Relevant topics and complaints

[Ray]

I would like to open a discussion about something that's been on my mind for a while.

Most users I believe, when revisiting the site, opens up the "Unread Posts" menu. If you haven't visited the site for a while, say, for a week, chances are that you are overwhelmed with a bunch of stuff that is absolutely unrelevant for you.

I am proposing a new feature with this in mind: have the ability to filter what each individual sees on this page. The basic structure of this would simply be a bunch of ticks that you can eaither turn on or off, based on your preference.

• List each forum and have the ability to "unsubscribe" from that, for instance "Cups and Tournaments General" for those who do not in any way participate in those.
• Have the ability to filter new threads by nicknames.
• Have the ability to "unsubscribe" from game comments - leagues, cups, torunaments separately - and very importantly, have the ability to show comments only from games you are involved in! Could also possibly have the ability to include games in which your clan/community/clanmates/communitymates are involved in.

Now, for clan or community leaders, I think this might be a nice feature, to have a general view and see that maybe there are a lot of complaints about a member. Or if you are simply interested to see what remarks your mates are getting, whatever.

Now, there is just one problem with this (okay, one that I see - waiting for feedbacks ) and that is, if you hide the Complaints forums - which most of us would do I think - then you don't see if you are involved in a complaint.

For that and for other reasons I'd like to propose this idea: completely remove the complaints forums and replace it with a button on the games' pages. This button is only available to people involved in a game - or people whose clan is involved in a game (not communities, they are not competing) - and if you press this button, a little textbox appears where you can write your problem.

These "topics" should only be available to administrators and those who are involved: the players and clan leaders - whole clans in case of a clanner.

When someone complains about a game you are involved in, you get an instant notification via email or private message. This would remove the complaint thread from the public and in my honest opinion, would remove a lot of flame wars around the forum, which is like... good, isn't it?

Tell me what you think!

[MonkeyIsland]

Some of the features you mentioned are in TUS2 in "ignore boards" feature.

Games Comments, Cups comments or similar sections are actually a board in forums. So if you don't want to see game comments you can simply ignore these boards.

This is how ignore boards works: (I haven't coded it. It is a built-in feature of SMF)

This page lets you ignore particular boards. When a board is ignored, the new post indicator will not show up on the board index. New posts will not show up using the "unread post" search link (when searching it will not look in those boards) however, ignored boards will still appear on the board index and upon entering will show which topics have new posts. When using the "unread replies" link, new posts in an ignored board will still be shown.

Subtracting above feature from your post, this remains:

• Have the ability to filter new threads by nicknames. What are trying to achieve with this?
• possibly have the ability to include games in which your clan/community/clanmates/communitymates are involved in. This needs some work. How many people really want that?
• Complaints new handling style. I'll think about this one and its pro/cons.

[Ray]

The whole point is the relevance, not the number of people wanting a specific feature. How many people want to read relevant topics to themselves? I think everyone. And also, noone likes to get thrown at a bunch of stuff that they don't care about or are not involved in at any level.

Sometimes users don't realize the greatness of a feature before it actually gets implemented so don't scratch this off the moodboard just because there are only 2 thumbups, okay?

Of course I know I am generalizing here. I think it is good to see the topics and only the topics you care about, for example if someone commented on a clan game where you played, but you miss the comment between 10 pages of complaints, "ae" comments on games, etc. I think you understand what I'm saying.

Filtering by username is also pretty clear in my opinion, there are some people who keep creating topics with 5 words and/or totally unnecessary, uninteresting, spam stuff. I would like to be able to filter them so I don't see the topics created by them in my own little unread list.

Of course the old unread list could stay for everything, this would be a "Relevant List", whatever the name.