Sorting Threads:

When entering any forum you will see a thread view. At the top of the list may be an Announcement from the Administrator or Moderator, and some 'Sticky' threads. These type of threads will always remain at the top of the list unless they are removed. The other threads, however, will gradually slip down the list as they get older. A new thread always appears near the top of the list underneath any 'Sticky' threads.

Each of the column headers (Thread / Thread Starter - Rating - Last Post - Replies - Views) activates a sort process. Example: To push all threads to the top that have recently been posted to - you would click Last Post. Once the sort is done you then get the option to reverse the sort order.

Do you want to see the best threads - the one's rated with 5 stars? Click Rating to push them up to the top of the list.

__________________
Administrator

Private Messaging:

There is a good deal of info in the FAQ about Private Messaging. But did you know that you can choose to see a pop-up window appear to alert you while you are browsing when a message has been sent to you? You can set this in your User CP. Follow this path: User CP --> Edit Options --> Messaging & Notification --> Show New Private Message Notification Pop-up (Tick this to turn on). This is not true instant messaging because the recipient of a private message must load a forum page to initiate the prompt.

Another tip: As you know, your PMs are stored in your Inbox folder, your Sent Items folder and any other folder you have created. By now, you know that you need to prune your messages occasionally before the limit (100) is reached to enable you to receive further messages. If you wish to save a text copy of your messages, before deleting them, select the messages you wish to download, scroll to the drop-down menu at the bottom of the list, select 'Download as TEXT' and click the 'Go' button. A download window will open allowing you to save the selected messages to your hard-drive. Once the messages are saved, proceed to delete the selected messages. Messages may also be downloaded in XML or CSV format. Further information on these formats can be found on the internet by using Google and typing "what is XML" or "what is CSV" in the search panel.

__________________
Administrator

E-mail Notification:

Farmer Giles - "Very nice (site). Only one suggestion. If you are replying to someone, it could do with a "tell me when someone replies to my posting" button. Otherwise, you have to go through everything to see if anyone's responding. At least, that's what I've found so far, although I'm new here and haven't quite worked it out yet."

As it happens, FG, there are a few ways to tell when you get replies to your post or the thread you have posted in. My favourite is e-mail notification. If you post a new thread, or reply to an existing thread, you can choose to be notified by email when someone else replies to that thread. The default setting I have chosen for new members is 'Instant email notification'. Shortly after someone has added a post to the thread you will receive an email with a link to that thread. If your email client is open at the time you will receive immediate notification. I always leave my Email client open for that reason.

If you wish to follow a thread that you didn't start or haven't posted to you will need to manually subscribe to it. Above the first post in the thread is a drop-down menu called Thread Tools. Click the option - Subscribe to this Thread. Now you will be notified by email whenever someone posts to that thread since your last visit.

If you want to disable this feature you can choose to unsubscribe from an individual thread or from all threads. To unsubscribe from an individual thread go to the drop-down menu called Thread Tools. If you are subscribed to that thread you will see the option - Unsubscribe from this Thread. Click this to unsubscribe.

If you wish to unsubscribe from all threads click Edit Options in your User CP (this link is on the main menu). There you'll find a drop-down menu in the Default Thread Subscription Mode. The menu will have 'Instant email notification' selected. Change the setting to 'Do not subscribe' and be sure to save the setting by clicking the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom of the page. You will notice another option - No email notification - allows you to remain subscribed without receiving email notifications.

To see all your subscribed threads at a glance click List Subscriptions in your User CP. You may just see a list of recent threads you have subscribed to. To see all the threads you subscribed to click 'View all Subscribed Threads'.
This topic is also mentioned in the FAQ section.

__________________
Administrator

New Posts:

I mentioned in another thread that the session time-out is currently set to 15 mins. If you are on the Forum but have not registered an activity, ie clicked a link to open a new page, without cookies on your PC you would be logged out. I can increase the session time-out, of course, but it then begins to render the purpose of Who's Online - Currently Active Users - useless. If someone has left the Forum we don't want their name showing in Who's Online for ages afterwards - it's misleading.

