BuzzerBeater Forums

It is not exactly the same.
Forum bookmarking is for a full Thread.
Mark as unread is for a specific Message inside a thread.

Bookmarking can be implemented for a single thread or a single message in a thread or - gasp - both. The feature does not exist yet, no need to consider the specification somehow limited or even fixed.

Anyway, the way the unread messages in a thread are currently handled presents an implementation problem for a "mark message as unread" feature: Only the information about one point in the thread seems to stored. This means that all messages after an unread message are considered as unread. However, it is not the first unread message in a thread that is stored, rather the last read message. You can see this by following a link to a thread, say to message number 50, you have previously not read. After you have done so, also messages 1-49 are considered read even though you never loaded them. Of course, I don't know exactly how this is implemented, but it is pretty easy to deduct this based on thread behaviour while using forums.

Relating to your opinion that this would be "very simple", there are two problems that would need to be solved in addition to implementing the feature itself. They follow from the description above. Firstly, you could not mark more than one message per thread as unread (every message after the first you mark as unread would also be considered unread; and should you first mark message X as unread followed by marking message X+N unread (where X and N are positive integers), message X would be again marked as read because you just read X+N to set it as unread). Secondly, you could not find again the point where you stopped reading the thread after marking one message unread (unless it is the last message of the thread).

As you can probably tell, a separate bookmarking feature would be more useful because it would allow direct access to interesting messages without affecting the way how read and unread messages are logged in the threads currently. I can naturally be off regarding the technical details of the forum software used in BB and its current features (I have never seen the source code of any forum software, let alone this one), but my explanation seems pretty solid based on one minute of testing the thread behaviour and several years of using the forums.

I would suggest for the benefit of the site to divide the supporter features "extras" from the following important two directories - Suggestion and Bugs.
The site will benefit from it, both those features should be supported for all users for those folders.

I do not follow. Bugs are fixed for everyone, not just Supporters. Some suggested features are implemented for all users, some only for Supporters. The Supporter features are generally those that require more from the servers. And all Supporter features are such that they give no in-game benefits.

Last edited by GM-WallyOop at 10/23/2011 1:03:21 PM

Bookmarking can be implemented for a single thread or a single message in a thread or - gasp - both. The feature does not exist yet, no need to consider the specification somehow limited or even fixed.

In web browser the term bookmark is used to define booking a page.
I previously presumed you've meant something similar - bookmarking a full thread.

I would suggest for the benefit of the site to divide the supporter features "extras" from the following important two directories - Suggestion and Bugs.
The site will benefit from it, both those features should be supported for all users for those folders.

I do not follow. Bugs are fixed for everyone, not just Supporters. Some suggested features are implemented for all users, some only for Supporters. The Supporter features are generally those that require more from the servers. And all Supporter features are such that they give no in-game benefits.

As you wrote previously that the bookmarking feature is being implemented for the Supporters only, I've suggested that at least for those two folders (as they are importnat to the site as much it is important to the user) this feature will be available regardless of Supporter "issue".

Regarding the difficulty of the feature, it depends what they will implement.
They can give it in 2 ways;

The one you have pointed and exampled about - selecting different messages on a thread, which is a little bit more difficult but not much as I see it.

Or, just marking a single Message as Unread in a thread.
From that point all messages will be marked as unread.
This is a easier option, and also a reasonable one, as usually messages on a thread which disscuss a single specific object will be read upon messages order.
This is deferent from what you have in mind - Emails - because each email as deferent topic.

Last edited by Pini פיני at 10/23/2011 2:05:50 PM

As you wrote previously that the bookmarking feature is being implemented for the Supporters only, I've suggested that at least for those two folders (as they are importnat to the site as much it is important to the user) this feature will be available regardless of Supporter "issue".

I don't know if it is being implemented. It is only an assumption that forum bookmarks, like all bookmark features in BB, would be a Supporters-only feature if implemented. I agree that the forum bookmark feature would be very useful for all users.

