All I'm doing is a swipe-over link select, plain and simple. But the result I'm getting is anything but.

Ok I see. I am trying it right now on my Gaming PC (earlier was on my work Macbook Pro) if I highlight a link, within a couple seconds the link goes through as if I clicked.

However, I believe this is a functionality of Xenforo software and not a bug. I went to 3 other sites that also use Xenforo, and all 3 did the exact same thing when highlighting a link.

I have never ever copied a link this way, I just right click and select "Copy Link Address", this works fine and does not take me through to the link.
 

britechguy

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The problem being that "copy link address" does just that (and I do know how to use it and do when that's what I want).

In most cases the whole point is to get the click through link, not the URL. I mean, isn't it nicer to refer to, The "icon column" on posts , as opposed to, https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/the-icon-column-on-posts.3515384/ ?

I certainly think it is, and not just for aesthetic reasons. I want a user to know what the post is about, article is about, etc., and very often that's completely absent from a "naked URL".

And I don't doubt what you're saying about this being a software feature. If it is, I would like to request that some ability be given to the end user to turn it off via preferences. It's inane and behaves entirely differently than all the hundreds of thousands of web pages I've visited over my years in cyberspace.

I don't mind defaults that I don't like, if I can change them to my preference. This is very simply a bad design choice and, as far as I can tell, I can't flip a switch or toggle, check or uncheck a check box, etc., and be rid of it.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
And I don't doubt what you're saying about this being a software feature. If it is, I would like to request that some ability be given to the end user to turn it off via preferences. It's inane and behaves entirely differently than all the hundreds of thousands of web pages I've visited over my years in cyberspace.

As I mentioned its an inherent part of how Xenforo works. I went to 3 other forums totally unrelated to Tom's using the same software package and all of them behaved exactly the same, so I'd imagine this isn't a simple preference or toggle and instead would require developer intervention.

However I will pass your suggestion along, but I will warn you that there is a fairly long list of much more critical features that are well ahead of it, so I would not hold my breath.
 

britechguy

Commendable
Jul 2, 2019
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First, thanks. I appreciate concerns being passed to the developers when I cannot do that passing myself.

Second, believe me, I won't be holding my breath. I just cannot fathom how anyone in web design, who's been copying and pasting things from newspapers, forums, etc., for decades by selecting the "titled link" then copying and pasting it could think that this was a good idea.

Third, as I've said before, you can never get something that you never ask for. But I'm not foolish enough to believe this is, or should be, a high priority item. My being grievously annoyed does not qualify as a critical emergency. I know that.
 
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Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
You mentioned it somewhere, about stickies in the laptop sections... i just reproduced copies of most of them and only a few are still linked to Tom's Guide, and I noticed some didn't work, they should now.