Hashtagging, Thread Tagging, Quote Notification

Hashtagging, Thread Tagging, and Quote Notification have been enabled across the entire forum. The purposes of these tools is to increase member awareness of discussions that involve them. The system works as follows:

• Hashtagging: Simply put @ before a member's name anyplace in a post. The forum will automatically send that person a notification alerting them that they have been tagged in that post. (Example: @Andres results in a notification being sent to Andres with a link to this post. Hi, Andres! :wave:) This is useful for attracting someone's attention to a post without having to PM them about it.
• Thread Tagging: Similar to Hashtagging, but directs a person to an entire thread instead of a single post. This can be done by adding users names to the list at the top of the thread.
• Quote Notification: Whenever someone is quoted in a post, they will now automatically receive a notification about the post that quoted them.

All three of these tools have been enabled for testing and feedback. If you like or dislike one or more of these tools, please post and let us know. Some or all may be kept or removed based on member feedback.

@louisVITheFat

Thumbs down to quote notification.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Thumbs down to quote notification.

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You've just been notified.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

You've just been notified.

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@a completely inoffensive name, made me laugh

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Thumbs down to quote notification.

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I agree.

I don't like these very much because they obscure the useful notifications, such as PMs or subscribed threads.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

I don't like these very much because they obscure the useful notifications, such as PMs or subscribed threads.

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@Tellos Athenaios testing @Tellos Athenaios testing @Tellos Athenaios testing @Tellos Athenaios testing

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

I don't like these very much because they obscure the useful notifications, such as PMs or subscribed threads.

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You think it funny, just you wait until you actually are working on something useful, preferably part of a larger team work using forum posts for snapshots. Something that will have to stand up to scrutiny. Like, I don't know, previews for a mod or text work for same?

This makes me glad the progress on EB2 is slow and mostly loosely related, so at least the notifications are limited to someone taking it for a cheap shot at tinned pork. I just can't wait to see what happens once some big debate comes up. Frankly, this system should be taken out to the back, shot, and buried for good.

At the very least make it opt in, so those obsessing about what others think of them can enjoy the vanity fair; without hitting the rest with an indiscriminate deterrent to meaningful contributions to the forum.

Tellos puts it more strongly as I would but I would put it in only if one would be able to opt off. It's rather annoying especially when one expects pms.

PS, in case it wasn't clear the first paragraph of my reply was aimed solely at Kralizec, not the forum staff. I understand it is all fun and games for the people who use the ORG as a big cuddly group of people from the internet to hang out with. But what he doesn't realise is that his few attempts at pork flavoured fun will pale in comparison to the deluge that doing a major announcement or submitting a complicated text for review to fellow team members will bring.

As an example: with just two people commenting, Kull and I, did manage to write well over 2 forum pages, trying to hammer out a fairly simple set of instructions for EB team members to set up their development copies of EB2. Plenty of quotes, naturally: I mean how else would you want to explain which bit of text you refer to? That is, really, a trivial example; work threads for reviewing the contents of an EB2 preview can easily span more than 10 pages, liberally decorated with spoilers and so on just to keep things readable. If you get a notification for every quote or mention that goes on in such a thread anything else just vanishes in all that noise entirely.

I appreciate the forum staff trying to make improvements to the forum, I just don't think these new notifications are actually one of those. I don't think that the consequences of this system have been thought through, don't think it adds value to the forum (one can already subscribe to threads that are useful, one can already leave visitor messages and what not to point people at other stuff), and I also don't think that a system which the user cannot opt out of (ignoring that it should be opt-in in the first place) which acts as a big spam machine is not something that the ORG should be doing.

You can quote without using the name of another member by just deleting his name. Especially if just two of you post in the thread. I think then there should be no notifications.

Anyway, I like it but perhaps it should be limited to only some parts of the forum? Or like Tellos said, make it possible to turn it on/off.

Why not keep everything, but allow one to choose whether or not he wants to receive the notifications in General Settings?

Currently it's possible to turn off notifications for PMs, but not other kinds.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Thumbs down to quote notification.

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Originally Posted by Kralizec

I agree.

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@Sasaki Kojiro I would like to voice my agreement in the most obnoxious manner possible.

Thank you all very much for your input during the testing period. Quote Notification and Thread Tagging have been turned off, while Hashtagging remains active. Please do continue providing comments on the system.

Why's it called hashtagging anyway?

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Originally Posted by Double A

Why's it called hashtagging anyway?

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Since it uses an @ instead of a #, it's not technically a hashtag. However, it operates like a hashtag system and that term is relatively commonly used due to Twitter, so that's what I call it for ease of explanation. I guess it should technically be called user tagging, but I'll probably always refer to it as hashtagging, just because.

In principle a good idea. If it could be opted in/out based on a particular part of the board that might be good.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

Since it uses an @ instead of a #, it's not technically a hashtag. However, it operates like a hashtag system and that term is relatively commonly used due to Twitter, so that's what I call it for ease of explanation. I guess it should technically be called user tagging, but I'll probably always refer to it as hashtagging, just because.

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So it's an 'at' tag then. :laugh4:

"Hash tags" (or the "mention" thing or whatever they're called) don't seem to be working. I get informed that I'm not logged in when clicking on the tag or the notification. Looks like the session ID isn't getting passed across - if it's a hack, might be something gone awry. (I tested with Firefox with all extensions disabled and it's the same).

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Originally Posted by TinCow

Thank you all very much for your input during the testing period. Quote Notification and Thread Tagging have been turned off, while Hashtagging remains active. Please do continue providing comments on the system.

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Hmm, it seems the Quote thingy was turned back on? Mistake? Or somewhere to opt out?

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Hmm, it seems the Quote thingy was turned back on? Mistake? Or somewhere to opt out?

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Apologies, the settings are enabled by default on newly created top-level fora. I forgot about that when I was implementing the re-organization, which resulted in the notifications showing up for some fora. This should be fixed now.

Thanks!