This joint is hoppin'... Can't keep up

[Polkasound]

I have recently started to do the same, all the Modular orchestra stuff is all on ignore. I don’t plan to buy it and so don’t need to see the thread bumped up on my feed every 5 seconds.

I have no idea what Modular orchestra stuff you're talking about. Apparently I have it all on Ignore, too. It's strange to think that I am oblivious to over half the discussion that takes place on VI-Control, and it's simply because orchestral libraries are not my bread and butter. Neither are synths. But I'm an avid user of virtual instruments nonetheless, which is why I'm here.

 

[ka00]

I don't know the solution, because almost all the threads in Latest Posts seem to be legit topics.

Is it technically possible to implement a nested reply system, instead of strictly linear one? So people can reply to specific posts in a thread and not have that contribute to bumping the overall thread? Like on YouTube, or Facebook, Reddit, etc.

 

[Mike Greene]

Is it technically possible to ...

Probably not. Xenforo has a lot of customization options, but the fundamental forum options are fairly limited. Even if options were available, I'd be reluctant to change much of how the forum works anyway, because those changes are never painless, and there's that concept of "unforeseen consequences" to deal with. Heck, even changing the layout of the 300x250 sidebar ads (that only appear on certain pages) a few months ago was a headache that I was regretting. Simple in theory, but it took a couple weeks before it was finally right and we weren't seeing mis-sized ads all over the rest of the forum.

So I'm reluctant to make any significant changes, because although the forum is a bit busier than I (and some others) would like, it's still working well. Even regarding general light-hearted posts, I don't think we want to stop those just for the sake of making the forum less busy, because the levity is often what makes the forum fun.

I have my doubts that there's any real solution, aside from Ignore features, which even with those, I suspect don't cut down on the Latest Posts feed by much. Other solutions, like if we take Commercial Announcements out of the Latest Posts feed, will just result in companies using sneaky tactics to post their new releases in Sample Talk, so more people will see it.

 

[PaulieDC]

I have recently started to do the same, all the Modular orchestra stuff is all on ignore. I don’t plan to buy it and so don’t need to see the thread bumped up on my feed every 5 seconds.

Apparently Spitfire isn't releasing that any time soon so that's probably a smart one to ignore, lol.

One feature that might be nice: The OP having the option to lock a thread. Sometimes you start a thread asking how to get a better result in SINE when using the Sustain + Leg patch in Violins 1 in Berlin Symphonic Strings, and 4 pages later people are arguing that Articulation IDs in Logic are easier to program than Expression Maps in Cubase. Sometimes I have to ignore a thread I started, lol!

 

[Markrs]

Apparently Spitfire isn't releasing that any time soon so that's probably a smart one to ignore, lol.

I mean the Abbey Road Orchestra for which they just released the Low Percussion. I think this is the Modular orchestra they previously talked about.

 

[PaulieDC]

I mean the Abbey Road Orchestra for which they just released the Low Percussion. I think this is the Modular orchestra they previously talked about.

Oh, gotcha. I thought you WERE talking about AB modular. 👍

 

[Trash Panda]

Oh, gotcha. I thought you WERE talking about AB modular. 👍

Abbey Road Orchestra IS the Abbey Road Modular Orchestra.

 

[SupremeFist]

Suggestion: implement a rule that new users cannot post a new thread until they have posted X posts in existing threads (and not been flagged for being abusive/spamming etc).

Reason: I'm seeing increasing numbers of new threads from new users with questions like "what is a good epic percussion library" or "is X string library good" or even "how do I compose music", when they obviously haven't done a search and read the thousands of posts already available on that exact subject. It's getting tedious to ignore a dozen or more threads like this every day so I can see stuff that might be interesting to me.

Evidence: I recently joined a forum that has this rule (Elektronauts) and it seems to really help the place be a bit more navigable and chilled overall.

 

[Zedcars]

Perhaps we could have a Hot threads and/or common topic section where the popular threads are collected? I don't mean move the threads out of their subforms; I just mean have a way to show them grouped together a bit like the way Latest Posts are. Perhaps the threshold would be over a certain number of pages; maybe 3+ pages or something? This might cut down on duplicate or similar threads popping up.

And on the reverse of that perhaps a section showing posts with zero replies? I think this might help people out who don't get their query answered.

Just an idea. Don't know if that's practical or not.

P.S. I hadn't realised the banter irritated people to that extent and I'm someone who does post attempts at humour now and again. I apologise — I will try to cut this down from now on.

 

[Mike Greene]

Perhaps we could have a Hot threads and/or common topic section where the popular threads are collected? I don't mean move the threads out of their subforms; I just mean have a way to show them grouped together a bit like the way Latest Posts are. Perhaps the threshold would be over a certain number of pages; maybe 3+ pages or something? This might cut down on duplicate or similar threads popping up.

And on the reverse of that perhaps a section showing posts with zero replies? I think this might help people out who don't get their query answered.

Interesting idea, but I think more complicated than it's probably worth, especially as I don't think Xenforo has these options, and every time we try to implement changes, it's a PIA.

P.S. I hadn't realised the banter irritated people to that extent and I'm someone who does post attempts at humour now and again. I apologise — I will try to cut this down from now on.

