New Feature: Thread Watcher

[jdporter]

I am pleased to announce a new feature: thread watching. This lets you receive notification whenever someone posts a comment in a thread of interest.

More specifically, you can get notified when someone replies directly to a specific node of interest, or when someone replies anywhere under a node of interest, no matter how many reply levels below the node. These two modes are called 'direct' and 'any'. The node of interest doesn't have to be a root node in one of the sections; it could be any reply as well, in case you're only interested in a subthread under some post.

To register for notifications, click one of the new links you'll find by each node, near the "Comment on" link. For a node you're viewing directly (that is, the 'root' of a (sub)thread you're viewing), the new text looks like:
Watch for: Direct replies / Any replies
For all other nodes in a (sub)thread you're viewing, the new text looks like:
Watch: Dir/Any

If you have already registered interest in a node in this way, you will instead see a link like:
Unwatch

To see a list of all the nodes you are currently watching, go to My Watched Nodes. Next to each watch listed, you'll see a "button" (like [X]) which you can click to delete that watch.

In addition... You can watch a user, i.e. receive notification whenever a specific user posts. To set up this kind of watch, go to the user's homenode, where you will see a link like Watch for posts by this user. When you are stalking a user in this way, you will also get notifications of whenever they submit root posts in any of the main sections of the site.

If a post happens to hit multiple criteria you have set up — for example, you're watching for posts in a certain thread and by a certain user, and that user posts in that thread — you will get just a single notification message.

[pryrt]

Interesting feature.

When I did my recent reply elsewhere, I was surprised to see the cb told me You said "[id://1158292] posted [id://11157997] as a comment somewhere under [id://11157983]" to [MonkNameHere] . Since I hadn't yet read your message, I was a bit confused as to how I sent that message, and started investigating my cb recently-sent, trying to figure out what happened. (Also, the cb message gave the raw links as I quoted, rather than link-rendering.)

Was it intentional that you also message the poster that someone watched them post?

Someone making a reply might get a little annoyed at seeing a dozen notifications that they msg'd everyone who happened to be watching a popular thread.

And moreso, [MonkNameHere] might get a little annoyed that their watching of the discussion becomes semi-public knowledge. (I know some monks value staying hidden, even when they do log in, and might be upset to find out that I happened to know they were watching a particular conversation.)

[jdporter]

Thank you for the report. I've done some testing, and at this point I'm pretty sure that that message you saw in your cb was spurious, and factually inaccurate. I got it too, in my tests. But only the person who has registered for a notification will actually get it. I need to figure out why you got that message.

Update: Fixed.

[Discipulus]

Hello jdporter..

..and thanks for this feature we expected since long time!

> There is not yet a way to turn off a watch.

Can I suggest to have a page under Settings where all watched threads are visible and where you can unwatch them? In my opinion this will be better than an unwatch link in the node.

L*

[jdporter]

Can I suggest to have a page ... where all watched threads are visible and where you can unwatch them

et voilą.

[LanX]

One idea could be to have a search for "nodes you watch"

The "Find Nodes" Nodelet has "nodes you wrote", that's the same link like for the write-ups number in a user's profile.

One could parallel that in the Nodelet and in the profile.

Update: Though in that case these lists should be private like votes.

[jdporter]

I have added the link to the Find Nodes nodelet. Not sure where I'd put the link on the user's profile, though. In any case, it would just be a link to My Watched Nodes, which only ever shows you your own watches, never someone else's.

[jo37]

Great!

Though the links are almost not recognisable in the "Perl-Blue" theme.

[jdporter]

the links are almost not recognisable in the "Perl-Blue" theme

Thanks! I have made an adjustment. Let me know if it's still not good.

[LanX]

Hi I think it's still too complicated to "unwatch" a node

The "You are watching this node" message in the node's footer should either

• be followed by an unwatch! link
• or (even easier) include a link to My Watched Nodes ¹

I was trying to provide a patch for the latter, but found the usage of genLink() confusing.

Reading the code in the Everything modules didn't help and I didn't want to guess.

Update

¹) Thanks for implementing! :)

[jdporter]

Thank you for the idea. Good one!

genLink is pretty simple. genLink( 'link text', { CGI parameters for the href } )
E.g.:

genLink( "<u>watching</u>", { node_id => 11158023 } )

[jdporter]

What do y'all think of the idea of referring to this feature as following rather than watching? I think that would make more sense in the modern context.

[hippo]

Can't say I would be overly worked up over the naming of it. Following sounds more appropriate where the object is a user and watching moreso where the object is a (sub)thread, so either is fine for the general case.

As a hippo I'm in favour of combining watching and following so that we end up with wallowing. That sounds ideal. :-D

[jdporter]

OK. I have changed the verbiage on user homenodes only to 'Follow'/'Unfollow'. And I have moved that link to the 'For this user:' list of links. So you'll see it right after 'Search nodes'.