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I know when a board has new posts from the "star" on the favorites page. But when I go to that board, I have a hard time distinguishing where the new posts begin. The reason is that (on Firefox anyway) the color/shading of new and old posts is almost identical. I have to use the date and time stamps and my memory of when I last visited to try to determine where the new posts start.

If there is some way to increase the contrast between read and unread posts that would be most helpful.

Thanks, bhm

I have to use the date and time stamps and my memory of when I last visited to try to determine where the new posts start.

Yes. I find myself doing a lot of unnecessary scrolling, clicking, and visual scanning to find where I left off the previous visit.

This is similar to BenSolar's post https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=744317479:

I did prefer how the old Fool boards would navigate from the Favorites page such that the list of messages on a board started with the last one you read and then unread ones below that.

I understand Manlobbi probably has good reasons for the current method (the system remembering which page of posts you were last on) and may not want to change it. So visually identifying the new posts, or at least the first new post would be great, with a different link color or maybe a yellow tick mark.

I understand Manlobbi probably has good reasons for the current method (the system remembering which page of posts you were last on) and may not want to change it. So visually identifying the new posts, or at least the first new post would be great, with a different link color or maybe a yellow tick mark.

Unread posts are marked in a different colour already. They should have a lighter tone (closer to grey) after being read, and a stronger blue when unread.

Regarding the separate idea of a list of all new posts across all boards, it seems sound and a good idea on casual observation, but I'm weary about it. The new TMF boards encourage cross board viewing, and it will create a lot more noise and dilute the cultural distinctions between the various boards that made the earlier TMF exceptionally high quality/noise ratio compared to other platforms. I discussed it briefly here also:
https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=530891231

- Manlobbi

Unread posts are marked in a different colour already. They should have a lighter tone (closer to grey) after being read, and a stronger blue when unread.

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Thanks manlobbi, I realize that. However, on my Firefox browser, the difference in tone is so slight that it is really hard to discern. This really is a challenge or I would not have made the OP. I am no HTML guy, but if there is some way that you could increase the degree of the contrast, that would be most appreciated. My OP got four recs so others may be struggling with this too. Thanks for any remedy you can apply.

The new TMF boards encourage cross board viewing, and it will create a lot more noise
and dilute the cultural distinctions between the various boards that made the earlier TMF
exceptionally high quality/noise ratio compared to other platforms.

I haven't seen any evidence for increased noise and dilution on the new TMF boards. Indeed,
the new TMF boards seem a tad more orderly and civil than previous. Although I wouldn't know
how to measure such evidence objectively. So there's that.

The "Latest" feature on the new TMF boards is one of the few good things they've done with
the new boards. It gives me the opportunity to explore paths I would otherwise overlook. I
admire what you've accomplished here, but I'd visit this site more often if you add that
feature.

Ears

The "Latest" feature on the new TMF boards is one of the few good things they've done with the new boards.

I definitely like the idea of posts on new stock investing boards being more visible, as those boards are more hidden away. The problem isn't as large as you might think, though - I have scanned the boards having only 5 or less posts and they all have a surprisingly high readership. I pointed this out to BenSolar, as his excellent Alibaba and Upstart posts are among his most recommended despite the audience seemingly small if misjudged by post frequency.

Post frequency is a poor indicator of board quality, and a major goal is to keep each board as focussed as possible.

I also encourage cross referencing posts to introduce boards to other communities. My recent post on the Value Investing board could have been made on the Berkshire Board, but I instead posted it at Value Investing because I thought it was the most relevant there, and then posted an "OT" reference to Value Investing board at the Berkshire Hathaway board.

I'll likely soon add a feature called "Vanguard Boards" which lists all the boards that have at least one post in the last 3 months, and lists the top 4 boards in reverse order of their number of posts. All this means is that a new post added to a new board will push the board to the top of the Vanguard Boards list, making the new post visible. (If quite a few posts are made there, then it will moved down the Vanguard Board list, though if a board is ignored for a few months again, and then a new post is added, once again the board will jump to the top of the Vanguard Board list). This is better than a "latest" list, as such new posts would anyway be swamped by the high frequency of posts on other boards. My "Vanguard Boards" concept will make sure new posts on rarely posted boards will remain visible to accent them.

- Manlobbi

> This is better than a "latest" list, as such new posts would anyway be swamped by the high frequency of posts on other boards.

