Pony request: "reset" link for recent posts/comments count?

September 10, 2003 4:55 AM

It's pony time! Well, maybe less of a pony, and more of a Falabella. Anyway, what about a little link on the front page of MeTa that resets your threads and posts update? I often return every half hour or so (I know...) and the count doesn't reset...
posted by twine42 to Feature Requests at 4:55 AM (8 comments total)

ahem... links and comments. Oh you knew what I meant...
posted by twine42 at 4:56 AM on September 10, 2003

Yeah, it is a bit annoying, and when you've got the Metafilter shakes and keep clicking the REFRESH button every 10 seconds, the "updated threads" counter becomes pretty useless. But I imagine the database queries to work out what threads have been updated, and by how much, are quite resource intensive. I assume that why it doesn't reset the count constantly, so I doubt matt would add a feature like this.
posted by Jimbob at 5:14 AM on September 10, 2003

surely, the database queries are the same regardless of date. The only change in the equation is the date you are comparing to...
posted by twine42 at 5:40 AM on September 10, 2003

Dummies observation, but I have to confess I've never been able to figure out what I have to do to get the "X comments (Y new)" line to reset. Particularly, the "Y new" number seems to persist even if I've viewed the thread and the new comments.
posted by carter at 6:41 AM on September 10, 2003

It seems to be somewhat browser dependant. In Win2000 IE you have to actually exit and restart the browser. In Safari it seems to reset itself after awhile.
posted by timeistight at 8:39 AM on September 10, 2003

Similar MeTa thread and Matt's response.
posted by rhapsodie at 11:34 AM on September 10, 2003

Right.
Well, in that case we'll resume our ponying for the long/lat thingie on our userpages.
posted by ginz at 11:42 AM on September 10, 2003

So according to Matt's comment (linked by rhapsodie), to have the numbers updated, you have to be considered a new visitor when you call the page, where 'new' means 'have not reloaded for at least 15 minutes.'

One could reload the front page once every 10 minutes and never be considered a new visitor, ever.

Hah. That probably explains it, then.
posted by carter at 7:47 AM on September 11, 2003