However, another feature called New Posts is also affected by the session time-out and is causing the list of new posts to disappear before we've had a chance to read them. Richard Jenkins brought this to my attention:

hello admin

When I click on the "new posts" button I seem to always get an error message. But I know new posts have been posted today. What is the definition of a "new post", and is there a time delay thingy to stop three week old posts being displayed, or is it just that i've looked at all the posts?

or am I being thick?

Richard

My reply:

Hi Richard, the error message you refer to is probably: Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms. You are not thick - it is rather confusing so I'll do a proper post in Help and Feedback to explain it. I might also rewrite that error message which is misleading.

Due to the time-out cookie which I have set at 15 mins, if you haven't registered an activity (clicked a link and loaded a new page) in 15 mins - perhaps you are reading a long thread, or making a long reply or you have closed your browser, or just left the room for 15 mins, your session will be timed-out and the system will automatically mark all posts as read as if you had clicked Mark Forums Read. This link exists at the bottom of the home page and in the Forum Tools drop-down menu in any Thread View like Threads in Forum: England.

If any new posts have been created since that session time-out it will be added to the New Posts page. There are a number of ways to tell if there are any new posts:

1. At the Home Page an icon appears to the left of each Forum name. The icon will appear dark like this - - when there have been no new posts since since your last visit or time-out. Conversely, The icon will appear bright like this - - when there have been new posts since since your last visit or time-out.
2. When you are in Thread View each thread has an icon to the left of each thread. The icon will appear dark like this - - when there have been no new posts to that thread since since your last visit or time-out. Conversely, The icon will appear bright like this - - when there have been new posts to that thread since since your last visit or time-out.
3. Finally, all new posts can be found grouped together by clicking New Posts. The page actually shows a list of the threads to which the new posts have been added to. Importantly, the text of the thread title is bolded until you open the thread and read the new post. The thread title text then reverts to the normal un-bolded state.

Since, it is unsatisfactory and annoying to have the list of new posts disappear before we've had a chance to read them, I've done a little hack in the code to change the list from new posts to daily posts. It now shows all posts in the last 24 hour period. The new system isn't perfect yet because the session time-out will still automatically change the icons and unbold the thread title text after 15 mins of inactivity whether you have read them or not. I'll see if I can fix this. I hope you like this new system.

TIP: To prevent the automatic Mark All Posts Read before you've had a chance to read them all I suggest opening a second window and sit in Who's Online while you read the new posts in the first window as per the following instructions: Login to the forum home page and open the Who's Online page as a New Window by right-clicking the Currently Active Users link. Now you have two windows open. In one window, you are in Who's Online which is refreshing every 60 secs and updating your Last Activity every minute. While this is happening you can browse and post within the first window. There is no way you can get caught out reading a long thread by the 15 min session time-out. I tried it and it seems to work.

__________________
Administrator

I thought I'd make a note here of the hacks I've added to the forum. It seems the developers at Vbulletin are constantly working to improve the software and over the years they have implemented many members suggestions. A lot of members are savvy with code and come up with their own hacks. Some of the good ones are integrated into the vB software as standard features.

The vB software incorporates many templates which make it easy to find and make changes to the code from the admin control panel without having to open files to make changes. The templates also allow you to reset the templates to their default condition which is handy if you make a mistake.

Problem with adding hacks and changing templates is something I experienced last night with the latest upgrade - if the upgrade effects any templates I have modified I have to "revert" those templates to their default condition to enable the upgrade to take effect. Then I have to put those hacks back. For example, after the upgrade, the Chat Room link was no longer in the Navigation bar. I had to put that back. New Posts had to be redone again because that code is in the same template. A couple of new hacks in the Postbit Display had to be put back because the postbit template was upgraded. Annoying stuff, which is why I'm not planning to make wholesale changes to the forum as some people do with their forums. To remember what hacks I've done I have to carefully catalogue them in a document so I have some notes to reference when the hacks have to be redone after an upgrade.

What hacks have I done, so far?

1. New Posts: Due to the 15 min session timeout often post links in this list would vanish before we had a chance to read them. Guests don't see New Posts in the Nav bar - they see Today's Posts, instead. Today's Posts is a list of posts which were posted in the previous 24 hours. Since this "holds" new posts, as well, I've changed New Posts to function the same as Today's Posts - I just haven't changed the title on the Nav bar that members see.

2. Chat Room: You should be familiar with this one. I placed a link in the Nav bar which can be seen by both Guests and Members. Originally, it could only be seen in the Nav bar within the Chat Room forum but I recently changed it to be seen on all forums and pages. By doing this, it is likely to be noticed more and, hopefully used more, as a result. However, if you want people to know you are in the Chat Room I suggest you announce that by posting to the Chat Room forum which will then show up in New Posts which many people visit to read the latest posts.

3. Report Bad Post: The previous two hacks involved the Navigation bar - the next three hacks involve the Postbit Display. This is the area attached to every post which displays your username; a user title like "New at the crease"; a graphic which turns green when you are online; Join date ; Location; Posts etc. On other people's posts you should be able to see the Report Bad Post icon: The use is self-explanatory, if you feel a post breaks the forum rules of posting or forum etiquette then clicking this link will open a form to which you can provide details and I will receive it by email and respond to it. However, I modified the title and description to give it a dual use: the title is now Recommend Great Post or Report Bad Post. I would like to archive some of the better posts in a separate forum for easy access by guests and members to showcase the great posters we have on this board. I know how much effort you have put into some of the posts and these posts will eventually be lost in the multitude or purged when we do a clear-out of old threads. So, if you alert me of a great post you came across I can copy it to the Great Posts forum. The icon does not appear on your own posts when you are viewing it so you can't report your own posts, I'm afraid.

4. My team/s: I thought it would be useful for members to know what teams other members support, particularly, if you are getting a wind-up or being "flamed" by someone. For example, someone who supports New Zealand would not be welcome in the Australian forum posting insults about the Australian team. A further way of working out which teams people are aligned to is to do a search of that member's name by forum and whichever forum they post to most often is likely to be the team they support, unless they spend a lot of their time on opposition forums winding people up or insulting their team. If you want your favourite team to appear in the postbit display then add your team or teams in the appropriate field in the Additional Information form in your User Profile.

5. Post number: Still with the postbit display - you will notice to the left of the Report Great and Bad Post icon a number which, when clicked, opens a new page to display that post by itself. That number is the postcount within that thread. By isolating the post by itself we get a URL displayed in the address bar which can be copied and pasted into a post if we wish others to link to that particular post. Great, but that is no good if we wish people to see a particular post within the thread context. Ideally, a link to a post should display that post at the top of the page with all the replies underneath. This little hack does that: to the left of the postcount number you will see the actual post number. If you click this, a new page will open displaying the post at the top of the page with the rest of the thread underneath. Let me demonstrate: Click http://www.world-a-team.com/showpost...7&postcount=17 to see the post by itself. Or click http://www.world-a-team.com/showthre...?p=927#post927 to see the same post at the top of the page with the rest of the thread underneath. Happy linking!

__________________
Administrator

A few more hacks:

6. Quick Links: I have added Steve Machol's Cookie Checker to the Miscellaneous section at the bottom of the Quick Links drop-down menu. I've called it Check My Cookies. To find out what it does read this post: Two bandaid solutions

7. Rate Thread: You will find this menu option above any thread. An explanation about it can be found in the FAQ section under How do I rate a thread?. However, I've made a couple of minor modifications: a) The original selections were Excellent, Good, Average, Bad, Terrible. I've replaced Bad with Okay and Terrible with Keep. I've made those changes because most people don't bother rating a bad thread. Also the Keep option is for threads I want to keep for a particular reason. In the future, perhaps every 6 months I intend to cull a few threads that are irrelevant. Any thread without a star rating is likely to be culled. b) One vote is enough to produce a star rating to appear - not several, as before. I believe you can also change your vote if you change your mind.

