Over the last two weeks or so there have been numerous discussions on how to improve the site. Whether it be filtering, adding off-topic threads, or elsewhere. Going off practicality alone what improvements would you want to the site?
Be honest, come on. However do note that this is not a breeding ground for your own personal thoughts towards the moderators. I am also not a moderator and I have my own thoughts on some of their decisions
Comments
Audio hosting and to hell with Windows / Android posts
I have already requested them to provide the ability to host audio clips here, thus facilitating the explanation of certain actions as well as the demonstration of new applications, but it got rejected.
I'm also not a fan of the whole Windows and Android sections of the forum, but at least they are separate from the Apple sections on the front page.
Re: Audio hosting and to hell with Windows / Android posts
Technically do they not already have that with podcasts?
I'm personally a fan of the Android and Windows topics, more so Android because I use Android and not iOS. I used to use iOS but I no longer use iOS. I wouldn't mind doing away with the Windows topic and replacing it with a Linux topic though, but that's mostly due to my hate towards Windows
Re: Audio hosting and to hell with Windows / Android posts
Don't know, I thought that podcasts were hosted off-site, since I don't recall any options to host audio here when I create a new post, and my suggestion was explicitly rejected.
I like filtering topics I best
I think we should be able to filter our own personal feeds in the home page I’m not super tech savvy, so I’m not even sure if I use the correct word here, but I think it individuals should be able to filter what they want to look at I like how you started this topic without trying to attack any of the moderators. They have a really hard job. I wouldn’t wanna be in their shoes. I give them a lot of credit. Other ones to keep this website is great as it is. And the fact that be my eyes is partnered with them as also what’s kept it running. I love that. Do you guys remember that we almost lost the site? I think we need a new appreciate appreciation for what’s here and also that we can improve things. It’s awesome that they listen to our feedback. Clearly they are because they wouldn’t be asking us for our thoughts if they didn’t care.
Headings in the forums.
Maybe this has been fixed, I don't go into the individual forums all that much. But on the home page, you've got headings, so you can skip from post to post. In the forums, you don't, there are just a couple and the posts are just embedded in a block of links.
Mark As Read
Assuming this does not already exist and I just have not found it yet, I would love to see a control added to the forums, so that any thread we don't care about, we can activate to simply mark such threads as, "Red".
On a sidenote, I am super grateful for the Windows and Android forums. 😛👌
Time zone
One thing for me. Has anyone considered maybe using the phone's time zone instead of locally setting it?
There is a major issue with the way that this feature is currently set because even though I have it set to Brisbane, the time zones are all wacky over the place. For example Brian's post, according to this, was posted at 12:08 pm on October 31st. It's November 1st, 3:16 am in Brisbane and because I'm subscribed to get notifications about this post, I got an email about six minutes ago or so saying that there had been a new comment on this post.
Maybe it would be better if we just scrap that idea completely and you just allow us to use our own local time zone on our phone if possible
Re: Time zone
I think it's already doing that. Because where I live, it is October 31 still, and I did post at 12:08 PM, on October 31, in my time zone. So, I think the time zones you see posted, are the time zones for that specific user.
Hope that makes sense. 🙂
Re: Time zone
Yeah but then on my end it says you posted this comment on November 1st at 3:36 am, which would be my time
Re: Time zone
Hi Dominic,
Is the site not giving you the right time zone, or is it the emails you are getting from us? Those would have different causes.
Re: Time zone
It's not giving me the right time zone. For example I can go through a thread and say I commented at 1:29 am on a post (my time). The next comment could be from 8:57 pm the previous day but it's still ahead of my 1:29 am post. This makes it very confusing because I have my time zone set to Brisbane.
Why would it be showing a time from 8:57 pm the previous night if it's the next comment? If that logically wouldn't make any sense from my time zone, does it not calculate other people's responses into the actual person's time zone?
I got an email at like 3:30 this morning saying that Brian had responded to this, which is fine. I responded at 3:36 because I only saw that email. Then I checked Brian's response and according to this it was either 12:01 or 12:08 pm. This literally makes no sense from my time zone because:
1. I didn't create this post that early. I created this post kind of late in my time zone.
2. The previous comment before that one worked in my time zone.
Is it not properly doing the calculation from time zone to time zone? Say someone posts from California, it's like 15 or 16 or so hours behind mine. Does it not convert it to the actual user's time zone? How does this work? I'm really confused.
Re: Time zone
Hi Dominic,
Thanks for flagging this. I did some testing on my end and it looks like there is a bug somewhere with how time zones are handled. I will share this with our developer for investigation and resolution. Thanks again and my apologies for the inconvenience.
podcasts
To the person who was talking about podcasts being hosted. They are absolutely on site and not hosted anywhere else. If you click on a podcast and then click on the audio you can see the link from the address bar if your browser plays it.