OK, here's some stuff I don't get, stuff I would like

Meta
1

How the stuff is organized… On the Latest button, I get stuff in date order, good. However, I don’t understand why some titles are in blue and others in gray. Also, for me, having Latest, New and Unread is confusing… OK, either I read it or not, but Latest and New? Latest shows me posts newer than a certain date, New are what…? For me, those are Unread… I just somehow have the feeling we only need two buttons here, not three. Also the auto “mark read” is still unreliable here, and it would be good to have a “mark all read” button somewhere.

I would like to have the option to be able to see a subset of categories. I might want to see Rhino for Windows and Rhino for Mac at the same time, but not not Meta or Grasshopper Developer at all. I don’t see a way to do this, right now, it’s either one or all. Or, to be able to more easily flip through the different forums, instead of the three bars button, have all that unused white space at the top used for buttons or tabs with each of the individual forums (less clicks, more visibility) - like a browser.

Allow users to permanently shut off the big blue “similar topics” popup box - just annoying.

The avatars under “Participants” don’t tell me anything if they’re generic, and if I was a new user I wouldn’t know the others either, so it’s mostly just useless pseudo-info. A real name of at least the original poster (as is used on most forums) would be far more useful.

Allow us to remove the “Participants” (avatars), “Likes”, “Views” columns, at the very least. The “activity” could be just the last post.

As Jørgen said, type size for the topic titles smaller.

I’m sure I’ll think of more as time goes on…

----H

2

To me all permanent hiding of all this ranking related stuff really was a precondition to further use this software. I’m already on my way out, quite seriously* - the current status just makes me angry. Of course I found far better to turn this rubbish off altogether, instead of hiding.

*how is this possible btw?
I did not see an option to end the membership in Preferences.

3

Some more of their idiotic plans -sorry I can’t put this differently.
I don’t think that I will feel at home here.

4

I’m baffled here. What ranking stuff?

I see nothing but the little heart, and while I don’t care for it too much I still don’t see it as such a big deal.

5

There is more to it than that, if you can find the other posts discussing this…
However, I do trust McNeel to not let this get out of hand.
----H

6

“Likes” let you rise in community status.
Posts with likes will rank higher in search results, and thread summaries. Users with many likes rise in status and may at some point also earn badges for their their various achievements. Then they may rise in hierarchy, so that they may later edit content, including locking and deleting of posts.
The planned system is layed out here.

McNeel employees already have pointed out that they will carefully check what they implement.
My personal problem is, that I very much dislike pretty much each aspect of the plans of the Discourse makers.
It would probably hard / laborious for McNeel staff and could cause malfunctions to turn “everything” off.
To me it boils down to having to leave.

7

Well, if you look at the general audience for Discourse forums, you’ll see that it’s quite a diverse group of people and needs. It’s obvious from the discussions that some groups love this ranking/badging/judgement stuff - just like some people love being in the army or some other hierarchical structure where you have rights, privileges and duties based on your rank. One can only hope that this stuff is all optional and can be turned off.
----H

8

Merit and power is best suited for common interest - low budget personally kept forums I’d say. Company controlled channels just need the hired gun to keep things civil.

I’d guess this will be dealt with properly. Well behaved as this group will be most of time we do face our s#itstorms now and then and usually the top posters are the ones steering the trouble. We can’t be trusted with control.

9

Yeah, but moving the forum to this forum opened up the same issue here…
The Newsgroup forbid all the monitoring Discourse offers, technically. But also among the Rhino users you’ll find people who like the ranking system, obviously even Brian sympathizes.

For me however, this whole hierarchical scheme which got carefully implanted to the code is something I don’t even want to discuss. I would not bear with it if there was a poll and people said that stuff should stay. No way.

10

I believe that “new” are topics that you haven’t seen at all and “unread” are topics that you have looked at, but contain new/unread posts