Tagged topics are not "Tracking" when tracking the tag

I’ve been tracking the chat tag now for a while, but new topics are still showing up as “Normal” for me.

I thought perhaps that it was due to the tag being added after the topic was created initially, but I don’t see any evidence of that being the case in these three recent topics, which all show up as “Normal” for me:

I searched and haven’t found any previous discussions of this issue.

Just to confirm, I added the chat tag to those three topics during the initial ‘create topic’, and not afterwards. :+1:

Did those three topics show up in your New list? I think Tracking only keeps an Unread count for topics that you’ve seen already. Do the notifications work properly if you set it to Watching/Watching First Post?

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I haven’t opened those topics yet except or one of them to check it’s tracking state. The tracking state shows up as “Normal”. They do show up in my “New” list, but they are new enough to show up there with or without tracking. I haven’t tried changing to “Watching” or “Watching First Post” yet.

On the tag page, here’s the text for Tracking, which makes me think these topics really should be “Tracked” before I open them.

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Have you changed any manually since? I’ve just done a data-explorer query and it seems to suggest that you have a notification level of 2 (Tracking) for all the topics with a chat tag.

To test I’ve not muellered the data-explorer query somehow, would you mind changing a random chat one to something different and I’ll see if the query picks it up? :slight_smile:

I just changed this one to “Watching”: Putting some constraints on the @all mention in Chat

The other two now show up as Tracking (maybe because I visited them?) Can also wait and see what happens with any new topics.

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Thank you. :slight_smile: And the query has successfully picked that up. :+1:

I’ll add a new test topic with the chat tag and see what that looks like in the query too.

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I just put chat to the list of tags I’m watching. So I got a notification for the test topic. But the status for the topic is shown as Normal.

Now the status watching, but I don’t know why it changed (maybe just opening again or the reload after changing the interface language)

Will wait for you to tell me what you see in the query before I open it up.

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It has so far still not turned up in the query results, which is leading me to think that you may need to open it for it to gain a notification level. It does show up in the same query run with my user_id, which would make sense for various reasons.

Go ahead and open it and see what the visible notification level looks like, and I’ll run the query and see what the database says.

I did the following in quick succession:

  1. Opened topic (said Normal)
  2. Went back to topic list (cmd + [)
  3. Went forward to topic (cmd +]) - topic says Tracked

So it looks like it probably got “tracked” right when I opened it, but that only was visible to me on the 2nd open.

We could try another topic where I only do steps 1-2 to confirm.

My goal is to follow along with all topics that get tagged with chat. I just enabled the sidebar theme here, which I think will also significantly help to address that need.

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I can set another one up :+1: I can also confirm that the topic now shows up in the query with a notification level of 2 (tracking).

I have to admit that the magic of notifications still has a patina of mystery for me, so I’m not sure what is expected behavior here. :slightly_smiling_face: Would it be fair to characterise it as something like:

Expected Behaviour: When setting the chat tag to Tracking, new chat topics should be tracked the same as seen ones

Turns out: Topics gain tracking notification on open

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OK, for this one, I just opened it real quick and then hit the back button. I only ever saw it say “Normal”

Yes, at least, that’s what I was expecting :slight_smile:

As we hinted earlier in the topic, it may also be worth characterizing what expectations we have for topics that get tagged after they are created.

Expected Behaviour: When setting the chat tag to Tracking, and the chat tag is added to an existing topic I have never opened, that topic should be tracked for me.

Expected Behaviour: When setting the chat tag to Tracking, and the chat tag is added to an existing topic I have opened… ? that topic’s tracking state should not be changed ?

It is set as Tracking in the query. :+1:

So, for this one I’m going to create a topic, wait 10 minutes, then add the chat tag and see what happens. :slight_smile:

Update: It has been politely mentioned that we should maybe use a test tag for this so as not to be so noisy to the people who are genuinely watching the chat tag. Sorry everyone. :flushed:

I will go and make one.

Update Update:

Thinking about it, I may give this a run-through on my test site a few times first so as not to create any more of a ruckus :slight_smile:

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I moved over some more chat feedback into a standalone topic this morning and took the opportunity to create it without the chat tag, and then waited 10 minutes before adding it:

Add Option to Disable User-User Chat

How does that one look from your point of view?

I haven’t opened the topic yet. In the sidebar and on the topic list, it shows up as “New” not “Unread”, and there is no unread count next to the topic (even though there’s been a reply).

Oh, I also just noticed it does show up as the “1 new” topic under “Tracked” in the sidebar. Maybe that’s some evidence that something is working as intended here :slight_smile:

Do you want to see what the data explorer query says before I open it?

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It does not show up in the query as yet, so behaving the same as the last one so far.

Given that this is the case, and that it sounds like we’re headed towards a world where the sidebar becomes the default, I’m not sure this is really a bug anymore. Perhaps it’s eventually how we want things to work (in which case, I think the copy in the menu is what will really need adjusting).

But if folks think it is a but, then I’d say the expectations we captured above are what needs to be met.

I’m personally OK pausing the conversation here since the sidebar is meeting my need and letting this topic serve as a reference for future discussions if it comes up again.

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A suggestion probably a little too late, but there’s also the https://meta.discourse.org/latest?state=tracking view that might be worth checking as well if you still want to keep an eye on it. :slight_smile:

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