This is deferent from what you have in mind - Emails - because each email as deferent topic.

No, I meant the forum threads (the BB mail already has a feature for marking a message unread).

I agree that the forum bookmark feature would be very useful for all users.

It is not exactly what I've said.
The "Suggestion" and "Bug" forums are needed to have this feature for all users, as it helps the site itself.
The other folders may have this feature for only the Supporters users.

No, I meant the forum threads (the BB mail already has a feature for marking a message unread).

This is not what I've meant to point out.
What I've meant is that you thought Email-wise. There you want the ability to mark message regardless of the time you received it, as each mail as different topic.
When thinking about it Forum-wise, it is easy to understand that there you can mark all the thread as unread from a specific message and from there untill the end, as it is a single topic, and most of the time (almost always) there is no reason to open later message before a former one. So, marking as unread from a specific message will cover most casses needed.

What I've meant is that you thought Email-wise.

No, I was very much thinking about forum threads, and in no sense whatsoever was there any email thinking involved. The BB forums have dozens of messages I would be interested in reading again, while I have no need or time to go through the whole thread or every message after these specific messages. This is critical because in many cases where I would like to bookmark more than one message per thread they are several pages apart, so marking a single message unread would not help much. I am not alone here.

OK...
Anyhow, I never had a case where I had in a single thread several NON-CONSECUTIVE messages that I didn't read.
There where always consecutive.

In any case, agree with me that most of the times the unread messages are consecutive.
Due to that, and due to the fact that it should be easier implementing a feature for the consecutive unread messages, what I wrote is that this is also a solution that we all can benefit from it in the first step...

This is ridiculous. I am not talking about unread messages per se. I am talking about messages you would like to view (again) later. This is the use case for which you made your suggestion in the first place. The bookmarking solution is a more general solution, and therefore generally a preferred solution. Your suggested solution is fairly limited in usefulness, as you can see by reading my messages in this thread.

I think you just don't get what I've wrote...

1) Feature 1 - "Mark as Unread" for message X and further on.
This is the feature I suggested. It is very easy to implement and will cover most needed cases.
Most of the users read messages in a thread at the order they are submitted.
Hence, when someone gets 4 new messgaes (for example) and reads only the first two, this feature will be great for him.
Again, this is the most common case.

2) Feature 2 - "Mark as Unread" for message X, X+3, Y and so on (at the same thread).
As I said, this feature is an enhancement of the first one.
As such, it is better.
The only drawback is that it may take more time (I guess this enhancement is not that simple, unlike the first suggested feature).
Due to that, it will not come in supprise when the first feature will be released first and only somewhere later on the second feature will do.

3) Feature 3 - "bookmarking messages"
The difference from "feature-2" is that it will bundle different messages from different threads to a single location.
Again, this is even much more complex to implement, and here the value (benefit) from the previous feature (the 2nd one) is realy low.
I guess that this feature is almost at the bottom of the pile.

Last thing, and paralel to the issue discussed above, is that not all forums will have this features free for all, as they are giving conveniency, and for that we need to pay...
The "Suggestion" and "Bugs" forums serves the site, so there it will probably be available to all.

Last edited by Pini פיני at 10/24/2011 9:35:28 AM

I think I understood you just fine. What I am trying to get across is that the bookmarking feature is much more useful, because it covers more use cases.

1) Feature 1 - "Mark as Unread" for message X and further on.
This is the feature I suggested. It is very easy to implement and will cover most needed cases.

This covers a single, limited use case. This use case can be summed up with the following description:
User is reading a thread. She opens a new message/page of messages. She stops reading the message/page without finishing it and wishes to continue later from said message (or a specific message on said page). She marks said message as unread. Later she opens the thread and is presented with all messages in thread starting from the said message.

This should indeed be fairly easy to implement, since the system seems to store user's progress in a thread with a pointer/link to a single message. The feature only needs to alter this link.

