I lost my thread am I being spanked..

Seems like my thread about systems has dissapeared am I being erased for failure to spout the company line or is it I am too stupid to find it<


Anyhow I suggest you read the following:
Thirteen Against the Bank: The True Story of How a Roulette Team Broke the Bank with an Unbeatable System
by Norman Leigh
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Here is your other thread.

I think maybe there should be some training process that new members are required to complete before posting, and that should include a lesson in how to find the threads that they have misplaced. This is definitely a recurring problem on this forum.

Quote: Doc

I think maybe there should be some training process that new members are required to complete before posting, and that should include a lesson in how to find the threads that they have misplaced. This is definitely a recurring problem on this forum.

I've been planning to write up a new member guide for some time. If anybody would like to volunteer, by all means, please do.

Until then, one trick I use to find threads is to go to the list of all posts I've made. To get there click on preferences --> Click here to block or unblock members --> Click here to browse the list of members --> (click on your name) -- > View posts made by (your name). I have bookmarked my own posts page for easy reference.

New member guide?

It's a good idea in theory, but hardly worth the effort. People generally do not read manuals or instruction guides of any type.

How about yourself? How many times have you checked the box stating that you agree to the terms and conditions, without even reading them, printing them, or even bookmarking the webpage so you can read them later? (No need to answer publicly....)

Quote: DJTeddyBear

.... People generally do not read manuals or instruction guides of any type. ....

That's why I suggested they should be REQUIRED to complete training before posting, not just claim that they know how to do things. Reading the instructions could be optional, but passing some kind of test might be mandatory before posting and expecting other members help you figure out how you screwed up and what to do about it. If you can't pass the proficiency test, then go back and read the instructions or just don't post.

And also make registrations verified manually upon visiting an administrator in person and passing tests on key indexes, base covers, chip shuffling, implied odds estimation and action unit scoring. This provisional registration will give neophytes read-only access and a seat in a weekly horse poker tournament, the winner of which will be awarded posting privileges.

Quote: Wizard

I've been planning to write up a new member guide for some time.

All it will do is allow Doc to post links to the guide instead of to lost threads directly when people lose their threads in the future. :)

Quote:

Until then, one trick I use to find threads is to go to the list of all posts I've made. To get there click on preferences --> Click here to block or unblock members --> Click here to browse the list of members --> (click on your name) -- > View posts made by (your name). I have bookmarked my own posts page for easy reference.

Why don't you make the sorting order a configurable option a user could set in the profile? The default for new members would be to just sort the threads by recency, and it will eliminate all confusion of this kind. And for someone, who prefers the current behaviour, there would be an "unread first" option, that they could enable.

Quote: Doc

Reading the instructions could be optional, but passing some kind of test might be mandatory before posting and expecting other members help you figure out how you screwed up and what to do about it. If you can't pass the proficiency test, then go back and read the instructions or just don't post.

With all due respect to Wizard and JB, I don't think you can blame the users for this. If the user cannot figure out how to use your software without training, your interface sucks (again, no offense intended). I mean, if I can figure out how to use Turbo Tax or Autodesk or Excel without having to read instructions and watch videos, would not it be logical to expect, that I should be able to make a forum post?
Instead of designing manuals and tests, and requiring to complete training before you can use ... an internet forum engine, why don't we just fix the broken UI to make it self-explanatory, like all the other bulletin boards out there?
If there are technical problems in the way, I could probably help ...

I think it might be better to figure out WHY people are having problems, and fix the problem.

There are two primary reasons people "lose" topics:

1 - They forgot which forum they placed it in.

2 - They are using the https://wizardofvegas.com/recent/ link, and do not realize that their topic falls below their unread items.

Perhaps new topics should remain as 'unread' until the next time the user uses the recent link.

---

But I recently discovered a different/related kind of problem/bug.

I have recent link bookmarked. It's how I come here. (I also bookmark the 'recent' link for my other forums.)

Instead of clicking on a topic, I command-click it so it opens in a new tab. I then do the same for other interesting topics.

If the number of unread recent topics is more than one page worth, I'll miss the topics at the top of page two.

I.E. If I've opened 4 tabs for topics on page one, when I go to page two, the top 4 topics are considered page one items, and are never shown.


My work-around solution is to open a new tab for page 2 before I start opening topics.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

2 - They are using the https://wizardofvegas.com/recent/ link, and do not realize that their topic falls below their unread items.

Doesn't it fall below as soon as I read it, regardless of the method I use to open it? I thought, it just shows all read topics after all the unread ones, which, I personally think, is entirely counter-intuitive and also inconvenient.
Say, read a thread in "Gambling", and then later, come back and want to re-read some of the replies (or, maybe, I did not have time to read them all the first time). So, I go back to Gambling, to find the thread, but it's not on the first page, not even on the second ...

This is what's counter-intuitive about it. Now, on to inconvenient. If I posted in that thread, I can use the workaround of searching for all my posts, and going from there, but if I did not ... :-/ What I usually do, is use google to search the site for the thread title. This is hardly the optimal user experience.

The way this is usually approached in the forums software is that the threads in forums are always displayed in chronological order, and, if you don't want to see the ones you've already read, there is an "Unread topics" link, that will display the list of only unread ones. I think, this makes more sense as a user-friendly interface.

Quote: weaselman

Quote: DJTeddyBear

2 - They are using the https://wizardofvegas.com/recent/ link, and do not realize that their topic falls below their unread items.

Doesn't it fall below as soon as I read it, regardless of the method I use to open it? I thought, it just shows all read topics after all the unread ones, which, I personally think, is entirely counter-intuitive and also inconvenient.

Yes, it does.

I think that people feel that they wrote it, but didn't realize that counts as having read it too. They are expecting it to be at the very top of the recent thread list, when it's at the top of the READ threads.

Quote: P90

And also make registrations verified manually upon visiting an administrator in person and passing tests on key indexes, base covers, chip shuffling, implied odds estimation and action unit scoring. This provisional registration will give neophytes read-only access and a seat in a weekly horse poker tournament, the winner of which will be awarded posting privileges.

Doesn't a horse have to post before it can be the winner of a race? ;-)