4 or 5 months ago I finally had had enough of seeing posts from one of the categories here (e.g. Great Debates, Factual Questions, etc.) so I looked up how to “mute” the whole category.
I proceeded to do so but afterward there were still many threads from that category showing up in various lists. By “lists” I mostly mean what comes up when I click on “Latest” but I sometimes generate other lists as well (“New” for example).
Now, I’m pretty sure that I’m missing something veeeeeery simple but I don’t know what that is. I want to have exactly what it says I will get under Preferences / Tracking:
Muted
[The Category I Want Muted]
You will not be notified of anything about new topics in these categories, and they will not appear on the categories or latest pages.
But threads from the category still show up on Latest. What am I missing?
Click on the Forum name in question so you’re only seeing it.
Like Site ID as an example.
Then in the upper right hand corner is the Bell Icon, click that and the last option should be Muted.
Thank you. I just went to do this and saw the bell already had a line through it (mute, I assume) which makes sense because I had already muted it (going through account preferences).
I just now went to “Latest” to re-check and it’s same as it was. Threads from that category are still sprinkled throughout the latest list.
That would be a bug then. We would have to bump this up.
I appreciate that. It could be a bug but maybe there’s something I’m not doing or something I’m not describing correctly.
I’m thinking of muting a second category as a test.
ETA: I just muted “Cafe Society” as a test but that category also still appears in “Latest.”
ETA: i use “SDMD Light” as my theme. Just to check theme differences I changed my theme to “Minima” and then “Discourse Classic” and they both acted the same as SDMB Light.
I really thought that could be it because there’re are a number of issues on this board (or so I’ve read) with different skins having different abilities (and inabilities).
Do you personally have any categories muted? If so, does it work? If not, would you be willing to do a test on your account to see if you get the same results as I?
I can’t mute categories.
I can see about using our Test Account tomorrow though.
I tested just now.
I muted MPSIMS and all threads disappeared from the Latest list except for threads I had set to Tracking. So GoGo On Vacation! -A Holiday MMP disappear but Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 2) remained when I clicked Latest.
So did most Cafe threads disappear with just those set to tracking or Watching left?
It makes sense that it works that way.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
I never knew this existed!
I just went into a specific category I don’t care about and muted it. It disappeared nicely from the screen but left one thread in “Latest”
I went to that thread and saw that I had already read part of it, apparently causing it to be set to “tracking”
Once I set that thread to “normal” it disappeared as well.
Nice.
ETA: I just popped into a random thread to see if the act of viewing a thread switches on “Tracking” but it doesn’t. Maybe I posted something in the aforementioned thread that changed it from “Normal”
Man, if this works, it will be a real help!
I knew about it for the other side of the coin.
I have ATMB, Cafe Society, The Game Room, P&E, GD & IMHO set to Watching First Post I did the Game Room & Cafe Society first for help in tagging new threads. Then I realized I should at least look at the other 3 as a moderator for them. I added ATMB as it seemed useful.
You have to view enough of it. I don’t know what the threshold is, but if you’ve read dozens of posts in a thread, it will be under tracking, if you just open it and scroll through a couple, it won’t.
Under Preferences there is Tracking this allows setting even the duration of time before a thread goes to tracking automatically. Mine is set to 10 minutes as I found the default too short.
It also allows review and changes for Categories and Tags as far as Watched through Muted goes:
So under Watched I have a hidden forum listed.
Under Watching First Post I have the large number of forums I listed earlier. Oh, I forgot, I recently added Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports so I can pin globally the new columns.
Under the Tags & Watching First Post I listed #baseball-mlb & #breaking-news mostly to see how it works.
The Thread Games category is small, I’m not offended by it, and I ignore it to the point that I usually forget we even have it. But I have zero interest in it, never read any threads, etc.
I muted it and ZING, it’s like it doesn’t exist anymore. This is pretty awesome.
Same! I have nothing against that forum, but every once in a while, someone goes in and updates a ton of threads and it just dominates the Latest list.
I have BBQ Pit muted, but I was seeing a thread from it. Just went into the thread and set it to Normal, as it was set to Tracking. Hopefully that’s the end of the BBQ Pit until I decide I want to complain about something.
How do you change a thread from ‘tracking’ to ‘normal’? I see no controls that can be changed inside a thread.
It’s at the bottom of the thread, just below the last post. Right under “topic controls” and the “reply” button.