I believe a recent-list of 100 posts would not be swamped so easily as you say. If you add up the sum of posts published on this site, and divide by the number of days the site has been running, it's quite a bit less than 100 I think.

Even if it were, a 'frequently-but-not-always-100%-useful' page is still frequently useful.

Also,

being blunt: I have no absolutely no interest in 'shrewdness factor', cute icons, finding 'new boards'.

I just want to see all new posts being made and pick out interesting sounding ones.

I don't care what board the person chose to post it on.

This is the same kind of mistake TMF made with having 'avatars' and 'awards' and 'categories' on their new site.

I want to be able to do the things I actually want to do.

What I want to do is find *all* new interesting posts, regardless of where they are made, and quickly read the most interesting sounding ones, in a dense formatted list.

The overall board structure is totally irrelevant to me.

Icons, 'social rewards' etc are totally irrelevant to me.

The value of a discussion site does not come from the board hierarchy or the icons and ratings, it comes from finding and writing interesting posts as easily as possible.

I suspect others might feel the same way.

Is there any harm in testing out such a feature ('new posts list') to see if it's valuable?

It's hardly more than a "SELECT ..." statement away.

It's also a long-proven way of arranging discussions on the internet.

Classically, USENET boards were simply a (*very* broad theme) plus a never-ending list of recent posts - and nothing else!

lux

luxmain, I have no obligation to reply to your aggressive post, but in respect to both yourself and others who may not understand the philosophy and purpose of this endeavour, I will give some background.

It's hardly more than a "SELECT ..." statement away.

If I programmed features here based on how "easy" they were to implement, the site would not only not have been built in the first place, but would have a lot of problems that you take for granted as not existing.

The reason it appears clean, and fast and has had practically no down time even as many features were being amended, is because aiming to add "easy" features was not, and won't be in the future, part of my mindset.

What I want to do is find *all* new interesting posts, regardless of where they are made, and quickly read the most interesting sounding ones, in a dense formatted list.

You can do this using the Best Of link.

I don't care what board the person chose to post it on.

You will care, if you think through the second-order effect. Many of these people would not have posted in the first place if they did not have a sense of community and relations on their respective board.

Go to a cafe with a particular group of colleagues with a common interest, and compare that to hanging out in a metro and talking to random people passing by. With the first version, you get better quality conversations (more focused posts).

You could be grateful that intelligent and interesting people have returned here and are now around you right now that you can engage with. They didn't appear by accident. They were slowly built up over 25 years with a particular platform. And my word "returning" is important here also. These wonderful people would not have returned if I went about creating some other platform trying to keep up with the latest trends, or adding the features at the new TMF boards that many authors here are precisely running away from.

With post yesterday on the Index Investing board, the wording was pretty strong: "I am running screaming from TMF's new website & service model. I feel incredibly blessed to have stumbled onto this place". The first sentence is the most striking - extreme detesting of the newer TMF platform - and I have had almost one hundred similar remarks by others between posts and emails.

I have added a some new features, such as search, and a better ignore user implementation. But I'm taking a lot of care preserve the culture.

I have no absolutely no interest in 'shrewdness factor', cute icons, finding 'new boards'.

The non-essential features such as the Shrewdness Factor are far more meaningful than the array of dozens of awards on both the new TMF boards and the previous TMF boards. Contrasting your disparagement, others have sent emails expressing how much they the elegance of Shrewdness Factor to motivate keeping the average quality/noise ratio higher.

This site is not trying to be like other sites, but preserving a platform culture built up slowly over 25 years. It is doing that reasonably successfully.

For example, I'll just pick a random page on Yahoo...
OK, I'll choose another site at random. WSJ.

When you cite other platforms having some feature that the platform missing, as if we need the platform to match up to them, to be honest I only feel pity. My life's composing output wouldn't have progressed very far before being ruined, and I don't think the greater endeavours of others would have come far, with such a such mindset. I encourage you especially to avoid succumbing to association by authority (if Yahoo, WSJ, and latest Fool board have feature X, and then we need it).

I'll repeat this again, as you may over time start to see it. The stronger board separation is what makes the idiosyncratic culture develop within each board, and what makes the platform better as a whole. High volume boards, which you have indicated as a virtue, you can find elsewhere (I don't mean to cause offence, but an example is the Yahoo message boards) is not the goal here. Higher volume was in the past, in a few cases, even associated with a lower, not higher, board value for the readers.