8. Get recent posts: This hack returns all posts from Yesterday, 2,3,4 Days Ago, A Week Ago, without a keyword or username specified. I installed this hack in response to those who like the "See Latest Messages" feature on the BBC board.
1. Open the Advanced Search form.
2. Select the forum/s to search in - the default is Search All Open Forums.
3. Select Show Results as Posts - the default is Show Results as Threads.
4. Choose an option in Find Posts From to get recent posts within the last week.
5. Leave Search by Key Word and Search by User Name fields blank.
6. Click Search Now - a list of posts will appear which contain part of the message. Part of the message will act as a link to open the thread and position the post on your screen.

__________________
Administrator

I've had a look at the FAQ section and am amazed there is no information regarding posting. That is inadequate, to say the least, given there are three different ways to post and four different editors to choose between. I'll do my best to shed some light on this issue. First the message editors:

1. Basic Editor - A simple text box: one text size, will parse links, quickest to load.

2. Standard Editor - Extra formatting controls: text formatting, images, links, smilies, only formatting tags appear in editor.

3. Enhanced Interface - Full WYSIWYG Editing - Similar to Standard Editor but all formatting appears so you see the results immediately. Slowest to load. I have deliberately set this editor as the default editor for new members so that they can see what the "bells and whistles" version can do. However, it is not recommended you use this for the majority of your posting since it is the slowest to load. For text formatting, the Standard Editor is quite adequate and faster to load.

If you are not into text formatting I recommend you use the Basic Editor. To change editors, go to your Edit Options. Scroll down till you find the Miscellaneous Options template and choose your editor from the drop-down menu. Then click the Save Changes button to save the new setting.

4. Quick Reply - basic editor, located below the last post displayed on the page you are reading. I recommend you use this for most replies unless you want to quote bits of a previous post. Warning!! Ensure the Quote message in reply? option is unchecked, otherwise all the contents of the post you are replying to will appear with quotes in your reply. That is most annoying for readers because they may have just read those comments in the previous post. Quoting a previous post in its entirety also fills up the expensive server space more rapidly.

Posting Methods:

1. Found below the last post on the page you are viewing. Clicking this will load your default editor without quotes. Only use this when replying to the last post in the thread because the correct relationship in the hierachy will be maintained. Use other posting options if replying to a post above the last post in the thread.

2. Found to the bottom-right corner of every post. This will load your default editor with the entire post you are replying to inserted between quotes. Use this when you wish to include parts of a previous post as a point of discussion. However, you will need to delete the extraneous text between the quote tags. The remaining text will appear as a quote. This method also preserves the correct hierachial relationship which you can view in the Hybrid Mode or Threaded Mode. The default viewing mode of a thread is the Linear Mode. To change it, open the Display Modes drop-down menu which is found above the first post on the page.

3. Found to the right of the Quote button. It automatically scrolls the page down and activates the Quick Reply editor. This method also preserves the correct hierachial relationship. Bear in mind, that in Linear Mode all posts appear in the thread by time sequence irrespective of the hierachial relationship. This is why people feel the need to use quotes so much on this board. However, for reader enjoyment, I would recommend only using quotes when there is a large gap between your post and the post you are replying to and you feel the reader won't understand which post you are replying to without a quote. Remember, if a reader is in doubt they can switch to the Hybrid Mode to view the correct hierachial structure.

__________________
Administrator

This post is in response to some people who are having difficulty following a discussion in a thread. There are various thread display options that can help you follow a discussion. If you are having difficulty in one mode, try a different mode. In addition, your posting technique will help others follow your conversation. When posting, a good convention is to preface your reply with the name of the person you are addressing or replying to. For example: "Mark, I agree with your point but...." I will assume you are replying to Mark's last post and can easily find it if I want to re-read it by scrolling up. If you are replying to a post by Mark, which is not his last post, I suggest you add the post number. For example: "Mark, I agree with your point in post #6357, but ..." This is preferable to re-posting Mark's entire post as a quote. A thread full of re-posted messages as quotes makes the thread difficult to read and is very annoying. I will take measures to educate people who don't use quotes correctly. Quotes can help readers follow a conversation if used to address specific points but shouldn't be overused because we are more interested in your views in response, which can be followed in most cases even in a disjointed conversation.


