Nevertheless I really like this feature, much more comfortable than creating multiple partial quotes in the old forum. And even better, every reader can just click the link and unwrap the complete post which can be very helpful from time to time.
You are right and I havnât even noticed it yet ⊠shame on me. On my screen this happens, when I mark a textline directly beneath the toolbar of the browser which I normally donât do.
No idea, as my poor eyes and plump fingers are not adjusted to work on the display of smartie âŠ
If it is a default setting, can it be changed? The max.-3-answers rule stops users to give a continuous update to a certain topic, like here. The result is a second topic with the same content which does not really make sense and is against the general rules. The only workaround would be to open a second user account to continue after the 3rd post which is not encouraged for this forum.
As there are very very few topics affected by the problem of more than 3 consecutive replies anyhow it would make sense to skip this default setting (if possible) and just observe if any problems arise in future. There was no such restriction in the old forum and it worked well for many years so why shouldnât it do here?
The Etiquette Guidelines say we should always assume âgood faithâ. Doing so we have to assume that the users of this forum are are disciplined enough to handle consecutive replies and would not start to misuse this option once the restriction is skipped (which they did not do in the âoldâ forum as well btw.)
Should the âgood faithâ prove to be misplaced in this case and users start to post dozens of consecutive replies all over the place THEN we should think about a limitation, not before.
In the German part of the forum, there is a thread about the âSchwerpunkt der Wocheâ (translated something like âMapping priority of the weekâ). It is âmanagedâ by user @kmpoppe, who wants to post the latest âSchwerpunkt der Wocheâ to that thread.
However, he reported to me that Discourse wonât let him, because of too many consecutive replies. For a purely informative thread that doesnât really rely on feedback from other users, thatâs an inconvenient limitation.
@kmpoppeâs last post was three weeks ago and he never posts more than once a week. In my opinion this is far away from ânotification noiseâ.
I would therefore like to ask once again to please deactivate the restriction of several consecutive posts. At least until it becomes clear whether there are any noticeable ânotification noiseâ problems at all without the restriction, as said by @Map_HeRo in post #13.
Or, as suggested by @Nielkrokodil in post #14, link the restriction to the time elapsed since the last post so that an update can be given at least once a week.
Workaround for now is that I create a âdummy postâ which I will then delete again after @kmpoppe has created his next post. But THAT really is notification noise.
Maybe Discourse is designed to discourage this kind of evergreen thread in favor of posting each âSchwerpunkt der Wocheâ as a separate topic in the category with a schwerpunkt-der-woche tag. This would make it easier for community members to skim recent priorities, but it would introduce some noise for people who donât want to see these priorities.
I wasnât aware that this is such a controversial topic. Maybe changing for a âSchwerpunkt der Woche XXâ Thread everytime could be an interesting concept. @Shaun_das_Schaf Could you please rename t/89445 to something like âSchwerpunkt der Woche (Archiv bis April 2023)â or something and mention that weâll be using new threads from now on with the tag that @Minh_Nguyen mentioned?
Thx.
And then Discourse will nag you every time you write that your new topic is very similar to an older âSchwerpunkt der Wocheâ and whether you wouldnât rather continue the old topic.
No, that is not a solution.
As Iâm creating these posts using the API, as long as that ânaggingâ isnât a hard error that stops me from creating the post (which the 3-posts-rule is), at least that point wouldnât bother me.
We might not be able to find a cardinal solution right now and thatâs fine. I will start using the new concept (I need a solution today, because the new voting starts today at 1200 CEST) and see where it leads me.
Also makes it kind of impossible to set the âSchwerpunkt der Wocheâ-Thread to ignored so that it wonât show up in the list of topics anymore for people who really are not interested in that topic.
Plus if you are interested in what previous mapping priorities were, you can no longer just scroll up but instead have to use the Discourse search and find the relevant topic.
And imagine a new topic everytime the OSM Software Watchlist is updatedâŠ
Hey @wambacher what do you think? I have seen that you were able to create at least 5 consecutive posts there. How so?
@kmpoppe As announced in private conversation, I have created a dummypost so that you can continue posting.
I fully agree - we should not kowtow to the software - the software should cover the requirements.
We did not need such a restriction for years in the old forum and we surely do not need it now.
No argument there, just wondering if the new software addresses the same need in a slightly different way. For better or worse, a lot of concepts changed between phpBB and Discourse that we donât have much control over. Fighting against tools isnât much fun⊠But it sounds like relying on tags would be an uncomfortable tradeoff for the community anyways, so maybe a different solution is needed.
There are other evergreen threads like these OSMUS updates. It would be beneficial to align on a common approach to them so that visitors to these forums can track them in a consistent manner.
Note on the suggestions some people shared about using a tag instead: People can subscribe to a tag and get notifications of new topics/replies and others can choose to âmuteâ the same tag so they are never bothered about it.
When topics within a tag have a volume big enough to be considered ânoiseâ in its parent category, the creation of separate category is advised.
This is a setting (max consecutive replies) that can easily be changed to something else than the default of 3 if we want to.
Personally, I believe we should change the setting. This is one of several restrictions designed to solve a problem which the OSM forum community never really had as far as I can remember, even before we moved to Discourse.
In contrast, too many topics being created for recurring content like WeeklyOSM alerts is something that was considered a problem in the past, and posting these updates in a dedicated thread is the solution weâve previously arrived at.
Using a tag may be an alternative solution to the same problem, with some benefits and drawbacks compared to the single-thread solution. But I think that the choice between these solutions should be made based on what works best for the particular topic and sub-community; imo they should both be available and not prevented by the forum settings.
For better or worse, a lot of concepts changed between phpBB and Discourse that we donât have much control over. Fighting against tools isnât much fun
yes, but we donât have to fight against discourse to have a lot of annoying details improved, there are some settings that could be adjusted, like removing the minimum post length, which only has created problems and useless, lenghty discussions and has been reduced from 20 to 10 characters (what still leads to people explicitly adding filler text and mocking the system) when the solution would be â1â , or remove the consecutive post limit and other similar nannying measures. If any of these ever become an issue (they havenât been in a decade of phpbb) we can tackle it socially, or reenable them if we believe the hazzle is less with the setting than without, but I doubt we would come to this point.
This argument also applies to the minimum post length.
@dieterdreist is absolutely right: Restrictions that the old forum did not have and that we never needed should be completely deactivated in Discourse.
If at some point we notice a problem and the noise increases noticeably, we can always discuss a gradual reintroduction.
full agreement: this causes more disturbing noise than a (in extreme cases) â+1â.
We have changed the maximum number of consecutive replies to 9999 and will observe if this causes any problems.
If it does cause problems, such as people overwhelming a discussion with excessive replies, we might revert to the original limit and instead encourage posters to rely on the exception that the reply limit does not apply to the topicâs creator, which would mostly take care of the use case of posting recurring updates. But for now, the limit is effectively disabled.