As for this particular board (Shrewdsmith) I did not have to include it, but added it on a temporary basis during the early rapid development. I'm glad I did add it as it has made the site better. But whilst I will give my time to keep the board running reliable, I won't give the same amount of time as I have the last few months.

In good faith.

- Manlobbi

Thanks manlobbi, I realize that. However, on my Firefox browser, the difference in tone is so slight that it is really hard to discern.

I can confirm this experience with Firefox browsers. On my Android device, there seems to be a small color difference (and it seems do depend on which device I read a post), but on Windows I see no difference at all, so I have to look at the timestamps and try to remember my last visit.
It could be my usage of very strict preferences regarding activity tracking combined with my deteriorating eyesight...

But these are only details. Otherwise, I can only express my utmost respect for the quality of your great work.

Thank you (again), Manlobbi for your patience and hard work.

(sheesh)

-sutton

Re: already-read posts: I'm using Firefox (109.0.1, 64-bit) also, and the difference in contrast on my HP Envy laptop between read and unread posts is clear enough on my screen. Just another data point.

Unread posts are marked in a different colour already. They should have a lighter tone (closer to grey) after being read, and a stronger blue when unread.


Is the color of the posts determined server side, or device side? If it is server side, then at least for me it does not work as intended, for example I just opened the last posts on this board on desktop, but on my phone they still show as unread.

Manlobbi, thanks for all your work on creating and maintaining these boards.

But I have to agree with BigHairyMike and the others on the contrasting color for the unread posts in the list view.

Certainly, some of the issue is likely how the browser renders it, and how the monitor displays it, but a different color completely would help me.
Red might be good or even black but currently it seems to just be a paler shade of blue.

I use MS-Edge browser with a 4K monitor and a Nvidia video card, so I'm pretty sure it's not the physical part of the display.

I just opened the last posts on this board on desktop, but on my phone they still show as unread.

The colouring is client side.

agree with BigHairyMike and the others on the contrasting color for the unread posts in the list view

Thanks everyone, I will make the colours more distinguished.

There is no visited/unvisited link colouring for posts in the first release and mungofitch pointed out to include it, after that I added it. It was subtle so some readers haven't noticed it.

By the way, I was shocked how much data TMF were recording (someone asked for their data to be returned and it turned out they knew just about every link clicked over decades) and I'm conversely avoiding tracking what you are reading and don't want neither myself (nor the server!) 'to know'. It feels bad taste to me to track too much. I could track it short term but the browser tracking it is good enough.

- Manlobbi

By the way, I was shocked how much data TMF were recording (someone asked for their data to be returned and it turned out they knew just about every link clicked over decades)

Yeah that was me. You can request the data at https://preferences.fool.com/privacy. TMF sent me a file with all my activity. In total tens of thousands of entries since 2015, with every page I visited on the boards, together with exact time stamp, IP address and location that I visited from. A rather complete travel profile could be made from the data. Not that it would be of much use to anyone, but still'

I don't know what shocked me more, the data, or that I opened on average 19 pages on TMF every day during 7 years.

Using the same link above you can request to have your data and account deleted. Which is what I did. They deleted the account after a few days. I suppose they deleted the data, too.

R.e. Firefox and the distinguishing of read vs un-read posts. Firefox defaults to 'private' browsing, where it does not remember what links you've visited from session to session. So, when you close Firefox and open it back up, it will show all links as 'unread', from what I understand.

I found this page which talks about how you can adjust the color of read vs unread links on the client side. Chrome and Safari both require a browser extension to do so.

https://www.softwarehow.com/change-color-visited-l...

Firefox defaults to 'private' browsing

It doesn't for me. Are you running in some sort of managed environment? If not, it must be how you've got it set up, it's never done that for me, and a new profile I just created (so basically a new install of Firefox) to test this doesn't either.

Brian

Yay!!! I can now easily see the difference between read and un-read posts.

Thanks.

"I'll likely soon add a feature called "Vanguard Boards" which lists all the boards that have at least one post in the last 3 months, and lists the top 4 boards in reverse order of their number of posts."

This would be great. There are so many boards but it's hard to find where the posts are (other than the high volume ones that show up in "Best Of". But the best of the week tend to be Atheist posts which are political in nature, and I come to investing as a reprieve from such things. I'd love a "show me no political posts" button ;-).

Thank you for this new board site!!!

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