I wouldn't change your posting habits. The forum needs to stay fun, and it's not your posts that are irritating. (You'd have already been alerted by now. )

 

[Michel Simons]

I wouldn't change your posting habits. The forum needs to stay fun, and it's not your posts that are irritating. (You'd have already been alerted by now. )

Phew...

 

[Gaffable]

Here is my method for (a) minimising the amount of time that I spend reviewing new posts and (b) staying informed of any new time-sensitive deals and glitches.

(1) For each VI-Control sub-forum that I am interested in, I click on the Watch button for that sub-forum and then select the option to be notified via email. VI-Control sends me one email for each new thread that appears in those forums.

(2) VI-Control sends me, on average, somewhere between 50 and 100 email notifications each day. The emails don't all arrive at once. They are delivered one by one, as soon as someone posts a new thread in the sub-forums that I am following.

(3) In my email program I have set up an automatic filter so that any new emails that I receive from VI-Control go straight into a designated VI-Control folder, rather than my Inbox.

(4) I review the contents of my VI-Control email folder three or four times a day. My review consists of quickly glancing over the subject lines of the emails. If any of the subject lines appeal to me, I click on that email and my email program displays the contents of the first post of the VI-Control thread. If I am curious to know more I can click on the "View This Thread" button in the email and my web browser then opens and I get taken to the thread on the VI-Control website.

(5) Once I have finished scanning the subject lines of the emails, I select all the emails with the Command+A keyboard shortcut (or Control+A on a Windows computer) and press the delete key. The whole process of scanning, reading and deleting takes less than five minutes.

(6) If there is a VI-Control thread that really interests me and I want to be informed of any new posts in that thread, I click on the Watch button for that thread and select the option to be notified WITHOUT receiving email notifications. Any time I am logged into the VI-Control website and there are new posts in a thread that I am following, VI-Control notifies me by changing the colour of the bell icon to red.

(7) Near the top of the VI-Control website is a menu heading labelled "Watched threads". Clicking on this takes me to a page where I can manage all the threads I am following. On a mobile device, "Watched threads" can be found by clicking on the menu icon, located in the top left corner (the icon has three horizontal lines).

(8) I generally don't use VI-Control's ignore function because sometimes there are threads that I am not interested in but which nevertheless generate a lot of discussion. If the number of replies and views in those threads gets very high (as shown on the Latest Posts page), I will often be curious to know what is getting people so excited.

 

[quietmind]

It's been bugging me, too. Right now, you have to go to page 6 of the Latest Posts listings just to catch up on the last 24 hours. The first two pages don't even complete the last two hours worth of new posts! So if someone asks a question for which only a handful of people might know the answer, then unless one of that handful is monitoring the forum within hours of when the question was asked, the thread will quickly get lost in obscurity.

I don't know the solution, because almost all the threads in Latest Posts seem to be legit topics. There are a number of threads where the responses have devolved into chat, which I'm trying to lessen, but that's tricky, because declaring certain conversation to be "useless chat" is controversial. People get very touchy about it, and in many cases, seem to honestly not understand the difference, which means long conversations on my end, not to mention hurt feelings on their end.

Yes, it is becoming more difficult to separate wheat from the chaff (but what am I saying? I'm gluten intolerant). I have been specifically using Ignore and Watch to try to manage the amount of stuff. And too often I get sucked into reading what is really a chat session....

So, I've lately wondered....

What about a way to self-tag our posts in threads as either "directly pertinent" or "as an aside..." or something like that... Encourage people to use the tag by making "as an aside" the default and one would need to click "directly pertinent" as a declaration. Then only "directly pertinent" posts would bump a thread. Perhaps "asides" could be opened or closed accordion style, or sent to a chat thread that could be jumped to if one wanted to see the latest conversations.

It might be worth the back-end coding. Just a thought.

 

[Zedcars]

VI-Control notifies me by changing the colour of the bell icon to red.

After a certain amount of time (don’t know how long, but maybe 1-2 weeks) VI-C stops displaying a red notification on the bell icon for replies to threads I’m watching. I believe it may be connected to me not entering the thread(s) for a few days. VI-C then takes it upon itself to stop the notifications. Whether by design or not I couldn’t say. I don’t think I’m alone as I’ve heard someone else mention the problem. I haven’t reported it since it’s not that important to me. I’ve noticed if I enter the thread then the notifications sometimes resume.

 

[Gaffable]

After a certain amount of time (don’t know how long, but maybe 1-2 weeks) VI-C stops displaying a red notification on the bell icon for replies to threads I’m watching. I believe it may be connected to me not entering the thread(s) for a few days. VI-C then takes it upon itself to stop the notifications. Whether by design or not I couldn’t say. I don’t think I’m alone as I’ve heard someone else mention the problem. I haven’t reported it since it’s not that important to me. I’ve noticed if I enter the thread then the notifications sometimes resume.

I have experienced the same thing. I deal with the problem by clicking on my "Watched threads" list. In the list, the threads that have stopped notifying are highlighted in bold text. I click on each bolded thread to restart the notification system for those threads.