How useful would this feature be? You have requested it and believe that it covers most user needs in the forums, while I have never seen a need for a feature as limited as this one. I can just as well push the left arrow to open the previous page in the thread. As we can see, it is a very personal question. To me this feature only means extra clutter in the user interface. If someone really likes it, it is of course no problem to me.

2) Feature 2 - "Mark as Unread" for message X, X+3, Y and so on (at the same thread).

This would be an improvement of the first feature. It covers a more complex use case:
In addition to the use case description above, the user can set any number of messages in the thread as unread. Upon opening the thread, the user is presented with messages set as unread by herself, the messages that were left unread during previous session, and all new messages that have been posted to the thread.

This is functionality that I would find some use for myself. I could for example mark one or two key posts in a thread as unread, so if need be I could get a good recap of the thread content when getting back. When opening the thread again, the marked messages would again turn read. This is not very user friendly, so it could be a good idea to implement a different category for the user-marked unread messages. I think the usability may still too limited to make this feature interesting. Furthermore, if my understanding of the current system is correct, pretty significant changes would be required to the way threads are handled to implement this feature. There are also some memory implications.

I don't think this was even a feature anyone really suggested, but rather this problem area popped into the discussion when I was explaining the assumed limitations of the current forum system and how it affects your suggestion.

3) Feature 3 - "bookmarking messages"
The difference from "feature-2" is that it will bundle different messages from different threads to a single location.
Again, this is even much more complex to implement, and here the value (benefit) from the previous feature (the 2nd one) is realy low.

The bookmarking feature for forums allows for a much improved user experience. In addition to the use cases discussed above (where bookmarked messages are automatically a different category than read/unread messages), you can for example implement:
- a separate user interface for the bookmarks (you see what you bookmarked and why)
- lists of threads/messages with most bookmarks (a "read this" recommendation system)

This is again more complicated to implement than a feature where you just move the read/unread line. However, it provides new ways to effectively use the forums.

I should also add that the bookmarking feature does not rule out your suggestion in any way. It could still be implemented. My point is that I however see no use for it due to its limitations. The bookmarking feature

Last sentence was cut short: The bookmarking feature covers all use cases.

1) Feature 1:
Most users are entering a thread and read it by order.
Due to that, this feature will be enough for most users.
The implementing cost is very cheap.Due to this combination this can be prioritized high.

2) Feature 2:
As I've already wrote... This is a more comlex and covers more options.
As it is more complex its implementation cost is higher. In this case, I guess that it is not simple.

Who will benefit from it?
As I presume that all of the features discussed here will be limited for the non-supporters only for two folders (Bugs and Suggestion), and that the supporters are probably a small group.
Due to that we can say that for supporters this feature will be a nice improvement (at least for some of them), but for the non-supporters it will almost won't change anything.
Due to that the total benefit is not that big for the users as a whole.

Summarizing the two issues - cost and benefit - we can conclude that this will very posibly won't be with a high priority, and in addition, it is a very reasonable sequel feature for Feature-1 that will be implemented before.

The developers job is not always choosing the best option, but choosing those that will give the most benefit per working time.

3) Feature 3:
I believe that it will not cost much above the effort that is needed for Feature-2.
On the other hand, the gain compared to that feature is questionable.
In case it will just bundle all marked-as-unread messages, it will be less convenient to look for messages related to a specific thread.
In case it will give ability to sort them upon thread (topic) and/or others, the "price" rises.

4) Summarizing;
When thinking on the options for the suggested features, they will think not only on the benefit of each feature but also on the following issues:
a) How much will it improve the game / Forum / whatever...?
b) Who will benefit from the feature?
c) What is the cost for the feature in working time?
d) In case implementing a feature can it be done in two phases?

In case all is irrelevant in this case, no one argues that Feature-3 with the ability to sort is the best option.
But, as they are probably a main issue in their consideration, I guess that they will probably will start with Feature-1, continue later on to Feature-2, and when time will allow they will implement the best option defined above.