That’s definitely weird and unfortunate.
It’s not weird. Bubbles are different colors depending on what skin you use on the Board. I use Vincent.
Blue bubbles in both my skin and Wrenching_Spanners indicate someone has quoted me in a post.
Green bubbles in both my skin and Wrenching_Spanners indicate someone has sent me a direct PM.
My advice is to not ignore any bubbles, irrespective of what color they are, even if all you do is check the drop-down menu to see who either quoted you or sent you a direct PM.
And it is always a good practice to scroll up and down in a thread before posting a long post to see if things have happened since you last checked, as others have mentioned.
I sometimes do this in order to give a post proper attention.
I’ll start a reply, then realize I need to check a point in the reply, or somebody’s at the door, or whoops it’s later than I thought and I’m going to be late for something if I take time to finish the post properly. So I’ll leave it and come back to it later; specifically in order to avoid making a sloppy post.
But I’ll also do my best to remember to recheck what’s happened in the thread while I was gone. And if, after I post, I realize there were other posts in the interval, I’ll check them while I’m still in the edit window – glad to have 15 minutes to do that, 5 minutes often wasn’t long enough.
I think it is sloppy to fail to check intervening posts in the thread – aside from the possiblilty that there’s been a moderator instruction, someone else might have posted the same link I was about to post; or essentially the same argument; or for that matter something that appears to clearly refute the argument I was about to post, in which case I’d want to either check and possibly remove my claim, or refute the refutation. All of those things (as well as the occasional moderator instruction to drop the entire line of conversation I was replying to) happen to me from time to time.
It would be nice to see a thread have a symbol next to it if it has been officially modded in the way discussed in the OP.
Good idea for the wishlist, but I sincerely doubt we’ll ever see it.
We have very limited control over the software.
Well, not really. Your next post was immediately following someone who’d retracted theirs because of the instruction. I thought that was a good opportunity to see the instruction.
It’s not feasible to expect all of us to scroll through the entire thread to see if any mod instructions were left. But I thought you had good opportunity to see it.
And I’m not saying that you purposefully avoided it, either.
Good suggestion.
Or maybe mods could use a font color no one is allowed to. I can scroll and if I see a post in hot pink, i need to read it.
We already use a special color. Background though.
You do see this post is highlighted I hope.
But I’m saying a special color for
We are managing this thread. Ignore this post at your own peril.
All mod instructions should have the staff coloring. Typically the yellow background.
I don’t follow how that is different.
Yeah! A different color for each level of infraction!
Nope, the first time a mod posts a warning in note color the rules lawyers won’t be all ‘A warning in note color is clearly a note and not a warning!!1!’, nope that wouldn’t happen ever.
Because there is a difference between a mod note like “Hey Saint Cad settle down. Friendly reminder given.” which I see as a reply and know to look for and only I need to worry about as opposed to
“EVERYONE HEED THIS POST UNDER THREAT OF WARNING OR WORSE!”
So you want a special color for instructions to everyone on the thread?
It’s unfortunately very difficult to use colored font in Discourse. I know you can do it with mathjax, but i think that’s more than i can manage, especially since i mostly moderate on my phone. It’s a good idea, but i don’t think we can implement it.
When I return to a thread, it shows where new posts start. Especially if I’ve been active in the thread, I start there and read new posts. Mod posts are on a yellow background. If you’re actively engaged in a thread, why not start with the new posts divider rather than jumping to someone replying to your previous post? I don’t get why this wouldn’t be the default action. If the argument is that there are too many new posts or you don’t have time to scroll up from a reply to your post, would the 10 seconds of scrolling up take too much time? And maybe some of those other new posts are also relevant to read before jumping back in.
It doesn’t really work that way if you were composing a post when you stepped away. I run into this all the time. If I’m on a PC, and it’s been a long time, i sometimes start a new browser to check what’s happened, but even that is annoying with the interface. On a phone, i don’t bother. I usually make my post, then quickly back-read to see if i need to edit my post on light of what’s happened.
I don’t know what goes on if posting from a phone; but on a desktop, I just scroll back up till I see my last post, if I’ve posted before relatively recently in a thread, or until I see what I started replying to.
The last visit line can be helpful, also.
I’ve learned, if I get a popup box asking me what thread I want to respond in, to just click “this one” and not worry about it further. This seems to be caused by having multiple tabs open to the same thread; or maybe sometimes by having closed and then reopened a tab to that thread while I had a post started in it, I haven’t taken the trouble to pin down which.
Scrolling up even on a phone is pretty easy. Probably should be considered a normal thing in P&E and GD especially after posting.
You do have 15 minutes after posting to edit your post. Even after that, flag your own post to have it corrected if you’re worried you might get a flag.
Scrolling up while composing a post on a phone is certainly possible, but it’s awkward. I mean, i do it to quote other posts all the time. But I’ve missed intervening posts enough times under those circumstances that i can’t support a hard-line, “we expect you to always do this”. I think scrolling up after you’ve safely submitted your post, to check what happened in the interim (and to edit if appropriate) is good enough.
Right after you post, it is a good idea to scroll back up to see what you missed. That is why I was talking about editing.