News spam

[Eraserhead]

There doesn't seem to be any way to easily view latest posts without the list being swamped with autobot news posts and it's really, really annoying.

this post was editted down from some long arsed explanation.

</constructive user feedback>

[Puratech]

Ive said the same before, it clutters the latest posts and its hard to find recent active posts if you havent visited in a day or more. I dont use it anymore as it doesnt show the last poster, which is kinda annoying.

Ive started using the new posts search at the top menu thing instead, makes it much much easier to navigate through what i want.

[Detomah]

The proper "new posts" button on the forums navbar excludes Bandit's news.

The news which I post isn't excluded from anywhere deliberately though, as i'm not actually posting it just as news for the frontpage, but am posting it as actual threads which should be of interest to at least some people. The point of the Detomah posted news is to actually invoke discussion.

The new posts button in the navbar has deliberately been put back in such a public place to encourage people to use it.

I don't know what method you use to get new posts Eraserhead?

[Eraserhead]

I used to use the thing at the bottom left of the main forum index but it's too small to contain news and real topics and as pura mentioned there's no last poster on it which is a bit frustrating as you can't always tell if a new post has been added to a topic. It's mostly rendered unusable. I started using the new latest posts link at the top. I don't know if you post news periodically in groups but just before I made this topic last night the latest post page was also full of news.

[Eraserhead]

Just looking at it now, 5 of the most recent 10 topics are bot generated. I find it annoying having to check which is real and which is a bot telling us what we're supposed to be talking about. There's no easy way to check latest (real) discussions without having to repeatedly filter through bot posts. Keep the "discussion generating bot posts" I suppose but make some way of just viewing real topics.

[Detomah]

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

I used to use the thing at the bottom left of the main forum index but it's too small to contain news and real topics and as pura mentioned there's no last poster on it which is a bit frustrating as you can't always tell if a new post has been added to a topic. It's mostly rendered unusable. I started using the new latest posts link at the top. I don't know if you post news periodically in groups but just before I made this topic last night the latest post page was also full of news.

It's perfectly obvious when a new post is made via the bottom box, the icon to the left of the text turns from blue to orange.

I am posting news to the news forum at regular intervals throughout the whole day and will not change that, the news that I post I consider an integral part of the forum and the news that is posted that catches peoples attentions can at times get a good amount of replies, some some people find interesting, some others find interesting, some miss the target completely, that's news.

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

Just looking at it now, 5 of the most recent 10 topics are bot generated. I find it annoying having to check which is real and which is a bot telling us what we're supposed to be talking about. There's no easy way to check latest (real) discussions without having to repeatedly filter through bot posts. Keep the "discussion generating bot posts" I suppose but make some way of just viewing real topics.

By bot generations, I presume your including new member welcome threads, automated birthday greeting threads, famous birthday threads and word of the day threads, as well as the threads that are made by Bandit for the news feed forum... I'm sorry but I won't be changing the way it works. I'd actually like to see more people giving new members a warm welcome by adding a greeting to those threads and wishing their fellow users a happy birthday on the birthday threads for start and I know some people although not replying, do enjoy reading the word and birthday of the day threads, including me. I won't keep on make changes to things which work perfectly well on TF, I have to think of the overall and I am doing the best I can with that in mind, which includes finding ways of adding content and making accessable to search engine spiders by as many means as possible in order to pick up passing through visitors from search engines, which account for a lot of the impressions that make up TFs income, which as said previously is essential for me to pay the costs of the site.

It's really not all that hard to go through the new posts list to find threads your interested in though and after all there is the mark forums as read button. To me this is the same as people saying the forum is too long. Sorry but to me that doesn't wash, most people have a scroll mouse these days and everyone has a scroll bar that could be used.

