Toggle sidebar

New Posts Sidebar Suggestion

  • Welcome to Umbra Roleplaying! We are an 18+ multi-genre roleplaying and writing community open to writers of all types. Sign up today to have access to our forums and join our other talented members!

    After signing up, be sure to check your spam folder for our confirmation email. Due to the nature of most email servers' filters, emails from Umbra are often incorrectly marked as spam. Don't forget to check your spam folder and mark our emails as safe so you can continue to receive emails and notifications from your new roleplaying home!
  • Hi there Guest! It looks like you haven't verified your email just yet - you should receive a notification from umbraroleplaying@gmail.com (it may go to your spam) with a link to click. Once you do that, this notice will disappear!
  • Hi there Guest. As a reminder - when you are updating/editing your threads in the Requests areas - it is sent to our approval queue to be checked against our site rules. It will take about 24 hours to approve and post. Questions can be sent to Auntie Angel!
  • Hi there Guest! This message is to let you know that leadership is aware there is an error in the posting of badges - that the image links themselves are broken. Rei is working to move the items to a different img host, but it may take a little while for the transition to be complete.
Welcome to Umbra Roleplaying!
We are an 18+ multi-genre roleplaying and writing community open to writers of all types.
Click to sign up!
Tarieles

Tarieles

be gay do crimes
Umbra Supporter
Member
Blood Moon Toil and Trouble Witch Friend Tombstone
Jul 5, 2019
99
127
43
27
in a shell
Hey this is just a little thing, but I've noticed a lot that when IC posts from Roleplay Haven and posts from Forum Games get featured on the New Posts sidebar thing on the main page, a lot of RP search threads and OOC get pushed out of the spotlight very quickly. A suggestion to maybe remove IC posts and forum games from the sidebar so it only features search threads and OOC posts? Or maybe making a new sidebar blurb to do those separately. Just an idea, and I think it would help people see new posts in threads that are actively looking for people instead of just seeing a bunch of Forum Game posts and a few 1x1 IC posts that they can't join anyway.
 
While this is a good idea as RP/RT posts are inherently more important than OOC threads, there is currently no way to isolate the New Posts add on to only pull from specific forums. I also do not have the programming ability to create a brand new sidebar that only pulls from the forums requested. (I can create new sidebars, just not ones that perform the task you're suggesting.)

While not particularly elegant, there are node icons on all themes that let users know when new posts have been added to a forum. (Icons will be one color when you have read all posts in a forum and a different color when there are new, unread posts.) It isn't the fanciest and doesn't put threads in the spotlight, but it is a quick visual cue to let people know to check that forum.

I hate telling people, "I can't do that," but, yeah. Unfortunately I cannot.
 
Oh of course! Like I said, I hate saying no. I genuinely want to give members what they want but I realize that in particular situations we are restricted either by the software, add-on capabilities, or my own lack of knowledge.

If something can't be done, I absolutely want to give a reason why as opposed to giving you a hard no and leaving it at that. I don't feel like that reaction is helpful for the community.

Thank you for understanding! I am working on learning more about how to wrangle some of these add ons, so hopefully in the future we will be able to provide something like what you're looking for.
 
So! While I was doing something completely unrelated, I discovered a way to modify which forums show up on the sidebar. After talking with Nyco, we decided while it wasn't necessary to have every forum show up, we didn't want to exclude community posts, either. So we came to a compromise.

We figured it would be most effective to have posts show up in the "New Posts" sidebar for threads people can actively participate in. Things such as one-on-one roleplays, private journals, advertisements, etc. will no longer show up as these are threads that people cannot just "jump" into. We have left Request Threads, Announcements and threads from the Community forum as these are posts people interact with and gives them an opportunity to engage with the rest of the community.

While this isn't as pinpointed as you originally suggested, it will narrow down the amount of posts flooding the "New Posts" sidebar, allowing RT threads and other threads people can interact with to remain visible for longer periods of time.

Hopefully this approach helps more RTs get seen while still keeping the forum looking active and engaging for everyone. [fa]heart[/fa]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Recent Announcements

Quick Links

Affiliates:
RPGfixTop RP Sites Top RP Sites
Top Bottom
Back