I think I know what you are getting at here, but I wanted to make sure I understand. If you are in a thread like this one, it’s hard to find your way back to the list of categories.
We’re working on changing the top bar so that there’s always a link to the Categories page. We’re also considering some options to make that page easier to use:
A huge goal of the new platform is to help people discover all the amazing content the community contributes. We know it’s still too hard, but we’re figuring out how to make things better one step at a time.
(If I misundestood the problem, please let me know!)
I find that I am keeping up with the threads I track via e-mail. I only come to the site if I want to respond to a post/thread and then only via the e-mail link. If you’re good with tracking/watching what you’re interested in, you can pretty much skip the site altogether, but I’m sure that wasn’t the intent.
I’ll admit I’m feeling like a young kid again. I think it helps that I’m on a laptop, but I’m seeing far more threads than I ever knew existed before - and participating on a couple of them. I haven’t watched any videos nor spent hours trying to figure it out, though curiosity and the desire to keep my brain young probably have factored in.
Even when I actually was young I was more of the adventurous pup. “What does this do?” I likely drove my parents nuts.
I almost always look at the New and Latest threads to scan and see what’s out there. I get to them from the three bars on the upper right of my screen. Any thread I’ve posted on tracking lets me know if there are new posts. This is below whichever one I’m reading - after the last post. I have the Cafe bookmarked on my computer so start from there.
Today I opted to post on one I want to watch just so tracking will let me know when there are new posts on it. It’s my “new trick” albeit one I used on the old forum, but it wasn’t quite as easy to use there as it is here.
I hope they can make it as easy on a phone for those of you who access things there.
I must be using the site way differently than a lot of people, because I’m not seeing a lot of the issues other people are mentioning. I like how the main “landing page” is the list of categories again (that got lost a couple of updates ago, I think). So I can go to the forums I’m interested in, and (since I’ve set them as “tracking”), I can see if there are unread posts. I’ve only seen the scrolling issue at the very beginning of the new platform cutover - once I’ve read a thread, it’s always taking me back to the first unread post.
On the other hand, I’m still a little alarmed at the “very high” power usage, and I don’t like that some things that were visible before now require a hover, and some things you could see with a hover before now require a click, and so on. But I can live with that.
Oh, and the browser “back” button has been fine for taking me back to the categories list. I could probably learn a keyboard shortcut for that, but I haven’t found the need.
Standard disclaimer - this applies to desktop only. I’ve tried to do very little on mobile. I’m waiting for some more kinks to be worked out there.
So I viewed this thread. I like that Unread flags new posts.
But I wanted to test how, once I’ve gone elsewhere, to get back to this thread.
It disappears from Latest- or we have to scroll, possibly endlessly. I can go to Bookmarks, IF I set that. I can click my avatar and go to Activity, but I’m stuck scrolling through all my posts.
Im not talking about Tracking, which flags new and Unread posts. Rather, when I simply want to go back and reread part of a thread. If no one replied in the interim, the thread is tough to find.
I have noticed that too. There are several threads about problems on the site and when people stop replying it takes some hunting to find them. That said, I think it’s a little unusual to go back and reread threads. It’s great that there is such good content here, but I don’t think most people use forums that way.
The best solution I found is to bookmark a thread that might be relevant later. (Setting a reminder makes it sort of a todo list, but that’s probably just me.) If it’s the sort of thing everyone who visits the forum should read, asking a moderator to pin it might be useful.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend trying out search. It’s head and shoulders better on the new platform. Looking at the statistics, many people are using it and finding what they are looking for. (Or at least clicking through to see a result, which is normally the same thing.)
Looking at the statistics, there were fewer replies last week than usual. This week picked up substantially as more people are posting about early decision/early action. We also think the improvements we’ve made have helped more people participate, though still not as much as this time last year. I personally had a difficult time composing messages in the beginning, but this week it was noticeably better.
Is that different from before? Didn’t threads always float down in the forum based on the last reply date? Wouldn’t you just bookmark it? Granted, I really haven’t used bookmarks much, I just want to look at threads when there are new replies. Haven’t had occasion to use the new search yet. What Jon describes sounds promising.
It’s a hard thing to admit, but I do realize that this website does not exist for the purpose of the Parent Cafe. And that’s largely what I’m here for at this point. However the problems that do exist exist for anyone on any forum here.
Then again with as active as the Parent Cafe USED TO be, it/we had to help the ad revenue and pump up the posts.
I just checked. I can get to any thread I’ve already read just by going to the forum for it - like for this one - the Parent Cafe. It’s on the list by time just as it used to be on the old site. It’s also still on the Latest Posts, but those are also listed by time, so it takes a bit more scrolling due to all of the other posts with more recent replies.
I didn’t just check for this thread. I checked all of the ones I’ve just read from a couple of different forums. It works the same for each. They’re still there - how much I need to scroll depends upon how recent the last post was - same as it used to be.
I’m still on my laptop if that makes a difference.