I understand decisions I make are not always going to go down well with everyone, but there is nothing I can do about that, some things I do, I do for reasons other than just trying to please the community and whether they please the community or not I have to do them, one thing being making sure TF is well placed in search engines so that I get impressions for my advertisements as a form of income. TF isn't just a toy or bit of fun to me, decisions I make on TF impact on my life away from the computer.

[Eraserhead]

First off, let me say this. Regulars might produce little income when compared to search traffic but if you consider this forum to be of any value to your overall plan then maybe you should not play down their value so much. None of your drive by search traffic are ever going to sign up to a forum to have a chat with a bot so you should give a little more consideration to member requests as they are the only thing that give this forum any value.

It's not in anyones best interest for me (or anyone else) to not point out, in an honest, clear, blunt, yet friendly manner, aspects of your forum which might not be as good as they could be. With that in mind I'm sure you will grasp this rare and valuable glimpse into the mind of a typical user as they browse your forum, with both hands and use it as a opportunity to improve your site in new and interesting ways, for the positive benefit of everybody!!! *skips joyfully*

1. Limited number of topics are spread across a high number of forums meaning people have to rely on "latest topics" kind of features to keep up with anything without giving up and saying "fk it too much hassle". All fine though, "latest posts" will save us : D
2. The "latest posts" box at the bottom left of the main index is crap because half the stuff in it is bbc news, happy birthday mr x or welcome mr y.
3. The "new posts" link at the top also suffers from the same bot spam.
4. We are not here to populate this forum with content for search engines out of some freakish sense of obligation by replying to bots, we are here to talk about shit with other people coz that's what we like to do.

Like I did say previously though, keep the bots but have some mercy and add a way of viewing real discussions so that we don't have to trawl through the bot drivel designed for search engines benefit.

Do with that feedback what you will.

[Detomah]

I do not undervalue this community or play down the value of it. Just because I do not implement every idea of suggestion made by a member or members of the community does not mean I do not listen, it simply means either I do not think it is the best route forward, I don't agree or like the suggestion, or that it would be impractical to implement the suggestion.

If I undervalued the community, you wouldn't be able to reply to this using the quick reply feature, without the need to validate the click first.

Total Format does not try to be just the same old generic discussion forum like the many thousands out there which it would be if I listened to every idea and suggestion that is thrown at me. There are times where I have to do what I personally feel is best, if at a point further down the lines I change my mind, find a better solution, or realise my opinion was wrong then I adapt to the situation as needed.

Regarding the bot posts, all they are (bar the posts done by Bandit in the feed forum) is automated versions of exactly what I would be posting manually myself, the only reason they are automated is to speed up the process of getting them done and so that I do not have to worry about forgetting to do them. Essentially they are posts made by me, just automated version of the same thing. It is not my fault that you have no interest in wishing new members a warm welcome, or wishing anyone a happy birthday or that the famous birthday and word of the days are something you obviously find boring. If the posts were not being done automatically for me thanks to the ability of modern scripting and scheduled tasks, they would still be appearing exactly the same on the forum, just done manually by me instead. I'm sorry that you don't like what would be posted by me, it would and will still be posted though.

What I don't get is how some people are perfectly happy to enjoy what is offered to them and thankful that it actually works properly almost all of the time, yet no matter what is offered to some people, they are never happy with anything that they are given.

I provide Total Format on an as is basis and always have, although I do make regular improvements, regularly add new content and features, it mostly all works properly, there are not thousands of bugs strewn across the forum and site and besides server moves and the recent couple of initial teething problems, there is virtually never any server downtime. Yeah sure, there a few things that some people don't like and others that others don't like, but overall i'd say i'm doing a pretty damn good job of what i'm doing on pretty much a £0 budget.

Edit: I'm not going to please everyone all of the time no matter what I ever do or however much I do it, there is always going to be someone who wants something to be done differently, there is no getting around that and there is nothing I can do to change that. I have to do what I feel takes TF forward bes though and sometimes that includes doing something as requested by the community, sometimes it means I will listen but not do what someone has asked.