However, some conversations can be very disjointed, particularly in long threads. A classic example occurred in the thread Changes in the England team? (the original thread of 200+ posts has since been split into smaller threads to make it easier to read.) according to the tree structure, high_on_linseed's post #181 in the thread was a reply to Mark Kidger's first post. Worse still is that he doesn't reference to Mark's post in any way - doesn't even preface with Mark's name! Now, without the help of the tree structure to place it in context, his post could be a little confusing unless he was simply adding his own points, in which case context may not be that important. If I was reading Changes in the England team? I would read it in Linear mode to start with because that is usually the fasted way to read a thread and then switch across to the Hybrid or Threaded mode when context was required. In the Hybrid mode you can easily isolate a specific line of conversation and group just those posts together in a flat/linear view.

You'll find a description of the various views in the FAQ section: What are the various thread display options? They are:Linear - Oldest First; Linear - Newest First; Threaded; and Hybrid. I have set the default thread display mode to Linear because polls on other vBulletin boards show this to be the most popular. You can change that, however, in Edit Options. Make sure you click the Save Changes button to save the new setting. You may also switch between thread display modes via the Display Modes menu above the first post on the page you are viewing.

In Edit Options - another useful feature you may like to adjust when necessary is the Maximum Displayed Posts Before Page Split. The number of posts to display on a thread page in linear or hybrid mode before splitting it over multiple pages. The default setting is 10 posts per page, however, you may increase that in multiples of 10 up to 100. Once again, useful for long threads but page load-time is slower - as you would expect.

Right, I hope the above information make's posting and viewing life on this board a little easier. Now, i'd just like to add a few miscellaneous points to finish:

1. A database setting: Cached Posts Lifespan - Number of days to maintain a cached copy of a post. This makes threads faster to display, but means that each post takes approximately twice the storage space. Currently set at 2 days. So posts older than this will cause threads to display more slowly.

2. Threaded Mode: Posts Depth - When in the threaded display mode, a list of posts within the current thread is displayed at the top of the page in a tree structure. This option allows you to set how 'deep' this list displays beyond the currently selected post. I have set this to show 10 posts deep. Any posts that exceeds that will be replaced by the following comment: More replies below current depth...

3. Threaded mode shows a tree of links to individual posts within the thread. The tree shows the threadedness of the posts by indenting reply posts under the post they are in reply to. Only one post is viewable at a time.

4. Hybrid mode shows the threaded tree of post links as well as the linear expansion of those posts.

5. The current BBC software uses the Nested mode. The problem with nested mode is when the thread gets too large... the width of the message becomes narrower as the post is pushed over to the right of the page making it difficult to read.

__________________
Administrator

Two new custom fields appear called Replies to My Posts and My Threads. A bit wordy but can be changed in the User Profile Field Manager. I had a coder from vBulletin.org custom make them for me and install them.

Some fascinating comparisons can be made:

ernest has twice as many posts than Rachael but Rachael is not far behind in the amount of replies to her posts. This suggests many of her posts elicit more responses on average.

Mark Kidger and Richard Jenkins have a similar amount of posts and replies but Richard has started quite a few more threads which suggests that Mark replies to other users posts more often than Richard does and is not too concerned with starting new threads.

__________________
Administrator

ernest gets .77 replies to each one of his posts.

Rachael gets.1.40 replies to each one of her posts.

Richard jenkinns.gets .93 replies to each of his posts.

RWS.gets .98 replies to each of his posts.

Oliver gets a very credible .92 for each of his posts, with only 26 threads.

mike .99 replies for each of his posts.

Mark Kidger(dont know why he is mentioned)but when he was here he got .88 replies to each one of his posts.

Richie Beanauds Love Child .96 replies for each of his posts.
Rachael is undisputible the best poster.

People who post more threads get more replies, even if it is only between 3 and 10 replies, this makes it a better ratio, between posts and replies to posts.

Although there are other factors to be taken into account for myself(not for me to say), I have checked the members list, and I am by far the most boring poster on this board, with only .77 replies to each of my posts, I am counting the whole of the members, cant count those that have never posted.

Even Trigger got a resectable .83 replies for each of his posts.
A lot of comments have passed about the number of my post, so in my profile, or signiture, I will put the boards most boring poster.

__________________
Ern