There is a BELL button that allows you to change a thread to Tracking or Muted status (the latter meaning you won’t see it again in any list of threads).
Currently, to access this button from a list of threads I have to open the thread and hunt for the button toward the bottom of the page, where it may be in two different places, then close the thread to navigate back to the thread list. This doesn’t sound like much, but in practice when you’re scanning down through dozens of thread titles it is very time consuming to curate threads like this. For me it would be be a huge improvement in monitoring the SDMB for what I care about if the button could be shown next to the thread title when displaying a list of threads, so that with a couple of clicks WITHOUT OPENING THE THREAD I could change each thread as I scan down the list to Tracking or Muted. Then when I come to the site and pull up a list of threads I would not always be scanning through dozens of threads that I don’t care about to find the ones I want to read.
For me, it’s not exactly a button but a drop-down menu. Is this what you mean, or is it different in different themes or modes?
I’ve never wanted to subscribe to—oops, I mean Track or Watch—a thread without first opening it to read it; but I suppose it might be handy occasionally to be able to turn off tracking without re-opening a thread I’m no longer interested in.
Yup, you have to open the thread and navigate down to the bottom to find it. I’d like it to be displayed next to the thread title on any list of threads, so it’s much more easily accessible to curate threads so you can mute topics that you are definitely not interested in - so they will not subsequently show up on the list.
I have my preferences set up so that every thread I’ve read for a couple of minutes is automatically set to [Tracking]. As are those I’ve posted to. Which makes the Unread list my favorite page, showing me all the changes in all the threads I’m already paying attention to. While the New page shows me every thread I’ve never seen before. So I open the News that look interesting, then clear the remaining New list.
So I never have a reason to set a thread to tracking; Discourse does that for me. When I get bored with a thread, I have to manually set it back to [Normal]. But generally that happens after I’ve opened it from Unread, read teh last few posts and said to myself “this is hopeless”. Right then I’m at the bottom of the thread, and there is the status dropdown just waiting for me to set it to [Normal] mode. If somebody later quotes or @'s me, it automatically goes back to tracking so I know to go back and see what’s up. Which may result in my putting it back on [Normal] or not.
I don’t mean to suggest that my techniques are ideal or universally best. But as a very heavy user here I pass them along for whatever benefit they may give anyone.
I have a similar flow, but often the threads I mark Normal are the ones that I have fallen behind on. If I don’t feel interested enough in the topic to read the 100 new posts to catch up, I’ll mark it as Normal. However to do that I have to scroll through the 100 posts. Worse if Discourse hoodwinks me into reading a zombie thread and I have to scroll through a 1000 posts.
My solution is to catch up on what I am interested in and then use the Dismiss button + Stop Tracking option on the Unread page to forget the others.
Assuming you’re reading on a PC, tapping the [End] key will instantly pop you to the bottom of the thread, no scrolling needed. On a phone you can press and hold the boxed thread progress indicator (e.g. [345/500] or whatever) and the resulting pop-up gives you an option to jump to the bottom.
Once at the bottom there are two consequences. The status dropdown is right there so you can easily update it to whatever setting you now want. Or if you don’t want to drop out of the thread forever, just sit tight. After a couple of seconds, Discourse will update the “how far you’ve read along” pointer to the end. So the thread to that point is no longer unread for you. If you come back later today you’ll pick up from here, not from where you were before.
Depending n the nature of the thread, skipping the 100 posts you missed out on yesterday may be meaningless to your participation. You don’t need to drop out of an interesting long-running thread forever just because you missed a days’ (or weeks’) worth of posts.
I already know that. Although it’s interesting to hear about the various ways other people navigate the site, I’m not really looking for workarounds. It would just massively improve my own site experience if I could change the tracking status of a thread in a list WITHOUT HAVING TO OPEN IT. With 90% of threads I know from the title alone if it’s something I care about. And I don’t see the downside of having that functionality - there’s plenty of real estate available to add that button on a thread list page.
But maybe others just don’t agree that it would be useful.
My reply was aimed at @CaveMike’s comments just above mine.
If the feature you propose existed I’d probably use it once in awhile.
I too have become annoyed at wanting to do a bulk un-follow and not having an easy way. For me that happens on the very rare occasions I’m away from the Dope for several days and my unread list gets huge, and with many threads having large unread post counts. Sometimes just doing a mass cull of that herd seems like the best way to recover that satisfying feeling of being fully caught up.
Mine too. D’oh! I tend to forget about it; I’m much better at words than I am at icons.
Also, if you scroll to the bottom that icon disappears. And it won’t reappear until you’ve scrolled up aways, and waited a few seconds without interacting with the page.
All that “fancy” behavior amounts to inscrutible and unreliable for at least some users, including me.
Understood. I’m just pointing out that sometimes you see it, sometimes you don’t.
And as somebody who posts rather a lot, I’m almost always at the bottom of the thread where / when you don’t see it. Which causes it to drift out of sight and therefore out of mind. For clueless me at least, YMMV of course.
I have been muting every thread that becomes of no interest to me since 2021. This includes threads on subjects I couldn’t care less about, threads by certain users, threads where I have made all the contribution that I care to make, zombies and threads that have become tedious. So there are only 3 or 4 at the moment that appear on CATEGORIES for me. I have a couple of fora totally blocked but can’t recall how I did that.
It only takes a few minutes to mute the newcomers each day. I just use the end key and mute it at TRACKING on the bottom left rather than using the option at the scroll bar.
Whereas I don’t think I’ve ever muted a thread. I mostly use “Unread” (which shows threads I’m tracking, so if I don’t want to see them I can turn off tracking) and “New,” but when I don’t, I’m capable of mentally ignoring the threads I’m not interested in—and there’s always the possibility that I might decide later that I have some interest in checking to see what’s going on in one of them.
Thanks for pointing this out; this is very useful on PC. I’ll note that it is dependent on window size. If you shrink the window width it disappears. So I see it on my external monitor, but not on the laptop monitor for instance.
Also thanks. I use this to scroll, but didn’t notice not only the “Jump to…” but also the bell icon is right there.
button that allows you to change a thread to Tracking or Muted status (the latter meaning you won’t see it again in any list of threads).
