Completely unread topics with recent replies should show as new

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Continuing the discussion from Watching and tracking implementation for tags and categories:

There’s one piece of logic I don’t think we cover yet:

• “this is a topic” was created in 2015
• I join the forum in 2016. I track no categories, but I’m always on the lookout for topics, i.e. topics that are completely new to me.
• “this is a topic” receives replies.
• the only way for me to spot this topic is to notice it as unopened in Latest.

In my opinion, the logic should be:

If a topic is completely unread and receives new replies, it should show up as for me, so long as it also matches my Consider topics new when preference.

[david (David Taylor)]

@sam’s previous response to this request was

Watching/Tracking old Topics

I can see the appeal on unconditionally adding “tracked” categories into the “new” filter but technically making this work could end up being quite costly performance wise. Also, we have to keep a cap on new counts cause they are tracked in memory in the app, if you have 500k “new” topics it can brutally slow (and kind of pointless) Honestly, I am really unsure what the best course of action is here.

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Yes, I believe the solution I’m after is exactly this:

Watching/Tracking old Topics

Perhaps, one thing that is “cheap” that we could do.

If a topic in a tracked category is bumped, add it back to “new” for whatever the new duration is.

Still would feel somewhat odd.

[david (David Taylor)]

I actually implemented this in a plugin, but I think the concern was that making that change in core could potentially cause a lot of confusion for existing users, especially those that have “consider topics as new when I haven’t viewed them yet” as their setting.

Watching/Tracking old Topics

after_initialize do
	require_dependency 'topic_query'
	class ::TopicQuery
	  def self.new_filter(list, treat_as_new_topic_start_date)
	    list.where("topics.bumped_at >= :created_at", created_at: treat_as_new_topic_start_date)
	        .where("tu.last_read_post_number IS NULL")
	        .where("COALESCE(tu.notification_level, :tracking) >= :tracking", tracking: TopicUser.notification_levels[:tracking])
	  end
	end
end

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

You mean, not expecting a topic to be when it is actually many years old?

Yeah it can be a mild shock, but I don’t see how missing the topic altogether is a better trade off. There are additional UI hints we could throw in if we get a lot of reactions to this.

[david (David Taylor)]

but I don’t see how missing the topic altogether is a better trade off

I agree 100%, better to fix the functionality for the long term even if it causes a little confusion to start with .

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

I would like to hear @sam’s opinion on this, I think the risk is too high personally.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

I really don’t know, this is very complicated and full of compromise dragons.

There is one edge case that kind of makes sense to handle though.

• IF you have “Consider topics new when I haven’t viewed them yet”

• AND an old topic you never saw gets a reply

• AND the topic was created PRIOR to the time you created an account

• THEN consider topic new

This is rather edge casey, but makes complete sense.

I am less easy about the default of “Consider topics new when created in the last 2 days”

We are very explicit about the copy there, so we would basically be lying and people who simply “ignore” to get rid of new stuff will get really really annoyed.

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

Would still love to see an improvement here. I completely missed this topic because I never originally tracked it.

Completely unread topics with recent replies should show as new

Yes, I believe the solution I’m after is exactly this: