Favorites in Recent Activity

October 9, 2007 9:19 AM

Mini-pony: When I favorite a thread, I want it to show up in my Recent Activity.

On the blue, one can just make a "wow, thanks" passing comment to ensure that one can follow it in Recent Activity-- but in AskMe, that's not welcome, nor should it be encouraged. I often wind up losing track of threads I was interested in-- which may keep growing for several days-- because I mainly use RA to follow threads.

Instead of saying "15 total comments, 1 since your last comment", it could just say "15 total comments, last 10 comments:". If you've favorited it AND commented in it, it could just default to its regular function of highlighting your comment and then showing those since.

Thanks!

posted by hermitosis to Feature Requests at 9:19 AM (26 comments total)

There's a "My Favorites" tab on the front pages of each site you can also use to keep track of your favorite threads.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:24 AM on October 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also, it would be helpful if my Recent Activity displayed threads that I myself had started-- in the same fashion, with "15 total comments, last 10 comments:". Because actually asking a question or posting something should count as activity.

People usually wind up commenting in their own thread at some point anyway, but it would be great if it still showed up in RA even if they didn't.
posted by hermitosis at 9:26 AM on October 9, 2007

There's a "My Favorites" tab on the front pages of each site you can also use to keep track of your favorite threads.

Yes, but they're just in chronological order and don't show you what's still actively being commented on.

Perhaps the threads in the "My Favorites" could display the last few comments, or even be sorted by the most recently updated?
posted by hermitosis at 9:33 AM on October 9, 2007

hermitosis, there are two "RA" pages: recent activity on my posts | recent activity on my comments

Would you just rather they be folded into one page?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:36 AM on October 9, 2007

Would you just rather they be folded into one page?


I suppose so, though I dare not speak for everyone. There's a limit to how many posts people can make in a day, so I doubt it would be too confusing. Though pretty active users might complain that they'd lose track of their own posts among the rest of Recent Activity.

Also, from that page, I can hit a tab that shows me MY contributions that were favorited, not the contributions of others that I favorited. I have to go back to the main page to click that other "My Favorites" tab you mentioned (which even then doesn't show any activity on them, just lists them).

These aren't big points of contention with me, just suggestions based on how I use the site. YMMV.
posted by hermitosis at 9:44 AM on October 9, 2007

I see where you're coming from, hermitosis; I find myself wanting a similar capability as well sometimes. Having an easy way to drop arbitrary to-be-watched threads into (or out of!) the Recent Activity listing would be nice.

I'm not sure folding favoritedness into that is a good way to go, though, because that essentially punishes folks who don't want said functionality for sticking a favorite on a thread they aren't tracking. It's overloading the feature in a way that I think would be bad.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:02 AM on October 9, 2007

(or out of!)

That's interesting actually. There are plenty of times where I make a comment in a thread that I actually have no real interest in watching spiral into insanity. Like when the Mark Foley thread went on for weeks, it kept resurfacing at the very top of my RA, over and over-- a huge pile to page down through. That happens fairly often, and it would be nice to click something that effectively banished such threads from my Recent Activity so I can move on with my (lack of a) life.
posted by hermitosis at 10:08 AM on October 9, 2007

Ultimately, my main point though is that AskMe threads are more difficult to track, because one is less inclined to comment at all unless one has something pertinent to say, so favoriting is really the only option-- and the tracking that provides is far more limited than Recent Activity.

Also, does this plate of beans rotate clockwise, or counter-clockwise?
posted by hermitosis at 10:17 AM on October 9, 2007

It's actually a prototype oscillating beanplate.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:31 AM on October 9, 2007

prototype oscillating beanplate
prototype oscillating beanplate
prototype oscillating beanplate
posted by grateful at 10:46 AM on October 9, 2007 [2 favorites]

+1 for a separate page called 'Recent Comments on Posts I Have Favorited'. Would solve hermitosis's original problem, without changing the existing pages that people are familiar with.
posted by chrismear at 10:58 AM on October 9, 2007

I wonder if it might be possible (if somewhat confusing) to add 'my recent posts' to 'my recent comments', thus creating 'my recent activity' with that particular view, but not getting rid of 'my recent posts'? It seems like some people might just like to keep track of comments on their own posts, without the clutter of other things they've posted on, while having your own posts in the 'my recent comments' page could only be a help. (I usually just comment on my posts so they appear there anyway.)
posted by jacquilynne at 11:04 AM on October 9, 2007

I agree, jacquilynne. That way the posts page would stay really clean for the people that use it, and since you can only make a few posts a day or any flavor, they wouldn't really dominate the "My recent comments" page.
posted by hermitosis at 11:09 AM on October 9, 2007

I'd kinda second this.

The way I'd solve it would be with a little 9862; (which should look like a white circle with a dot in it, representing an "eye," but it doesn't seem to be displaying on my computer).
posted by klangklangston at 11:30 AM on October 9, 2007

That way we could choose which ones we watched. Even more ideal would be a little open or closed eye icon which we could blink on and off.
posted by klangklangston at 11:31 AM on October 9, 2007

And then does the eye get all blurry when the thread goes on for too long?
posted by typewriter at 11:53 AM on October 9, 2007

mathowie writes "hermitosis, there are two 'RA' pages: recent activity on my posts | recent activity on my comments

"Would you just rather they be folded into one page?"

Yes. I intentionally comment in my posts now even when I don't really have anything new to say just to make this happen.
posted by Mitheral at 12:10 PM on October 9, 2007

I'd love the ability to remove certain threads from my recent activity view. As hermitosis notes above, sometimes it's a slog to wade through and just keeps showing up on political threads even if your interest has waned.
posted by Tuwa at 12:32 PM on October 9, 2007

I really like the idea of being able to choose which threads we are and are not following and have that display on a page with recent comments first (instead of date added).

But you guys have done so much cool with the site recently that I feel a little bad asking for it.
posted by mosessis at 12:56 PM on October 9, 2007

"And then does the eye get all blurry when the thread goes on for too long?"

Yes! Web 2.0!
posted by klangklangston at 12:58 PM on October 9, 2007

I would also love this feature. There are many AskMe threads, where I don't have anything to contribute, but I would like to see recent contributions.
posted by bove at 1:20 PM on October 9, 2007

Instead of trying to distinguish whether something goes into recent activty, recent posts and recent threads I don't comment on but want to follow, would it be possible to have a feature where you click on a thread to indicate that you want to follow said thread - much like favouriting, but perhaps more "Follow this!" - and the last x comments of that thread magically show up in a "My current reading list" page. If you de-follow that thread, it gets removed from the "my current reading list" page much as a favourite would get removed from the "my favourites" page.

Essentially it would be the favourites function and the recent activity function combined into one. And yeah, I know I'm repeating much of what has already been said - I'm mostly trying to clarify this pony in my own mind, too.
posted by Phire at 1:39 PM on October 9, 2007

That sounds like a great feature Phire.
posted by Mitheral at 2:51 PM on October 9, 2007

Oh yeh, I'm voting for this. I always end up posting in my own questions/posting dross in threads just so I can follow them.
posted by bonaldi at 7:54 AM on October 10, 2007

I want to add my support for this idea. I was thinking it the other day and then I saw the post. I can see into the future.
posted by spec80 at 8:16 AM on October 10, 2007

I was just about to post a request for this (Recent Activity on Favorites). Please please please do this, Matt.
posted by mkultra at 8:47 AM on October 18, 2007