For the past several days (since Monday, i think, but i'm not sure) i've been having a minor technical difficulty when reading the discussions in these fora. Ordinarily, when i read a thread and then return to the main Forums [goats.com] page or any of its sub-pages, the coloration of the discussion titles now reflects the "read/unread" status appropriately. I had always assumed that this was determined by simply comparing certain cookie values related to last comment viewed, last time visited, etc. (Phillip, is this true?) However, this week i am noticing that the coloration is not functioning consistently. It seems to work for a little while; but if i close my browser tab or window, or if i quit my browser, the status of all threads reverts (incorrectly) to "unread".

This is a bit frustrating, because it forces me to wade through a number of recently visited threads needlessly, checking to see if they truly contain new comments, or whether they are just displaying "unread" status incorrectly.

I have made no changes to my browsing habits that would account for this apparent error. I have not disposed of any cookies, i have not performed any actions (to my knowledge) this week which differ in any way from last week. Also, i should mention that this issue occurred in the past (i don't remember how many months ago, but i think it was last summer or autumn) and lasted for about a week, then magically seemed to fix itself.

If Phillip is in the midst of making forum improvements, and this is just a temporary side-effect of his efforts, then i will gladly be quiet and patiently wait for everything to resume its proper functionality. But if this is an unintentional error which is happening to other forum visitors, then perhaps we could try to deduce its cause and solution.

Thanks for your help.

Phillip is aware of the problem (something database-related) and is working to fix it.

Well, not right now. Right now he's drinking. But he'll be working to fix it when he's done drinking.

Don't wait up.

In Response to jon (#13893):

Many thanks. Enjoy some good beer and good cheer, from a happy ... um... well, you know... :-)

I get it occasionally. If you refresh the page it fixes itself.

IE 6 on 2K

This hasn't happened to me yet. I did notice that a few times, I would click on a forum group and it would show everything as unread, but I figured out that it was just that my session had expired so it needed to log me in again.

When I see that this has happened, I refresh the page, and it's corrected. I suppose what you are experiencing is beyond this, but I've never seen it.

I'm using Mozilla 1.5

'Every thread marked unread' happens to me every couple of days, usually, but over the last week I've noticed that every time I've logged in, all the threads have reverted to unread. On occasion, this includes the times I simply refresh. I use IE at work, Netscape at home, both seem to have been having the problem.

My way around it is usually to try and remember approximately the last time I looked at the site, and do my own internal read / unread list. But if we can arrange it so I don't have to do that much thinking, I'm sure my brain would be grateful.

I've had this problem for about a year or so now, and I really don't notice the difference anymore. I just have to vaguely remember my last visited time/date and I'm fine.

Oh, and Jon, I'm not complaining about this, I just like adding my 2 bobs worth. Despite recent unfortunate situations I'm really not a habitual whinger. Really, I'm not.

In Response to tor (#13897):

I get it occasionally. If you refresh the page it fixes itself.

This is what I've found, on both Safari on 10.2 and Mozilla on XP Pro.

So I think it's irrelevant the browser. Unfortunately, we can't blame Jonny's HTML this time.

I've never had it work correctly. Been using Firebird for the past few eons and everything likes to be unread, unless I refresh during the current session, then it'll tell me what I've just read, but everything else will be unread, even if I had read it during another session.

In Response to themysticalone (#13976):

What cookie policy do you have set for goats.com?

In Response to zamphir (#13977):

The same one I have set for everything else. It's a rather liberal policy.

As of this weekend (probably prior to February 21st), the "Read/Unread" status of the various discussions appears to be showing correctly. So i give a million thanks to Phillip and the forum-faeries who fix these funny functionality flubs. Magical repairs seem to have succeeded.

In Response to Crusty (#14254):

*sigh* I'm gonna miss him so ...

In Response to tynic (#14255):

I'm afraid I can't reciprocate
got any mandys bob?

In Response to Crusty (#14256):

*sniff* *sniff* mmm... Fresh Meat
*crunch* *crunch* rrrr.. Troll between my teeth
Anyone got a toothpick?

In Response to zamphir (#14259):

Anyone got a toothpick?

Sounds like you might need something a little more industrial strength [dentalexce...uebell.com] for this guy.

In Response to Crusty (#14254):

Wot the fuck it says I have zero karma

Yay!! You get to start out with a clean slate! If only I could start out a 0 in all of my other endeavors, rather than starting out having to make up for pre-existing negatives! Here on goats, however, everyone gets a chance to be reborn as a perfect, identiyless zero.

Looks like you decided not to keep it that way.

In Response to Crusty (#14254):

New people (i.e. people "us guys" don't even know) start with 0 karma. It's a nice neutral number that means "we don't even know you". As you seem to have found out, you can indeed get lower than 0.

You can't start a discussion without 4 karma because that way you have to get aclimated to local posting customs before you can start a discussion. It helps limit the number of discussions that start with post like... well... like the one to which I'm replying.

It isn't hard to get 4 karma. You just have to participate in others' discussions productively for a little while, then you can start your own discussion.

You've started off on the wrong foot; there's a lot wrong with the post to which I'm replying. But, you can recover. Others have.

In Response to Crusty (#14254):

This post reminds me: Is there any chance of getting a sixth karma level put in for those below 0 and lonely goatherd? because, although when he had 0 we didn't know him, we've quickly been able to make some preliminary judgements on him.

Something like:

Sentient Citrus
Cold War Supervillian
Advanced Pedant
Junior Birdman
Wage Slave
Moron

It'd be pretty easy to pick out these sort of people then. I'm guessing theres a section of the users here who'd disagree with the actual wording, but that was my best effort at producing the desired effect.

In Response to mea37 (#14272):

You've started off on the wrong foot; there's a lot wrong with the post to which I'm replying. But, you can recover. Others have.

I suspect we've seen the last of this one. There are those whose idea of a good time is to prove themselves an arsehole in public. By coming here and being obnoxious, they believe they will upset us, and that this is somehow funny. In truth, we just think they're arseholes and move on. Yes Sir, *we* are laughing at *you*.

If the pillock doesn't return, I for one will miss him. One thing we need is a guy to beat on whenever we feel the need without any of those vague guilt pangs that otherwise might occur. This guy is such a total, unredeemed arse that flaming him up one side and down the other would be a complete pleasure.

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to albionsoft (#14279):

I suspect we've seen the last of this one.

That's what I thought when I posted [goats.com], and yet he came back. Twice. I guess the moral is: dicks can surprise you.

Which is a valid lesson in any context.

In Response to tynic (#14280):

I guess the moral is: dicks can surprise you.

Ooooh. That's got to be the future punchline of, like, 50 jokes.

In Response to unFalln (#14273):

How about "Cave Troll"

Get it? Cuz like, that person's a troll AND it's like they've been living in a cave or something.

In Response to unFalln (#14273):

You had merely to ask.

Karma can go from -25 to +50. I changed it so there's an "extra" level that gets assigned to anything less than zero. It shouldn't affect the labels that others get, but I didn't do any, y'know "debugging" or "checking my work" or anything, so it's quite possible that it will.

In Response to Crusty (#14254):

I think Crusty has a point. I mean, think about how much better it would be around here if he could start discussions.

There would be less of this long-winded 'be nice to other people' crap posted all around.

I am using Safari 1.1 at home and it's never worked regularly enough for me to rely on it. I just end up reading the same things over and over.