How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

This is the place to talk about our forums:
Questions about how to best use them, discussions about new features and things like that

How much time do you spend here?

1 - 3 hours per week
5
22%
4 - 10 hours per week
6
26%
11 - 20 hours per week
8
35%
more than 20 hours per week
0
No votes
only occasionally to stay updated
3
13%
only if I have a problem
1
4%
 
Total votes : 23

How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby wobo » Jul 8th, '11, 04:08

This one here is about 2 different questions:

1. A survey about how much time people spend in this forum (see the poll)

2. Gathering use cases. Each has his/her own way to use this forum. So I thought it was a good idea to let people show their way, it may give other people new ideas and inspire them to use this asset more efficiently.

So I may start:

As somebody who spends a lot of time here and in the German forum I do it in a very simple way:
- I put the link
Code: Select all
https://forums.mageia.org/en/search.php?search_id=active_topics
in my bookmark bar. With this link I get a list of all active topics in descending order of latest posts, where new topics or such with new posts are marked as unread. This way I do not miss any topic or new post.

- After I read a topic I click on the bookmarked link again and the list is refreshed, marking the post I just read as "read" and at the same time puts a new post which may have arrived on top of the list.

- After I have read all posts I want to read I go to the "Board index" view and click on the link in the right side "Mark forums read" (in the German MandrivaUser.de forum I copied that link to the "View active topics" page, so I do not have to go to board index.
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby jkerr82508 » Jul 8th, '11, 11:47

I had to make a guess at the time I spend in the Forum. It varies a lot from week to week.

I use the Forum in a way similar to what you do, except that I link to the Board Index and usually select "View Unread Posts".

I receive notifications for posts to threads to which I'm subscribed and usually link to those posts directly.

Jim
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby Lebarhon » Jul 8th, '11, 11:59

What is the difference between "View active posts" and "View new posts" ?
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby wobo » Jul 8th, '11, 12:40

Lebarhon wrote:What is the difference between "View active posts" and "View new posts" ?

See for yourself:

"View new posts" only shows new posts. Once you read them the topic will vanish from the list. This is ok, but if you want to get back to one of the posts you just read you have to surf the forum to find it (or you remember the section and thread title, which becomes harder each day with my age).

"View active topics" shows the list of all active topics of the previous day, week, month, year (you can set this at the bottom of the list). So, even after you read all new posts, the topics will still remain on the list, ordered by their date of last post. It's easy to go back to a topic you just read 1 or 2 hours ago.

IMHO it is the sure way to see everything that happens in the forum and not miss an interesting topic just because it was not posted in a section you normally go to. It's also easy to avoid topics you are not interested in. Just ignore them in the list and once you read all interesting topics you go to the board index view and click on "Mark all forums read".
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And the forests will echo with laughter
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby Lebarhon » Jul 8th, '11, 19:40

Thank you Wobo but I can't see any difference. If I click on "View new posts", I can see new posts with red icon and the others with a blue icon. If I read a new post, the icon become blue, but it doesn't disappear. Just like "View active topics".
May be my settings aren't correct ?
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby wobo » Jul 8th, '11, 20:20

Lebarhon wrote:Thank you Wobo but I can't see any difference. If I click on "View new posts", I can see new posts with red icon and the others with a blue icon. If I read a new post, the icon become blue, but it doesn't disappear. Just like "View active topics".

No, sorry, I mixed that with another view. The difference between "New Posts" and "Active topics" is the time span. "New posts" shows only topics of today, "Active Topics" shows all topics where a new post has arrived within the time span you set at the bottom of the page. So, if you come here on a daily basis and do not care for yesterdays papers, then "New posts" seems to be the same.
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby Lebarhon » Jul 9th, '11, 10:23

Thanks, it's clear now.
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby ahmad » Jul 9th, '11, 10:33

jkerr82508 wrote:[....]

I use the Forum in a way similar to what you do, except that I link to the Board Index and usually select "View Unread Posts".

I receive notifications for posts to threads to which I'm subscribed and usually link to those posts directly.

Jim

Ditto here. However I've not seen the Board Index in a long, I have the unreadposts page open in a tab in Firefox which is saved/loaded with the Firefox session.
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Re: How do you use the forum? (Use cases & Poll)

Postby bugs2rl » Oct 13th, '11, 07:25

Occasionally. :geek: I'm new to this Forum. :geek: Only if i have a problem.
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